No one will buy. His name is anathema.
THE STOCKBREEDERS:
All right, you lousy butchers, raise the prices!
Until you double the price of livestock, you
Won’t get a single ounce out of us. Now that you need it.
THE MEAT PACKERS:
Keep your old carcasses. We won’t buy them.
The contract you’ve just witnessed is only
A scrap of paper. The man who dreamed it up
Was not in his right mind. For such a scheme
He won’t succeed in raising one red cent
Between New York and Frisco.
The Meat Packers leave.
JOAN: If any of you are interested in God’s word, if you care about what He says and not just what the financial pages say, and even here there must be a few decent people who do business with the fear of God in their hearts, which is perfectly all right with us, you’ll be welcome at our Sunday services on Lincoln Street at 2 p.m., music from three o’clock on. Admission free.
SLIFT (to the Stockbreeders):
When Pierpont Mauler makes a promise, he keeps it.
Breathe easy, friends. The market’s going to hum.
Employer and prospective employee
Atrophy at last is overcome.
Restored are confidence and harmony.
Ye hungry workers, eager to begin
Come to the gate, the boss will let you in!
Wise counsel, wisely given and wisely taken
Has bested those whom reason had forsaken!
The chimneys smoke. A happy sight indeed
For work, my friends, is what both parties need!
THE STOCKBREEDERS (cornering Joan on the stairs):
The things you’ve said and your way of saying them
Have made a big impression on us cattle breeders
And shaken some of us to the foundations
Because we too are having an awful time.
JOAN:
Listen to me, I’ve got my eye on Mauler
He’s woken up. If you’re in urgent need
Just come with me, he’ll lend a helping hand.
As of today the man will know no peace.
Till everyone has been helped.
For help he can, so let’s
Get after him.
Joan and the Black Straw Hats go out, followed by the Stockbreeders.
6
CATCHING THE CRICKET
Financial District. Home of the broker Sullivan Slift, a small house with two entrances.
MAULER (inside the house, talking to Slift): Lock the door, put on all the light you can, and now, Slift, take a good look at my face and tell me if it’s true: would everyone know?
SLIFT: Know what?
MAULER: Well, what I am.
SLIFT: A butcher? Mauler, why did that speech of hers make you faint?
MAULER:
What did she say? I didn’t
Hear her, because behind her
Stood people with such ghastly faces
Of misery – the misery which goes before
The anger that will sweep us all away –
That I saw nothing else. Now, Slift
I’m going to tell you what I really think
About our business.
It can’t go on, this naked
Buying and selling, with one man coldly
Tearing the next man’s skin off. Too many people
Are howling with pain, and there will be more.
That crowd besieging our bloody cellars
Can’t be put off any longer. When they
Lay hands on us, they will
Dash us to the ground like rotten fish.
Not one of us will die in bed. Long
Before that they’ll come in packs and
Stand us up against the wall and cleanse the world of us and
Our stooges.
SLIFT: They’ve rattled you! (Aside:) I’ll get him to eat a rare steak. His old weakness has struck again. Maybe the taste of raw meat will bring him to his senses. (He goes and fries a steak on a gas burner.)
MAULER:
I often wonder why
That stupid unworldly talk so moves me
That cheap insipid babble they learn by heart.
I guess it’s because they do it for nothing, eighteen hours a day
Through rain and hunger.
SLIFT:
In cities like this that are burning underneath
And freezing at the top, you’ll always find
A few to carp at one thing or another
That’s not exactly as it should be.
MAULER:
But what is it they say? When in these burning
Cities, amid the headlong streams of people
Bellowing as they tumble down to hell
I hear a voice like that, absurd I know
But utterly free from bestiality
I feel as if I’d been clouted on the backbone
With a stick, like a leaping trout.
But even that, Slift, so far, has been only
A subterfuge, for what I really fear
Is something else than God.
SLIFT: What then?
MAULER:
Not what’s above but what’s below me!
Those people in the stockyards, too weak
To last the night, but who will rise
Up in the morning, I know it.
SLIFT: Wouldn’t you care to eat a piece of meat, dear Pierpont? Look, you can do it with a clear conscience now. As of today you have severed your connection with the murder of cattle.
MAULER:
You think I ought to? Maybe I could.
It must be all right now. Don’t you think so?
SLIFT: Get some food under your ribs and think about your situation, which isn’t too hot. Do you even realize that you’ve just bought up all the canned meat in existence? I see, Mauler, that you’re busy admiring your beautiful soul. Allow me to give you a simple, straightforward picture of the purely material situation, unimportant as it may be. For one thing you’ve bought fifteen thousand tons of the meat ring’s stock. You’ll have to unload them in the next few weeks on a market that can’t absorb a single can. You paid fifty, and the price is sure to drop to thirty or less. Secondly, on November 15th, when the price is thirty or twenty-five, the meat ring will deliver forty thousand tons to you at fifty.
MAULER:
I’m ruined, Slift.
I’m through. Christ, I’ve bought meat!
O Slift, what have I done!
