Bertolt Brecht: Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder 5

by Bertolt Brecht

  THE OTHER NUN: Did you come from here? Galileo nods. This is the street!

  The two nuns cross themselves, mumble a Hail Mary and hurry away. A man goes by.

  GALILEO addresses him: Aren’t you the baker that delivers our bread to us? The man nods. Have you seen my housekeeper? She must have left last night. She hasn’t been around all day.

  The man shakes his head. A window is opened across the way and a woman looks out.

  WOMAN yelling: Hurry! They’ve got the plague opposite! The man runs off horrified.

  GALILEO: Have you heard anything about my housekeeper?

  WOMAN: Your housekeeper collapsed in the street up there.

  She must have realised. That’s why she went. So inconsiderate!

  She slams the window shut.

  Children come down the street. They see Galileo and run away screaming. Galileo turns round; two soldiers hurry up, encased in armour.

  SOLDIERS: Get right back indoors!

  They push Galileo back into his house with their long pikes.

  They bolt the door behind him.

  GALILEO at the window: Can you tell me what happened to the woman?

  SOLDIERS: They throw them on the heap.

  WOMAN reappears at the window: That whole street back there is infected. Why can’t you close it off?

  The soldiers rope the street off.

  WOMAN: But that way nobody can get into our house. This part doesn’t have to be closed off. This part’s all right. Stop it! Stop! Can’t you listen? My husband’s still in town, he won’t be able to get through to us. You animals! She can be heard inside weeping and screaming. The soldiers leave. At another window an old woman appears.

  GALILEO: That must be a fire back there.

  THE OLD WOMAN: They’ve stopped putting them out where there’s any risk of infection. All they can think about is the plague.

  GALILEO: Just like them. It’s their whole system of government. Chopping us off like the diseased branch of some barren figtree.

  THE OLD WOMAN: That’s not fair. It’s just that they’re powerless.

  GALILEO: Are you the only one in your house?

  THE OLD WOMAN: Yes. My son sent me a note. Thank God he got a message last night to say somebody back there had died, so he didn’t come home. There were eleven cases in our district during the night.

  GALILEO: I blame myself for not making my housekeeper leave in time. I had some urgent work, but she had no call to stay.

  THE OLD WOMAN: We can’t leave either. Who’s to take us in? No need for you to blame yourself. I saw her. She left early this morning, around seven o’clock. She must have been ill; when she saw me coming out to fetch in the bread she deliberately kept away from me. She didn’t want them to close off your house. But they’re bound to find out.

  A rattling sound is heard.

  GALILEO: What’s that?

  THE OLD WOMAN: They’re trying to make noises to drive away the clouds with the plague seeds in them. Galileo roars with laughter.

  THE OLD WOMAN: Fancy being able to laugh now.

  A man comes down the street and finds it roped off.

  GALILEO: Hey, you! This street’s closed off and I’ve nothing to eat. Hey! Hey!

  The man has quickly hurried away.

  THE OLD WOMAN: They may bring something. If not I can leave a jug of milk outside your door tonight, if you’re not scared.

  GALILEO: Hey! Hey! Can’t anybody hear us? All of a sudden Andrea is standing by the rope. He looks desperate.

  GALILEO: Andrea! How did you get here?

  ANDREA: I was here first thing. I knocked but you didn’t open your door. They told me you …

  GALILEO: Didn’t you go off in the carriage?

  ANDREA: Yes. But I managed to jump out. Virginia went on. Can’t I come in?

  THE OLD WOMAN: No, you can’t. You’ll have to go to the Ursulines. Your mother may be there.

  ANDREA: I’ve been. But they wouldn’t let me see her. She’s too ill.

  GALILEO: Did you walk the whole way back? It’s three days since you left, you know.

  ANDREA: It took all that time. Don’t be cross with me. They arrested me once.

  GALILEO helplessly: Don’t cry. You know, I’ve found out lots of things since you went. Shall I tell you? Andrea nods between his sobs. Listen carefully or you won’t understand. You remember me showing you the planet Venus? Don’t bother about that noise, it’s nothing. Can you remember? You know what I saw? It’s like the moon! I’ve seen it as a half circle and I’ve seen it as a sickle. What d’you say to that? I can demonstrate the whole thing to you with a lamp and a small ball. That proves it’s yet another planet with no light of its own. And it turns round the sun in a simple circle; isn’t that marvellous?

