AZDAK covered in blood, panting: I can’t see. Give me a rag.
THE OTHER IRONSHIRT: What is it you want to see?
AZDAK: You, you dogs! He wipes the blood out of his eyes with his shirt. Good morning, dogs! How are you, dogs? How’s the dog world? Does it stink good? Have you got another boot to lick? Are you back at each other’s throats, dogs?
Enter a dust-covered rider accompanied by a corporal. He takes some documents from a leather case and looks through them. He interrupts.
THE RIDER: Stop! I bring a despatch from the Grand Duke, containing the latest appointments.
THE CORPORAL bellows: Atten - shun!
All jump to attention.
THE RIDER: Of the new Judge it says: We appoint a man whom we have to thank for the saving of a life of the utmost importance to the country. A certain Azdak in Nukha. Which is he?
SHAUVA pointing: That’s him on the gallows, Your Excellency.
THE CORPORAL bellowing: What’s going on here?
THE IRONSHIRT: I ask to be allowed to report that His Worship has already been His Worship. He was declared the enemy of the Grand Duke only on these farmers’ denunciation.
THE CORPORAL pointing at the farmers: March them off! They are marched off, bowing incessantly. See to it that His Worship is exposed to no more indignities.
Exit the rider with the corporal.
THE COOK to Shauva: She clapped her hands! I hope he saw it!
THE FIRST LAWYER: This is a catastrophe.
Azdak has fainted. Coming to, he is dressed again in a Judge’s robe. He walks away, swaying, from the group of Ironshirts.
THE IRONSHIRTS: Don’t take it amiss, Your Worship. What are Your Worship’s wishes?
AZDAK: Nothing, fellow dogs. An occasional boot to lick. To Shauva: I pardon you. He is unchained. Fetch me some of the red wine. The sweetest. Exit Shauva. Get out of here, I’ve got to judge a case. The Ironshirts go. Shauva returns with a jug of wine. Azdak takes deep gulps. Get me something for my backside. Shauva brings the Statute Book and puts it on the Judge’s seat. Azdak sits on it. I receive! The faces of the prosecutors, among whom a worried council has been held, show smiles of relief. They whisper.
THE COOK: Oh dear!
SIMON: ‘A well can’t be filled with dew!’ they say.
THE LAWYERS approaching Azdak, who stands up expectantly: An absolutely ridiculous case, Your Worship. The accused has abducted the child and refuses to hand it over.
AZDAK stretching out his hand, and glancing at Grusha: A most attractive person. He receives more money. I open the proceedings and demand the absolute truth. To Grusha: Especially from you.
THE FIRST LAWYER: High Court of Justice! Blood, as the saying goes, is thicker than water. This old proverb...
AZDAK: The Court wants to know the lawyer’s fee.
THE FIRST LAWYER surprised: I beg your pardon? Azdak rubs his thumb and index finger. Oh, I see. 500 piastres, Your Worship, is the answer to the Court’s somewhat unusual question.
AZDAK: Did you hear? The question is unusual. I ask it because I listen to you in a quite different way if I know you are good.
THE FIRST LAWYER bowing: Thank you, Your Worship. High Court of Justice! Of all bonds the bonds of blood are the strongest. Mother and child—is there a more intimate relationship? Can one tear a child from its mother? High Court of Justice! She has conceived it in the holy ecstasies of love. She has carried it in her womb. She has fed it with her blood. She has borne it with pain. High Court of Justice! It has been observed, Your Worship, how even the wild tigress, robbed of her young, roams restless through the mountains, reduced to a shadow. Nature herself...
AZDAK interrupting, to Grusha: What’s your answer to all this and anything else the lawyer might have to say?
GRUSHA: He’s mine.
AZDAK: Is that all? I hope you can prove it. In any case, I advise you to tell me why you think the child should be given to you.
GRUSHA: I’ve brought him up ‘according to my best knowledge and conscience’. I always found him something to eat. Most of the time he had a roof over his head. And I went to all sorts of trouble for him. I had expenses, too. I didn’t think of my own comfort. I brought up the child to be friendly with everyone. And from the beginning I taught him to work as well as he could. But he’s still very small.
THE FIRST LAWYER: Your Worship, it is significant that the person herself doesn’t claim any bond of blood between herself and this child.
