Brecht Collected Plays: 5: Life of Galileo; Mother Courage and Her Children (World Classics)

by Bertolt Brecht

  THE CHAPLAIN: Then why grumble about peace when everybody’s breathing sighs of relief? Because of some old junk in your cart?

  MOTHER COURAGE: My goods ain’t old junk but what I lives by, and you too up to now.

  THE CHAPLAIN: Off war, in other words. Aha.

  THE COOK to the chaplain: You’re old enough to know it’s always a mistake offering advice. To Courage: Way things are, your best bet’s to get rid of certain goods quick as you can before prices hit rock-bottom. Dress yourself and get moving, not a moment to lose.

  MOTHER COURAGE: That ain’t bad advice. I’ll do that, I guess.

  THE CHAPLAIN: Because cooky says it.

  MOTHER COURAGE: Why couldn’t you say it? He’s right, I’d best go off to market. Goes inside the cart.

  THE COOK: That’s one to me, padre. You got no presence of mind. What you should of said was: what, me offer advice, all I done was discuss politics. Better not take me on. Cock-fighting don’t suit that get-up.

  THE CHAPLAIN: If you don’t stop your gob I’ll murder you, get-up or no get-up.

  THE COOK pulling off his boots and unwrapping his foot-clothes: Pity the war made such a godless shit of you, else you’d easily get another parsonage now it’s peacetime. Cooks won’t be needed, there’s nowt to cook, but faith goes on just the same, nowt changed in that direction.

  THE CHAPLAIN: Mr Lamb, I’m asking you not to elbow me out. Since I came down in the world I’ve become a better person. I couldn’t preach to anyone now. Enter Yvette Pottier in black, dressed up to the nines, carrying a cane. She is much older and fatter, and heavily powdered. She is followed by a manservant.

  YVETTE: Hullo there, everybody. Is this Mother Courage’s establishment?

  THE CHAPLAIN: It is. And with whom have we the honour …?

  YVETTE: With the Countess Starhemberg, my good man. Where’s Courage?

  THE CHAPLAIN calls into the cart: The Countess Starhemberg wishes to speak to you.

  MOTHER COURAGE’S VOICE: Just coming.

  YVETTE: It’s Yvette.

  MOTHER COURAGE’S VOICE: Oh, Yvette!

  YVETTE: Come to see how you are. Sees the cook turn round aghast: Pieter!

  THE COOK: Yvette!

  YVETTE: Well I never! How d’you come to be here?

  THE COOK: Got a lift.

  THE CHAPLAIN: You know each other then? Intimately?

  YVETTE: I should think so. She looks the cook over. Fat.

  THE COOK: Not all that skinny yourself.

  YVETTE: All the same I’m glad to see you, you shit. Gives me a chance to say what I think of you.

  THE CHAPLAIN: You say it, in full; but don’t start till Courage is out here.

  MOTHER COURAGE coming out with all kinds of goods: Yvette! They embrace. But what are you in mourning for?

  YVETTE: Suits me, don’t it? My husband the colonel died a few years back.

  MOTHER COURAGE: That old fellow what nearly bought the cart?

  YVETTE: His elder brother.

  MOTHER COURAGE: Then you’re sitting pretty. Nice to find somebody what’s made it in this war.

  YVETTE: Up and down and up again, that’s the way it went.

  MOTHER COURAGE: I’m not hearing a word against colonels, they make a mint of money.

  THE CHAPLAIN: I would put my boots back on if I were you. To Yvette: You promised you would say what you think of the gentleman, your ladyship.

  THE COOK: Don’t kick up a stink here, Yvette.

  MOTHER COURAGE: Yvette, this is a friend of mine.

  YVETTE: That’s old Puffing Piet.

  THE COOK: Let’s drop the nicknames. I’m called Lamb.

  MOTHER COURAGE laughs: Puffing Piet! Him as made all the women crazy! Here, I been looking after your pipe for you.

  THE CHAPLAIN: Smoking it too.

  YVETTE: What luck I can warn you against him. Worst of the lot, he was, rampaging along the whole Flanders coast-line. Got more girls in trouble than he has fingers.

  THE COOK: That’s all a long while ago. ‘Tain’t true anyhow.

  YVETTE: Stand up when a lady brings you into the conversation! How I loved this man! All the time he had a little dark girl with bandy legs, got her in trouble too of course.

  THE COOK: Got you into high society more like, far as I can see.

