Brecht Collected Plays: 6: Good Person of Szechwan; The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui; Mr Puntila and his Man Matti (World Classics)

by Bertolt Brecht

  MATTI: You might do better to tell them that tomorrow.

  Then he turns ‘to Laina and the parson’s wife’ as on p. 292 down to their exit, after which one hears singing from the dance off:

  The wolf asked the rooster a question:

  ‘Shouldn’t we get to know each other better

  Know and understand each other better?’

  The rooster thought that a good suggestion

  Must have responded to the question

  I’d say, seeing the field’s full of feathers.

  Oh, Oh.

  The match asked the can a question:

  ‘Shouldn’t we get to know each other better

  Know and respect each other better?’

  The can thought that a good suggestion

  Must have responded to the question

  I’d say, seeing the sky’s turning crimson.

  The boss asked the maid a question:

  Shouldn’t we get to know each other better

  Know and respect each other better?

  The maid thought that a good suggestion

  Must have responded to the question

  I’d say, seeing her stays are bulging.

  Oh, oh.

  PUNTILA: That’s meant for me. Songs like that cut me to the quick.

  The last stage direction first appears in the 1950 text. Red Surkkala’s song was added at the end of the fair copy, developing the theme of the first stanza of the above, then in the 1950 version supplanted it.

  Scene 10

  This is not in the W-B version but is included in the first script with no scene number or title. In the fair copy it is numbered 8a.

  Scene 11 [9 pin the early scripts]

  In the first script the title is ‘Puntila and Kalle climb Mount Hatelma’, in the fair copy ‘Puntila sits in judgement and climbs Mount Hatelma’, in the W-B version ‘Iso-Heikkilä condemns Kalle.’ The setting in the first script is the

  Library at Puntila Hall. Hanna, the old housekeeper, is writing out accounts, when Puntila sticks his head in, with a towel round it. He is about to draw back when he sees that Hanna has observed him, and walks across the room to the door. On her addressing him he is painfully affected and stops.

  HANNA: Mr Puntila, I have to talk to you. Now don’t pretend you’ve got something important to do, and don’t look so pained. For the past week I’ve said nothing because what with the engagement and the house guests I’ve had my hands so full I didn’t know where I was. But now the time has come. Do you realise what you’ve done?

  PUNTILA: Hanna, I have a dreadful headache. I think if I had another cup of coffee and a bit of a nap it might help; what do you think?

  HANNA: I think you’ve needed something quite different and been needing it a long time. Do you realise that his honour the judge has left?

  PUNTILA: What, Fredrik? That seems childish.

  HANNA: Do you expect him to stay in a place the foreign minister’s been thrown out of? Not to mention the Attache, who moves in the very best circles and will be telling everybody about you?

  You’ll be left sitting at Puntila Hall like a lone rhinoceros. Society will shun you.

  PUNTILA: I can’t understand that minister. He sees I’m a bit boozed, and then goes and takes everything I say literally.

  HANNA: You’ve always made a nuisance of yourself, but ever since that chauffeur came to the estate it’s been too much. Twenty years I’ve been at the manor, but now you’re going to have to make up your mind: it’s the chauffeur or me.

  PUNTILA: What are you talking about? You can’t go. Who’d run the business? I’ve got such a headache, I think I’m getting pneumonia. Imagine attacking a man in such an inhuman way.

  HANNA: I’ll expect your answer. (Turns towards the door)

  PUNTILA: You people grudge me even the smallest pleasure. Get me some milk, my head’s bursting.

  HANNA: There won’t be any milk for you. The cook’s passed out too, she was drunk. Here come the parson and the doctor.

  PUNTILA: I don’t want to see them, my health isn’t up to it. (Hanna opens the door to the two gentlemen)

  PARSON: Good morning, Mr Puntila, I trust that you had a restful night. (Puntila mumbles something) I ran into the doctor on the road; we thought we’d drop in and see how you were.

  PUNTILA (dubiously): I see.

  DOCTOR: Rough night, what? I’d drink some milk if I were you.

  PARSON: My wife asked to be remembered to you. She and Miss Laina had a most interesting talk.

  (Pause)

  PARSON (gingerly): I’m very much surprised to hear Miss Hanna is thinking of leaving.

