Scene Seven
Dusk. An overcast sky. A path winding through reeds and bushes. In the distance the sound of the river.
MORITZ. It’s the only way. – I don’t fit in. Let them battle it out amongst themselves. I’ll step outside and close the door behind me. I’m fed up with being pushed around. – I didn’t ask to be born, and I don’t owe God anything. However you look at it, in the end I had no choice. – I don’t blame my parents. But they should have seen this coming. They were old enough to know what they were doing. If I hadn’t been born as an infant, I might have had the sense to be someone else.13 – At least the weather has been considerate. It looked like rain all day, and now it’s clearing. – Nature is unusually still. Nothing jars. Earth and sky are like a transparent gauze. Everything breathes contentment. –14 I’m not going to cry today, and I’ll try not to think about my funeral. – Melchior will lay a wreath on my coffin. The minister will comfort my parents. The Head will quote examples from history. – I don’t suppose they’ll give me a tombstone. I would have liked a pure white marble urn on a black granite plinth. – Not that I’ll miss it. Memorials are for the living, not the dead.
It would probably take me a year to say goodbye to them all in my thoughts. – I’m not going to cry. It’s good that I can look back on it all without bitterness. All the wonderful evenings I spent with Melchior. Under the willows by the river. By the forester’s lodge. The old mound among the ruins. – When the time comes, I’ll force myself with every fibre of my being to think of whipped cream. It’s easy to swallow, it’s filling, and it has a pleasant aftertaste.15
I am going to the altar like the Etruscan youth in the legend, whose sacrifice brought his brothers prosperity in the years to come. This world gave me the cold shoulder. On the other side I can see friendly, sympathetic faces. – The chrysalis opens and the butterfly flutters away.
ILSE, in torn clothes and a brightly coloured kerchief, sneaks up on MORITZ and taps him on the shoulder.
ILSE. What have you lost?
MORITZ. Ilse!
ILSE. What are you looking for?
MORITZ. You gave me a terrible fright.
ILSE. I’ve been in town. I’m going home.
MORITZ. I don’t know what I’ve lost.
ILSE. Then looking for it won’t help. I haven’t been home for four days.
MORITZ. Where have you been this time?
ILSE. With the artists. Nohl, Fehrendorf, Padinsky, Lenz, the whole school.
MORITZ. Do you sit for them?
ILSE. Fehrendorf is painting me as a saint, on top of a Corinthian column. He’s off his head. Last time I posed for him I trod on a tube of paint. So he wipes his paintbrush in my hair. I slap his face and he throws his palette at my head. I knock over the easel, and he chases me with his paintstick round the studio. There was a sketch propped up behind the stove – ‘Behave yourself or I’ll tear this to pieces!’ He declared a truce, and then he kissed me as if his life depended on it.
MORITZ. Where do you sleep when you stay in town?
ILSE. Last night at Nohl’s; the night before – Bojokevic; on Sunday with Okonomopoulos. Padinsky bought champagne to celebrate. He’d sold his Portrait of a Plague Victim. Fehrendorf drank it out of an ashtray, and Lenz sang ballads and murdered his guitar. I was so drunk they had to put me to bed. – Are you still at school, Moritz?
MORITZ. No, no . . . I’m leaving this term.
ILSE. Good for you. How time flies when you’re earning a living! Remember when we played at outlaws, Wendla Bergmann, you and I and the others, and you all came to our place afterwards and drank goat’s milk straight from the teat? What’s Wendla up to? And Melchi Gabor? Does he still wear that serious expression? We used to stand opposite each other in music class.
MORITZ. He’s a philosopher.
ILSE. Wendla came around to our place the other day and brought my mother some jam. I missed her, I was busy sitting for Isidor Landauer. He’s painting me as the Virgin Mary with the baby Jesus. He is such a wimp. – Have you got a hangover?
MORITZ. From last night. We were drinking like hippopotamuses. I staggered home at five in the morning.
ILSE. No wonder you look rough. Any girls?
MORITZ. Arabella. The Spanish barmaid. The landlord left us alone with her all night.
