Bertolt Brecht: Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder 1

by Bertolt Brecht

  GROOM: Sharp tongue you’ve got. May I?

  WIFE: Don’t you want the first dance with your wife?

  GROOM: Of course. Come on, Maria.

  BRIDE: No, I want to dance with Hans.

  SISTER: Who am I to dance with, then?

  BRIDE TO husband: Aren’t you dancing?

  HUSBAND: No. My wife’ll never let me hear the last of it if I do.

  SISTER: You ought to dance. Otherwise I’ve got to sit and watch.

  HUSBAND: It’s not fair if I don’t want to. Gets up and gives her his arm.

  FRIEND sits on the sofa with his guitar: I can play a waltz. Begins to play.

  They dance: the groom with the wife, the bride with the young man, the sister with the husband.

  WIFE: Faster! Faster! It’s like a roundabout. They dance quite fast, then stop.

  WIFE: That’s what I call classy. Not bad dancing. She sits heavily on the sofa. It cracks. The wife and the friend jump up.

  FRIEND: It went crack.

  WIFE: Something’s broken. It’s my fault.

  GROOM: Doesn’t matter. I’ll mend it.

  WIFE: Yes, you know all about furniture. That’s the main thing.

  BRIDE: It must have been too fast for you to make you come down like that.

  WIFE: Yes, that husband of yours does swing one round.

  SISTER: Didn’t you enjoy it?

  HUSBAND: Today I did. Oh yes.

  WIFE: You should watch that heart of yours.

  HUSBAND: You worried?

  WIFE: I have to carry the can always.

  GROOM: Shall we sit down again?

  BRIDE to the friend: You play wonderfully.

  FRIEND: It’s easy when I see you dancing.

  GROOM: Cut the chatter. Let’s sit down. How did you like that dance?

  YOUNG MAN: Very much. Aren’t we going to go on?

  GROOM: No.

  FATHER: Can’t we have some wine? Helps the conversation.

  GROOM: Let’s just put the table back in the middle. Does so, helped by the young man. But carefully this time. The mother brings wine. The chairs are pushed back, and all sit.

  WIFE: Sing something. I love it when people sing.

  FRIEND: I’m not much of a singer.

  GROOM: Doesn’t matter. Just sing so there’s some sort of entertainment.

  WIFE: My husband sings now and again. He can play the guitar too.

  YOUNG MAN: Oh yes, do play.

  WIFE: Here’s the guitar.

  HUSBAND: I’m too out of practice.

  SISTER: Go on, do.

  HUSBAND: Suppose I get stuck …

  WIFE: You always do.

  SISTER: Just once.

  HUSBAND: I might be able to, just once.

  WIFE: He used to play a lot, but since we’ve been together he’s stopped. He just concentrates on being a bore. He used to know a whole heap of songs, then he forgot most of them; there were less and less of them he could get through, he got stuck more and more often, you’d think he was going senile, till in the end he could only manage one single song. You’d better sing it now.

  HUSBAND: All right, I’ll sing it. Tunes guitar, and begins, lively:

  The ghost of Liebenau, o hear!

  Who many a …

  Stops.

  Who many a … I don’t know … Now I’ve forgotten that one too … It was the only one I had left …

  WIFE: Senile.

  GROOM: Doesn’t matter. I can’t sing at all.

  YOUNG MAN: How about dancing a bit more?

  FRIEND: Yes, a good idea. Me too this time. You can play a waltz, can’t you? A major with the seventh. Please, Frau Maria, it’s my turn now.

  WIFE: I’ve had enough.

  GROOM: We’ll watch, then.

  FATHER: Maria dances nicely.

  The bride and the friend dance.

  HUSBAND strums guitar: A major: there we are.

  FRIEND: You’re a wonderful dancer. Faster.

  GROOM: Don’t fall over, that’s all.

  WIFE to the groom: Catch me dancing like that.

  SISTER: Could you?

  WIFE: Depends on the man.

  FRIEND breaking off: It gets into your veins. Here’s your wife. She’s a classy dancer. May I have a drink, though?

  FATHER: Why don’t we sit at the table again? Nobody can talk like this.

  GROOM: Yes, do sit down. To the bride, quietly: Unless you’d rather go on dancing?