  YVETTE: Shut your trap, you pathetic remnant! Better watch out for him, though; fellows like that are still dangerous even when on their last legs.

  MOTHER COURAGE to Yvette: Come along, got to get rid of my stuff afore prices start dropping. You might be able to put a word in for me at regiment, with your connections. Calls into the cart: Kattrin, church is off, I’m going to market instead. When Eilif turns up, one of you give him a drink. Exit with Yvette.

  YVETTE as she leaves: Fancy a creature like that ever making me leave the straight and narrow path. Thank my lucky stars I managed to reach the top all the same. But I’ve cooked your goose, Puffing Piet, and that’s something that’ll be credited to me one day in the world to come.

  THE CHAPLAIN: I would like to take as a text for our little talk ‘The mills of God grind slowly’. Weren’t you complaining about my jokes?

  THE COOK: Dead out of luck, I am. It’s like this, you see: I thought I might get a hot meal. Here am I starving, and now they’ll be talking about me and she’ll get quite a wrong picture. I think I’ll clear out before she’s back.

  THE CHAPLAIN: I think so too.

  THE COOK: Padre, I’m fed up already with this bloody peace. Human race has to go through fire and sword cause it’s sinful from the cradle up. I wish I could be roasting a fat capon once again for the general, wherever he’s got to, in mustard sauce with a carrot or two.

  THE CHAPLAIN: Red cabbage. Red cabbage for a capon.

  THE COOK: You’re right, but carrots was what he had to have.

  THE CHAPLAIN: No sense of what’s fitting.

  THE COOK: Not that it stopped you guzzling your share.

  THE CHAPLAIN: With misgivings.

  THE COOK: Anyway you must admit those were the days.

  THE CHAPLAIN: I might admit it if pressed.

  THE COOK: Now you’ve called her a hyaena your days here are finished. What you staring at?

  THE CHAPLAIN: Eilif! Eilif arrives, followed by soldiers with pikes. His hands are fettered. His face is chalky-white. What’s wrong?

  EILIF: Where’s mother?

  THE CHAPLAIN: Gone into town.

  EILIF: I heard she was around. They’ve allowed me to come and see her.

  THE COOK to the soldiers: What you doing with him?

  A SOLDIER: Something not nice.

  THE CHAPLAIN: What’s he been up to?

  THE SOLDIER: Broke into a peasant’s place. The wife’s dead.

  THE CHAPLAIN: How could you do a thing like that?

  EILIF: It’s what I did last time, ain’t it?

  THE COOK: Aye, but it’s peace now.

  EILIF: Shut up. All right if I sit down till she comes?

  THE SOLDIER: We’ve no time.

  THE CHAPLAIN: In wartime they recommended him for that, sat him at the general’s right hand. Dashing, it was, in those days. Any chance of a word with the provost-marshal?

  THE SOLDIER: Wouldn’t do no good. Taking some peasant’s cattle, what’s dashing about that?

  THE COOK: Dumb, I call it.

  EILIF: If I’d been dumb you’d of starved, clever bugger.

  THE COOK: But as you were clever you’re going to be shot.

  THE CHAPLAIN: We’d better fetch Kattrin out anyhow.

  EILIF: Let her be. Sooner have a glass of schnapps.

  THE SOLDIER: No time, come along.

  THE CHAPLAIN: And what shall we tell your mother?

  EILIF: Tell her it wasn’t any different, tell her it was the same thing. Or tell her nowt. The soldiers propel him away.

  THE CHAPLAIN: I’ll accompany you on your grievous journey.

  EILIF: Don’t need any bloody parsons.

  THE
CHAPLAIN: Wait and see. Follows him.

  THE COOK calls after them: I’ll have to tell her, she’ll want to see him.

  THE CHAPLAIN: I wouldn’t tell her anything. At most that he was here and will come again, maybe tomorrow. By then I’ll be back and can break it to her. Hurries off.

  The cook looks after him, shaking his head, then walks restlessly around. Finally he comes up to the cart.

  THE COOK: Hoy! Don’t you want to come out? I can understand you hiding away from peace. Like to do the same myself. Remember me, I’m general’s cook? I was wondering if you’d a bit of something to eat while I wait for your mum. I don’t half feel like a bit of pork, or bread even, just to fill the time. Peers inside. Head under blanket. Sound of gunfire off.