ILSE. No wonder you look like death. I don’t know what a hangover feels like. Last carnival I didn’t go to bed or change my clothes for three days and nights. I went to the Masked Ball, had breakfast in the cafés, lunch at Bellavista, cabaret in the evening, then back to the Ball, still in the same fancy dress. After three days of that I was picked up by Heinrich. He was walking down the street and tripped over my arm. I was lying in the snow, unconscious. I went back to his lodgings, and didn’t leave them for two weeks – it was awful! He made me wear his Persian dressing gown by day and then parade up and down in a page-boy costume in the evening, black with white lace collar and cuffs. And he’d photograph me every day in a different pose – Ariadne, Leda with the swan, Ganymede, and once on all fours as a female Nebuchadnezzar. And all the time he kept raving about guns and murder and suicide. Early one morning he climbed into bed with a revolver that he’d loaded with shot. He pressed it against my breast and said, ‘If you blink I’ll pull the trigger!’ – He would have done it too, Moritz. Then he put the thing in his mouth like a blowpipe. He said it sharpens your survival instinct. Ugh! The bullet would have gone right through my spine.
MORITZ. Is Heinrich still alive?
ILSE. How should I know? There was a mirror high up in the ceiling over the bed. I would look up and see myself hanging from the heavens. I had terrible nightmares. He’d kiss me goodnight and say, ‘Sweet dreams, Ilse. When I look at you asleep, you’re too beautiful to live.’
MORITZ. Is he still alive, this Heinrich?
ILSE. I hope not. He went off in search of absinthe one day, so I nicked his coat and ran off down the street. But the carnival was over by this time, so the police stopped me and asked why I was dressed as a man. They took me down to the station, and who should turn up to bail me out but Nohl, Fehrendorf, Padinsky, Bojokevic, Lenz, Okonomopoulos and the rest of the gang. I’ve stayed loyal to them ever since.16
MORITZ. I have to go, Ilse.
ILSE. Why don’t you come home with me?
MORITZ. Why? What for?
ILSE. To drink goat’s milk, silly. I’ll curl your hair and hang a little bell around your neck. We still have a rocking-horse you can play with.
MORITZ. I have to get home. I still have the parallelepipidon on my conscience. And the Sassanid dynasty. And the Sermon on the Mount. – Good night, Ilse.
ILSE. Sweet dreams! Do you ever go back to the wigwam where Melchior buried my tomahawk? – By the time the rest of you have grown up, I’ll be in the gutter. (She runs off.)
MORITZ. One word. That’s all it needed. (He calls after her.) Ilse! – Ilse! – Thank goodness, she’s out of earshot. I’m not in the mood for it anyway. You need a clear head for that, and a light heart. A pity though. It’s a chance wasted. – I will tell them that I had a huge crystal mirror hanging above my bed. That I caught a wild filly and tamed it in my bedroom. That I made her prance across the carpet in long black silk stockings and shiny black boots and long black suede gloves and a black velvet ribbon round her neck, and in a fit of madness I smothered her with my pillow. I will smile whenever they talk of lust . . . I certainly won’t tell them that I’ve come back without doing it. I’ll pretend I did it all. There is something shameful in having been human without ever experiencing the most human thing there is. – ‘You went to Egypt, sir? And you didn’t see the Pyramids?’
He suddenly calls out again.
Ilse!
Silence.
Ilse, why couldn’t I be you? – This ray of sunshine, this child of nature, this little strumpet on my path of suffering. – Oh! – Oh!
Here it is, my riverbank. The reeds have grown since yesterday. But the view throug
h the willows is still the same. The river churns like molten lead. – I mustn’t forget . . .
He takes MRS GABOR’s letter out of his pocket, tears it into tiny pieces and scatters them.
The pieces drift like snowflakes. Like lost souls. – A moment ago I could see the reeds and a line on the horizon. Now it’s dark. Now I shan’t go home.
ACT THREE
Scene One
School staff meeting. The busts of two great educational reformers, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Pestalozzi, look down from high on the proceedings. At the conference table, the HEADMASTER, the PASTOR, and five other teachers: PROFESSORS AARDVAARK, BLUEBOTTLE, HAMMERHEAD, INKFISH and LOGOSPASM. The janitor, SCOOT, loiters and, when called upon, moves with a studied slowness at odds with the speed his name implies.
