Bertolt Brecht: Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder 5

by Bertolt Brecht

  Stump of a figtree, useless kind of wood

  Was I once; then the carpenter, not sure

  Whether to make a Priapus or a stool

  Opted for the god …

  Can you imagine Horace being told not to mention stools and agreeing to put a table in the poem instead? Sir, it offends my sense of beauty if my cosmogony has a Venus without phases. We cannot invent mechanisms to pump water up from rivers if we are not to be allowed to study the greatest of all mechanisms right under our nose, that of the heavenly bodies. The sum of the angles in a triangle cannot be varied to suit the Vatican’s convenience. I can’t calculate the courses of flying bodies in such a way as also to explain witches taking trips on broomsticks.

  THE LITTLE MONK: But don’t you think that the truth will get through without us, so long as it’s true?

  GALILEO: No, no, no. The only truth that gets through will be what we force through: the victory of reason will be the victory of people who are prepared to reason, nothing else. Your picture of the Campagna peasants makes them look like the moss on their own huts. How can anyone imagine that the sum of the angles in a triangle conflicts with their needs? But unless they get moving and learn how to think, they will find even the finest irrigation systems won’t help them. Oh, to hell with it: I see your people’s divine patience, but where is their divine anger?

  THE LITTLE MONK: They are tired.

  GALILEO tosses him a bundle of manuscripts: Are you a physicist, my son? Here you have the reasons why the ocean moves, ebbing and flowing. But you’re not supposed to read it, d’you hear? Oh, you’ve already started. You are a physicist, then? The little monk is absorbed in the papers.

  GALILEO: An apple from the tree of knowledge! He’s wolfing it down. He is damned for ever, but he has got to wolf it down, the poor glutton. I sometimes think I’ll have myself shut up in a dungeon ten fathoms below ground in complete darkness if only it will help me to find out what light is. And the worst thing is that what I know I have to tell people, like a lover, like a drunkard, like a traitor. It is an absolute vice and leads to disaster. How long can I go on shouting it into the void, that’s the question.

  THE LITTLE MONK indicating a passage in the papers: I don’t understand this sentence.

  GALILEO: I’ll explain it to you, I’ll explain it to you.

  9

  After keeping silent for eight years, Galileo is encouraged by the accession of a new pope, himself a scientist, to resume his researches into the forbidden area: the sunspots

  Eight long years with tongue in cheek

  Of what he knew he did not speak.

  Then temptation grew too great

  And Galileo challenged fate.

  Galileo’s home in Florence. Galileo’s pupils – Federzoni, the little monk and Andrea Sarti, a young man now – have gathered to see an experiment demonstrated. Galileo himself is standing reading a book. Virginia and Mrs Sarti are sewing her trousseau.

  VIRGINIA: Sewing one’s trousseau is fun. That one’s for entertaining at the long table; Ludovico likes entertaining. It’s got to be neat, though; his mother can spot every loose thread. She doesn’t like Father’s books. Nor does Father Christophorus.

  MRS SARTI: He hasn’t written a book for years.

  VIRGINIA: I think he realises he was wrong. A very high church person in Rome told me a lot about astronomy. The distances are too great.

  ANDREA writing the day’s programme on the board: Thursday p.m. Floating bodies’ – as before, ice, bucket of water, balance, iron needle, Aristotle.

  He fetches these thing.

  The others are reading books.

  Enter Filippo Mucius, a scholar in middle age. He appears somewhat distraught.

  MUCIUS: Could you tell Mr Galilei that he has got to see me?

  He is condemning me unheard.

  MRS SARTI: But he won’t receive you.

  MUCIUS: God will recompense you if you will only ask. I must speak to him.

  VIRGINIA goes to the stairs: Father!

  GALILEO: What is it?

  VIRGINIA: Mr Mucius.

  GALILEO looking up sharply, goes to the head of the stairs, followed by his pupils: What do you want?

  MUCIUS: Mr Galilei, may I be allowed to explain those passages from my book which seem to contain a condemnation of Copernicus’s theories about the rotation of the earth? I have …

  GALILEO: What do you want to explain? You are fully in line with the Holy Congregation’s decree of 1616. You cannot be faulted. You did of course study mathematics here, but that’s no reason why we should need to hear you say that two and two makes four. You are quite within your rights in saying that this stone – he takes a little stone from his pocket and throws it down to the hall – has just flown up to the ceiling.

