Bertolt Brecht: Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder 1

by Bertolt Brecht

  GARGA: I know that.

  JANE: That’s mean of you.

  GARGA: I’m not chiding you, Jane. We’re going to make a fresh start. My fight is finished. I’ve driven my opponent from the city, and that’s the end of it.

  JANE: No, George. Things will keep getting worse and worse. People say things are going to get better, but they keep getting worse, they can do that. I hope you like it here, gentlemen. Of course we could go somewhere else…

  GARGA: What’s the matter, Jane? Aren’t you glad I’ve come for you?

  JANE: You know perfectly well, George. And if you don’t, I can’t tell you.

  GARGA: What do you mean?

  JANE: Don’t you see, George, I’m different from what you think, even if I’m almost done for. Why did you bring these gentlemen? I’ve always known I’d end like this. When they told me in Sunday school what happens to the weak, I said to myself: that’s what will happen to me. You don’t have to prove it to anybody.

  GARGA: Then you won’t come home?

  JANE: Don’t ask me, George.

  GARGA: But I am asking you, my dear.

  JANE: Then I’ll have to put it a different way. I’ve been living with this man. Points to Baboon. I admit it, gentlemen. And what’s the use? Nothing’s going to get any better.

  BABOON: She’s out of her mind.

  MAYNES: Dreadful!

  GARGA: Listen to me, Jane. This is your last chance in this city. I’m ready to wipe the slate clean. These gentlemen are my witnesses. Come home with me.

  JANE: It’s nice of you, George. It certainly is my last chance. But I won’t take it. Things aren’t right between us, you know that. I’m going now, George. To Baboon: Come.

  BABOON: That’s that. Both go out.

  ONE OF THE MEN: That fellow has nothing to laugh about.

  GARGA: I’ll leave the apartment open, Jane. You can ring at night.

  WORM steps up to the table: You’ve probably noticed: there’s a family here in our midst, or what’s left of it. Motheaten as it is, this family would gladly give its last cent to find out where the mother, the mainstay of the household, is keeping herself. The fact is, I saw her one morning at about seven o’clock, a woman of forty, scrubbing a fruit cellar. She’s started a new business. She’d aged but she was looking all right.

  GARGA: But you, sir, didn’t you work in the lumber business of the man they’re combing every inch of Chicago for?

  WORM: Me? No, I’ve never laid eyes on the man. Goes out, on his way inserting a coin in the nickelodeon. It starts playing Gounod’s ‘Ave Maria’.

  THE PREACHER at a corner table reads the liquor list aloud in a hard voice, savouring each word: Cherry Flip, Cherry Brandy, Gin Fizz, Whisky Sour, Golden Slipper, Manhattan, Curaçao extra dry, Orange, Maraschino Cusenier, and the specialty of the house, Egg-nog. This drink is made of egg – one raw egg – sugar, cognac, Jamaica rum, milk.

  THE PUGNOSED MAN: Are you familiar with those drinks, sir?

  PREACHER: No!

  Laughter.

  GARGA to the men with him: It has been necessary to show you my broken family, but you can see how humiliating it is for me. You will also have realized that that yellow weed must never again be allowed to take root in our city. My sister Mary, as you know, was in Shlink’s employ for some time. In speaking to her now, of course, I shall have to proceed as carefully as possible, because even in her deepest misery my sister has preserved a certain trace of delicacy. He sits down beside Mary. Won’t you let me see your face?

  MARY: It’s not a face any more. It’s not me.

  GARGA: No. But I remember once in church – when you were nine years old – you said: let him come to me beginning tomorrow. We thought you meant God.

  MARY: Did I say that?

  GARGA: I still love you, soiled and wasted as you are. But even if I knew that you knew you could do as you pleased with yourself if I told you I still loved you, I’d tell you all the same.

  MARY: And you can look at me when you say that? At this face?

  GARGA: That face. People remain what they are even if their faces fall apart.

  MARY stands up: But I won’t have it. I don’t want you to love me that way. I like myself the way I was. Don’t say I was never any different.

  GARGA in a loud voice: Do you earn money? Do you live entirely on what you get from men?