I’ve loaded all the meat in the world on my back
Like an Atlas I’m staggering
With tons of canned goods on my shoulders
Straight to the poorhouse. Only this morning
Some brokers were failing, and I
Went down to see them fail and scoff at them
And shout: How can anyone be such
A fool as to buy canned meat?
And while I’m standing there, I hear my own voice saying:
I’ll buy it all.
Slift, I’ve bought meat. I’m ruined.
SLIFT: What have your friends in New York been writing?
MAULER: That I should buy meat.
SLIFT: Do what?
MAULER: Buy meat.
SLIFT: And you have bought meat. So what are you complaining about?
MAULER: Buy meat, they tell me.
SLIFT: But you have bought meat.
MAULER:
Yes, yes, I did buy meat, but I didn’t
Buy it because of that letter and its advice
(Which is all wrong anyway, pure theory). I didn’t
Buy it for sordid reasons, but because
That woman moved me so deeply I can swear
I hardly glanced at the letter, it only came this morning.
Here it is. ‘Dear Pierpont . . .’
SLIFT (continues to read): ‘We can now inform you that our money is beginning t
o bear fruit. A good many Congressmen are going to vote against the tariffs. It therefore seems advisable to buy meat, dear Pierpont. We shall write you again tomorrow.’
MAULER:
Such gross abuse of money is something else
That shouldn’t be. How easily
Such crimes can lead to war
And thousands die for filthy lucre. Oh, dear Slift
I fear no good can come of news like this.
SLIFT:
It all depends. The question is: who wrote the letter?
Bribery, starting wars, repealing tariffs
Are not for every Tom or Harry. Are they good men?
MAULER: They’re solvent men.
SLIFT: Who could that be, I wonder.
(Mauler smiles.)
The price then might pick up after all.
We’d get off with a broken nose or two.
I’d see some hope were it not for all that meat
In the farmers’ hands, which, all too frantically
Thrown on the market, would make the prices
Come crashing down again. No, Mauler, I fail
To understand that letter.
MAULER:
Look at it this way. Somebody has stolen something.
Somebody catches him. The thief is lost
Unless he strikes the other dead. But if
He does, he’ll go scot free. The letter (which
Is wrong) calls (to make it right)
For such a crime.
SLIFT: What kind of crime?
MAULER:
One that I can’t commit. Because, from now on
I want to live in peace. So let them gain by
Their crime, and gain they will. They only need
To buy up meat wherever they find it
Convince the breeders that there’s too much meat
Point out in passing how Lennox was laid low and
Buy up their meat. That’s the main thing
Buy up their meat. But that of course is cheating
Them once again. No, Slift, I wouldn’t touch it.
SLIFT:
Pierpont, you shouldn’t have bought meat.
MAULER:
It was a big mistake.
But now you won’t catch me buying a hat or a pair
Of shoes until I’m out of this. I’ll be lucky
If I come off with a hundred dollars to my name.
Drums. Joan comes in with the stockbreeders and a few workers.
JOAN: We’ll lure him out of his hole the way we’d catch a cricket. You stand over there, because if he hears me singing he’ll try to avoid me by slipping out the other way. Because he doesn’t want to see me. (She laughs.) Or the people with me for that matter.
The stockbreeders station themselves outside the right-hand door.
JOAN (outside the lefthand door): Come on out, Mr Mauler. I have a bone to pick with you about the plight of the stockbreeders of Illinois. I’ve got some workers here too, who want to ask you when you’re reopening your packing plant.
MAULER: Slift, where’s the other exit? I don’t want to see her and certainly not the people with her. And I’m not opening any packing plant now.
SLIFT: Come this way.
They go inside to the righthand door.
THE STOCKBREEDERS (outside the righthand door): Come on out, Mauler. You’re to blame for our troubles. There are more than ten thousand of us stockbreeders in Illinois and we’re at the end of our rope. So buy our livestock.
MAULER:
Shut the door, Slift. I will not buy.
Am I, who bear the meat of the whole world
Upon my shoulders in so far as it’s canned
To purchase all the livestock on Sirius as well?
It’s as if someone came to Atlas, barely
Able to stagger beneath the weight of the world
And told him Saturn needed a carrier too.
Who’s going to take this cattle off my hands?
SLIFT: Possibly the Grahams. They need livestock.
JOAN (outside the lefthand door): We’re not leaving here until something is done to help the stockbreeders.
MAULER: Possibly the Grahams. Yes, they need livestock. Slift, go out and tell them to give me two minutes’ time. I have to think.
Slift goes out.
SLIFT (to the stockbreeders): Pierpont Mauler is considering your proposition. He requests two minutes’ time.
Slift goes back into the building.
MAULER: I won’t buy. (He starts reckoning.) Slift, I’m buying. Slift, bring me everything that looks like a hog or a bovine, I’ll buy it, or anything that smells of lard, I’ll buy it, bring me every grease spot, I’m your buyer at the current price, which is fifty.
SLIFT:
You wouldn’t buy a hat, oh no, but every head of cattle in Illinois you’ll buy.
MAULER:
Yes, so I will. My mind’s made up now, Slift.
Let me explain.
(He draws an A on the door of a cabinet.)
Somebody makes a mistake. Let’s call it A.
