Brecht Collected Plays: 3: Lindbergh's Flight; The Baden-Baden Lesson on Consent; He Said Yes/He Said No; The Decision; The Mother; The Exception & the ... St Joan of the Stockyards (World Classics)
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THE FOUR AGITATORS: We shall repeat the analysis.
No. 12a RECITATIVE
THE FIRST AGITATOR: We’d better escort him across the border, so we said.
THE SECOND AGITATOR: Although the masses are out on the streets now.
THE THIRD AGITATOR: And it’s our job to see that they come to the meetings.
THE FIRST AGITATOR: Which all means that we cannot escort our young comrade across the border.
THE THIRD AGITATOR: If we were to hide him and he’s found, then what are we to do when they identify him?
THE FIRST AGITATOR: There are gunboats in a state of readiness on the rivers and armoured trains on the railway embankments, all prepared to attack us the moment one of us is seen there. He must not be seen.
No. 12b WE ARE THE SCUM OF THE EARTH
THE CONTROL CHORUS:
When they see us going inside
The exploited man’s cabin
All the exploiters get their cannon to fire
Against that cabin and our country as a whole.”
For when the hungry man
Groans and hits back at his torturers:
They say we must have paid
Him to groan and to hit back.
Each of our faces says
That we think exploitation is wrong.
Each warrant for us says we
Help people who are exploited.
Those who help men in despair
Rank as the scum of the earth.
We are the scum of the earth
We can’t afford to let them find us.
8
THE DECISION
THE FOUR AGITATORS:
What we decided was:
In that case he must vanish, and vanish entirely
For we can neither take him with us nor leave him
Therefore we must shoot him and throw him into the lime pit, since
The lime will burn him up.
No. 13a
THE CONTROL CHORUS:
Was that the only answer?
THE FOUR AGITATORS:
With so little time we could think of no other.
Like an animal helping an animal
We too would gladly have helped him who
Fought for our cause with us.
For five minutes, in the teeth of our pursuers, we
Considered if there was any
Better possibility.
Pause.12
So what we decided was straightway
To cut our own foot away from our body. It is A terrible thing to kill.
But not only others would we kill, but ourselves too if need be
Since only force can alter this
Murderous world, as
Every living creature knows.
It is still, we said
Not given to us not to kill. Only on our
Indomitable will to alter the world could we base
This decision.
No. 13b
THE CONTROL CHORUS:
Go on speaking, and be sure
We sympathise with you.
It was so hard to do what was correct
Nor was it you who judged him, it was
Reality.
THE FOUR AGITATORS: We will repeat our last talk.
THE FIRST AGITATOR: We should ask him if he agrees, because he was a courageous fighter.
THE SECOND AGITATOR: But even if he does not agree he must vanish, and vanish entirely.
THE FIRST AGITATOR to the Young Comrade: If you are caught they will shoot you, and because you will be identified our work will be betrayed. So we must shoot you and throw you into the lime pit so that the lime burns you up. But let us ask you: can you see any other way?
THE YOUNG COMRADE: No.
THE THREE AGITATORS: Let us ask you: are you in agreement?
Pause13
THE YOUNG COMRADE: Yes.
THE THREE AGITATORS: Where would you like us to take you? we asked.
THE YOUNG COMRADE: To the lime pit, he said.
THE THREE AGITATORS: We asked: Do you want to do it on your own?
THE YOUNG COMRADE: Help me.
THE THREE AGITATORS:
Lean your head on our arm
Shut your eyes.
THE YOUNG COMRADE out of sight:
And he said: For the sake of Communism
Agreeing with the advance of the proletarian masses of
All countries
Saying yes to the revolutionising of the world.
THE FOUR AGITATORS:
Then we shot him and
Threw him down into the lime pit.
And when the lime had swallowed him we
Went back to our work.
No. 14 FINAL CHORUS
THE CONTROL CHORUS:
Comrades, your work was successful.