  ANDREA sobbing: Yes, and that’s a fact.

  GALILEO quietly: I never asked her to stay.

  Andrea says nothing.

  GALILEO: But of course if I hadn’t stayed myself it wouldn’t have happened.

  ANDREA: They’ll have to believe you now, won’t they?

  GALILEO: I’ve got all the proofs I need now. Once this is over, I tell you, I shall go to Rome and show them.

  Down the street come two masked men with long poles and buckets. They use these to pass bread through the window to Galileo and the old woman.

  THE OLD WOMAN: And there’s a woman across there with three children. Leave something for her too.

  GALILEO: But I’ve got nothing to drink. There’s no water left in the house. The two shrug their shoulders. Will you be coming back tomorrow?

  ONE MAN in a muffled voice, since he has a rag over his mouth:

  Who knows what’ll happen tomorrow?

  GALILEO: If you do come, could you bring me a small book I need for my work?

  THE MAN gives a stifled laugh: As if a book could make any difference. You’ll be lucky if you get bread.

  GALILEO: But this boy is my pupil, and he’ll be there and can give it you for me. It’s the chart giving the periodicity of Mercury, Andrea: I’ve mislaid it. Can you get me one from the school.

  The men have gone on.

  ANDREA: Of course. I’ll get it, Mr Galilei. Exit. Galileo likewise goes in. The old woman comes out of the house opposite and puts a jug outside Galileo’s door.

  6

  1616. The Vatican research institute, the Collegium Romanum, confirms Galileo’s findings

  Things take indeed a wondrous turn

  When learned men do stoop to learn.

  Clavius, we are pleased to say

  Upheld Galileo Galilei.

  Hall of the Collegium Romanum in Rome. It is night-time. High ecclesiastics, monks and scholars in groups. On his own, to one side, Galileo. The atmosphere is extremely hilarious. Before the beginning of the scene a great wave of laughter is heard.

  A FAT PRELATE clasps his belly with laughing: Stupidity! Stupidity! I’d like to hear a proposition that people won’t believe.

  A SCHOLAR: For instance: that you have an incurable aversion to meals, Monsignor.

  A FAT PRELATE: They’d believe it; they’d believe it. Things have to make sense to be disbelieved. That Satan exists: that’s something they doubt. But that the earth spins round like a marble in the gutter; that’s believed all right. O sancta simplicitas!

  A MONK play-acting-. I’m getting giddy. The earth’s spinning round too fast. Permit me to hold on to you, professor. He pretends to lurch and clutches one of the scholars.

  THE SCHOLAR following suit: Yes, the old girl has been on the bottle again.

  He clutches another.

  THE MONK: Stop, stop! We’re skidding off. Stop, I said!

  A SECOND SCHOLAR: Venus is all askew. I can only see one half of her backside. Help!

  A group of laughing monks forms, acting as if they were doing their best not to be swept off a ship’s deck in a storm.

  A SECOND MONK: As long as we aren’t flung on to the moon!

  It’s said to have terribly sharp peaks, m
y brethren.

  THE FIRST SCHOLAR: Dig your heels in and resist.

  THE FIRST MONK: And don’t look down. I’m losing my balance.

  THE FAT PRELATE intentionally loudly, aiming at Galileo: Oh, that’s impossible. Nobody is unbalanced in the Collegium Romanum.

  Much laughter. Two of the Collegium astronomers enter from a door. There is a silence.

  A MONK: Are you still going over it? That’s scandalous.

  THE FIRST ASTRONOMER angrily: Not us.

  THE SECOND ASTRONOMER: What’s this meant to lead to? I don’t understand Clavius’s attitude … One can’t treat everything as gospel that has been put forward in the past fifty years. In 1572 a new star appeared in the eighth and highest sphere, the sphere of the fixed stars, which seemed larger and more brilliant than all the stars round it, and within eighteen months it had gone out and been annihilated. Does that mean we must question the eternity and immutability of the heavens?

  PHILOSOPHER: Give them half a chance and they’ll smash up the whole starry sky.