HEADMASTER. Do any of my colleagues wish to comment? – Gentlemen! – If we now proceed to the regrettable but justifiable sanction of recommending to the Ministry of Education the immediate expulsion of a pupil from this establishment, then we do so for the noblest of motives. We do so – primus – as a gesture of atonement for the calamity that has already occurred. We do so – secundus – to protect this establishment from similar calamities in the future. We do so – tertius – to punish the delinquent for corrupting and demoralising a vulnerable fellow pupil. We do so – quartus – to inhibit said delinquent from equally demoralising the rest of his fellow pupils. We do so – quintus – and quintus, gentlemen, is the most urgent motive of all – quintus will brook no contradiction – to shield this institution from the suicide epidemic that is currently raging through similar educational communities, defying all efforts of the educator to fetter the educable to the educative state and contain a contagion that makes the educator obsolete by making the educable defunct, and thus by definition, ineducable. – Do any of my colleagues wish to comment?
BLUEBOTTLE. I can no longer stifle my conviction that it would be advisable to open a window.
LOGOSPASM. Th-th-there is an atmosphere in this chamber that r-r-reminds one of a s-s-s-sarcophagus, or the archives of the Courts of Justice in W-W-Wetzlar as immortalised by G-G-G-G-G-G-
INKFISH. Goethe.
LOGOSPASM. – in The Sorrows of Young W-W-W-W-W–
INKFISH. Werther.
HEADMASTER. Scoot!
SCOOT. Yes, Headmaster.
HEADMASTER. Open a window. By a fortunate happenstance, we have a plentiful supply of atmosphere outside. – Does anyone else wish to comment?
INKFISH. With respect to the motion put forward by my esteemed colleagues, I have no objection in principle. I should be grateful, however, if the window were not opened in my immediate vicinity.
HEADMASTER. Scoot!
SCOOT. Yes, Headmaster.
HEADMASTER. Open the other window. Does anyone else wish to comment?
PASTOR. Far be it from me to sharpen this controversy, but might I remind those present that the other window has been bricked up since the winter holidays?
HEADMASTER. Scoot!
SCOOT. Yes, Headmaster.
HEADMASTER. Leave the other window closed. Gentlemen, I find myself obliged to put the matter to a vote. Since there appears to be only one window that is relevant to this debate, I must ask those colleagues in favour of opening that window to rise from their seats. (He counts.) One, two, three in favour. – One, two, three against. – Scoot!
SCOOT. Yes, Headmaster.
HEADMASTER. You may leave the window closed. It is my considered opinion that the atmosphere in this chamber is perfectly adequate to the matter in hand. – Does anyone wish to comment? – Gentlemen! If we now – in an impulse of misplaced benevolence born of our keen appreciation, as members of this faculty, of the mitigating factor of the malefactor’s academic faculties – do not recommend to the Ministry the immediate expulsion of the delinquent, then we risk being held responsible for the fatality that has already occurred and for any subsequent fatalities. Of the schools already ravaged by the suicide epidemic, those where the casualty rate has reached or exceeded twenty-five per cent have been temporarily suspended by the Ministry, pending an enquiry. It is our solemn duty as custodians of this establishment to preclude that ultimate calamity.17 – Scoot!
SCOOT. Yes, Headmaster.
HEADMASTER. Fetch the culprit.
LOGOSPASM. Since the atmosphere in this chamber is considered p-p-perfectly adequate, might I propose that the other window be b-b-bricked up during the summer holidays?
INKFISH. If our venerable colleague in the Greek department finds this chamber so deficient in ventilation, may I respectfully submit that he have a ventilator inserted in his frontal cavity?
LOGOSPASM. Rudeness will not be t-t-tolerated! May I remind my colleague in the L-L-Latin department that I am in f-f-full command of my f-f-f-f-f-f
INKFISH. Faculties.
HEADMASTER. I must ask Professors Inkfish and Logospasm to observe the requisite decorum, since the culprit is already upon the stair.
Enter MELCHIOR.
Approach the table. The unfortunate Mr Stiefel, apprised of his late son’s demise, searched the effects of the deceased in the hope of discovering a motive for this appalling crime, and came, in a place of hiding the exact location of which need not detain this enquiry, upon a document which provides, alas, an all-too-plausible explanation for the deceased malefactor’s mental and moral chaos. I refer to a dissertation of some twenty pages, composed in the form of a dialogue, replete with life-size illustrations, littered with such vulgar obscenities as to satisfy the most bestial and degenerate of appetites, and entitled ‘Copulation’.