  MARY: And you’ve brought people to hear about it? Can I have some whisky? With plenty of ice. All right, I’ll tell them. All right, I threw myself away, but as soon as I’d done it I asked for money, to make it plain what I am and that I can live on it. It’s only a business arrangement. I’ve got a nice body, I never let a man smoke when he’s with me, but I’m not a virgin any more, love is my job. I’ve got money here. But I’m going to earn more, I want to spend money, it’s a craving I have; when I’ve made money, I don’t want to save, here, I throw it down the sink. That’s the way I am.

  MAYNES: Horrible!

  ANOTHER MAN: You wouldn’t dare to laugh.

  PREACHER: Man is too durable. That’s his main fault. He can do too much to himself. He’s too hard to destroy. Goes out.

  MAYNES standing up with the other three men: We’ve seen, Garga, that you’ve suffered an injustice.

  THE PUGNOSED MAN approaches Mary: Whores! He guffaws. Vice is a lady’s perfume.

  MARY: You call us whores. With this powder on our faces you can’t see the eyes that were blue. The men who do business with crooks make love to us. We sell our sleep, we live on abuse.

  A shot is heard.

  BARMAN: The gentleman has shot himself in the neck. The men bring in the Preacher and lay him down on the table among the glasses.

  FIRST MAN: Don’t touch him. Hands off.

  SECOND MAN: He’s trying to say something.

  FIRST MAN bending over him, in a loud voice: Do you want anything? Have you any relatives? Where should we take you?

  PREACHER mumbles:’La montagne est passée: nous irons mieux.’11

  GARGA standing over him, laughing: He’s missed, and in more ways than one. He thought those were his last words, but they’re somebody else’s, and anyway they’re not his last words, because his aim was bad and it’s only a small. flesh wound.

  FIRST MAN: So it is. Tough luck. He did it in the dark, he should have done it in the light.

  MARY: His head is hanging down. Put something under it. How thin he is. I recognize him now. He spat in his face one time.

  All except Mary and Garga go out with the wounded man.

  GARGA: His skin is too thick. It bends anything you can stick into it. There aren’t blades enough.

  MARY: He’s still on your mind?

  GARGA: Yes, to you I can admit it.

  MARY: Love and hate! How low they bring us!

  GARGA: So they do. Do you still love him?

  MARY: Yes … yes.

  GARGA: And no hope of better winds?

  MARY: Yes, now and then.

  GARGA: I wanted to help you. Pause. This fight has been such a debauch that today I need all Chicago to help me stop it. Of course it’s possible that he himself wasn’t planning to go on. He himself intimated that at his age three years can mean as much as thirty. In view of all these circumstances I’ve destroyed him with a very crude weapon. I didn’t even have to be there in person. In addition, I’ve made it absolutely impossible for him to see me. This last blow will not be discussed between us, he won’t be able to find me. You could call it a technical knockout, and on every street corner the taxi-drivers are watching to make sure that he won’t show up in the ring again. Chicago has thrown in the towel for him. I don’t know where he is, but he knows what’s what.

  BARMAN: The lumber yards in Mulberry Street are on fire.

  MARY: If you’ve shaken him off, it’s a good thing. But now I’m going.

  GARGA: I’ll stay here in the middle of the lynch mob. But I’ll be home tonight. We’ll live together. Mary goes out. Now I’ll drink black coffee again in the m
orning, wash my face in cold water, and put on clean clothes, first of all a shirt. I’ll comb a good many things out of my brain in the morning; there will be fresh noise and many things happening all around me in the city, now that I’m rid of that passion. It wanted to go down to the grave with me, but I’ve still got things to do. Opens the door wide and listens laughing to the howling of the lynch mob that has grown louder.

  SHLINK enters, wearing an American suit: Are you alone? It was hard to get here. I knew you were getting out today, I’ve looked for you at your place. They’re close at my heels. Quick, Garga, come with me.

  GARGA: Are you out of your mind? I informed on you to get rid of you.

  SHLINK: I’m not a brave man. I died three times on the way here.

  GARGA: Yes. I hear they’re hanging yellow men like linen on Milwaukee Bridge.

  SHLINK: All the more reason for hurrying. You know you’ve got to come. We’re not through yet.

