JUDGE: Can you add any information?
GUIDE: In my eyes, what mattered to the merchant was reaching Urga as soon as possible, to secure an oil concession.
JUDGE to Leader 2: Would you say that the expedition ahead of you was travelling unusually fast?
LEADER: No, not unusually. They had a day’s lead and they held it.
JUDGE to Merchant: You must have been forcing the pace to maintain your lead.
MERCHANT: I forced the pace not at all. That was the guide’s concern.
JUDGE: Did the accused give you orders to drive the porter particularly hard?
GUIDE: I drove him no harder than usual – if anything less hard.
JUDGE: Why were you dismissed?
GUIDE: In the eyes of the merchant I was too familiar with the porter.
JUDGE: And that was forbidden? Would you say that this porter, with whom familiarity was forbidden, was difficult to handle?
GUIDE: No. He bore everything because, as he told me, he was afraid of being dismissed. He was not in a union.
JUDGE: Did he have much to bear? You must answer. And don’t consider your answers too carefully. We shall arrive at the truth in any case.
GUIDE: I was only there up to the outpost at Han.
LANDLORD to himself: Well done, guide.
JUDGE to Merchant: Did anything occur later which could explain the porter’s attack?
MERCHANT: No, nothing that could be laid to my account.
JUDGE: Listen here, you should not try to paint yourself whiter than you are. That is no help to your case. If your handling of the coolie was so perfect, how do you explain his hatred? Because it is only by making credible his hatred of you that you can make credible your own need for self-defence. Think well before you speak.
MERCHANT: I do have something to confess. I did strike him once.
JUDGE: I see. And from this one occasion the coolie conceived such a powerful hatred?
MERCHANT: No, but I did hold a revolver to his back when he didn’t want to cross the river. And in crossing the river he did break his arm. So that also was my fault.
JUDGE smiling: In the eyes of the coolie.
MERCHANT also smiling: That’s what I meant. In fact I pulled him out of the water.
JUDGE: All right. After the dismissal of the guide, you gave the coolie cause to hate you. And what about before? To the Guide, severely: Admit, after all, that the man hated the merchant. If one thinks about it, it’s really quite understandable. What could be more natural than that this man, who is badly paid, driven into danger at the point of a gun, actually injured for the sake of another man’s profit, risking his life for almost nothing, should hate the other man?
GUIDE: He didn’t hate him.
JUDGE: Let us now hear the evidence of the landlord of the outpost at Han in case he can tell us something which will make clearer our picture of the merchant’s relations with his men. To the Landlord: How did the merchant treat his men?
LANDLORD: Well.
JUDGE: Shall I clear the court? Do you fear you might lose custom if you speak the truth?
LANDLORD: No, it’s not necessary in this case.
JUDGE: As you wish.
LANDLORD: He even gave the guide tobacco. And never questioned what he owed the guide when he dismissed him. Also the coolie was well treated.
JUDGE: Your outpost is the last police call on the route?
LANDLORD: Yes, after that comes the uninhabited Yahi Desert.
JUDGE: I see. So the friendliness displayed by the merchant would be rather what we might call circumstantial, indeed temporary, could we say tactical, friendliness. Just as our officers in the war adopted a more comradely attitude towards the men as the army approached the front. This sort of friendliness has no great significance.
MERCHANT: For instance he always used to sing when he was on the march. I never heard him sing once after the time I put my revolver in his back to make him cross the river.
JUDGE: Clearly he felt very bitter. It is only natural that he should. Again we can take an illustration from the time of war, when it would have been quite understandable for simple people to say to us officers: yes, you are fighting your own war, but we are fighting your war. In the same way the coolie could say to the merchant: you are making money for yourself, but I am making money for you.
MERCHANT: I have another confession to make. When we lost our way, I divided the water from one bottle between us, but the second bottle I kept for myself.
JUDGE: Did he perhaps see you drinking from the second bottle?
MERCHANT: That was what I thought when he came for me with the stone in his hand. I knew he hated me. From the moment we’d come to uninhabited territory I’d been on my guard day and night. I had to assume that he’d take the first opportunity to attack me. If I hadn’t killed him when I did, he would have killed me.
WIFE: I would like to speak. He couldn’t have attacked him. He never attacked anybody in his life.
GUIDE to Wife: It’s all right. I’ve got the evidence of his innocence in my pocket.
JUDGE: Did anyone find the stone with which the coolie was about to make his attack?
LEADER 2: That man – indicating the Guide – took it from the dead man’s hand.
The Guide holds out the bottle.
JUDGE: Is that the stone? Do you recognise it?
MERCHANT: Yes, that’s the stone.
GUIDE: And look what is inside the stone. He pours out water.
FIRST ASSESSOR: It is not a stone. It is a water-bottle. He was offering you water.
SECOND ASSESSOR: It seems after all that he was not making an attack.
GUIDE embracing the widow of the dead man: I told you I had proof of his innocence. For once there was proof. You see, I gave him this bottle as they set out from the last outpost. The landlord witnessed it, and it’s my bottle.
