Brecht Collected Plays: 6: Good Person of Szechwan; The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui; Mr Puntila and his Man Matti (World Classics)

by Bertolt Brecht

  MATTI: You go ahead, I’ll just fetch a pack of cards.

  EVA: What d’you want cards for?

  MATTI: How d’you think we’re going to pass the time?

  He goes into the house; she slowly walks towards the bath hut. Laina the cook arrives with a basket.

  LAINA: Good morning, Miss Eva, I’m off to pick cucumbers. Would you like to come too?

  EVA: No, I’ve a slight headache and I feel like a bath.

  She goes in. Laina stands shaking her head. Puntila and the Attache come out of the house smoking cigars.

  THE ATTACHÉ: Puntila, old man, I think I’ll drive Eva down to Monte and see if I can borrow Baron Vaurien’s Rolls. It would be a good advertisement for Finland and her foreign service. You’ve no idea how few presentable ladies we have in our diplomatic corps.

  PUNTILA to Laina: Where’s my daughter? She went out.

  LAINA: She’s in the bath hut, Mr Puntila, she had such a headache and felt she needed a bath. Exit.

  PUNTILA: She often gets these moods. First time I ever heard of anyone bathing with a headache.

  THE ATTACHÉ: What an original idea; but you know, my dear fellow, we don’t make nearly enough of the Finnish sauna. That’s what I told the permanent secretary when there was some question of our raising a loan. Finnish culture is being put over all wrong. Why is there no sauna in Whitehall?

  PUNTILA: What I want to know from you is if your minister’s really coming to Puntila Hall for the engagement party.

  THE ATTACHÉ: He definitely accepted. He owes me that, because I introduced him to the Lehtinens, the Commercial Bank chappie, he’s interested in nickel.

  PUNTILA: I want a word with him.

  THE ATTACHÉ: He’s got a soft spot for me, so they all say at the Ministry. He told me, ‘We could post you anywhere, you’ll never do anything indiscreet, politics don’t interest you.’ He thinks I’m a good advertisement for the service.

  PUNTILA: You’re a bright fellow, Eino. It’ll be amazing if you don’t do well in your career; but mind you take that seriously about the minister coming. I insist on that, it’ll give me an idea what they think of you.

  THE ATTACHÉ: Puntila, I’m sure as eggs is eggs. I’m always lucky. In our ministry it’s become proverbial. If I lose something it comes back to me, dead sure.

  Matti arrives with a towel over his shoulder and goes to the bath hut.

  PUNTILA, to Matti: What are you hanging around for, my man? I’d be ashamed to loaf about like that. I’d ask myself what I was doing to earn my pay. You’ll get no reference from me. You can rot like a putrid oyster nobody will eat.

  MATTI: Yes, Mr Puntila, sir.

  Puntila turns back to the Attache. Matti calmly walks into the bath hut. At first Puntila thinks nothing of it, then it suddenly strikes him that Eva must be in there too, and he gazes after Matti in astonishment.

  PUNTILA, to the Attache: What kind of terms are you on with Eva?

  THE ATTACHÉ: Good terms. She is a little chilly to me, but then that is her nature. It is not unlike our position with regard to Russia. In diplomatic parlance we’d say relations are correct. Come along, I think I’ll pick Eva a bunch of white roses, don’t you know.

  PUNTILA walks off with him, glancing at the bath hut: A very sensible thing to do, I’d say.

  MATTI, inside the hut: They saw me come in. All according to plan.

  EVA: I’m amazed my father didn’t stop you. The cook told him I was in here.

  MATTI: He didn’t catch on till too late, he must have a terrible hangover today. And it would have been bad timing, too early, because it’s not enough to want to compromise someone, something has got to have happened.

  EVA: I don’t think they’re going to get dirty thoughts at all. In the middle of the morning it means nothing.

  MATTI: That’s what you think. It’s a sign of exceptional passion. Five hundred rummy? He deals. I had a boss once in Viborg could eat any time day or night. In the middle of the afternoon, just before tea, he made them roast him a chicken. Eating was a passion with him. He was in the government.

  EVA: How can you compare the two things?

  MATTI: Why not? Like with love, you get people are dead set on it. You to play. D’you imagine the cows always wait till night-time? It’s summer now, you feel in the mood. So in you pop to the bath hut. Phew, it’s hot. Takes off his jacket. Why don’t you take something off? My seeing won’t hurt. Half a pfennig a point, I’d suggest.

