SIMONE: They have to lie, or else they’ll be called up, see? because the Patron will give up certifying that they’re essential workers.
Then the sappers appear as on p. 21 and beat their dixies like bells, and the scene ends much as in the final text.
2. The Handshake (3)
There is some characteristic geographical confusion in the first version, where the Patron’s wines and china were to go to Saint-Nazaire and the refugees to Lyons (several hundred kilometres apart); then Lyons was changed to ‘Vermilion’, a place apparently invented by Brecht. The Mayor arrives in this version not with the town police but with the Sergeant from scene 1 and his two soldiers. Simone’s ensuing explanation (to her mother and the Patron) is not included; it was worked out on the Berlau script. Then from where the Mayor weakens (p. 25) to the entry of Madame Soupeau everything is different, the drivers in particular being more uncooperative and the refugees not making an appearance:
MAYOR weaker: Monsieur Champon, I’m only doing my duty. All I asked was for you to put your lorries at my disposal.
PATRON yells: What do you want my lorries for?
MAYOR: I told you. I’m going to shift the refugees.
SIMONE: The old people and children anyhow, so as to clear Route 74 for the troops in Lyons to move up.
PATRON stares at her, then to the Mayor, nastily: Have you got the drivers? I’m told my men won’t drive.
MAYOR to the drivers: Are you really refusing to evacuate the refugees?
SIMONE: No, they’ll drive them. Maurice, Robert, will you drive?
MAURICE ironically: If Monsieur le Maire orders…
PATRON: Certain officials seem to be using this disastrous war as a pretext for laying down the law to the business community. But very well, then, I bow to force. My drivers can take the refugees to Vermilion.
MAYOR: Not to Vermilion; that would mean using Route 74. First to Saint-Nazaire.
PATRON: What can I have my lorries do in Saint-Nazaire? But very well, you’re sheltering behind your orders and the army. I’m asking the army to do something for me in return: pack up my wine reserves and the china, because that must go too.
MAYOR: Why can’t your men do that?
PATRON: Because my men are on strike. I’d be within my rights if I put them up against the wall for refusing to remove French property to safety in face of the enemy. But there’s no discipline left.
MAYOR to the sergeant: Is that something you can put to your men, do you think? I’ve nothing against giving Monsieur Champon a hand to save his property.
MADAME MACHARD sees that her daughter wants to say something: Quiet, Simone.
SIMONE: But aren’t the soldiers supposed to be bringing up the equipment for blowing the bridges?
MAURICE: No. [illegible]
SIMONE: To hold up the tanks till reinforcements come; you know. They ought to go right away.
SERGEANT: We’d have been there by now if we hadn’t had to wait for the cookers on account of their not giving us a meal. I don’t see why I should fall over myself to help this gentleman and his hotel; he’s the one refused to feed us.
SIMONE: You’ll get fed, won’t he, Monsieur Henri? There’ll be no room for provisions on the trucks if you’re to be able to carry a proper number of refugees, will there, Maurice? I’ll just get the key of the cellar.
MADAME MACHARD: Simone!
PATRON: What’s got into you, Simone? I was amazed to see you bring in the Mayor against me. Go indoors at once and wash your neck, you shameless ungrateful creature.
MADAME MACHARD: Please excuse our daughter, Monsieur Champon; she has lost her head.
The Patron’s mother, here called Madame Mère, then enters and gives Simone the key, telling her to get wine for the soldiers. There is no mention of feeding the refugees or of the danger of looting, and it is the soldiers who then help themselves to the provisions. Simone returns with the bottles and persuades Maurice and Robert to load up. German planes dive, prompting the Patron to say that he must get away, as on p. 27, but his mother is also on stage and she replies contemptuously that she is staying:
Thanks to Simone’s very sensible arrangements you will get to Saint-Nazaire as planned, and Maurice and Robert will take the china and the refugees south to Lyons. Is that right, Simone?