You’ve helped to disseminate
Marxism’s teachings and the
ABC of Communism –
For the ignorant, shedding light upon their situation
For the oppressed, class-awareness, followed
By our experience of the Revolution.
There too the revolution has begun
And the militants know where they stand in the battle.
We are in agreement with you.14
At the same time your report shows how much
Is needed if our world is to be altered:
Rage and stubbornness, knowledge and rebellion
Quick reactions, profound meditation
Icy patience, endless repetition
Awareness of little things and awareness of big ones:
Only studying reality’s going to
Help us alter reality.
Textual variants
1 The three lines from ‘What can he have done’ are new. (p. 63)
2 See Editorial Notes. In the earlier text there is no strike; and the Textile Workers sing a different chorus, starting ‘Today there was again/Less money in our wage packet’, which however was not set to music by Eisler and so presumably had been changed by December 1930. (p. 73)
3 In the 1931 versions this read ‘He could be shot’. It was changed in the 1938 Malik edition and the 1967 Gesammelte Werke (or GW). (p.75)
4 The rest of the scene is changed since the premiere, where the Agitators report (rather unclearly) that ‘The textile workers came out on strike; but the coolie organisation called for the policeman to be punished, and this was done; but the strike was called off for a long time and the factory guards were increased. Everyone spoke of the murder of the innocent man, but we were driven out of the factories.’ (p. 75)
5 Here the piano score differs from the Versuche version, which has the Agitators replying ‘He could have told the coolies that they would only be able to defend themselves against the police if they got the other workers in the factory to declare their solidarity with them against the police. For the policeman had committed an injustice.’ Our text is closer to that of the premiere. (p. 75)
6 Instead of the three concluding lines the version of the premiere went on:
Stinking, vanish from the
Freshly cleaned room! You would surely be
The last filth you must
Get rid of! (p. 79)
7 For scene 6, ‘The Betrayal’, the title was previously ‘Empörung gegen die Lehre’ (Discontent with the Teaching). (p. 80)
8 Previously the Young Comrade said ‘We called for a general strike’, to which the Agitators reply ‘That is the fourth time you have betrayed us’. (p. 80)
9 Instead of the sentence about lack of revolutionary experience, the Agitators previously said ‘The paths to revolution are becoming clearer’. (p. 80)
10 From here down to Lenin’s remark about rural poverty is new. Previously the Agitators announced that they had consulted the coolie organisation and decided there could be no armed action till the delegates of the peasants had arrived. Then the Young Comrade spoke his line about ‘With my own two eyes’, leading to the first stanza o
f ‘Praise of the Party’ by the Agitators. The Young Comrade’s question about the Marxist classics then followed. (p. 81)
11 The first verse of this chorus is different in the published texts. We print what Eisler set. (p. 86)
12 The first version of all omitted the rest of this speech down to ‘This decision’, but it was in the text of the premiere. (p. 87)
13 The text for the premiere (ii) is closer to He Said Yes, and the first version of all (i) closer still. So in (i) they ask the Young Comrade if he agrees, and he says ‘Yes’, on which they comment ‘He has answered in accordance with reality’. Then when he says ‘Help me’ they repeat the Three Students’ ‘Lean your head on our arm’, and after his final declaration for Communism, ‘saying Yes to the revolutionising of the world’, they stand ‘foot to foot’ as in Waley to hurl him down, ‘and clods of lime after/And flat stones they flung’. In (ii) these last words are omitted. (p. 88)
14 The concluding (italicised) section of the chorus was not in the pre-1931 texts. (p. 89)
The Mother
After Gorky
Play
Collaborators: HANNS EISLER, SLATAN DUDOW, GÜNTER WEISENBORN
Translator: JOHN WILLETT
Characters:
PELAGEA VLASSOVA, The Mother
PAVEL VLASSOV, her son
ANTON RYBIN, ANDREI NACHODKA, IVAN VESSOVCHIKOV, workers in the Suchlinov factory
MASHA KHALATOVA, a worker
POLICEMAN
INSPECTOR
GATEKEEPER
KARPOV, a worker
THE FACTORY GUARD
SMILGIN, a worker
THE TEACHER, Nikolai Vessovchikov
PAVEL SOSTAKOVITCH (SIGORSKI), unemployed
WARDER
YEGOR LUSHIN, a farm worker
TWO STRIKE-BREAKERS
VASSIL YEFIMOVITCH, the butcher
THE BUTCHER’S WIFE
THE LANDLADY
THE PEASANT WOMAN
THE POOR WOMAN
THE DOCTOR
THE OFFICIAL
A woman at the copper collection point
A woman in black
A maidservant
Working woman with a child
THE STOREKEEPER (woman)
Numbers in brackets refer to optional choruses given on pp. 358–360.