  GARGA very slowly, aware of Shlink’s haste: Unfortunately your request comes at a bad time. I have company. My sister, Mary Garga, ruined in September three years ago, taken by surprise. My wife, Jane Garga, debauched at the same time. Last of all, a Salvation Army preacher, name unknown, spat on and destroyed, though it doesn’t matter much. But most of all, my mother, Mae Garga, born in 1872 in the South, who disappeared three years ago this October and has vanished even from memory, now faceless. Her face fell off her like a yellow leaf. Listens. That howling!

  SHLINK also absorbed in listening: Yes, but it’s not the right kind of howling yet, the white kind. Then they’ll be here. Then we’ll still have a minute. Listen! Now! Now it’s the right kind – white! Come! Garga quickly leaves with Shlink.

  10

  A Deserted Tent, formerly used by Railway Workers, in the Gravel Pits of Lake Michigan

  19 November 1915, about 2 a.m.

  Shlink, Garga.

  SHLINK: The perpetual roar of Chicago has stopped. Seven times three days the skies have paled and the air turned grey-blue like grog. Now the silence has come, that conceals nothing.

  GARGA smoking: Fighting comes as easy to you as digestion. I’ve been thinking about my childhood. The blue flax fields. The polecat in the gulches and the light-frothing rapids.

  SHLINK: Right. All that was in your face. But now it’s as hard as amber, which is transparent; here and there dead insects can be seen in it.

  GARGA: You’ve always been alone?

  SHLINK: Forty years.

  GARGA: And now, towards the end, you’ve succumbed to the black plague of this planet, the lust for human contact.

  SHLINK smiling: Through enmity?

  GARGA: Through enmity.

  SHLINK: Then you understand that we’re comrades, comrades in a metaphysical conflict. Our acquaintance has been brief, for a time it overshadowed everything else, the time has passed quickly. The stations of life are not those of memory. The end is not the goal, the last episode is no more important than any other. Twice in my life I’ve owned a lumber business. For the last two weeks it has been registered in your name.

  GARGA: Have you premonitions of death?

  SHLINK: Here is the ledger of your lumber business; it begins where ink was once poured over the figures.

  GARGA: You’ve been carrying it next to your skin? Open it yourself, it’s sure to be filthy. He reads. A clean account. Nothing but withdrawals. On the seventeenth: the lumber deal. $25,000 to Garga. Just above: $10 for clothing. Below: $22 for Mary Garga, ‘our’ sister. At the very end: the whole business burned to the ground again. – I can’t sleep any more. I’ll be glad when you’re covered with quicklime.

  SHLINK: Don’t deny the past, George! What’s an account? Remember the question we raised. Brace yourself: I love you.

  GARGA looks at him: That’s disgusting! You’re terrifyingly loathsome. An old man like you!12

  SHLINK: Maybe I’ll never get an answer. But if you get one, think of me when my mouth is full of dry rot. What are you listening for?

  GARGA lazily: You show traces of feeling. You’re old.

  SHLINK: Is it so good to bare your teeth?

  GARGA: If they’re good teeth.

  SHLINK: Man’s infinite isolation makes enmity an unattainable goal. But even with the animals understanding is not possible.

  GARGA: Speech isn’t enough to create understanding.

  SHLINK: I’ve observed the animals. Love, the warmth of bodies in contact, is the only mercy shown us in the darkness. But the only union is that of the organs, and it can’t bridge over the cleavage made by speech. Yet they unite in order to produce beings to stand by them in their hopeless isolation. And the generations look coldly into each other’s eyes. If you cram a ship full to bursting with human bodies, they’ll all freeze with loneliness. Are you listening, Garga? Yes, so great is man’s isolation that not even a fight is possible. The forest! That’s where mankind comes from. Hairy, with apes’ jaws, good animals who knew how to live. Everything was so easy. They simply tore each other apart. I see them clearly, with quivering flanks, staring into the whites of each other’s eyes, sinking their teeth into each other’s throats and rolling down. And the one who bled to death among the roots was the vanquished, and the one who had trampled down the most undergrowth was the victor. Are you listening for something, Garga?13