  MOTHER COURAGE runs in, out of breath and with all her goods still: Cooky, peacetime’s over. War’s been on again three days now. Heard news before selling me stuff, thank God. They’re having a shooting match with Lutherans in town. We must get cart away at once. Kattrin, pack up! What you in the dumps for? What’s wrong?

  THE COOK: Nowt.

  MOTHER COURAGE: Something is. I see it way you look.

  THE COOK: Cause war’s starting up again, I s’pose. Looks as if it’ll be tomorrow night before I get next hot food inside me.

  MOTHER COURAGE: You’re lying, cooky.

  THE COOK: Eilif was here. Had to leave almost at once, though.

  MOTHER COURAGE: Was he now? Then we’ll be seeing him on march. I’m joining our side this time. How’s he look?

  THE COOK: Same as usual.

  MOTHER COURAGE: Oh, he’ll never change. Take more than war to steal him from me. Clever, he is. You going to help me get packed? Begins to pack up. What’s his news? Still in general’s good books? Say anything about his deeds of valour?

  THE COOK glumly: Repeated one of them, I’m told.

  MOTHER COURAGE: Tell it me later, we got to move off. Kattrin appears. Kattrin, peacetime’s finished now. We’re moving on. To the cook: How about you?

  THE COOK: Have to join up again.

  MOTHER COURAGE: Why don’t you … Where’s padre?

  THE COOK: Went into town with Eilif.

  MOTHER COURAGE: Then you come along with us a way, Lamb. Need somebody to help me.

  THE COOK: That business with Yvette, you know …

  MOTHER COURAGE: Done you no harm in my eyes. Opposite. Where there’s smoke there’s fire, they say. You coming along?

  THE COOK: I won’t say no.

  MOTHER COURAGE: The Twelfth moved off already. Take the shaft. Here’s a bit of bread. We must get round behind to Lutherans. Might even be seeing Eilif tonight. He’s my favourite one. Short peace, wasn’t it? Now we’re off again.

  She sings as the cook and Kattrin harness themselves up:

  From Ulm to Metz, from Metz to Munich

  Courage will see the war gets fed.

  The war will show a well-filled tunic

  Given its daily shot of lead.

  But lead alone can hardly nourish

  It must have soldiers to subsist.

  It’s you it needs to make it flourish.

  The war’s still hungry. So enlist!

  9

  It is the seventeenth year of the great war of faith. Germany has lost more than half her inhabitants. Those who survive the bloodbath are killed off by terrible epidemics. Once fertile areas are ravaged by famine, wolves roam the burnt-out towns. In autumn 1634 we find Courage in the Fichtelgebirge, off the main axis of the Swedish armies. The winter this year is early and harsh. Business is bad, so that there is nothing to do but beg. The cook gets a letter from Utrecht and is sent packing

  Outside a semi-dilapidated parsonage.

  Grey morning in early winter. Gusts of wind. Mother Courage and the cook in shabby sheepskins, drawing the cart.

  THE COOK: It’s all dark, nobody up yet.

  MOTHER COURAGE: Except it’s parson’s house. Have to crawl out of bed to ring bells. Then he’ll have hot soup.

  THE COOK: What from when whole village is burnt, we seen it.

  MOTHER COURAGE: It’s lived in, though, dog was barking.

  THE COOK: S’pose parson’s got, he’ll give nowt.

  MOTHER COURAGE: Maybe if we sing….

  THE COOK: I’ve had enough. Abruptly: Got a letter from Utrecht saying mother died of cholera and inn’s mine. Here’s letter if you don’t believe me. No business of yours the way aunty goes on about my mode of existence, but have a look.

  MOTHER COURAGE reads the letter: Lamb, I’m tired too of always being on the go. I feel like butcher’s dog, dragging meat round customers and getting nowt off it. I got nowt left to sell, and folk got nowt left to buy nowt with. Saxony a fellow in rags tried landing me a stack of old books for two eggs, Wiirttemberg they wanted to swap their plough for a titchy bag of salt. What’s to plough for? Nowt growing no more, just brambles. In Pomerania villages are s’posed to have started in eating the younger kids, and nuns have been caught sticking folk up.

  THE COOK: World’s dying out.

  MOTHER COURAGE: Sometimes I sees meself driving through hell with me cart selling brimstone, or across heaven with packed lunches for hungry souls. Give me my kids what’s left, let’s find some place they ain’t shooting, and I’d like a few more years undisturbed.

  THE COOK: You and me could get that inn going, Courage, think it over. Made up me mind in the night, I did: back to Utrecht with or without you, and starting today.