  MUCIUS: Mr Galilei, there are worse things than the plague.

  GALILEO: Listen to me: someone who doesn’t know the truth is just thick-headed. But someone who does know it and calls it a lie is a crook. Get out of my house.

  MUCIUS tonelessly: You’re quite right.

  He goes out.

  Galileo goes back into his work room.

  FEDERZONI: I am afraid so. He’s not a great man and no one would take him seriously for one moment if he hadn’t been your pupil. Now of course people are saying ‘he’s heard everything Galileo had to teach and he’s forced to admit that it’s all nonsense’.

  MRS SARTI: I’m sorry for the poor gentleman.

  VIRGINIA: Father was too good to him.

  MRS SARTI: I really wanted to talk to you about your marriage, Virginia. You’re such a child still, and got no mother, and your father keeps putting those little bits of ice on water. Anyhow I wouldn’t ask him anything to do with your marriage if I were you. He’d keep on for days saying the most dreadful things, preferably at meals and when the young people are there, because he hasn’t got half a scudo’s worth of shame in his make-up, and never had. But I’m not talking about that kind of thing, just about how the future will turn out. Not that I’m in a position to know anything myself. I’m not educated. But nobody goes blindly into a serious affair like this. I really think you ought to go to a proper astronomer at the university and get him to cast your horoscope so you know what you’re in for. Why are you laughing?

  VIRGINIA: Because I’ve been.

  MRS SARTI very inquisitive: What did he say?

  VIRGINIA: For three months I’ll have to be careful, because the sun will be in Aries, but then I shall get a particularly favourable ascendant and the clouds will part. So long as I keep my eye on Jupiter I can travel as much as I like, because I’m an Aries.

  MRS SARTI: And Ludovico?

  VIRGINIA: He’s a Leo. After a little pause: That’s supposed to be sensual. Pause.

  VIRGINIA: I know whose step that is. It’s Mr Gaffone, the Rector.

  Enter Mr Gaffone, Rector of the University.

  GAFFONE: I’m just bringing a book which I think might interest your father. For heaven’s sake please don’t disturb him. I can’t help it; I always feel that every moment stolen from that great man is a moment stolen from Italy. I’ll lay it neatly and daintily in your hands and slip away, on tiptoe.

  He goes. Virginia gives the book to Federzoni.

  GALILEO: What’s it about?

  FEDERZONI: I don’t know. Spelling out:‘De maculis in sole’.

  ANDREA: About sunspots. Yet another.

  Federzoni irritably passes it on to him.

  ANDREA: Listen to the dedication. ‘To the greatest living authority on physics, Galileo Galilei.’

  Galileo is once more deep in his book.

  ANDREA: I’ve read the treatise on sunspots which Fabricius has written in Holland. He thinks they are clusters of stars passing between the earth and the sun.

  THE LITTLE MONK: Doubtful, don’t you think, Mr Galilei?

  Galileo does not answer.

  ANDREA: In Paris and in Prague they think they are vapours from the sun.

  FEDERZONI
: Hm.

  ANDREA: Federzoni doubts it.

  FEDERZONI: Leave me out of it, would you? I said ‘Hm’, that’s all. I’m your lens-grinder, I grind lenses and you make observations of the sky through them and what you see isn’t spots but ‘maculis’. How am I to doubt anything? How often do I have to tell you I can’t read the books, they’re in Latin?

  In his anger he gesticulates with the scales. One of the pans falls to the floor. Galileo goes over and picks it up without saying anything.

  THE LITTLE MONK: There’s happiness in doubting: I wonder why.

  ANDREA: Every sunny day for the past two weeks I’ve gone up to the attic, under the roof. The narrow chinks between the shingles let just a thin ray of light through. If you take a sheet of paper you can catch the sun’s image upside down. I saw a spot as big as a fly, as smudged as a cloud. It was moving. Why aren’t we investigating those spots, Mr Galilei?

  GALILEO: Because we’re working on floating bodies.

  ANDREA: Mother’s got great baskets full of letters. The whole of Europe wants to know what you think, you’ve such a reputation now, you can’t just say nothing.

  GALILEO: Rome allowed me to get a reputation because I said nothing.

  FEDERZONI: But you can’t afford to go on saying nothing now.

  GALILEO: Nor can I afford to be roasted over a wood fire like a ham.

  ANDREA: Does that mean you think the sunspots are part of this business?

  Galileo does not answer.