  EVA: I’ve an idea what you’re saying is rather vulgar. Kindly don’t treat me as if I were a milkmaid.

  MATTI: I’ve nothing against milkmaids.

  EVA: You’ve no sense of respect.

  MATTI: I’m always being told that. Drivers are known to be particularly awkward individuals without any esteem for the upper crust. That’s because we hear what the upper crust are saying to one another on the back seat. I’ve got a hundred and forty, what about you?

  EVA: When I was at my convent in Brussels I never heard anything but decent talk.

  MATTI: I’m not talking about decent or indecent, I’m talking about stupid. Your deal, but cut first to be on the safe side. Puntila and the Attache return. The latter is carrying a bunch of roses.

  THE ATTACHÉ: She’s so witty. I said to her ‘You know, you’d be perfect if you weren’t so rich’; and she said after barely a moment’s thought, ‘But I rather like being rich.’ Hahaha! And d’you know, Puntila old man, that’s exactly the answer I had from Mademoiselle Rothschild when Baroness Vaurien introduced us. She’s very witty too.

  MATTI: You must giggle as if I’m tickling you, or else they’ll walk brazenly past. Eva giggles a bit over her cards. Try to sound more as if it was fun.

  THE ATTACHÉ, stopping: Wasn’t that Eva?

  PUNTILA: Certainly not, it must be somebody else.

  MATTI, loudly, over the cards: Ee, aren’t you ticklish!

  THE ATTACHÉ: What’s that?

  MATTI, quietly: Put up a bit of a fight.

  PUNTILA: That’s my chauffeur in the bath hut. Why don’t you take your bouquet into the house?

  EVA, acting, loudly: No! Don’t!

  MATTI: Oh yes, I will!

  THE ATTACHÉ: You know, Puntila, that did sound awfully like Eva.

  PUNTILA: Do you mind not being offensive?

  MATTI: Now for some endearments and abandon your vain resistance!

  EVA: No! No! No! Softly: What do I say now?

  MATTI: Tell me I mustn’t. Can’t you get into the spirit of it? Bags of lust.

  EVA: Sweetheart, you mustn’t.

  PUNTILA thunders: Eva!

  MATTI: Go on, go on, unbridled passion! He clears away the cards while they continue to suggest the love scene. If he comes in we’ll have to get down to it, like it or not.

  EVA: That’s out of the question.

  MATTI, kicking over a bench: Then out you go, but like a drowned spaniel!

  PUNTILA: Eva!

  Matti carefully runs his hand through Eva’s hair to disarrange it, while she undoes one of her top blouse buttons. Then she steps out.

  EVA: Did you call, Daddy? I was just going to change and have a swim.

  PUNTILA: What the devil are you up to, messing about in the bath hut? D’you imagine we’re stone deaf?

  THE ATTACHÉ: No need to fly off the handle, Puntila. Why shouldn’t Eva use the bath hut?

  Out comes Matti and stands behind Eva.

  EVA, slightly cowed, without noticing Matti: What do you imagine you heard, daddy? It was nothing.

  PUNTILA: Is that what you call nothing, then? Perhaps you’ll turn round and look.

  MATTI, pretending to be embarrassed: Mr Puntila, Miss Eva and I were just having a game of five hundred rummy. Look at the cards if you don’t believe me. You’re putting a wrong interpretation on it.

  PUNTILA: Shut up, you. You’re fired. To Eva: What’s Eino supposed to think?

  THE ATTACHÉ: Y’know, old boy, if they were playing five hundred rummy you must
have got it wrong. Princess Bibesco once got so excited over baccarat her pearl necklace broke. I’ve brought you some white roses, Eva. He gives her the roses. Come on, Puntila, what about a game of billiards? He tugs him away by the sleeve.

  PUNTILA growls: I’ll be talking to you later, Eva. As for you, trash, if I once hear you so much as say bo to my daughter instead of snatching your filthy cap off your head and standing to attention and feeling embarrassed because you haven’t washed behind your ears – shut up, will you? – then you can pack your stinking socks and go. You should look up to your employer’s daughter as to a higher being that has graciously condescended to come down amongst us. Leave me alone, Eino, d’you think I can tolerate this sort of thing? To Matti: Repeat that: what should you do?

  MATTI: Look up to her as to a higher being that has graciously condescended to come down amongst us, Mr Puntila.