LANDLORD to himself: The fool. Now he’s finished too.
JUDGE: That can’t be the truth. To the Merchant: He’s supposed to have been handing you a drink.
MERCHANT: It must have been a stone.
JUDGE: No, it was not a stone. You can see it was a water-bottle.
MERCHANT: But I couldn’t have known it was a water-bottle. The man had no reason to offer me water. I wasn’t his friend.
GUIDE: But he offered him water.
JUDGE: But why did he offer him water? Why?
GUIDE: He must have thought the merchant was thirsty. The Judges smile at each other. Probably out of common humanity. The Judges smile. Perhaps it was stupidity, for I don’t think he had anything against the merchant.
MERCHANT: Then he must have been very stupid. The man was injured through my fault, perhaps for life. His arm. It would only be right that he should want to pay me back.
GUIDE: It would be right.
MERCHANT: For little money he marched with me, and I have a lot of money. But the journey was equally hard for both of us.
GUIDE: So he knows that.
MERCHANT: When he was tired he was beaten.
GUIDE: And wouldn’t that be right?
MERCHANT: I could only assume that the coolie would attack me at the first opportunity. Unless I assumed he couldn’t think at all.
JUDGE: What you mean is that you were right to believe that the coolie must hold something against you. So you did indeed kill someone who might well be harmless, but only because you could not have known that he was harmless. It happens sometimes with our police. They shoot into a demonstrating crowd, a harmless crowd, but they shoot because they can only believe that these people are going to drag them off their horses and lynch them. These policemen shoot out of fear. And their fear is that of the reasonable man. What you mean is that you could not have known that this coolie was an exception to the rule.
MERCHANT: One lives by the rule, not the exception.
JUDGE: So the question is: what possible ground could there be for this coolie to offer water to his oppressor?
GUIDE: No rea
sonable ground.
JUDGE sings:
The rule says: an eye for an eye.
Only fools assume the exception.
No reasonable man can expect water
To be offered by the enemy.
GUIDE sings:
According to the system they live by
Humanity is the exception.
All those who act with human feeling –
They are the ones who will suffer.
Protect from themselves those who seem too friendly
Prevent them from making any offers of their help.
See that cup, raised to you in thirst: so be quick to close your eyes.
Cover your ears: before you hear that groan.
Do not let your foot move: someone is calling to you for help.
You are lost, lost if you forget yourself. You
Give water to a thirsty man and
A wolf will drink.
JUDGE: We will retire to consider our judgement.
The court withdraws.
LEADER 2: Aren’t you afraid they might never give you another job?
GUIDE: I had to tell the truth.
LEADER 2 smiling: Well, if you had to . . .
The court returns.
JUDGE: The court wishes to put another question to you. There was no way in which you gained by shooting the coolie?
MERCHANT: Quite the contrary. I needed him. He carried the maps and instruments that I needed for my contract in Urga. I couldn’t carry them alone.
JUDGE: Did you not secure your contract in Urga, then?
MERCHANT: How could I? I arrived too late. I am ruined.
JUDGE: Then I shall now deliver our judgement. The court finds proved that the coolie approached his master not with a stone but with a water-bottle. This fact established, however, the court takes as more reasonable the view that the coolie was about to attack his master with the bottle, and not that he was offering him water. The porter belonged to a class of men which has, after all, grounds for supposing itself exploited. For such a man it would be a matter of common wit to defend himself in face of an inequitable distribution of the water. Indeed it might even seem a matter of justice to such people as the coolie, limited and prejudiced as their outlook is by its dependence on mere reality, to revenge themselves against their tormentor. It must be said that, in the last analysis, they have nothing to lose. The merchant belongs to a different class from that of the porter. He could only anticipate the worst. He could not credit that the porter whom he had ill-treated, as he himself has said, would offer him an act of friendship. His common wit told him that he was in the greatest danger. The isolated nature of the area must have caused him great anxiety. The distance from the police and the restraint of the law would encourage his servant to demand his share of the water. The accused therefore acted in justifiable self-defence regardless of whether he was actually threatened or merely believed himself to be threatened. In the circumstances as established it was inevitable that he should believe himself threatened. The case is therefore dismissed; and the widow’s claim fails.
THE ACTORS:
There ends
The story of a journey
You have heard and you have seen.
You saw the normal, that which happens every day.
But please, we say to you now:
Even when ordinary, find it strange
Even when familiar, find it inexplicable
Even when quite normal, it must astound you
Even when the rule, recognise it as an abuse
And wherever you have recognised abuse
Put it right!
The Horatians and the Curiatians
A play for schools
Collaborator: MARGARETE STEFFIN
Translator: H.R. HAYS
Characters:
CHORUS OF CURIATIANS
CHORUS OF HORATIANS
THE THREE CURIATIAN GENERALS – archer, spearman, swordsman
THE THREE HORATIAN GENERALS – archer, spearman, swordsman
THE HORATIAN WOMEN
THE CURIATIAN WOMEN
THE MUSTERING
The city of the Horatians and the city of the Curiatians. The cities turn to their Generals.
