Collected Plays, Volume 4 (Bertolt Brecht: Plays, Poetry & Prose) 8

by Bertolt Brecht

  JEAN laughing: You’ve got the wrong idea. As though you only want to go to bed with a person because you love them! Truth is, some days you know first thing when you get up: I’ve got to have a woman today. Why should it be any different for women? It’s a need. Not necessarily brought about by the sight of a particular pair of breasts, but just so. And thereupon you find her breasts particular. It’s the same for women. In a word, seize hold of such a day, and you are Mr Right. Even with Geneviéve.

  FRANÇOIS: Quite wrong. And now I’m off to bed. He stands up. I’m very glad I’ve got my little room with you again.

  JEAN likewise standing up: I don’t think we need keep guard any longer either. If they were going to raid us it would have to be in the middle of the night. White bread tomorrow, so I hear.

  FRANÇOIS: By the way, Jean, since we were talking about physics: I suppose my microscope and my Lavoisier are safe at your uncle’s?

  JEAN in embarrassment: At my uncle’s? At Langevin’s?

  FRANÇOIS: Your mother gave them to him, to look after.

  JEAN: Oh yes. Yes, of course. They’re absolutely safe at Langevin’s.

  FRANÇOIS: It’s just that I could do with the Lavoisier.

  JEAN: Of course.

  They carry the chairs into the house.

  b

  Five in the morning. Women, among them Geneviéve Guéricault and Babette, are queuing outside a baker’s not yet opened.

  WOMEN: White bread from Papa Thiers! That’s supposed to make his sell-out taste better. – Paris for ten tons of flour! – And no trains come in either. The flour was here all along. – But they took my old man’s leg off just last week. Shrapnel. At the same time they were already doing a deal. – Now they must have something else up their sleeves. They never give us anything for nothing. Lady Muck that I used to do the washing for, if she ever gave me a pair of her old knickers I knew she’d reported my Emile for remarks he’d made. – My old man told them he’d take his leg home with him or they’d tell him at the pensions place he never did have two. – Thiers is getting five million from the Germans. – And how much from some Frenchmen I could name? – They’re capitulating though there’s more than 300,000 National Guard in Paris alone. – Because there’s 300,000! – And they’re quite happy to let the Prussians keep our prisoners till we’ve paid. – To hell with their filthy war! Good thing it’s over. – But who’ll pay for the peace? – We will, citizen. Who else? The ones with nothing pay. – So we’ve got nothing? We’ve got 200,000 bayonets, madame. – I tell you it’s only a ceasefire, they’ll never take our streets, the Prussians won’t and neither will Thiers. – He didn’t risk coming into Paris, Herr von Bismarck, did he? Paris wasn’t for sale. – Well, you’re up early! The old lady wanted to be on her own, I suppose. Someone else putting it up for a change? A man has arrived with a poster. He puts it up and goes away again. Babette leaves the queue and reads it out. From Monsieur Thiers! ‘Peace means order and stability. Citizens of Paris, trade is languishing, demand is falling off, capital is being frightened away. Those to blame must be handed over to justice. Order must be restored at once, fully and unassailably.’ Oh là là!

  The baker has begun removing the iron bars from her shop door.

  WOMEN: Have you heard, Madame Pullard? Business is bad even though there’s a war. – How true! It’s a week since I had an order for a locomotive. And all my capital has been frightened away by the National Guard and their carryings-on. Hasn’t yours?

  BAKER: Demonstrations, demonstrations, demonstrations! I should have thought the government’s white bread spoke louder than that, ladies.

  WOMEN: White bread for order and stability, eh? For paying the rent.

  BABETTE: The print’s still wet. Seems they’re in a hurry.

  WOMEN: Wind even before we eat any bread! They can’t give us a mouthful without farting out something about order and stability. – Watch your language, citizen. Order! What will Mademoiselle Guéricault say, her being a teacher and not knowing anything about wind? – Leave Mademoiselle Guéricault alone. There’s nothing wrong with her. She agrees with what I said and she did her bit with the others when the Cabets and Papa fetched the cannon in from Clichy before the Prussians came. – And do you think Monsieur Thiers only let the Prussians have Clichy because our guns were there?