  ANDREA: All right, let’s stick to our bits of ice, they can’t hurt you.

  GALILEO: Correct. – Our proposition, Andrea?

  ANDREA: As for floating, we assume that it depends not on a body’s form but on whether it is lighter or heavier than water.

  GALILEO: What does Aristotle say?

  THE LITTLE MONK: ‘Discus latus platique …’

  GALILEO: For God’s sake translate it.

  THE LITTLE MONK: ‘A broad flat piece of ice will float on water whereas an iron needle will sink.’

  GALILEO: Why does the ice not sink, in Aristotle’s view?

  THE LITTLE MONK: Because it is broad and flat and therefore cannot divide the water.

  GALILEO: Right. He takes a piece of ice and places it in the bucket. Now I am pressing the ice hard against the bottom of the bucket. I release the pressure of my hands. What happens?

  THE LITTLE MONK: It shoots up to the top again.

  GALILEO: Correct. Apparently it can divide the water all right as it rises. Fulganzio!

  THE LITTLE MONK: But why can it float in the first place? It’s heavier than water, because it is concentrated water.

  GALILEO: Suppose it were thinned-down water?

  ANDREA: It has to be lighter than water, or it wouldn’t float.

  GALILEO: Aha.

  ANDREA: Any more than an iron needle can float. Everything lighter than water floats and everything heavier sinks, QED.

  GALILEO: Andrea, you must learn to think cautiously. Hand me the needle. A sheet of paper. Is iron heavier than water?

  ANDREA: Yes.

  Galileo lays the needle on a piece of paper and launches it on the water. A pause.

  GALILEO: What happens?

  FEDERZONI: The needle’s floating. Holy Aristotle, they never checked up on him!

  They laugh.

  GALILEO: One of the main reasons why the sciences are so poor is that they imagine they are so rich. It isn’t their job to throw open the door to infinite wisdom but to put a limit to infinite error. Make your notes.

  VIRGINIA: What is it?

  MRS SARTI: Whenever they laugh it gives me a turn. What are they laughing about, I ask myself.

  VIRGINIA: Father says theologians have their bells to ring: physicists have their laughter.

  MRS SARTI: Anyway I’m glad he isn’t looking through his tube so often these days. That was even worse.

  VIRGINIA: All he’s doing now is put bits of ice in water: that can’t do much harm.

  MRS SARTI: I don’t know.

  Enter Ludovico Marsili in travelling clothes, followed by a servant carrying items of luggage. Virginia runs up and throws her arms round him.

  VIRGINIA: Why didn’t you write and say you were coming?

  LUDOVICO: I happened to be in the area, inspecting our vineyards at Buccioli, and couldn’t resist the chance.

  GALILEO as though short-sighted: Who is it?

  VIRGINIA: Ludovico.

  THE LITTLE MONK: Can’t you see him?

  GALILEO: Ah yes, Ludovico. Goes towards him. How are the horses?

  LUDOVICO: Doing fine, sir.

  GALILEO: Sarti, we’re celebrating. Get us a jug of that Sicilian wine, the old sort.

  Exit Mrs Sarti with Andrea.

  LUDOVICO to Virginia: You look pale. Country life will suit you. My mother is expecting you in September.

  VIRGINIA: Wait a moment, I’ll show you my wedding dress.

  Runs out.

  GALILEO: Sit down.

  LUDOVICO: I’m told there are over a thousand students going to your lectures at the university, sir. What are you working at just now?

  GALILEO: Routine stuff. Did you come through Rome?

  LUDOVICO: Yes. – Before I forget: my mother congratulates you on your remarkable tact in connection with those sunspot orgies the Dutch have been going in for lately.

  GALILEO drily: Very kind of her.

  Mrs Sarti and Andrea bring wine and glasses. Everyone gathers round the table.

  LUDOVICO: I can tell you what all the gossip will be about in Rome this February. Christopher Clavius said he’s afraid the whole earth-round-the-sun act will start up again because of these sunspots.

  ANDREA: No chance.

  GALILEO: Any other news from the Holy City, aside from hopes of fresh lapses on my part?

  LUDOVICO: I suppose you know that His Holiness is dying?

  THE LITTLE MONK: Oh.

  GALILEO: Who do they think will succeed him?

  LUDOVICO: The favourite is Barberini.

  GALILEO: Barberini.

  ANDREA: Mr Galilei knows Barberini.