AZDAK: The Court takes note.
THE FIRST LAWYER: Thank you, Your Worship. Please permit a woman who has suffered much—who has already lost her husband and now also has to fear the loss of her child—to address a few words to you. Her Highness, Natella Abashvili...
THE GOVERNOR’S WIFE quietly: A most cruel fate, sir, forces me to ask you to return my beloved child. It’s not for me to describe to you the tortures of a bereaved mother’s soul, the anxiety, the sleepless nights, the...
THE SECOND LAWYER exploding: It’s outrageous the way this woman is treated. She’s not allowed to enter her husband’s palace. The revenue of her estates is blocked. She is told cold-bloodedly that it’s tied to the heir. She can’t do anything without the child. She can’t even pay her lawyers. To the first lawyer who, desperate about this outburst, makes frantic gestures to stop him speaking: Dear Illo Shuboladze, why shouldn’t it be divulged now that it’s the Abashvili estates that are at stake?
THE FIRST LAWYER: Please, Honoured Sandro Oboladze! We had agreed …To Azdak: Of course it is correct that the trial will also decide whether our noble client will obtain the right to dispose of the large Abashvili estates. I say ‘also’ on purpose, because in the foreground stands the human tragedy of a mother, as Natella Abashvili has rightly explained at the beginning of her moving statement. Even if Michael Abashvili were not the heir to the estates, he would still be the dearly beloved child of my client.
AZDAK: Stop! The Court is touched by the mention of the estates. It’s a proof of human feeling.
THE SECOND LAWYER: Thanks, Your Worship. Dear Illo Shuboladze, in any case we can prove that the person who took possession of the child is not the child’s mother. Permit me to lay before the Court the bare facts. By an unfortunate chain of circumstances, the child, Michael Abashvili, was left behind while his mother was making her escape. Grusha, the Palace kitchenmaid, was present on this Easter Sunday and was observed busying herself with the child...
THE COOK: All her mistress was thinking about was what kind of dresses she would take along.
THE SECOND LAWYER unmoved: Almost a year later Grusha turned up in a mountain village with a child, and there entered into matrimony with …
AZDAK: How did you get into that mountain village?
GRUSHA: On foot, Your Worship. And he was mine.
SIMON: I am the father, Your Worship.
THE COOK: I had him in my care for five piastres, Your Worship.
THE SECOND LAWYER: This man is engaged to Grusha, High Court of Justice, and for this reason his testimony is not reliable.
AZDAK: Are you the man she married in the mountain village?
SIMON: No, Your Worship, she married a peasant.
AZDAK winking at Grusha: Why? Pointing at Simon: Isn’t he any good in bed? Tell the truth.
GRUSHA: We didn’t get that far. I married because of the child, so that he should have a roof over his head. Pointing at Simon. He was in the war, Your Worship.
AZDAK: And now he wants you again, eh?
SIMON: I want to state in evidence...
GRUSHA angrily: I am no longer free, Your Worship.
AZDAK: And the child, you claim, is the result of whoring? Grusha does not answer. I’m going to ask you a question: What kind of child is it? Is it one of those ragged street-urchins? Or is it a child from a well-to-do family?
GRUSHA angrily. It’s an ordinary child.
AZDAK: I mean, did he have fine features from the beginning?
GRUSHA: He had a nos
e in his face.
AZDAK: He had a nose in his face. I consider that answer of yours to be important. They say of me that once, before passing judgment, I went out and sniffed at a rosebush. Tricks of this kind are necessary nowadays. I’ll cut things short now, and listen no longer to your lies. To Grusha: Especially yours. To the group of defendants: I can imagine what you’ve cooked up between you to cheat me. I know you. You’re swindlers.
GRUSHA suddenly: I can quite understand your wanting to cut it short, having seen what you received!
AZDAK: Shut up! Did I receive anything from you?
GRUSHA while the cook tries to restrain her: Because I haven’t got anything.
AZDAK: Quite true. I never get a thing from starvelings. I might just as well starve myself. You want justice, but do you want to pay for it? When you go to the butcher you know you have to pay. But to the Judge you go as though to a funeral supper.