It’s a mistake because his feelings got
The better of him. Then he makes
Another move. We’ll call it B. B too
Is wrong. But taken together A and B –
Two wrongs – will make a right.
Let the stockbreeders in, they are good men
Down on their luck but neatly dressed
The sight of them won’t scare me.
SLIFT (steps out. To the stockbreeders): To save the state of Illinois and avert the ruin of its farmers and stockbreeders, Pierpont Mauler has decided to buy up all the livestock on the market. But the contracts will not be in his name; his name must not be mentioned.
THE STOCKBREEDERS: Hurrah for Pierpont Mauler, who has saved the livestock industry! (They go into the house.)
JOAN (calls after them): Tell Mr Pierpont Mauler that we Black Straw Hats thank him in the name of God. (To the Workers.) If the buyers and the sellers of cattle both get what they want, there’ll be bread again for you too.
7
THE MONEY CHANGERS ARE DRIVEN OUT OF THE TEMPLE
The Black Straw Hat mission house.
The Black Straw Hats are sitting at a long table, emptying their tin boxes and counting the coins they have collected for the poor.
THE BLACK STRAW HATS (singing):
Singing we gather pence for the poor
They’ve got neither bed nor board
But the Almighty Lord
With his Eternal Word
Will somehow keep the wolf from their door.
PAUL SNYDER, MAJOR OF THE BLACK STRAW HATS (stands up): Very little! Very little! (To some poor people in the background, among them Mrs Luckerniddle and Gloomb:) You here again? Are you going to spend your life here? Didn’t you know there was work at the stockyards?
MRS LUCKERNIDDLE: What work? The stockyards are closed.
GLOOMB: They were supposed to open, but they haven’t opened.
SNYDER: Don’t get too near my cash box.
He motions them to move further back. Mulberry, the landlord, comes in.
MULBERRY: Well, what about my rent?
SNYDER: Dearly beloved Black Straw Hats, friend Mulberry, ladies and gentlemen; with regard to the troublesome problem of fund raising – a good cause speaks for itself and what it needs more than anything else is propaganda – we have always addressed our appeals to the poor, because we believed that those most in need of God’s help would be most likely to have something to spare for God, and that many a nickel makes a mickle. But to our sorrow we find that for some unfathomable reason the poorer classes are most ungenerous toward God. Maybe it’s because they have nothing. For this reason I, Paul Snyder, in your name, have invited the wealthy citizens of Chicago to come here and make arrangements to join us next Saturday in a major campaign against godlessness and materialism in Chicago, especially among the lower classes. Out of this money we will pay our dear landlord, M
r Mulberry, the rent about which he has shown such infinite patience.
MULBERRY: I could use it all right, but don’t let it worry you. (Mulberry goes out.)
SNYDER: Well, that’s that, and now all of you, go cheerfully about your work, but first scrub down the front steps.
The Black Straw Hats go out.
SNYDER (to the poor): Tell me, are the locked-out workers still standing patiently in the stockyards, or are they starting to talk like subversives?
MRS LUCKERNIDDLE: They’ve been making a big noise since yesterday, because they know the plants have orders to fill.
GLOOMB: Some are saying the only way to get jobs is to take them by force.
SNYDER (aside): That’s good. The meat kings will be more likely to come here and listen when the brickbats start flying. (To the poor:) Couldn’t you chop our wood for us at least?
THE POOR: There isn’t any more wood, major.
Enter the packers Cridle, Graham and Meyers, and the broker Slift.
MEYERS: I’ve been wondering, Graham: where’s all the livestock?
GRAHAM: I’ve been wondering, too: where is the livestock?
SLIFT: So have I.
GRAHAM: Really? You have? And Mauler too, I suppose?
SLIFT: Yes, Mauler too, I should think.
MEYERS:
Some bastard has been buying it all up.
A bastard who’s well aware that we’ve contracted
To deliver meat in cans and therefore need
Livestock.
SLIFT: Who could it be?
GRAHAM (punches him in the pit of the stomach):
You rotten stinker!
Who do you think you’re kidding!
Tell Pierpy to lay off, he’s touching
A vital nerve!
SLIFT (to Snyder): What do you want of us?
GRAHAM (punches him again): What do you suppose they want, Slift?
With an air of exaggerated slyness Slift makes the gesture of handing out money.
GRAHAM: You guessed it, Slift.
MEYERS (to Snyder): Fire away!
They sit down in the pews.
SNYDER (in the pulpit): We Black Straw Hats have heard that there are fifty thousand people standing around in the stockyards without work. We’ve also heard that some of them have started to grumble and say: we’ll have to help ourselves. And your names are being mentioned as the ones to blame that fifty thousand people have no work and are standing around outside the plants. One of these days they’ll take the factories away from you. They’ll say: why not do like the Bolsheviks and take the factories into our own hands so everybody can work and eat? Because word has been going around that calamity doesn’t come of its own accord like rain, but is brought about by certain people who stand to gain by it. But we Black Straw Hats will tell them that calamity does come like rain, from no one knows where, that suffering is their earthly lot and their compensation awaits them later on.
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 25