She proposes to give the town such food stocks as cannot be moved, saying (in a line later given to the Mayor) ‘This is a time for sacrifices, Henri. It’s a matter of showing good will’ (p. 30). Then they all drink (p. 31) and the Patron makes his conciliatory speech (p. 31). The drivers are told to load up with Monsieur Machard, and leave. It is then the Patron himself who asks about the petrol in the brickwords, saying:
The Germans mustn’t get it. Georges, Gustave, run down to the brickworks. Smash the pump and seal up the tank, right?
MAYOR: Better set fire to it, Henri. There’s an army order says all stocks of petrol have got to be burnt. The Germans must not find a single canful in any village.
PATRON: Burn it? Rubbish. We’ll need it. How are our forces to replenish their tanks when they attack? Simone, tell the Mayor that France isn’t lost yet.
SIMONE: That’s a fact, Monsieur le Maire.
MAYOR: But so many people are in the know, Simone.
PATRON: No Frenchman could give away the secret. If I didn’t realize that before I do now. Georges, Gustave, get moving.
SIMONE to Gustave: I cleaned the garage out for you, Père Gustave.
PÈRE GUSTAVE: Right. Patriotism seems to have become all the fashion around here.
Then the Patron says good bye to his mother (p. 32), and kisses her and Simone. The radio is heard saying that the French will counter-attack and not a foot of ground is to be given up. There is no more reference to the petrol, and Madame says that she is closing the hotel. Simone is not specifically dismissed, but the last exchange between her and the Mayor is as in the final text, and she picks up the Patron’s suitcases and slowly leaves with lowered head.
The Berlau script is approximately the same as the final version as far as the appearance of the representatives of the refugees (p. 26). Then, from the Mayor’s ‘What is it?’:
ONE OF THE REFUGEES excitedly: Monsieur le Maire, we’ve heard the hotel is selling off its lorries. We insist you do something about it.
WOMAN: There are sick people in the village hall. We can’t take our children to Bordeaux on foot.
The Mayor replies ‘Madame, Messieurs’ etc. as in the final text, and is answered by the Woman. Then this script cuts straight to the long stage direction on p. 27, with the difference that the main crowd of refugees does not appear. In the simultaneous dialogue which follows, the left-hand column is that of the final version. In the right-hand column however when Simone asks Robert and Maurice to take the refugees, Maurice refuses, saying ‘I’m not a nurse’ and telling Robert ‘You’ve got no influence at the mairie. The Mayor and the Patron are birds of a feather; it’s always us who pay the bill in the end …’ The argument is interrupted by the announcement that the German tanks are nearly at Tours, causing the Patron to complain ‘And my Sèvres and my vintage wines haven’t yet been loaded’. An approximate version of the dialogue from ‘SIMONE angrily’ to ‘VOICES from outside’, then follows (in the final version it comes earlier, on p. 27), with the difference that Simone’s anger is initially against Maurice for wanting to clear out and abandon the refugees. Here Madame enters and gives Simone the key (p. 29), and the ensuing dialogue down to her ‘Is anybody going to load it for us?’ (below) is more or less that of the final text. Thereafter:
SIMONE: Of course, Madame. Right, Maurice?
MAURICE: Go to hell. Pack china, with the Germans arriving? High time we were off.
MADAME MÈRE sharply: Nobody but the children seems to realize that French property cannot be allowed to fall into the hands of the Germans.
MAURICE to Robert: All right, we can help carry out the cases.
Exit with Robert to the store room.
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It continues approximately as in the final text from ‘ONE OF THE REFUGEES’ (p. 30) to the general dispersal (p. 31, bottom). Here Maurice, Robert and Georges also leave; Maurice poses the question about the brickworks as he goes, after which the dialogue is a blend of the first and final versions until the Patron takes his leave. Asked yet again about the petrol (this time by the Mayor) he says to ask his mother. In the Feuchtwanger script Simone then suggests getting Georges and Père Gustave and blowing it up, but in the Berlau script this is changed to a mere inquiry what should be done.
MADAME MERE: Didn’t you hear what the Patron said? He asked us not to do anything precipitate. We can leave the problem of whether to destroy the petrol till the last minute. After all, it’s still my son’s property we’re dealing with.
