LEDUC: Don’t be offended, I’m simply ignorant of that situation. I suppose I have taken for granted that the aristocracy is . . . always behind a reactionary regime.
VON BERG: Oh, there are some, certainly. But for the most part they never took responsibility, in any case.
LEDUC: That interests me. So you still take seriously the . . . the title and . . .
VON BERG: It is not a “title”; it is my name, my family. Just as you have a name, and a family. And you are not inclined to dishonor them, I presume.
LEDUC: I see. And by responsibility, you mean, I suppose, that—
VON BERG: Oh, I don’t know; whatever that means. He glances at his watch.
Pause.
LEDUC: Please forgive me, I didn’t mean to pry into your affairs. Pause. I’d never thought about it, but it’s obvious now—they would want to destroy whatever power you have.
VON BERG: Oh, no, I have no power. And if I did it would be a day’s work for them to destroy it. That’s not the issue.
Pause.
LEDUC, fascinated—he is drawn to some truth in Von Berg: What is it, then? Believe me, I’m not being critical. Quite the contrary . . .
VON BERG: But these are obvious answers! He laughs. I have a certain . . . standing. My name is a thousand years old, and they know the danger if someone like me is perhaps . . . not vulgar enough.
LEDUC: And by vulgar you mean . . .
VON BERG: Well, don’t you think Nazism . . . whatever else it may be . . . is an outburst of vulgarity? An ocean of vulgarity?
BAYARD: I’m afraid it’s a lot more than that, my friend.
VON BERG, politely, to Bayard: I am sure it is, yes.
BAYARD: You make it sound like they have bad table manners, that’s all.
VON BERG: They certainly do, yes. Nothing angers them more than a sign of any . . . refinement. It is decadent, you see.
BAYARD: What kind of statement is that? You mean you left Austria because of their table manners?
VON BERG: Table manners, yes; and their adoration of dreadful art; and grocery clerks in uniform telling the orchestra what music it may not play. Vulgarity can be enough to send a man out of his country, yes, I think so.
BAYARD: In other words, if they had good taste in art, and elegant table manners, and let the orchestra play whatever it liked, they’d be all right with you.
VON BERG: But how would that be possible? Can people with respect for art go about hounding Jews? Making a prison of Europe, pushing themselves forward as a race of policemen and brutes? Is that possible for artistic people?
MONCEAU: I’d like to agree with you, Prince von Berg, but I have to say that the German audiences—I’ve played there—no audience is as sensitive to the smallest nuance of a performance; they sit in the theater with respect, like in a church. And nobody listens to music like a German. Don’t you think so? It’s a passion with them.
Pause.
VON BERG, appalled at the truth: I’m afraid that is true, yes. Pause. I don’t know what to say. He is depressed, deeply at a loss.
LEDUC: Perhaps it isn’t those people who are doing this.
VON BERG: I’m afraid I know many cultivated people who . . . did become Nazis. Yes, they did. Art is perhaps no defense against this. It’s curious how one takes certain ideas for granted. Until this moment I had thought of art as a . . . To Bayard: You may be right—I don’t understand very much about it. Actually, I’m essentially a musician—in an amateur way, of course, and politics has never . . .
The office door opens and Marchand appears, backing out, talking to someone within. He is putting a leather document-wallet into his breast pocket, while with the other hand he holds a white pass.
MARCHAND: That’s perfectly all right, I understand perfectly. Good day, gentlemen. Holding up the pass to them: I show the pass at the door? Thank you.
Shutting the door, he turns and hurries past the line of prisoners, and, as he passes the Boy . . .
BOY: What’d they ask you, sir?
Marchand turns up the corridor without glancing at the Boy, and as he approaches the end the Guard, hearing him, appears there. He hands the pass to the Guard and goes out. The Guard moves around the turning of the corridor and disappears.
LEBEAU, half mystified, half hopeful: I could have sworn he was a Jew! To Bayard: Didn’t you think so?
Slight pause.
BAYARD—clearly he did think so: You have papers, don’t you?