  PUNTILA: Where did you hear that?

  PARSON: Where? Oh, I really couldn’t say. You know how these rumours get around.

  PUNTILA: By telephone, I suppose. I’d like to know who phoned you.

  PARSON: I assure you, Mr Puntila, there was no question of anybody phoning. What made me call was simply being upset that someone so universally respected as Miss Hanna should be forced to take such a step.

  DOCTOR: I told you it was a misunderstanding.

  PUNTILA: I’d just like to know who has been telephoning people from here behind my back. I know these coincidences.

  DOCTOR: Don’t be difficult, Puntila. Nothing’s being done behind your back. We’re not having this conversation behind your back, are we?

  PUNTILA: If I find you’ve been intriguing against me, Finstrand, I’ll put you on your back soon enough.

  PARSON: Mr Puntila, this is getting us nowhere. I must ask you to consider our words as words of friendship because we’ve heard you were losing the valuable services of Miss Hanna, and it’s very hard to imagine what the estate would do without her.

  DOCTOR: If you want to throw us out like yesterday, go right ahead. You can put up a barbed-wire fence around the estate and drink yourself to death behind it.

  PUNTILA (with hostility): So somebody did phone.

  DOCTOR: Oh God, yes. Do you think everyone in Lammi just takes it for granted when you insult a cabinet minister under your own roof and drive your daughter’s fiancé off the estate by stoning him?

  PUNTILA: What’s that about stoning? I’d like to know who’s spreading that stoning story.

  PARSON: Mr Puntila, let’s not waste time on details. I fear I have come to the conclusion that much of what happened yesterday is not at all clear in your memory. For instance, I doubt whether you are aware of the exact wording of the insults which you hurled after our foreign minister, Mr Puntila.

  DOCTOR: It may interest you to know that you called him a shit.

  PUNTILA: That’s an exaggeration.

  PARSON: Alas, no. Perhaps that will make you realise that when you are in that deplorable condition you don’t always act as you might think wise in retrospect. You risk incurring considerable damage.

  PUNTILA: Any damage I incur is paid for by me, not you.

  DOCTOR: True. But there is some damage which you can’t pay for.

  PARSON: Which money cannot repair.

  DOCTOR: Though it’s the first time I’ve seen you take things so lightly when somebody like Miss Hanna gives notice in the middle of the harvest.

  PARSON: We should overlook such material considerations, doctor. I’ve known Mr Puntila to be just as understanding where purely moral considerations were concerned. It might not be unrewarding to take the matter of Surkkala as an example of the dangers of over-indulgence in alcohol, and discuss it with Mr Puntila in a friendly, dignified spirit.

  PUNTILA: What about Surkkala?

  All this long introduction, which was replaced by the present text in the 1950 version, takes us only to p. 296, after which the scene continues as now as far as Puntila’s shaking of the parson’s hand on p. 297, apart of course from the giving of Laina’s lines to Hanna.

  Thereafter the parson, before leaving, begs Hanna not to abandon her employer but to go on acting as his guardian angel; to which she replies: ‘That depends on Mr Puntila.’
The doctor advises him to drink less, and the two men go out. Puntila’s ensuing speech about giving up drinking (‘Laina, from now on’ etc.) is addressed to Hanna, not Laina, and is somewhat shorter than now. In the W-B version it follows straight after Hanna’s statement that the cook was drunk (p. 419 above), the whole episode with the parson and the doctor/lawyer being thus omitted. To return to the first script, Hanna then replies:

  Liquor and low company are to blame. I’ll send for that criminal chauffeur, you can deal with him for a start. (Calls through the doorway) Kalle! Come into the library at once!

  PUNTILA: That Surkkala business is a lesson to me; imagine my not evicting him. That’s what happens once you let the demon rum get a toe-hold.

  Surkkala’s appearance with his family is omitted, Kalle/Matti entering at this point with his ‘Good morning, Mr Puntila,’ etc. as on p. 298. He then has to defend himself not to Puntila (and against the accusations of the latter’s friends) but to Hanna, to whom he says that he was merely carrying out instructions and (as in the final text) could not confine himself to the sensible ones (p. 298).