  PUNTILA: You open your eyes wide in incredulous amazement at such a rare sight, you trash.

  MATTI: I open my eyes wide in incredulous amazement, Mr Puntila.

  PUNTILA: Blushing like a lobster because well before your confirmation you were having impure thoughts about women, at the sight of such a model of innocence, and wishing the earth would come and swallow you up, get me?

  MATTI: I get you.

  The Attache drags Puntila off into the house.

  EVA: Washout.

  MATTI: His debts are even bigger than we thought.

  6

  A conversation about crayfish

  Farm kitchen at Puntila Hall. Evening. Intermittent dance music from outside. Matti is reading the paper.

  FINA, entering: Miss Eva’d like a word with you.

  MATTI: All right. I’ll just finish my coffee.

  FINA: No need to impress me by drinking it in such a languid way. I bet you’re getting ideas on account of Miss Eva taking a bit of notice of you now and then whenever there’s no society for her on the estate and she needs to see someone.

  MATTI: Evenings like this I quite enjoy getting ideas. Like supposing you, Fina, felt like having a look at the river with me, then I won’t have heard Miss Eva wants me and I’ll come with you.

  FINA: Don’t really feel like it.

  MATTI, picking up a paper: Thinking about the school-teacher?

  FINA: There’s been nothing between me and the schoolteacher. He was friendly and wanted to educate me by lending me a book.

  MATTI: Too bad he gets such rotten pay for his education. I get 300 marks and a schoolteacher gets 200, but then I have to be better at my job. You see, if a schoolteacher’s no good then it only means the local people never learn to read the newspapers. In the old days that would have been a retrograde step, but what’s the use of reading the papers now, when the censorship leaves nothing in them? I’d go so far as to say that if they did away with schoolteachers altogether then they wouldn’t need censorship either, which’d save the state what it pays the censors. But if I have a breakdown on a class 3 road then the gentry are forced to plod through the mud and fall in the ditch ‘cause they’re all pissed.

  Matti beckons to Fina and she sits on his knee. Judge and Lawyer appear with towels over their shoulders, returning from their steam bath.

  THE JUDGE: Haven’t you anything to drink, some of that marvellous buttermilk you used to have here?

  MATTI: Would you like the parlourmaid to bring it?

  THE JUDGE: No, just show us where it’s kept.

  Matti serves them with a ladle. Exit Fina.

  THE LAWYER: That’s great stuff.

  THE JUDGE: I always have that after my shower at Puntila’s.

  THE LAWYER: These Finnish summer nights!

  THE JUDGE: They make a lot of work for me. All those paternity cases are a great tribute to the Finnish summer night. The courthouse brings it home to you what a nice place a birch wood is, as for the river they can’t go near it without going weak all over. One woman up before me blamed the hay, said it smelt so strong. Picking berries is a bad mistake and milking the cows brings its penalties. Each bush by the roadside needs to be surrounded with barbed wire. In the baths they separate the sexes, or else the temptation would be too great, then afterwards they go strolling across the meadows together. It’s just impossible to stop them in summer. If they’re on bicycles they jump off them, if there’s a hayloft they climb in it; in the kitchen it happens because of the heat, and in the open because there’s a cool wind. Half the time they’re making babies ‘cause the summer’s so short, and the other half ‘cause the winter’s so long.

  THE LAWYER: What I like is the way the old people are allowed to take part too. I’m thinking of the witnesses that come along. They see it. They see the couple disappearing into the coppice, they see the clogs on the barn floor and how hot the girl looks when she gets back from picking bilberries, which is something nobody gets all that hot over ‘cause nobody works all that hard at it. And they don’t just see, they hear. Milk churns rattle, bedsteads creak. That way they join in with their eyes and ears and get something out of the summer.

  THE JUDGE, since there is a ring on the bell, to Matti: Perhaps you’d go and see what it is they want? Or we could always tell them that the eight-hour day is being taken seriously out here.

  Exit with the lawyer. Matti has sat down to read his paper once more.

  EVA enters with an ultra-long cigarette holder and a seductive walk picked up from the films: I rang for you. Is there anything more you have to do here?

  MATTI: No, I’m not on again till six a.m.

  EVA: I wondered if you’d like to row over to the island with me and catch a few crayfish for my engagement party tomorrow.

  MATTI: Isn’t it about time for bed?