1
THE VLASSOVAS OF ALL COUNTRIES
Pelagea Vlassova’s room in Tver. (1)
PELAGEA VLASSOVA: I am quite ashamed to offer this soup to my son. But I’ve no dripping left to put in it, not even half a spoonful. Only last week they cut a kopeck an hour off his wages, and I can’t make that up however hard I try. I know how heavy his job is, and how badly he needs feeding up. It is bad that I cannot offer my son better soup; he’s young and has barely stopped growing. He is very different from his late father. He’s always reading books, and has never found his meals good enough. And so he is getting more and more discontented. (2)
She pours the soup into a container and takes it over to her son. On returning to the stove she sees how her son, eyes still on his book, lifts the lid and sniffs the soup, then replaces the lid and pushes the container away.
PELAGEA VLASSOVA: He’s sniffing his soup again. It’s the best I can give him. And soon he’ll realise I’m no good to him any more, just a burden. What use is it my eating with him, living in his room and buying my clothes out of his earnings? Presently he’ll leave me. What am I to do, Pelagea Vlassova, forty-two, a worker’s widow and a worker’s mother? I count the pennies over and over again. I try it this way and I try it that. One day I skimp on firewood, another day on clothing. But I can’t manage. I don’t see any answer. (3)
Her son Pavel has picked up his cap and the container, and left. The Mother tidies the room.
CHORUS
sung to the Mother by the revolutionary workers:
Brush down his coat
Brush it again then!
Once it’s had a good brushing
It’ll be decently ragged.
Cook with devotion
Take no end of trouble!
If you’re a kopeck short
All his soup will be water.
Work even harder than now
Cut down your expenditure
Reckon it more exactly!
If you’re a kopeck short
You can do nothing.
Whatever you do
You’ll still have to struggle
Your position is bad
It’ll worsen.
This cannot go on, but
What is to be the answer?
As the raven who can find nothing
For her fledglings to eat
Battles helplessly with the winter blizzard
And gets no reply to her crying
You too know there’s no answer
When you cry.
Vainly you work till you drop, devising ways
To replace the irreplaceable and
Taking endless trouble to afford the unaffordable.
If you’re a kopeck short, hard work is not enough.
Don’t think the question of why your kitchen’s empty
Will get decided in the kitchen.
Whatever you do
You’ll still have to struggle
Your position is bad
It’ll worsen.
This cannot go on, but
What is to be the answer?
2
THE MOTHER IS CONCERNED TO SEE HER SON IN THE COMPANY OF REVOLUTIONARY WORKERS
Pelagea Vlassova’s room.
Three men and a young woman, all workers, bring a duplicator. It is early morning.
ANTON RYBIN: Two weeks back, Pavel, when you joined our movement, you said we could come to your room if we had a special job on. Your place is safest, as we’ve never worked here before.
PAVEL VLASSOV: What are you going to do?
ANDREI NACHODKA: Print today’s leaflets. The latest wage-cuts have got the workers worried. We’ve been handing out leaflets at the works for the past three days, and today will be crucial. Tonight there’s going to be a works meeting to decide whether to put up with a cut of another kopeck or go on strike.