SIMON loudly: ‘When the horse was shod, the horsefly stretched out its leg’, as the saying is.
AZDAK eagerly accepting the challenge: ‘Better a treasure in the sewer than a stone in the mountain stream.’
SIMON: ‘“A fine day. Let’s go fishing,” said the angler to the worm.’
AZDAK: ‘“I’m my own master,” said the servant, and cut off his foot.’
SIMON: ‘“I love you like a father,” said the Czar to the peasant, and had the Czarevitch’s head chopped off.’
AZDAK: ‘The fool’s worst enemy is himself.’
SIMON: But ‘a fart has no nose’.
AZDAK: Fined ten piastres for indecent language in Court. That’ll teach you what Justice is.
GRUSHA: That’s a fine kind of Justice. You jump on us because we don’t talk so refined as that lot with their lawyers.
AZDAK: Exactly. The likes of you are too stupid. It’s only right that you should get it in the neck.
GRUSHA: Because you want to pass the child on to her. She who is too refined even to know how to change its nappies! You don’t know any more about Justice than I do, that’s clear.
AZDAK: There’s something in that. I’m an ignorant man. I haven’t even a decent pair of trousers under my robe. See for yourself. With me, everything goes on food and drink. I was educated in a convent school. Come to think of it, I’ll fine you ten piastres, too. For contempt of Court. What’s more, you’re a very silly girl to turn me against you, instead of making eyes at me and wagging your backside a bit to keep me in a tood temper. Twenty piastres!
GRUSHA: Even if it were thirty, I’d tell you what I think of your justice, you drunken onion! How dare you talk to me as though you were the cracked Isaiah on the church window! When they pulled you out of your mother, it wasn’t planned that you’d rap her over the knuckles for pinching a little bowl of corn from somewhere! Aren’t you ashamed of yourself when you see how afraid I am of you? But you’ve let yourself become their servant. So that their houses are not taken away, because they’ve stolen them. Since when do houses belong to bed-bugs? But you’re on the look-out, otherwise they couldn’t drag our men into their wars. You bribe-taker!
Azdak gets up. He begins to beam. With a little hammer he knocks on the table half-heartedly as if to get silence. But as Grusha’s scolding continues, he only beats time with it.
I’ve no respect for you. No more than for a thief or a murderer with a knife, who does what he wants. You can take the child away from me, a hundred against one, but I tell you one thing: for a profession like yours, they ought to choose only bloodsuckers and men who rape children. As a punishment. To make them sit in judgment over their fellow men, which is worse than swinging from the gallows.
AZDAK sitting down: Now it will be thirty! And I won’t go on brawling with you as though we were in a tavern. What would happen to my dignity as a Judge? I’ve lost all interest in your case. Where’s the couple who wanted a divorce? To Shauva: Bring them in. This case is adjourned for fifteen minutes.
THE FIRST LAWYER to the Governor’s wife: Without producing any more evidence, Madam, we have the verdict in the bag.
THE COOK to Grusha: You’ve gone and spoiled your chances with him. You won’t get the child now.
Enter a very old couple.
THE GOVERNOR’S WIFE: Shalva, my smelling salts!
AZDAK: I receive. The old couple do not understand. I hear you want to be divorced. How long have you been living together?
THE OLD WOMAN: Forty years, Your Worship.
AZDAK: And why d’you want a divorce?
THE OLD MAN: We don’t like each other, Your Worship.
AZDAK: Since when?
THE OLD WOMAN: Oh, from the very beginning, Your Worship.
AZDAK: I’ll consider your case and deliver my verdict when I’m finished with the other one. Shauva leads them into the background. I need the child. He beckons Grusha towards him and bends not unkindly towards her. I’ve noticed that you have a soft spot for justice. I don’t believe he’s your child, but if he were yours, woman, wouldn’t you want him to be rich? You’d only have to say he isn’t yours and at once he’d have a palace, scores of horses in his stable, scores of beggars on his doorstep, scores of soldiers in his service, and scores of petitioners in his courtyard. Now, what d’you say? Don’t you want him to be rich?
Grusha is silent.
THE SINGER: Listen now to what the angry girl thought, but didn’t say. He sings:
He who wears the shoes of gold
Tramples on the weak and old
Does evil all day long
And mocks at wrong.