  BRIDE: Let’s sit a different way this time. To the friend: You sit here. And do you mind sitting – to the wife – there?

  The wife sits next to the groom. Dad, you sit at the head.

  GROOM opening bottles: Now, let’s drink. To comfort and cosiness.

  YOUNG MAN: In your own home.

  FRIEND: That you made yourself.

  FATHER: Cheers. When you were in short skirts, Maria, you had a drop of wine once. Your grandfather was delighted. He wanted you to dance, but you went to sleep instead.

  WIFE: So you’d better not drink today, eh?

  HUSBAND: I’ve never seen anyone dance better.

  FRIEND: I’m in smashing form now. It was a bit sticky here earlier. Apart from that, wonderful. Gets up: What the …?

  Looks at the chair. There’s something caught here.

  BRIDE: Have you hurt yourself?

  FRIEND: A splinter.

  GROOM: Doesn’t matter.

  FRIEND: The chair doesn’t. But those are my best trousers.

  GROOM: Do you mean to say you put them on in my honour?

  FRIEND: Yes; but now I’m going to sing.

  GROOM: Don’t if you don’t really want to.

  FRIEND taking the guitar: But I do want to.

  GROOM: I mean, if you feel put out …

  FRIEND: I’m not put out.

  GROOM: On account of your trousers.

  FRIEND: Set that off against the dance.

  FATHER: There’s a providence rough-hews our ends. That was another of Forst’s sayings.

  FRIEND sings the ‘Ballad of Chastity in a Major Key’:

  See them melting with desire!

  Mine! he thought. If she is free.

  And the darkness fanned their fire.

  And she thought: just him and me.

  And he said: ‘I’ll never hurt you.’

  Not a girl of easy virtue

  And she didn’t want to be.

  Oh, their fingers’ sweet sensations

  As with beating heart she lay!

  What about his hesitations?

  Each of them could only pray.

  And he said: ‘I mustn’t hurt you.’

  Not a girl of easy virtue

  (Not yet having learnt the way …)

  Sooner than profane that moment

  Off he went to find a tart

  Who could teach him what to come meant

  Helping nature out with art.

  But he found the pace was killing:

  Once he had been very willing

  Now he swore to stay apart.

  Still red-hot, but still unsullied

  Quick release was now her prayer

  So she found herself a solid

  Chap who simply didn’t care.

  (And who beat her something horrid

  Laying her across the stair.)

  Being manhandled rejoiced her -

  Not for her the holy cloister -

  And at last the urge was there.

  So he sees his hesitation

  To have been entirely right:

  Thinks it was by inspiration

  That he spared her that May night.

  She’s all vice now, he’s all virtue:

  Each is anxious to alert you

  Not to play with dynamite.

  The wife laughs.

  GROOM: I know that one. One of your best songs. To the wife: Did you like it? I’ll go and get some wine.

  FRIEND: Yes, it is good. Specially the moral. To the bride: Did you like it?

  BRIDE:
I’m not sure I understood it.

  WIFE: Anyway, it wasn’t meant for you.

  FATHER anxiously: Where’s Ina?

  BRIDE: Don’t ask me.

  GROOM: Herr Mildner’s missing too. Why was he asked, anyway?

  BRIDE: He’s the porter’s son.

  GROOM: Oh, a menial.

  BRIDE: They must have gone out.

  FATHER: Then they didn’t hear the song. That’s just as well. Go and look, Maria.

  WIFE: Perhaps they did understand it.

  HUSBAND: And your mother’s in the kitchen.

  GROOM: Making blancmange.

  BRIDE in a low voice to him: I thought that was smutty.

  GROOM: After you’d danced with him like that.

  BRIDE: I’m ashamed.

  GROOM: Of the way you danced?

  BRIDE: No: of the sort of friends you have.

  FRIEND: I don’t know when I’ve felt in better form. When I’ve had a drink or two I feel like God.

  GROOM: You mean when God has had a drink or two he feels like an office clerk.

  FRIEND laughs, a little piqued: That’s very good. What’s made you so witty all of a sudden?

  HUSBAND: That reminds me of a story. One day God tried to go for a walk incognito. He forgot to put his tie on, so they recognized him at once and put him in a mental home.