  EVA: I’m not a bit tired. I don’t seem to sleep very well in the summer, I don’t know why. Could you go off to sleep if you went to bed right now?

  MATTI: Yes.

  EVA: I envy you. Will you get out the nets, then? My father has expressed a desire for crayfish. She turns on her heel and starts to leave, again showing off the walk picked up from the cinema.

  MATTI, changing his mind: I think I’ll come after all. I’ll row you.

  EVA: Aren’t you too tired?

  MATTI: I’ve woken up and feel fine now. Only you’d better get changed into something you can go wading in.

  EVA: The nets are in the pantry. Exit.

  Matti puts on his jacket.

  EVA, reappearing in very short shorts: But you haven’t got the nets out.

  MATTI: We’ll catch them in our hands. It’s much nicer. I’ll show you how.

  EVA: But it’s easier with nets.

  MATTI: The other day Cook and I and the parlourmaid were over on the island and we did it with our hands and it was very nice, you ask them. I’m pretty nippy. How about you? Lots of folk are all thumbs. Of course the crayfish move quick and it’s slippery on the rocks, but it’s quite light out, just a few clouds, I had a look.

  EVA, hesitating: I’d sooner we used the nets. We’ll catch more.

  MATTI: Have we got to have such a lot?

  EVA: Father won’t eat anything unless there’s lots of it.

  MATTI: That’s bad. I thought we could catch one or two, then have a bit of a talk. It’s a nice night.

  EVA: Don’t keep saying everything’s nice. You’d do better to get out the nets.

  MATTI: Why d’you have to be so serious and bloodthirsty about the poor old crayfish? If we fill a couple of bags it ought to do. I know a place where there are lots of them; five minutes’ work and we’d have enough to convince anybody.

  EVA: What do you mean by that? Are you in the least interested in catching crayfish?

  MATTI after a pause: Perhaps it is a bit late. I got to be up at six and take the Studebaker down to the station to collect the Attache. If we’re mucking about on the island till three or four there won’t be much time left for sleep. Of course I could row you over if you’re dead set on it.

  Eva turns without a word and goes out. Mat
ti takes off his jacket and sits down with his paper. Enter Laina from the bath.

  LAINA: Fina and the milkmaid are asking if you don’t feel like coming down to the lake. They’re having some fun there.

  MATTI: I’m tired. I was over at the hiring fair, then before that I had to take the tractor out on the heath and both the tow-ropes broke.

  LAINA: Same here. All this baking’s fair killed me. I’ve no use for engagements. But I had to tear myself away to come to bed, I really did, it’s so light still and a shame to waste time sleeping. Looks out of the window as she leaves. I might just go back for a bit, the groom’s got his harmonica out and I like that. Exit dead tired but still dogged.

  EVA enters: I want you to take me to the station.

  MATTI: It’ll take me five minutes to bring the car round. I’ll wait at the front door.

  EVA: Good. I notice you don’t ask me what I’m going for.

  MATTI: I’d say you were thinking of catching the 11.10 to Helsinki.

  EVA: Anyway that doesn’t surprise you, I see.

  MATTI: What d’you mean, surprise? It changes nothing and leads to very little when chauffeurs are surprised. It’s seldom noticed and has no significance.

  EVA: I’m going to Brussels for a few weeks to stay with a girlfriend, and I don’t want to bother my father about it. You’ll have to lend me 200 marks for my ticket. My father will pay it back as soon as I write.

  MATTI unenthusiastic: I see.

  EVA: I hope you aren’t anxious about the money. Even if my father doesn’t care who I get engaged to he wouldn’t particularly want to be indebted to you.

  MATTI cautiously: Suppose I let you have it, I’m not sure he would feel all that indebted.

  EVA after a pause: Please forgive me for having asked you.

  MATTI: I’d have thought your father would care all right if you go off in the middle of the night just before your engagement party, when the dinner’s in the oven, so to speak. He may have said unthinking-like that you could make do with me, but you mustn’t hold that against him. Your father’s acting all for your best, Miss Eva. He told me as much. When he’s pissed – I mean when he’s had a glass or two more than he should – then he’s not clear what your best is, he just goes by instinct. But once he’s sobered up he’s a very intelligent man again and buys you an Attache who’s value for money, and you become Ambassadress in Paris or Estonia or somewhere and can do as you please if you feel like something on a fine evening, and if you don’t you won’t have to.