  HANNA: There’s no need to top it all by being impertinent. They told me how you chased after your master’s daughter at Kurgela and pestered her in the bath-hut.

  KALLE: Only for the sake of appearances.

  HANNA: You do everything for the sake of appearances. You put on a show of zeal and manage to get yourself ordered to force your lustful attentions on your employer’s daughter and smoke Puntila’s cigars. Who invited those Kurgela creatures over to Puntila Hall?

  KALLE: Mr Puntila, down in the village at half-past four a.m.

  HANNA: Yes, but who worked them up and got them to come into the house where the foreign minister was being entertained? You.

  PUNTILA: I caught him trying to make them ask me for money for breach of promise.

  HANNA: And then the hiring fair?

  PUNTILA: He frightened off the redhaired man I was after and landed me with that weedy fellow I had to send packing because he scared the cows.

  KALLE: Yes, Mr Puntila.

  HANNA: As for the engagement party last night… You ought to have the whole estate on your conscience. There’s Miss Eva sitting upstairs with a headache and a broken heart for the rest of her life, when she could have been happily married in three or four months’ time.

  KALLE: All I can say, Miss Hanna, is that if I hadn’t restrained myself something much worse would have happened.

  HANNA: You and she were sitting in the kitchen on Saturday night, do you deny that?

  KALLE: We had a perfectly harmless conversation which I am not going to describe to you in detail, Miss Hanna, you being a spinster,, and I don’t mean that as an insult but as my personal conclusion based on certain pieces of evidence that are not relevant to the present discussion.

  HANNA: So you’re dropping your hypocritical mask, you Bolshevik. It all comes of your boozing with creatures like this, Mr Puntila, and not keeping your distance. I’m leaving.

  Puntila then tells Matti/Kalle, in much the same words as now used to Laina on p. 297, to bring out all the bottles containing liquor so that they may be smashed. He follows with a shorter version of his speech on p. 299 down to ‘Too few people are aware of that’, after which Matti reappears with the bottles. The dialogue is close to that of our text, but with Hanna/Alina fulfilling Laina’s role of trying to stop Puntila drinking, until he turns on her (p. 300) after his ‘I never want to see it again, you heard.’ Then instead of going on as in our text he says:

  And don’t contradict me, woman; you’re my evil genius. That gaunt face of yours makes me sick. I can’t even get a drink of milk when I’m sick, and in my own house too. Because there you are, telephoning everyone behind my back and bringing in the parson to treat me like a schoolboy; I won’t have it. Your pettiness has been poisoning my life for the last thirty years. I can’t bear pettiness, you rusty old adding machine.

  Then come four lines as in our text from ‘You lot want me to rot away here’ to ‘tot up the cattle feed’, continuing:

  I look across the table, and what do I see but you, you sleazy piece of black crape. I’m giving you notice, do you hear?

  HANNA: That beats everything. The two of you getting drunk before my very eyes!

  PUNTILA: Get out.

  HANNA: Are you trying to give me notice? Here’s the man you promised you’d give notice to. You promised the parson himself. You were going to report him to the authorities. (Puntila laughs, picks her up and carries her out, cursing him at the top of her voice) Wastrel! Drunkard! Tramp!

  PUNTILA (returning): That got rid of her.

  Matti/Kalle’s speech ‘I hope the punch is all right,’ etc. follows as on p. 300, together with Puntila’s next speech as far as ‘a calamity all the same.’ Then instead of the reference to Surkkala and the half-page of dialogue with him and his family Puntila runs straight on:

  I always said it takes a certain inner strength to keep on the right path.

  KALLE: You always get more out of it if you wander off, Mr Puntila. Practically everything that’s at all pleasant lies off the right path, you’d almost think the right path had been thought up on purpose to discourage people.

  PUNTILA: I say the pleasant path is the right one. And in my opinion you’re a good guide. Just looking at you makes me thirsty.