  FRIEND: You’ve told it all wrong. It ruins the whole point of the story.

  FATHER: That was a good one. But Joe Schmidt really was sent to a mental home. It was like this …

  The sister, the bride, and the young man come in.

  SISTER: We’ve been helping Mother with the blancmange.

  GROOM: Doesn’t matter. We’re all in excellent form here. We’ve been swapping stories.

  YOUNG MAN: It’s going to be a smashing blancmange.

  WIFE: Made it on the cooker, did you?

  SISTER: No. Blancmange is never made on the cooker in this house.

  WIFE: I only thought you’d say you made it on the cooker because the two of you have got such red faces. Laughs and drops into a chair. Oh! Gets up.

  FRIEND: Was that something going?

  WIFE: Oh dear, the chair …

  GROOM: It can’t have. You can bounce about on that as much as you like. Two-inch pegs, I used.

  WIFE: I’m not going to risk sitting on it any more. I’ll sit on the sofa.

  SISTER: You’ve already sat there. A leg’s come off.

  FRIEND feeling under her chair: There really is something wrong here. It isn’t a splinter this time. But better watch out for your clothes.

  GROOM coming across: Oh yes, that chair was a bit of a teaser. I ran out of pegs. I didn’t realize it was that one, or I’d have asked you to sit somewhere else.

  BRIDE: Then it would have been that one.

  HUSBAND: Here’s one going begging.

  Silence.

  MOTHER: Here’s the blancmange. And the mulled claret.

  FRIEND: Splendid. Mulled claret. He sprawls in his chair. That was just one of the arms. And I haven’t torn anything. Let’s have a drink. The arm of the chair is broken.

  GROOM: That’s more like it. Cheers.

  ALL: Cheers.

  GROOM: And here’s to you, Mother.

  MOTHER: Don’t splash your nice waistcoat with the wine. There’s a spot on it already.

  FATHER: Talking of chairs … Rosenberg and Co. used to have chairs for the customers in their office with the seats so low your knees came up to your chin. You felt so much at home that Rosenberg and Co. got rich on it. He got a better place and better fittings, but he kept the chairs. He used to say in a very emotional way, ‘That’s the kind of simple furniture I started out with. May God punish me for my pride if I ever forget it.’

  WIFE: I didn’t ask your chairs to break. It’s not my fault.

  HUSBAND: No one said it was.

  WIFE: That’s just it. You want to put me in the wrong.

  FRIEND: I detect a discordant note. Shall I get my guitar and sing something?

  GROOM: Aren’t you tired?

  FRIEND: What from?

  GROOM: Dancing, drinking. With your stomach trouble.

  FRIEND: I have not got stomach trouble.

  GROOM: You’re always taking bicarbonate of soda.

  FRIEND: That doesn’t make me ill by a long chalk.

  GROOM: It was only in your own interest.

  FRIEND: Thanks, but I’m not tired.

  Pause.

  YOUNG MAN: Have you been to see that play Baal?

  HUSBAND: Yes; it’s a load of filth.

  YOUNG MAN: A lot of punch in it, though.

  HUSBAND: All right: so it’s a load of filth with punch in it. That’s worse than having none. It’s no excuse for a man to say that he’s got a gift for writing filth. Filth should be kept off the stage.

  Pause.

  FATHER: Those modern writers are always dragging family life in the mud. When it’s the best thing we Germans have.

  FRIEND: True enough.

  Pause.

  GROOM: Well. Now cheer up, everyone. I don’t get married every day. Drink up, and don’t sit there like a lot of stiffs. Look, I’m going to take my coat off. He does so.

  Pause.

  FRIEND: Got any cards? We might play pontoon.

  GROOM: They’re in the cupboard.

  WIFE: Which won’t open.

  FRIEND: You might do it with a crowbar.

  BRIDE: Be serious.

  FRIEND: Well, you’ll have to get it open some time.

  BRIDE: But not today.

  GROOM: Just to get a few cards out.

  FRIEND rudely: All right, then you tell us just what else one can do in this place.

  WIFE: It might be the moment to look at the rest of the furniture.

  GROOM: That’s an idea. I’ll lead the way.

  All get up.

  SISTER: I think I’ll go on sitting here.

  BRIDE: All by yourself? You can’t.