SIMONE: But it would be terrible if the Germans used our petrol to fill up, like they did in Abbeville. Wouldn’t it, Monsieur le Maire?
MAYOR: It hasn’t come to that yet by a long chalk.
The rest of the scene is virtually as in the final text.
Second Dream of Simone Machard (4)
The first version and the Berlau script both have Père Gustave in lieu of the soldier Georges as a member of Simone’s bodyguard; neither establishes the identification of the Patron’s mother as Queen Isabeau. When Simone calls on the angel (p. 36) both versions have her sitting on the ground and beating her drum, crying ‘Come here, you Frenchmen, the enemy has arrived’. In the Berlau script there is no reaction; she calls Georges and drums harder, then calls on the Angel. The first version makes the Angel St Michael. Also it has no mention of the Mayor’s dream language (p. 34). The Angel’s song ‘After the Conqueror’ (p. 36) is slightly different in the first version, which omits the previous recitative (‘Maid, hear me’ etc.) and the dialogue with Simone after that.
3. The Fire
In the first version subscene (a) bears this title and is scene 5, while subscene (b) is scene 6, The Betrayal, and is followed by the Daydream of Simone Machard. In the Berlau and Feuchtwanger scripts the Daydream is incorporated in the second of these two scenes (instead of, as now, in the first).
(a) (5. The Fire)
At the beginning of the scene the exchange where Georges suspects that Simone has been fired, the mention by Père Gustave of the ‘mob from the hall’ (p. 38) and Simone’s wondering if seeing a person in a dream means that he is dead (p. 39) are none of them in the first version, while the actual entry of the refugees (p. 39) occurs only in the final script. Thereafter there are extensive differences. In the first script the Captain enters at this point, saying that the Mayor will come. ‘And another thing. I’ve been told there were cases of looting and blackmail in these parts yesterday. Order and discipline are herewith re-established: you get me, my friends?’ He is followed instantly by Père Gustave. The Captain thereupon delivers a version of the speech which now comes just before the Daydream:
CAPTAIN: Ah, Monsieur le Maire, I trust your wife is in good health. I just wanted to tell you, Duclos, that France’s one hope of avoiding total disaster is to collaborate as honourably as she can with the gentlemen of the German General Staff. Paris is overrun with Communists, and here too all kinds of things occurred yesterday without the authorities lifting a finger. To put it in a nutshell, the Commandant is fully aware of this hotel’s connection with a certain brickworks. You might like to take action accordingly, Duclos. Wait a moment before you follow me out, or it’ll look as if I had to have you dragged down here. Goes in.
This is much the same in the Berlau script. Then Simone and the Mayor conduct their dialogue about the brickworks, from his (present) entry (p. 41) to his exit, which in the final version becomes ‘He is about to go in’ (p. 42), allowing the Captain to re-enter with his speech roughly as above. All the present dialogue from Madame Soupeau’s entry (p. 39) to the entry of the Mayor is an addition to the final script.
In the earlier versions the dialogue with Georges and Père Gustave which now follows the Daydream runs straight on from the Mayor’s exit, with slight differences. Thereafter from the entry of the German soldier to the end of (a) everything else is the same except that the German captain (or commandant in the first version) says nothing. The Berlau script however inserts the following dialogue before ‘So neither of you…’ (p. 44):
SOLDIER [i.e. GEORGES]: What are you after? Oh, the petrol, is it? Don’t you touch it. You keep out.
SIMONE: But the Patron said it was up to us.
SOLDIER: The Patron’s gone, but you’re here. They’ll shoot you down like a mad dog. He draws her downstage. Urgently: Simone, promise me you’ll be sensible.
SIMONE: But you said yourself that they’re bringing up whole new regiments. They broke through against the 132nd, you said.
SOLDIER: But not against the 7th [her brother’s unit, in this version].
SIMONE quietly: That’s not true, Monsieur Georges.
PÈRE GUSTAVE: Don’t you get mixed up with the Germans. Sabotage can cost you your neck.
SOLDIER: It all comes from that damned book of yours. You’ve been reading it all day again, then you go and imagine you’re God knows who, isn’t that it?