  MOTHER COURAGE: Have to talk to Kattrin. That’s a bit quick for me; I’m against making decisions all freezing cold and nowt inside you. Kattrin! Kattrin climbs out of the cart. Kattrin, got something to tell you. Cook and I want to go to Utrecht. He’s been left an inn there. That’d be a settled place for you, let you meet a few people. Lots of ’em respect somebody mature, looks ain’t everything. I’d like it too. I get on with cook. Say one thing for him, got a head for business. We’d have our meals for sure, not bad, eh? And your own bed too; like that, wouldn’t you? Road’s no life really. God knows how you might finish up. Lousy already, you are. Have to make up our minds, see, we could move with the Swedes, up north, they’re somewhere up that way. She points to the left. Reckon that’s fixed, Kattrin.

  THE COOK: Anna, I got something private to say to you.

  MOTHER COURAGE: Get back in cart, Kattrin. Kattrin climbs back.

  THE COOK: I had to interrupt, cause you don’t understand, far as I can see. I didn’t think there was need to say it, sticks out a mile. But if it don’t, then let me tell you straight, no question of taking her along, not on your life. You get me, eh. Kattrin sticks her head out of the cart behind them and listens.

  MOTHER COURAGE: You mean I’m to leave Kattrin back here?

  THE COOK: Use your imagination. Inn’s got no room. It ain’t one of the sort got three bar parlours. Put our backs in it we two’ll get a living, but not three, no chance of that. She can keep cart.

  MOTHER COURAGE: Thought she might find husband in Utrecht.

  THE COOK: Go on, make me laugh. Find a husband, how? Dumb and that scar on top of it. And at her age?

  MOTHER COURAGE: Don’t talk so loud.

  THE COOK: Loud or soft, no getting over facts. And that’s another reason why I can’t have her in the inn. Customers don’t want to be looking at that all the time. Can’t blame them.

  MOTHER COURAGE: Shut your big mouth. I said not so loud.

  THE COOK: Light’s on in parson’s house. We can try singing.

  MOTHER COURAGE: Cooky, how’s she to pull the cart on her own? War scares her. She’ll never stand it. The dreams she must have … I hear her nights groaning. Mostly after a battle. What’s she seeing in those dreams, I’d like to know. She’s got a soft heart. Lately I found she’d got another hedgehog tucked away what we’d run over.

  THE COOK: Inn’s too small. Calls out: Ladies and gentlemen, domestic staff and other residents! We are now going to give you a song concerning Solomon, Julius Caesar and other famou
s personages what had bad luck. So’s you can see we’re respectable folk, which makes it difficult to carry on, particularly in winter.

  They sing:

  You saw sagacious Solomon

  You know what came of him.

  To him complexities seemed plain.

  He cursed the hour that gave birth to him

  And saw that everything was vain.

  How great and wise was Solomon!

  The world however didn’t wait

  But soon observed what followed on.

  It’s wisdom that had brought him to this state –

  How fortunate the man with none!

  Yes, the virtues are dangerous stuff in this world, as this fine song proves, better not to have them and have a pleasant life and breakfast instead, hot soup for instance. Look at me: I haven’t any but I’d like some. I’m a serving soldier but what good did my courage do me in all them battles, nowt, here I am starving and better have been shit-scared and stayed at home. For why?

  You saw courageous Caesar next

  You know what he became.

  They deified him in his life

  Then had him murdered just the same.

  And as they raised the fatal knife

  How loud he cried: You too, my son!

  The world however didn’t wait

  But soon observed what followed on.

  It’s courage that had brought him to that state.

  How fortunate the man with none!

  Sotto voce: Don’t even look out. Aloud: Ladies and gentlemen, domestic staff and other inmates! All right, you may say, gallantry never cooked a man’s dinner, what about trying honesty? You can eat all you want then, or anyhow not stay sober. How about it?

  You heard of honest Socrates

  The man who never lied:

  They weren’t so grateful as you’d think

  Instead the rulers fixed to have him tried

  And handed him the poisoned drink.

  How honest was the people’s noble son!

  The world however didn’t wait

  But soon observed what followed on.

  It’s honesty that brought him to that state.

  How fortunate the man with none!

  Ah yes, they say, be unselfish and share what you’ve got, but how about if you got nowt? It’s all very well to say the dogooders have a hard time, but you still got to have something. Aye, unselfishness is a rare virtue, cause it just don’t pay.