  GENEVIÈVE: Yes, I do, citizen. The Central Committee of the National Guard had reports to that effect.

  WOMEN: She’s political. – Suppose she is, does that mean she’s not telling the truth? – My old man says it was politics took his leg off, not grapeshot. That’s why he’s political and reads La Patrie en danger.

  A few government soldiers, among them Philippe Faure, have appeared near the cannon. Babette, still standing by the poster, addresses Philippe.

  BABETTE: Oh Philippe, are you back? You’re just in time, the bakery’s open again.

  PHILIPPE: Shush, Babette. I’ve not come to say hello in there.

  He and his comrades busy themselves with the cannon.

  BABETTE: What do you want with the cannon?

  PHILIPPE: It’s going to Versailles. Orders.

  BABETTE calling to the women: Hey! They’re stealing our cannon.

  WOMEN: They’re doing what? Them and who else?

  GENEVIÈVE hurrying over: Philippe! You should be ashamed of yourself.

  BABETTE: It’s the baker’s lad. He led them here, he knows his way around these streets.

  PHILIPPE: What are you doing out so early? Hold on a minute before you murder us.

  GENEVIÈVE: They were giving us white bread, so that we’d give you the guns, like sheep for shearing.

  The women run across.

  WOMEN: Hey you! Those are ours. They were bought with our money. Our district collected for them.

  PHILIPPE: But the war’s over.

  GENEVIÈVE: Oh so now you want to start a war with us?

  PHILIPPE: The guns have to be given up to the Prussians.

  WOMEN: Then let the Prussians come and get them. Hands off! You dare touch them, you shit-arses! Fetch the guard from Cabets’!

  Geneviéve runs to the Cabets’ house. Rings the bell. Mme Cabet looks out from an upstairs window.

  GENEVIÈVE: Wake Jean! They’re taking your cannon. She runs back. They’re not for the Prussians, they’re for Monsieur Thiers. He needs them against us, don’t let him have them, citizens!

  WOMEN: Hands off that cannon! It’s Madame Cabet’s cannon. Jean and François rush from the house in shirt and trousers.

  BABETTE: Jean, they’ve come for the cannon. Philippe led them here.

  Noise from the streets nearby, rifle fire and, later, alarm bells.

  GENEVIÈVE: There are cannon in the rue du Tabernacle too. It’s a raid on the whole quarter. Now we know why they’re giving us white bread.

  JEAN calling back: François, your brother’s here, for Thiers.

  PHILIPPE in among the women: Now, now, ladies. Move aside, will you? I’ve got my orders.

  JEAN: Yes, move aside, let us get at them.

  FRANÇOIS running up with fixed bayonet: Leave the gun where it is, Philippe, it doesn’t belong to you.

  BAKER from inside her shop: You carry out your orders, Philippe, or I’ll not have you back in the bakery.

  PHILIPPE: How long have you been in the National Guard?

  FRANÇOIS: College is shut. Move aside.

  The women step back. François levels his rifle.

  PHILIPPE: Put your gun away, kid.

  BABETTE: Shoot him.

  GENEVIÈVE flinging herself in front of Philippe: No bloodshed!

  JEAN dragging her out of the line of fire: You keep out of it.

  PHILIPPE levelling his rifle: Put your gun down, kid.

  FRANÇOIS: Make one move and I’ll fire. Our Father, which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name. Continues to pray, all the while aiming at Philippe.

  WOMEN: So you’d massacre us just because your scabby generals tell you to?

 
GENEVIÈVE: Oh you poor fools! You can’t take the cannon without horses. We’ll throw ourselves under the wheels.

  PHILIPPE: I’ll count to three. One.

  MME CABET coming out of the house with Papa: Philippe, put that gun down at once. You know very well you’ve had no education, what are you thinking of, answering your brother back who’s studying physics? And I’ve brought some wine for you all. I’m sure they sent you off without any breakfast.