LEBEAU: Oh sure, I have good papers. He takes rumpled documents out of his pants pocket.
BAYARD: Well, just insist they’re valid. Maybe that’s what he did.
LEBEAU: I wish you’d take a look at them, will you?
BAYARD: I’m no expert.
LEBEAU: I’d like your opinion, though. You seem to know what’s going on. How they look to you?
Bayard quickly hides the papers as the office door opens. The Professor appears and indicates the Gypsy.
PROFESSOR: Next. You. Come with me.
The Gypsy gets up and starts toward him. The Professor indicates the pot in the Gypsy’s hand.
You can leave that.
The Gypsy hesitates, glances at the pot.
I said leave it there.
The Gypsy puts the pot down on the bench unwillingly.
GYPSY: Fix. No steal.
PROFESSOR: Go in.
GYPSY, indicating the pot, warning the others: That’s mine.
The Gypsy goes into the office. The Professor follows him in and shuts the door. Bayard takes the pot, bends the handle off, puts it in his pocket, and sets the pot back where it was.
LEBEAU, turning back to Bayard, indicating his papers: What do you think?
BAYARD—holds a paper up to the light, turns it over, gives it back to Lebeau: Look good far as I can tell.
MONCEAU: That man did seem Jewish to me. Didn’t he to you, Doctor?
LEDUC: I have no idea. Jews are not a race, you know. They can look like anybody.
LEBEAU, with the joy of near-certainty: He just probably had good papers. Because I know people have papers, I mean all you have to do is look at them and you know they’re phony. But I mean if you have good papers, right?
Monceau has meanwhile taken out his papers and is examining them. The Boy does the same with his. Lebeau turns to Leduc.
That’s true, though. My father looks like an Englishman. The trouble is I took after my mother.
BOY, to Bayard, offering his paper: Could you look at mine?
BAYARD: I’m no expert, kid. Anyway, don’t sit there looking at them like that.
Monceau puts his away, as the Boy does. A pause. They wait.
MONCEAU: I think it’s a question of one’s credibility—that man just now did carry himself with a certain confidence. . . .
The Old Jew begins to pitch forward onto the floor. Von Berg catches him and with the Boy helps him back onto the seat.
LEBEAU, with heightened nervousness: Christ, you’d think they’d shave off their beards. I mean, to walk around with a beard like that in a country like this!
Monceau looks at his beard, and Lebeau touches it.
Well, I just don’t waste time shaving, but . . .
VON BERG, to the Old Jew: Are you all right, sir?
Leduc bends over Von Berg’s lap and feels the Old Jew’s pulse. Pause. He lets his hand go, and looks toward Lebeau.
LEDUC: Were you serious? They actually measured your nose?
LEBEAU: With his fingers. That civilian. They called him “professor.” Pause. Then, to Bayard: I think you’re right; it’s all a question of your papers. That businessman certainly looked Jewish. . . .
MONCEAU: I’m not so sure now.
LEBEAU, angrily: A minute ago you were sure, now suddenly . . . !
MONCEAU:
Well, even if he wasn’t—it only means it really is a general checkup. On the whole population.
LEBEAU: Hey, that’s right too! Slight pause. Actually, I’m often taken for a gentile myself. Not that I give a damn but most of the time, I . . . To Von Berg: How about you, they measure your nose?
VON BERG: No, they told me to get into the car, that was all.
LEBEAU: Because actually yours looks bigger than mine.
BAYARD: Will you cut that out! Just cut it out, will you?
LEBEAU: Can’t I try to find out what I’m in for?
BAYARD: Did you ever think of anything beside yourself? Just because you’re an artist? You people demoralize everybody!
LEBEAU, with unconcealed terror: What the hell am I supposed to think of? Who’re you thinking of?
The office door opens. The Police Captain appears, and gestures toward Bayard.
CAPTAIN: Come inside here.
Bayard, trying hard to keep his knees from shaking, stands. Ferrand, a café proprietor, comes hurrying down the corridor with a tray of coffee things covered with a large napkin. He has an apron on.