CHORUS OF CURIATIANS:
Why do we battle among ourselves, Curiatians?
Once more
Winter is over and once again
Within our walls the conflict rages
Over the ownership of land and the ownership of the minepits.
Therefore
We have determined to arm ourselves
And in three armies
To invade the land of the Horatians
And to overthrow them totally
Appropriating all their goods above and below the ground.
They shout to the Horatians:
Submit!
Hand over your huts, farmlands and implements or else
We shall overcome you with such military strength
That none of you shall escape.
CHORUS OF HORATIANS:
The robbers come! With an enormous
Military strength they overrun the country.
They will grant us life if we surrender
What we need to live.
But why
Are we more afraid of death than hunger?
We shall not submit!
CHORUS OF CURIATIANS:
We give over troops and weapons
To our Generals.
CHORUS OF HORATIANS:
We give over troops and weapons
To our Generals.
Shoulder frames with little flags which indicate divisions of troops are fastened to the shoulders of the Generals and on blackboards the number of soldiers is written down.
CHORUS OF CURIATIANS:
To you, General,
We give over seven cohorts of archers.
CHORUS OF HORATIANS:
To you, General
We give over seven brotherhoods of spearmen.
CHORUS OF CURIATIANS:
To you, General
We give over twelve cohorts of swordsmen.
CHORUS OF HORATIANS:
To you, General
We give over seven brotherhoods of archers.
CHORUS OF CURIATIANS:
To you, General
We give over seven cohorts of spearmen.
CHORUS OF HORATIANS:
To you, General
We give over twelve brotherhoods of swordsmen.
ALL SIX GENERALS:
Bring the weapons!
Bows, spears, swords and shields are brought.
CHORUS OF CURIATIANS:
Choose
From this rich supply of weapons
The very best.
CHORUS OF HORATIANS:
Those are your weapons.
FIRST CURIATIAN:
The bows must be good. Without good bows
I can do no fighting.
He bends the bow but it breaks.
CHORUS OF CURIATIANS:
Throw it away.
He throws it away and bends another, which holds.
FIRST CURIATIAN:
With this bow I am content.
FIRST HORATIAN, one bow is laid before him. He bends it carefully:
I can bend it farther but then it will break.
CHORUS OF HORATIANS:
Be content with this. We have no others.
FIRST HORATIAN:
But it won’t carry far.
CHORUS OF HORATIANS:
Then go nearer the foe.
FIRST HORATIAN:
But I run a great risk.
CHORUS OF HORATIANS:
Yes.
HORATIAN WOMEN:
If the archer quarrels with his bow
There can be no fighting.
FIRST HORATIAN quickly:
I do not quarrel with it.
CHORUS OF HORATIANS as two spears are brought to the Second Horatian:
Here is your spear and here
Is a Curiatian spear. You can see
They are equally long and equally heavy.
And you, too
Are a match for your opponent, spearman.
CHORUS OF CURIATIANS:
Bring new spears.
The Second Curiatian is given a much longer spear. Five great shields are brought to the Third Curiatian warrior. He goes from shield to shield and tries to pierce them with his sword. Three are pierced through. He chooses one of the last two.
THIRD CURIATIAN:
The sword has grown dull.
CHORUS OF CURIATIANS:
Here is a new one.
Third Curiatian pulls a horsehair from his helmet and cuts it with his sword
THIRD CURIATIAN:
With this sword and shield I am well equipped.
THIRD HORATIAN as two shields are laid before him – one small, one big:
I will try this to make sure.
He pierces the big one through and turns to the small one.
CHORUS OF HORATIANS:
Wait, you have tried it! The undamaged one
Is made of the same metal. But the first shield
Was held incorrectly.
A warrior holds the shield aslant while a second warrior thrusts at it so that the blow glances off.
THIRD HORATIAN:
I understand. Since it is not proof
Against a straight thrust
I must make sure to receive
Only glancing blows.
CHORUS OF HORATIANS:
Shall we mend the big shield for you?
THIRD HORATIAN:
No, I shall take the small one.
It is splendidly light.
He takes it.
I am content with this shield.
I can move faster with it. And I know the sword.
I forged it myself. It is as good
As I could make it.
CURIATIAN AND HORATIAN WOMEN:
Now go. Not all of you
Will come back to us.
CURIATIAN GENERALS:
Do not weep! Prepare the victory wreaths
In advance. We shall return
Laden with much booty.
CURIATIAN WOMEN:
We shall count the days until you come to us.
Your place at the table, your place in bed
Will be empty.
HORATIAN GENERALS:
But how shall the fields be tended
How shall the workshops be kept going without us?
HORATIAN WOMEN:
Do not trouble yourselves.
The fields will be tended. Only make sure
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) Page 19