  THE LITTLE MONK: Cardinal Barberini is a mathematician.

  FEDERZONI: A mathematician at the Holy See! Pause.

  GALILEO: Well: so now they need people like Barberini who have read a bit of mathematics! Things are beginning to move. Federzoni, we may yet see the day when we no longer have to look over our shoulder like criminals every time we say two and two equals four. To Ludovico: I like this wine, Ludovico. What do you think of it?

  LUDOVICO: It’s good.

  GALILEO: I know the vineyard. The hillside is steep and stony, the grapes almost blue. I love this wine.

  LUDOVICO: Yes, sir.

  GALILEO: It has got little shadows in it. And it is almost sweet but just stops short of it. – Andrea, clear all that stuff away, the ice, needle and bucket. – I value the consolations of the flesh. I’ve no use for those chicken-hearts who see them as weaknesses. Pleasure takes some achieving, I’d say.

  THE LITTLE MONK: What have you in mind?

  FEDERZONI: We’re starting up the earth-round-the-sun act again.

  ANDREA hums:

  It’s fixed, the Scriptures say. And so

  Orthodox science proves.

  The Holy Father grabs its ears, to show

  It’s firmly held. And yet it moves.

  Andrea, Federzoni and the little monk hurry to the work table and clear it.

  ANDREA: We might find that the sun goes round too. How would that suit you, Marsili?

  LUDOVICO: What’s the excitement about?

  MRS SARTI: You’re not going to start up that devilish business again, surely, Mr Galilei?

  GALILEO: Now I know why your mother sent you to me. Barberini in the ascendant! Knowledge will become a passion and research an ecstasy. Clavius is right, those sunspots interest me. Do you like my wine, Ludovico?

  LUDOVICO: I told you I did, sir.

  GALILEO: You really like it?
r />   LUDOVICO stiffly: I like it.

  GALILEO: Would you go so far as to accept a man’s wine or his daughter without asking him to give up his profession? What has my astronomy got to do with my daughter? The phases of Venus can’t alter my daughter’s backside.

  MRS SARTI: Don’t be so vulgar. I am going to fetch Virginia.

  LUDOVICO holding her back: Marriages in families like ours are not based on purely sexual considerations.

  GALILEO: Did they stop you from marrying my daughter for eight years because I had a term of probation to serve?

  LUDOVICO: My wife will also have to take her place in our pew in the village church.

  GALILEO: You think your peasants will go by the saintliness of their mistress in deciding whether to pay rent or not?

  LUDOVICO: In a sense, yes.

  GALILEO: Andrea, Fulganzio, get out the brass reflector and the screen! We will project the sun’s image on it so as to protect our eyes; that’s your method, Andrea. Andrea and the little monk fetch reflector and screen.

  LUDOVICO: You did sign a declaration in Rome, you know, sir, saying you would have nothing more to do with this earth-round-the-sun business.

  GALILEO: Oh that. In those days we had a reactionary pope.

  MRS SARTI: Had! And His Holiness not even dead yet!

  GALILEO: Almost. Put a grid of squares on the screen. We will do this methodically. And then we’ll be able to answer their letters, won’t we, Andrea?

  MRS SARTI: ‘Almost’ indeed. The man’ll weigh his pieces of ice fifty times over, but as soon as it’s something that suits his book he believes it blindly. The screen is set up.

  LUDOVICO: If His Holiness does die, Mr Galilei, irrespective who the next pope is and how intense his devotion to the sciences, he will also have to take into account the devotion felt for him by the most respected families in the land.

  THE LITTLE MONK: God made the physical world, Ludovico; God made the human brain; God will permit physics.

  MRS SARTI: Galileo, I am going to say something to you. I have watched my son slipping into sin with all those ‘experiments’ and ‘theories’ and ‘observations’ and there was nothing I could do about it. You set yourself up against the authorities and they have already warned you once. The highest cardinals spoke to you like a sick horse. That worked for a time, but then two months ago, just after the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, I caught you secretly starting your ‘observations’ again. In the attic. I didn’t say much but I knew what to do. I ran and lit a candle to St Joseph. It’s more than I can cope with. When I get you on your own you show vestiges of sense and tell me you know you’ve got to behave or else it’ll be dangerous; but two days of experiments and you’re just as bad as before. If I choose to forfeit eternal bliss by sticking with a heretic that’s my business, but you have no right to trample all over your daughter’s happiness with your great feet.