Ah, at last!
FERRAND: Sorry, Captain, but for you I had to make some fresh.
CAPTAIN, as he goes into the office behind Ferrand: Put it on my desk.
The door is closed. Bayard sits, wipes his face. Pause.
MONCEAU, to Bayard, quietly: Would you mind if I made a suggestion?
Bayard turns to him, already defensive.
You looked terribly uncertain of yourself when you stood up just now.
BAYARD, taking offense: Me uncertain? You’ve got the wrong man.
MONCEAU: Please, I’m not criticizing you.
BAYARD: Naturally I’m a little nervous, facing a room full of Fascists like this.
MONCEAU: But that’s why one must seem especially self-confident. I’m quite sure that’s what got that businessman through so quickly. I’ve had similar experiences on trains, and even in Paris when they stopped me several times. The important thing is not to look like a victim. Or even to feel like one. They can be very stupid, but they do have a sense for victims; they know when someone has nothing to hide.
LEDUC: But how does one avoid feeling like a victim?
MONCEAU: One must create one’s own reality in this world. I’m an actor, we do this all the time. The audience, you know, is very sadistic; it looks for your first sign of weakness. So you must try to think of something that makes you feel self-assured; anything at all. Like the day, perhaps, when your father gave you a compliment, or a teacher was amazed at your cleverness . . . Any thought—to Bayard—that makes you feel . . . valuable. After all, you are trying to create an illusion; to make them believe you are who your papers say you are.
LEDUC: That’s true, we must not play the part they have written for us. That’s very wise. You must have great courage.
MONCEAU: I’m afraid not. But I have talent instead. To Bayard: One must show them the face of a man who is right, not a man who is suspect and wrong. They sense the difference.
BAYARD: My friend, you’re in a bad way if you have to put on an act to feel your rightness. The bourgeoisie sold France; they let in the Nazis to destroy the French working class. Remember the causes of this war and you’ve got real confidence.
LEDUC: Excepting that the cause of this war keep changing so often.
BAYARD: Not if you understand the economic and political forces.
LEDUC: Still, when Germany attacked us the Communists refused to support France. They pronounced it an imperialist war. Until the Nazis turned against Russia; then in one afternoon it all changed into a sacred battle against tyranny. What confidence can one feel from an understanding that turns upside down in an afternoon?
BAYARD: My friend, without the Red Army standing up to them right now you could forget France for a thousand years!
LEDUC: I agree. But that does not require an understanding of political and economic forces—it is simply faith in the Red Army.
BAYARD: It is faith in the future; and the future is Socialist. And that is what I take in there with me.
To the others:
I warn you—I’ve had experience with these types. You’d better ram a viewpoint up your spine or you’ll break in half.
LEDUC: I understand. You mean it’s important not to feel alone, is that it?
BAYARD: None of us is alone. We’re members of history. Some of us don’t know it, but you’d better learn it for your own preservation.
LEDUC: That we are . . . symbols.
BAYARD, uncertain whether to agree: Yes. Why not? Symbols, yes.
LEDUC: And you feel that helps you. Believe me, I am genuinely interested.
BAYARD: It helps me because it’s the truth. What am I to them personally? Do they know me? You react personally to this, they’ll turn you into an idiot. You can’t make sense of this on a personal basis.
LEDUC: I agree. Personally: But the difficulty is—what can one be if not oneself? For example, the thought of torture or something of that sort . . .
BAYARD, struggling to live his conviction: Well, it frightens me—of course. But they can’t torture the future; it’s out of their hands. Man was not made to be the slave of Big Business. Whatever they do, something inside me is laughing. Because they can’t win. Impossible. He has stiffened himself against his rising fear.
LEDUC: So that in a sense . . . you aren’t here. You personally.
BAYARD: In a sense. Why, what’s wrong with that?
LEDUC: Nothing; it may be the best way to hold on to oneself. It’s only that ordinarily one tries to experience life, to be in spirit where one’s body is. For some of us it’s difficult to shift gears and go into reverse. But that’s not a problem for you.