  KALLE: I’d like to say something about yesterday’s engagement party, Mr Puntila. There were one or two misunderstandings due to the impossibility of suppressing human nature, but if I may say so inhuman nature can’t be suppressed either. You rather underrated the gulf between me and Miss Eva until I tickled her backside; I suppose it was because offhand you didn’t see why I shouldn’t go catching crayfish with Miss Eva just as well as the next man, which is an offhand way of looking at the sexes and one that doesn’t get under the surface – as if only the intimate things mattered and not upbringing. As far as I know, though, nothing that happened at the party was so disastrous that you can’t put it right, though all that came of it really was that the parson’s wife now knows how to preserve mushrooms.

  PUNTILA: I can’t take it tragically. Looking at it from the broad point of view, not from a petty one; devil take the woman, she’s got a petty outlook, she’s nothing. Eva will inherit the estate even if she makes a bad marriage.

  KALLE: Even if. Because so long as she’s got the estate, and the cows yield milk and there’s someone to drive the milk churns to the co-operative and they keep an eye on the grain and so on, nothing else counts. Whether it’s a good or bad marriage isn’t going to prevent her from selling her trees. You can chop down a forest even with a broken heart.

  Then Puntila asks what his pay is, as on p. 301 (though the amount varies from script to script) and goes on, as in our text, to propose climbing Mount Hatelma. After his ‘We could do it in spirit’ (p. 302) Matti/Kalle interposes in the first script (not W-B):

  In spirit is always much the simplest way. I once got sore at an Englishman for parking his car so stupidly that I had to shove it out of the way with my drunken boss sitting in the Ford cursing me. In spirit I declared war on England, I defeated them in spirit, brought them to their knees, and laid down stiff peace terms; it was all very simple, I remember.

  Then Puntila finishes with ‘Given a chair or two we could’ etc. (p. 302) and the dialogue continues virtually as we have it for some two pages, omitting only the stage direction on p. 302 with its mention of the billiard table. After Puntila’s ‘Are you a Tavastlander?’ (p. 303), however, Kalle gave details, e.g., from the first script:

  Originally, yes. I was born the other side of those forests in a cabin by the lake, and I grew up on bare stony ground.

  PUNTILA: Hold on, let’s take it all in proper order. First and foremost, where else is there a sky …

  – and so on as in our text to the end of the scene. In the W-B version there are some cuts, and Kalle adds after his present concluding line ‘Long live Tavastland and its Iso
-Heikkilä!’ after which the two men sing the lines about the Roina once again. (These come from the nineteenth-century poet Topelius, and the Roina is a lake in central Finland.)

  Scene 12 [10 in the first script]

  Laina’s second speech and both Matti’s first two were additions on the fair copy. In the first script, after Laina’s ‘until Mr Puntila’s up’ (p. 306) Kalle continues:

  I’m glad I was able to straighten out that business with the housekeeper. It got me a settlement of two months’ pay, and she was so glad to be rid of me she gave me a decent reference.

  COOK: I don’t get it. When you’re in so good with the master.

  KALLE: That’s just the problem. I couldn’t have him writing a reference for me; I’d never get another job so long as I lived.

  Then as in our text from Laina’s ‘He won’t be able to manage without you’ to her exit, after which Kalle flings a stone at one of the balcony windows and Eva appears in night attire.

  EVA: What’s up? Why have you got your suitcase?

  KALLE: I’m leaving.

  EVA (after a pause): Why do you want to leave?

  KALLE: I can’t stay for ever.

  EVA: I’m sorry you’re going, Kalle.

  KALLE: I’ll send you a crayfish for your birthday.

  EVA: I’d sooner you came back yourself.

  KALLE: Right. In a year from now.

  EVA: I’ll wait that long.

  KALLE: By then I’ll have my sawmill.

  EVA: Fine. I’ll have learned how to darn socks by then.

  KALLE: Then it will work. Bye.

  EVA: Bye. (Goes back into her room)

  The epilogue follows with some very slight variations.

  The W-B version tacks this scene on to the preceding one by having Eva enter and call Puntila down from his mountain, after which he goes off with Fina and Laina, leaving her and Kalle alone. She asks ‘Why have you got your suitcase?’ as above, but the dialogue differs from that in the first script by having her press him to make it less than a year and suggesting that her father might give her a sawmill. Kalle says he will send her books, and she agrees to read them; then she comes close to him, forcing him to say ‘Go away and lead me not into temptation.’ He pushes her off, and the epilogue follows.