  THE FIRST ASTRONOMER: Yes, what are we coming to? Five years later Tycho Brahe in Denmark established the course of a comet. It started above the moon and broke through one crystal sphere after another, the solid supports on which all the moving of the heavenly bodies depend. It encountered no obstacles, there was no deflection of its light. Does that mean we must doubt the existence of the spheres?

  THE PHILOSOPHER: It’s out of the question. As Italy’s and the Church’s greatest astronomer, how can Christopher Clavius stoop to examine such a proposition?

  THE FAT PRELATE: Outrageous.

  THE FIRST ASTRONOMER: He is examining it, though. He’s sitting in there staring through that diabolical tube.

  THE SECOND ASTRONOMER: Principiis obsta! It all started when we began reckoning so many things – the length of the solar year, the dates of solar and lunar eclipses, the position of the heavenly bodies – according to the tables established by Copernicus, who was a heretic.

  A MONK: Which is better, I ask you: to have an eclipse of the moon happen three days later than the calendar says, or never to have eternal salvation at all?

  A VERY THIN MONK comes forward with an open Bible, fanatically thrusting his finger at a certain passage: What do the Scriptures say? “Sun, stand thou still on Gibeon and thou, moon, in the valley of Ajalon.” How can the sun stand still if it never moves at all as suggested by this heretic? Are the Scriptures lying?

  THE FIRST ASTRONOMER: No, and that’s why we walked out.

  THE SECOND ASTRONOMER: There are phenomena that present difficulties for us astronomers, but does mankind have to understand everything? Both go out.

  THE VERY THIN MONK: They degrade humanity’s dwelling place to a wandering star. Men, animals, plants and the kingdoms of the earth get packed on a cart and driven in a circle round an empty sky. Heaven and earth are no longer distinct, according to them. Heaven because it is made of earth, and earth because it is just one more heavenly body. There is no more difference between top and bottom, between eternal and ephemeral. That we are short-lived we know. Now they tell us that heaven is short-lived too. There are sun, moon and stars, and we live on the earth, it used to be said, and so the Book has it; but now these people are saying the earth is another star. Wait till they say man and animal are not distinct either, man himself is an animal, there’s nothing but animals!

  THE FIRST SCHOLAR to Galileo: Mr Galilei, you’ve let something fall.

  GALILEO who had meanwhile taken his stone from his pocket, played with it and finally allowed it to drop on the floor, bending to pick it up: Rise, monsignor; I let it rise.

  THE FAT PRELATE turning round: An arrogant fellow.

  Enter a very old cardinal supported by a monk. They respectfully make way for him.

  THE VERY OLD CARDINAL: Are they still in there? Can’t they settle such a trivial matter more quickly? Clavius must surely know his astronomy. I am told that this Mr Galilei moves mankind away from the centre of the universe and dumps it somewhere on the edge. Clearly this makes him an enemy of the human race. We must treat him as such. Mankind is the crown of creation, as every child knows, God’s highest and dearest creature. How could He take something so miraculous, the fruit of so much effort, and lodge it on a remote, minor, constantly elusive star? Would he send His Son to such a place? How can there be people so perverse as to pin their faith to these slaves of the multiplication table! Which of God’s creatures would stand for anything like that?

  THE FAT PRELATE murmurs: The gentleman is present.

  THE VERY OLD CARDINAL to Galileo: It’s you, is it? You know, my eyesight is not what it was, but I can still see one thing: that you bear a remarkable likeness to what’s-his-name, you know, the man we burned.

  THE MONK: Your Eminence should avoid excitement. The doctor …

  THE VERY OLD CARDINAL shakes him off. To Galileo: You want to debase the earth even though you live on it and derive everything from it. You are fouling your own nest. But I for one am not going to stand for that. He pushes the monk away and begins proudly striding to and fro. I am not just any old creature on any insignificant star briefly circling in no particular place. I am walking with a firm step, on a fixed earth, it is motionless, it is the centre of the universe, I am at the centre and the eye of the Creator falls upon me and me alone. Round about me, attached to eight crystal spheres, revolve the fixed stars and the mighty sun which has been created to light my surroundings. And myself too, that God may see me. In this way everything comes visibly and incontrovertibly to depend on me, mankind, God’s great effort, the creature on whom it all centres, made in God’s own image, indestructible and … He collapses.

  THE MONK: Your Eminence has overstrained himself.