MELCHIOR. I –
HEADMASTER. You shall remain silent! – A member of this faculty, having received said manuscript from the hands of the distressed father and pledged to identify the author at all costs, initiated a comparison of the handwriting in this document with the handwriting of the deceased malefactor’s fellow pupils. The result was a unanimous verdict amongst the teaching staff of this establishment, subsequently confirmed by the expert opinion of our esteemed Professor of Calligraphy, that the handwriting exhibits a noticeable similarity to your own.
MELCHIOR. I –
HEADMASTER. You shall remain silent! Notwithstanding the damning nature of this evidence, we shall refrain from immediate action until the perpetrator of this offence against morality can be identified beyond all reasonable doubt.
MELCHIOR. I –
HEADMASTER. You are required to answer the precisely formulated questions that are put to you with a simple yes or no. Scoot!
SCOOT. Yes, Headmaster.
HEADMASTER. The files! – I call upon Professor Aardvark to begin the interrogation and Professor Hammerhead, as secretary, to keep as accurate a protocol as possible.
AARDVARK. Do you recognise this document?
MELCHIOR. Yes.
AARDVARK. Do you know what this document contains?
MELCHIOR. Yes.
AARDVARK. Is the handwriting of this document your own?
MELCHIOR. Yes.
AARDVARK. Does this obscene document owe its authorship to you?
MELCHIOR. Yes. – I ask you, sir, to show me one single obscenity in it.
HEADMASTER. You are required to answer the questions that are put to you with a simple and straightforward yes or no.
MELCHIOR. Sir, that document contains only simple facts which you yourselves can verify.
BLUEBOTTLE. What insolence!
MELCHIOR. Sir, I ask you to show me anything in it that offends against morality.
LOGOSPASM. Are you trying to make n-ninnies of us?
HEADMASTER. Scoot!
MELCHIOR. I have –
HEADMASTER. You have as little respect for the dignity of your assembled masters as you have for the sacred gifts of modesty and decorum that betoken man’s acquiescence in the divine moral order!
MELCHIOR. I ask you again, sir, to show me one single obscenity in it!
HEADMASTER. It is an agglutination of obsceni
ties, a manual of abominations! It is How to Learn Esperanto in Three Easy Lessons!
MELCHIOR. Sir –
HEADMASTER. Be silent! I declare this investigation closed and call upon our secretary to terminate the protocol. – Scoot!
SCOOT. Yes, Headmaster!
HEADMASTER. Take him away!
Scene Two
A cemetery in the pouring rain. The PASTOR with an open umbrella stands by an open grave. The HEADMASTER and other TEACHERS, the janitor SCOOT, MORITZ’s father HERR STIEFEL, all with umbrellas. GEORG, OTTO, HANS, ERNST, ROBERT. At some distance, MARTHA and ILSE.
PASTOR. Man who is born in sin is blessed by the Eternal Father with the gift of grace. Whosoever spurns that gift shall die the death of the spirit. And whosoever in fleshly denial of God’s grace has served the cause of evil, he shall die the death of the body. But whosoever wantonly casts aside the Cross which the All Merciful has laid upon him for his sins, verily, verily I say unto you, he shall die the death everlasting. But we, who go forth as pilgrims on the thorny path, let us praise the unfathomable workings of His Will. For as surely as this sinner has died the threefold death, as surely will the Lord our God lead the righteous to salvation and the Life Everlasting.
HEADMASTER. Suicide is the gravest imaginable crime against the moral order and therefore simultaneous proof of the existence of that order, since the malefactor, by sparing the moral order the burden of passing judgement, confirms the validity of the moral order.
HAMMERHEAD. Debauched – degenerate – depraved – delinquent – despised.
INKFISH. How could a child act so vindictively against its own parents?18
PASTOR. For those who love God, Herr Stiefel, all things are for the best. 1st Corinthians, chapter 12, verse 15. Comfort the unhappy mother and try to replace her loss by redoubling your love.
HEADMASTER. In all honesty, he would probably have failed this year.
AARDVARK. And even if he hadn’t, he would almost certainly have failed next year.19
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