IVAN VESSOVCHIKOV: We’ve brought the duplicator and some paper.
PAVEL: Sit down. My mother will make us some tea.
They go to the table.
IVAN to Andrei: Wait outside and watch out for the police.
ANTON: Where’s your brother?
MASHA KHALATOVA: Sidor couldn’t come. He saw someone looking like a policeman following him home last night. So today he thought he’d better go straight to the factory.
PAVEL: Keep your voice down. I’d sooner my mother didn’t hear us. So far I’ve told her nothing about all this; she’s not that young, and there’s really no way she could help.
ANTON: Here’s the stencil.
They start working. One of them has hung a thick cloth across the window.
PELAGEA VLASSOVA aside: I don’t like seeing my son Pavel mixing with that lot. They’re no good for him. They’ll get him all worked up, then drag him into something. I’m not serving tea to their sort. (4) She goes to the table. Pavel, I can’t make tea for you. There’s not enough tea. It won’t be strong enough.
PAVEL: Then make us some weak tea, Mother.
PELAGEA VLASSOVA has gone back and sat down: Suppose I do nothing of the kind, they may start to realise I can’t abide them. I just don’t like having them hanging around here, speaking so quietly I can’t hear a word. She again goes to the table. Pavel, I can’t have the landlord notice people are meeting here in the middle of the night and printing things. As it is, we can’t pay our rent.
IVAN: Believe me, Mrs Vlassova, there’s nothing interests us more than your rent. It may not look like it, but in fact it’s all we care about.
PELAGEA VLASSOVA: You don’t say.
She walks back.
ANTON: I don’t think your mother’s very glad to see us here, eh, Pave
l?
IVAN: It’s so hard for her to see we have to do this so that she can buy her tea and pay the rent.
PELAGEA VLASSOVA: Talk about thick-skinned! They’re carrying on as if they simply hadn’t noticed. What are they up to with Pavel? He went off to the factory and was glad they had a job for him. He wasn’t earning much, and in the last twelve months it’s been less and less. If they’re going to cut it by another kopeck, then I’d sooner give up eating. But it worries me to see him reading those books, and I don’t care to have him going off to all those meetings where they just work people up when they ought to be resting. The only result will be he’ll lose his job.
MASHA sings to Vlassova:
THE ANSWER
If you’ve nothing on your plate
How can you fight the oppressor
Unless you can take the State
And turn the whole thing upside down for ever?
That’s the way to fill your plate.
Start now, before it is too late.
If you find that you’ll always be unemployed
How can you fight the oppressor
Unless you can take the State
And turn the whole thing upside down for ever?
After the bosses’ power has been destroyed
You’ll find nobody need be unemployed.
If they mock your weakness as absurd
Time will apply the pressure
And you will enjoy no rest
Until all the weak join together
And march till their voice is heard.
Then you will have the last word.
ANDREI entering: Police!
IVAN: Hide those papers!
Andrei takes the duplicator from Pavel and hangs it out of the window. Anton sits on the papers.
PELAGEAVLASSOVA: What did I say, Pavel? Here come the police. Pavel, what are you up to? What’s in those papers?
MASHA leads her to the window and makes her sit on a chair: Just sit there and keep quiet, Mrs Vlassova.
Enter a policeman and an inspector
POLICEMAN: Halt! Anyone moves will be shot. That’s his mother, your honour, and that’s himself.
INSPECTOR: Pavel Vlassov, I have to search your premises. What is this squalid gang you’ve gathered here?
POLICEMAN: Here’s Sidor Khalatov’s sister; we arrested him this morning. It’s them all right.
MASHA: What’s happened to my brother?
INSPECTOR: Your brother sends his best wishes; at present he’s our guest. He is bolshevising our bedbugs and has collected a large following. A pity he hasn’t more pamphlets.