  At this moment the door at the back opens and the great Clavius enters at the head of his astronomers. Swiftly and in silence he crosses the hall without looking to one side or the other and addresses a monk as he is on the way out.

  CLAVIUS: He’s right. He leaves, followed by the astronomers. The door at the back remains open. Deadly silence. The very old cardinal recovers consciousness.

  THE VERY OLD CARDINAL: What’s that? Have they reached a conclusion?

  Nobody dares tell him.

  THE MONK: Your Eminence must be taken home. The old man is assisted out. All leave the hall, worried. A little monk from Clavius’s committee of experts pauses beside Galileo.

  THE LITTLE MONK confidentially: Mr Galilei, before he left Father Clavius said: Now it’s up to the theologians to see how they can straighten out the movements of the heavens once more. You’ve won. Exit.

  GALILEO tries to hold him back: It has won. Not me: reason has won.

  The little monk has already left. Galileo too starts to go. In the doorway he encounters a tall cleric, the Cardinal Inquisitor, who is accompanied by an astronomer. Galileo bows. Before going out he whispers a question to the guard at the door.

  GUARD whispers back: His Eminence the Cardinal Inquisitor. The astronomer leads the Cardinal Inquisitor up to the telescope.

  7

  But the Inquisition puts Copernicus’s teachings on the Index (March 5th, 1616)

  When Galileo was in Rome

  A cardinal asked him to his home.

  He wined and dined him as his guest

  And only made one small request.

  Cardinal Bellarmin’s house in Rome. A ball is in progress. In the vestibule, where two clerical secretaries are playing chess and making notes about the guests, Galileo is received with applause by a small group of masked ladies and gentlemen. He arrives accompanied by his daughter Virginia and her fiance Ludovico Marsili.

  VIRGINIA: I’m not dancing with anybody else, Ludovico.

  LUDOVICO: Your shoulder-strap’s undone.

  GALILEO:

  Fret not, daughter, if perchance

  You attract a wanton glance.

  The eyes that catch a trembling lace

  Will guess the heartbeat’s quickened
pace.

  Lovely woman still may be Careless with felicity.

  VIRGINIA: Feel my heart.

  GALILEO puts bis band on her heart: It’s thumping.

  VIRGINIA: I’d like to look beautiful.

  GALILEO: You’d better, or they’ll go back to wondering whether it turns or not.

  LUDOVICO: Of course it doesn’t turn. Galileo laughs. Rome is talking only of you. But after tonight, sir, they will be talking about your daughter.

  GALILEO: It’s supposed to be easy to look beautiful in the Roman spring. Even I shall start looking like an overweight Adonis. To the secretaries: I am to wait here for his Eminence the Cardinal. To the couple: Go off and enjoy yourselves. Before they leave for the hall offstage Virginia again comes running back.

  VIRGINIA: Father, the hairdresser in the Via del Trionfo took me first, and he made four other ladies wait. He knew your name right away. Exit.

  GALILEO to the secretaries as they play chess: How can you go on playing old-style chess? Cramped, cramped. Nowadays the play is to let the chief pieces roam across the whole board. The rooks like this – he demonstrates – and the bishops like that and the Queen like this and that. That way you have enough space and can plan ahead.

  FIRST SECRETARY: It wouldn’t go with our small salaries, you know. We can only do moves like this. He makes a small move.

  GALILEO: You’ve got it wrong, my friend, quite wrong. If you live grandly enough you can afford to sweep the board. One has to move with the times, gentlemen. Not just hugging the coasts; sooner or later one has to venture out. The very old cardinal from the previous scene crosses the stage, led by his monk. He notices Galileo, walks past him, turns round hesitantly and greets him. Galileo sits down. From the ballroom boys’ voices are heard singing Lorenzo di Medici’s famous poem on transience,

  I who have seen the summer’s roses die

  And all their petals pale and shrivelled lie

  Upon the chilly ground, I know the truth:

  How evanescent is the flower of youth.

  GALILEO: Rome – A large party?

  THE FIRST SECRETARY: The first carnival since the plague years. All Italy’s great families are represented here tonight. The Orsinis, the Villanis, the Nuccolis, the Soldanieris, the Canes, the Lecchis, the d’Estes, the Colombinis …