  SISTER: Why not?

  BRIDE: Because there are limits.

  SISTER: Then let me tell you I didn’t want to get up because the chair’s bust.

  BRIDE: How did you bust it?

  SISTER: It just went.

  FRIEND feeling the chair: As long as you take care and sit down gently it won’t matter.

  FATHER: Perhaps we could go and look at the rest of the furniture now.

  FRIEND quietly to the wife: The table’s still intact.

  GROOM: They’re nothing special really …

  WIFE: So long as they hold up.

  GROOM: Come on, Maria.

  BRIDE stays seated: I’ll be along in a minute. You go on.

  All leave through the centre door. As they go:

  WIFE to the friend: The bridegroom’s taken his jacket off.

  FRIEND: That’s rash of him. No holds barred now.

  The bride sits at the table and snivels.

  GROOM: I must go and look for the torch; something’s wrong with the wiring.

  BRIDE: Why didn’t you get a proper electrician to do it?

  GROOM: What’s the matter with you? I didn’t care for the way your sister behaved, either.

  BRIDE: How about your friend?

  GROOM: That’s no way to dance if you want to keep people’s respect.

  BRIDE: And Mildner too. All that stuff about the pure young bride was deliberate. I went all red, and everybody noticed. He kept staring at me, too. And then that awful song. He’s been getting his own back for something.

  GROOM: Those dirty jokes. All because he thought you’re the sort of person it doesn’t matter with.

  BRIDE: Don’t forget he’s your friend. And I’m not that sort of person.

  GROOM: How can we get rid of them? There they are, stuffing themselves, smoking, chattering away; they just don’t want to go. After all it’s our party.

  BRIDE: A nice party!

  GROOM: Don’t act that way. Once they’ve gone …

  BRIDE: They’ve spoilt every
thing now.

  GROOM: I wish we were alone. Here they are.

  BRIDE: I don’t want them to go. That’ll be even worse.

  GROOM puts his coat on again quickly: It’s chillier than I thought.

  The others appear in the door.

  FATHER: We had to wait in the kitchen as the bedroom light wasn’t working.

  FRIEND: Are we intruding?

  The wife has a fit of laughter.

  HUSBAND: What is it now?

  WIFE: It’s so funny.

  HUSBAND: What’s funny?

  WIFE: Everything. Everything. The broken chairs, the homemade furniture. The entertainment. Laughs horribly.

  BRIDE: Emmy, really!

  WIFE: All broken. Laughing, she drops into a chair which breaks. There goes another. There goes another. Now I’ll have to sit on the floor.

  FRIEND joins in the laughter: That’s a fact. We ought to have brought camp stools.

  HUSBAND grabs his wife: You must be ill. If you go around behaving like that and the furniture breaks it won’t be the furniture’s fault. To the groom: I’m sorry.

  FRIEND: Let’s sit down as best we can. So long as we keep cheerful that’s all that counts.

  They sit.

  SISTER: A pity we couldn’t see. The beds are really very nice.

  WIFE: No, the light didn’t work either.

  BRIDE: Won’t you fetch some more wine, Jacob?

  GROOM: It’s in the cellar. Let’s have the key.

  BRIDE: Just a moment.

  They go out.

  WIFE: There’s a peculiar smell here too.

  FRIEND: It didn’t seem to be there before.

  SISTER: I don’t smell anything.

  WIFE: I know what it is. It’s the glue.

  FRIEND: That’s why they wanted that eau-de-Cologne I gave them. An entire half bottle.

  WIFE: But the smell of the glue’s coming through; there’s no hiding it now.

  The bride returns.

  FATHER: You’re a pretty sight, standing in the door like that. You always were pretty to look at, even as a child. But now you’re blooming.

  WIFE: That’s a well-cut frock.

  BRIDE: No camouflage needed, thank God.

  WIFE: Was that aimed at anybody?

  BRIDE: If the cap fits.

  WIFE: People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.

  BRIDE: And who’s in a glass house?

  WIFE: That frock’s a very good piece of work, because no one would imagine you were …

  FRIEND: Cheers. Fine wine, that.

  BRIDE crying: That’s, that’s …

  HUSBAND: What’s all this about?

  GROOM returns: Here’s the wine. What’s the matter with you?