  GARGA: Shlink, I’ve been listening to you now for three weeks. I’ve been waiting the whole time for a rage to take hold of me, under any pretext, however slight. But now, looking at you, I realize that your drivel irritates me and your voice sickens me.14 Isn’t this Thursday night? How far is it to New York? Why am I sitting here wasting my time? Haven’t we been lying around here for three weeks now? We thought the planet would change its course on our account. But what happened? Three times it rained, and one night the wind blew. Stands up. Shlink, I think the time has come for you to take off your shoes. Take your shoes off, Shlink, and let me have them. Because I doubt if you’ve got much money left. Shlink, here in the woods of Lake Michigan I’m putting an end to our fight now going into its fourth year, because its substance is used up: it’s ending right now. I can’t finish it off with a knife, I see no need for high-sounding words. My shoes are full of holes and your speeches don’t keep my toes warm. It’s the old story, Shlink: the younger man wins.

  SHLINK: Today we’ve heard the shovels of the railroad workers from time to time. I saw you pricking up your ears. You’re standing up, Garga? You’re going there, Garga? You’re going to betray me?

  GARGA lying down lazily: Yes, Shlink, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

  SHLINK: And there will never be an outcome to this fight, George Garga? Never an understanding?

  GARGA: No.

  SHLINK: But you’ll come out of it with nothing to show but your bare life.

  GARGA: Bare life is better than any other kind of life.

  SHLINK: Tahiti?

  GARGA: New York. Laughing ironically: ‘I will go and I will return with iron limbs and dark skin, with fury in my eyes. My face will make people think that I come of a strong race. I will have gold, I will be lazy and brutal. Women love to nurse wild, sick men, returned from the hot countries. I will swim, trample grass, hunt, and most of all smoke. And down drinks as hot as boiling metal. I will mingle with life and be saved.’15 – What nonsense! Words on a planet that’s not in the centre. Long after lime has covered you through the natural elimination of the obsolete, I shall be choosing the things that amuse me.

  SHLINK: What kind of an attitude is that? Kindly take your pipe out of your filthy mouth. If you’re trying to tell me you’ve gone impotent, take a different tone at least.

  GARGA: Whatever you say.

  SHLINK: That gesture shows me you’re unworthy to be my opponent.

  GARGA: I was only deploring the fact that you bored me.

  SHLINK: What’s that? You deploring? You! A hired pug! A drunken salesman! Whom I bought for ten dollars, an idealist who couldn’t tell his two legs apart, a nobody!<
br />
  GARGA laughing: A young man! Be frank.

  SHLINK: A white man, hired to drag me down, to stuff my mouth with disgust or dry rot, to give me the taste of death on my tongue. Six hundred feet away in the woods I’ll find all the men I need to lynch me.

  GARGA: Yes, maybe I’m a leper, but what of it? You’re a suicide. What more have you to offer me? You hired me, but you never paid up.

  SHLINK: You got what a man like you needs. I bought you furniture.

  GARGA: Yes, I got a piano out of you, a piano that had to be sold. I ate meat once. I bought one suit, and for your idiotic talk I gave up my sleep.

  SHLINK: Your sleep, your mother, your sister and your wife. Three years off your stupid life. But how annoying! It’s all ending in banality. You never understood what it was all about. You wanted me dead. But I wanted a fight. Not of the flesh but of the spirit.

  GARGA: And the spirit, you see, is nothing. The important thing is not to be stronger, but to come off alive. I can’t defeat you, I can only stamp you into the ground. I’ll carry my raw flesh into the icy rains, Chicago is cold. I’m going there now. Possibly I’m doing the wrong thing. But I have plenty of time. Goes out.

  Shlink falls down.

  SHLINK standing up: Now that the last sword thrusts have been exchanged as well as the last words that occurred to us, I thank you for the interest you have shown in my person. A good deal has fallen away from us, we have hardly more than our naked bodies left. In four minutes the moon will rise, then your lynch mob will be here. He notices that Garga has gone and follows him. Don’t go, George Garga! Don’t quit because you’re young. The forests have been cut down, the vultures are glutted, and the golden answer will be buried deep in the ground. Turns. A milky light is seen in the brush. November nineteenth. Three miles south of Chicago. West wind. Four minutes before the rising of the moon, drowned while fishing.

  MARY enters: Please don’t drive me away. I’m an unhappy woman.

  The light grows stronger in the brush.

  SHLINK: It’s all piling up. Fish swimming into your mouth … What’s that crazy light? I’m very busy.