BAYARD, solicitously: You think a man can ever be himself in this society? When millions go hungry and a few live like kings, and whole races are slaves to the stock market—how can you be yourself in such a world? I put in ten hours a day for a few francs, I see people who never bend their backs and they own the planet. . . . How can my spirit be where my body is? I’d have to be an ape.
VON BERG: Then where is your spirit?
BAYARD: In the future. In the day when the working class is master of the world. That’s my confidence . . . To Monceau: Not some borrowed personality.
VON BERG, wide-eyed, genuinely asking: But don’t you think . . . excuse me. Are not most of the Nazis . . . of the working class?
BAYARD: Well, naturally, with enough propaganda you can confuse anybody.
VON BERG: I see. Slight pause. But in that case, how can one have such confidence in them?
BAYARD: Who do you have confidence in, the aristocracy?
VON BERG: Very little. But in certain aristocrats, yes. And in certain common people.
BAYARD: Are you telling me that history is a question of “certain people”? Are we sitting here because we are “certain people”? Is any of us an individual to them? Class interest makes history, not individuals.
VON BERG: Yes. That seems to be the trouble.
BAYARD: Facts are not trouble. A human being has to glory in the facts.
VON BERG, with a deep, anxious out-reaching to Bayard: But the facts . . . Dear sir, what if the facts are dreadful? And will always be dreadful?
BAYARD: So is childbirth, so is . . .
VON BERG: But a child comes of it. What if nothing comes of the facts but endless, endless disaster? Believe me, I am happy to meet a man who is not cynical; any faith is precious these days. But to give your faith to a . . . a class of people is impossible, simply impossible—ninety-nine per cent of the Nazis are ordinary working-class people!
BAYARD: I concede it is possible to propagandize . . .
VON BERG, with an untoward anxiety, as though the settlement of this issue is intimate with
him: But what can not be propagandized? Isn’t that the . . . the only point? A few individuals. Don’t you think so?
BAYARD: You’re an intelligent man, Prince. Are you seriously telling me that five, ten, a thousand, ten thousand decent people of integrity are all that stand between us and the end of everything? You mean this whole world is going to hang on that thread?
VON BERG, struck: I’m afraid it does sound impossible.
BAYARD: If I thought that, I wouldn’t have the strength to walk through that door, I wouldn’t know how to put one foot in front of the other.
VON BERG—slight pause: Yes. I hadn’t really considered it that way. But . . . you really think the working class will . . .
BAYARD: They will destroy Fascism because it is against their interest.
VON BERG—nods: But in that case, isn’t it even more of a mystery?
BAYARD: I see no mystery.
VON BERG: But they adore Hitler.
BAYARD: How can you say that? Hitler is the creation of the capitalist class.
VON BERG, in terrible mourning and anxiety: But they adore him! My own cook, my gardeners, the people who work in my forests, the chauffeur, the gamekeeper—they are Nazis! I saw it coming over them, the love for this creature—my housekeeper dreams of him in her bed, she’d serve my breakfast like a god had slept with her; in a dream slicing my toast! I saw this adoration in my own house! That, that is the dreadful fact. Controlling himself: I beg your pardon, but it disturbs me. I admire your faith; all faith to some degree is beautiful. And when I know that yours is based on something so untrue—it’s terribly disturbing. Quietly: In any case, I cannot glory in the facts; there is no reassurance there. They adore him, the salt of the earth. . . . Staring: Adore him.
There is a burst of laughter from within the office. He glances there, as they all do.
Strange; if I did not know that some of them in there were French, I’d have said they laugh like Germans. I suppose vulgarity has no nation, after all.
The door opens. Mr. Ferrand comes out, laughing; within, the laughter is subsiding. He waves within, closing the door. His smile drops. And as he goes past the Waiter, he glances back at the door, then quickly leans over and whispers hurriedly into his ear. They all watch. Now Ferrand starts away. The Waiter reaches out and grasps his apron.
The Penguin Arthur Miller Page 68