O to carry as one’s own
Heavy is the heart of stone.
The power to do ill
Wears out the will.
Hunger he will dread
Not those who go unfed:
Fear the fall of night
But not the light.
AZDAK: I think I understand you, woman.
GRUSHA: I won’t give him away. I’ve brought him up, and he knows me.
Enter Shauva with the child.
THE GOVERNOR’S WIFE: It’s in rags!
GRUSHA: That’s not true. I wasn’t given the time to put on his good shirt.
THE GOVERNOR’S WIFE: It’s been in a pig-stye.
GRUSHA furious: I’m no pig, but there are others who are. Where did you leave your child?
THE GOVERNOR’S WIFE: I’ll let you have it, you vulgar person. She is about to throw herself on Grusha, but is restrained by her lawyers. She’s a criminal! She must be whipped! Right away!
THE SECOND LAWYER holding his hand over her mouth: Most gracious Natella Abashvili, you promised … Your Worship, the plaintiff’s nerves...
AZDAK: Plaintiff and defendant! The Court has listened to your case, and has come to no decision as to who the real mother of this child is. I as Judge have the duty of choosing a mother for the child. I’ll make a test. Shauva, get a piece of chalk and draw a circle on the floor. Shauva does so. Now place the child in the centre. Shauva puts Michael, who smiles at Grusha, in the centre of the circle. Plaintiff and defendant, stand near the circle, both of you. The Governor’s wife and Grusha step up to the circle. Now each of you take the child by a hand. The true mother is she who has the strength to pull the child out of the circle, towards herself.
THE SECOND LAWYER quickly: High Court of Justice, I protest! I object that the fate of the great Abashvili estates, which are bound up with the child as the heir, should be made dependent on such a doubtful wrestling match. Moreover, my client does not command the same physical strength as this person, who is accustomed to physical work.
AZDAK: She looks pretty well fed to me. Pull!
The Governor’s wife pulls the child out of the circle to her side. Grusha has let it go and stands aghast.
THE FIRST LAWYER congratulating the Governor’s wife: What did I say! The bonds of blood!
AZDAK to Grusha: What’s the matter with you? You didn’t pull!
GRUSHA: I didn’t hold on to him. She runs to Azdak. Your Worship
, I take back everything I said against you. I ask your forgiveness. If I could just keep him until he can speak properly. He knows only a few words.
AZDAK: Don’t influence the Court! I bet you know only twenty yourself. All right, I’ll do the test once more, to make certain.
The two women take up positions again.
AZDAK: Pull!
Again Grusha lets go of the child.
GRUSHA in despair: I’ve brought him up! Am I to tear him to pieces? I can’t do it!
AZDAK rising: And in this manner the Court has established the true mother. To Grusha: Take your child and be off with it. I advise you not to stay in town with him. To the Governor’s wife: And you disappear before I fine you for fraud. Your estates fall to the city. A playground for children will be made out of them. They need one, and I have decided it shall be called after me—The Garden of Azdak.
The Governor’s wife has fainted and is carried out by the Adjutant. Her lawyers have preceded her. Grusha stands motionless. Shauva leads the child towards her.
AZDAK: Now I’ll take off this Judge’s robe—it has become too hot for me. I’m not cut out for a hero. But I invite you all to a little farewell dance, outside on the meadow. Oh, I had almost forgotten something in my excitement. I haven’t signed the decree for divorce.
Using the Judge’s seat as a table, he writes something on a piece of paper and prepares to leave. Dance music has started.
SHAUVA having read what is on the paper: But that’s not right. You haven’t divorced the old couple. You’ve divorced Grusha from her husband.
AZDAK: Have I divorced the wrong ones? I’m sorry, but it’ll have to stand. I never retract anything. If I did, there’d be no law and order. To the old couple: Instead, I’ll invite you to my feast. You won’t mind dancing with each other. To Grusha and Simon: I’ve still got 40 piastres coming from you.
SIMON pulling out his purse: That’s cheap, Your Worship. And many thanks.
AZDAK pocketing the money: I’ll need it.
GRUSHA: So we’d better leave town tonight, eh, Michael? About to take the child on her back. To Simon: You like him?
SIMON taking the child on his back: With my respects, I like him.