Apart from the first sentence this is not in the Feuchtwanger script. But from then on to the end of (a) both are practically identical with the final text.
(b) (6. The Betrayal)
The first version specifies that this occurs three days after (a). In all three of the early scripts the scene starts with Georges reading the paper as the German captain saunters across the stage and into the hotel. Simone brings a hot-water bottle for the Patron’s mother, who is unwell. Then Simone wonders about the significance of seeing a person in a dream (the passage now near the beginning of (a)) and her parents enter, delighted that M. Machard has got the council job. It appears that the Patron has returned; the Berlau and Feuchtwanger scripts add that he and Maurice were held up by German tanks. In all three versions he comes in with Robert, looking pale and sleepless. All this is prior to the beginning of the present subscene (b), but from then on the dialogue continues much as in the final text up to where Simone says that she will confess to the Germans to save the Patron (p. 47). The main differences are (1) that the Machard parents are present up to the firing of Georges; (2) that there is no mention of the refugees in the village hall; (3) that in lieu of Père Gustave’s remark about the hotel’s sudden popularity (p. 47) Robert tells Simone that the Peugeot has been stolen, that one of the lorries has broken down and that Maurice is bringing back the other. Thereafter however the scene ends differently.
In the first version it ends quickly, with the Patron assuring Simone that since she no doubt meant well he will stand by her, then going into the hotel without saying whether she is really fired or not. Robert asks if he will betray her, and Georges says ‘He can’t do that. After all he is a Frenchman’. The Mayor and the Captain walk across the stage into the hotel; Simone bows to the Mayor, who pays no attention. That is the end of the scene, and the Daydream follows.
Daydream of Simone Machard
In the first version there is no game of cards. The Patron is present, and the Captain enters later, bringing the German captain as an ‘unknown knight’ with whom the French are invited to collaborate. He offers the Mayor a cigar, but the drumming starts again and the Mayor refuses. There are no references to ‘the mob’; Madame boxes the Patron’s ears, not the Mayor’s, and the dream ends with the German captain saying ‘Of course the Maid must be got rid of’.
In the Berlau and Feuchtwanger scripts, after Simone has said that she will confess to the Germans (as above) Madame Machard reappears to say that the Mayor has given the council job to ‘old Frossart’ instead of to her husband, who has been ‘dropped like a hot potato’. ‘The Mayor’, comments Georges, ‘is scared of his own courage’. This leads straight into the Daydream. Mayor, captain and Patron sit playing cards, and neither Madame nor the German Captain appears. After ‘if I am to sell my wine’ (p. 43) the Patron
says ‘Have you really decided to support her, King Charles the Seventh? And given her father the council job?’ The Mayor announces his determination much as in the final version, then sits down. The dream ends with the Captain pointing this out to the Patron and saying ‘There you are, Henri; France doesn’t support her any more’.
A quite different concluding section follows in both these scripts. After the dream Simone says she must leave, then Maurice arrives, having heard about the explosion:
MAURICE: Are you crazy, Simone? How could you?
SIMONE: He won’t give me away.
MAURICE: Put your things on at once, you must get out of here. I’ll drive you. Pack up whatever she needs most, Madame Machard.
MADAME MACHARD: I don’t understand you people. You aren’t expecting her to throw up her job?
GEORGES to Maurice: You really think he might…?
MAURICE shrugs his shoulders: If he cares about saving his wretched hotel he’ll have to. They might have used the petrol as a way of showing how ready they are to collaborate. She’s put a spoke in that. There’s only one thing left for them to do: turn her in. With emphasis: At this moment she’s got no more vindictive enemies in the world than Madame Mere and her respected son.
ROBERT: You’re exaggerating. After all, they are French.
MAURICE: Didn’t you get what they were saying on the radio?
GEORGES: Wasn’t listening. What was it?
MAURICE: The Marshal has dissolved the government and taken over all its powers. That means open collaboration. Meantime she’s still at war.
Brecht Collected Plays: 7: Visions of Simone Machard; Schweyk in the Second World War; Caucasian Chalk Circle; Duchess of Malfi (World Classics) Page 29