  PHILIPPE looks round at his comrades, who have not taken aim, and slowly puts down his rifle: Madame Cabet, you are preventing me from carrying out an order.

  WOMEN laughing, and surrounding him: That’s the way, baker. They can’t ask you to shoot your own brother, now can they?

  BAKER: You’re sacked, Philippe. I don’t give employment to traitors.

  BABETTE kissing Philippe: That’s for your treachery.

  PHILIPPE: I’m nobody’s brother, ladies, and I’m not a baker. I’m under orders.

  FRANÇOIS uncertainly to Genèvieve: Don’t I get anything?

  GENEVIÈVE in high spirits: Take what you want.

  FRANÇOIS: That’s not an answer.

  WOMEN in among the soldiers: How dare you fall on the women when you’ve no dishonourable intentions? You should be ashamed of yourselves!

  SOLDIERS: The war’s over. We want to go home.

  WOMEN: Oh là là! He wants to go home. And where’s home, sonny boy?

  SOLDIER: The Auvergne. And soon it will be seedtime. You damn city people never think of that.

  WOMEN: Have a drink, sonny boy. – Turn up your rifles. Have you got nothing else that’s stiff? – Madame Cabet, give them blankets, they’re quaking with cold, loving’s impossible.

  GENEVIÈVE: This cannon belongs to Madame Cabet. She lives here. You can’t take it off her any more than you can her saucepans.

  PAPA: Long live Madame Cabet, sole owner of the cannon of the rue Pigalle! He lifts her up and sits her on the cannon. To the soldiers: You see, we only needed to talk. To the women: Now you’ve got it back, look after it. Most important, don’t let any one of them out of Paris now. Keep hold of them all. Press them to your breast, or to your breasts, they can’t do any damage there.

  A worker, Pierre Langevin, comes from the next street, where it has got quieter. He has children with him.

  LANGEVIN: Salut, Papa! You managed, did you? And no bloodshed?

  PHILIPPE to his comrades: How can we help it if they don’t send us any horses? We can’t shove the things through the women without.

  PAPA: Everything OK. What about everywhere else?

  LANGEVIN: The whole district’s awake. No cannons gone so far.

  CHILDREN: They tried to pinch our guns at the Moulin de la Galette as well. And they shot two of our people in the rue Lepic.

  MME CABET to the soldiers: Messieurs, this is my brother-in-law, Pierre Langevin, from the Central Committee of the National Guard.

  LANGEVIN: In the rue Granot General Lecomte gave the order to fire, but his men fraternised and he was arrested.

  PAPA: Where is he? The swine. It was him who said the Guard should be given a bloodletting. Everyone in Paris knows it was.

  LANGEVIN: He was taken to the lock-up.

  PAPA: They’ll let him escape. If he’s not shot in five minutes he’ll get away.

  LANGEVIN: He’ll be brought to justice, comrade.

  PAPA: We’re justice. He hurries away.

  MME CABET: Will somebody help me down from this cannon?

  LANGEVIN to the government troops: And what will you do? So long as you’re still armed …

  ONE OF THE SOLDIERS: Oh shit! Against our own people …

  The soldiers reverse their rifles.

  GENEVIÈVE to the children: And you can tear down those silly posters.

  They do so.

  JEAN: Lift maman down, will you? And then to the Hôtel de Ville again. Arrest Thiers! He must tell us what he wanted the cannon for.

  BABETTE: Three kisses for Thiers alive!

  c

  Eight in the morning. The baker is putting the iron bars back across her shop door. Philippe, standing nearby, is looking sourly at an enormous woman with a rifle over her shoulder pacing up and down in front of the cannon.

  BAKER: There’ll be disturbances, that’s for sure. If they go ahead with the Commune everyone’s talking about, there’ll be looting. Everything shared out, then they drink their share and share out the rest again. You’re a troublemaker yourself and I’m not having you back near my oven. And your brother a young priest! And he’s a troublemaker too!

  PHILIPPE: He’s only in the seminary because there’s nowhere else he could go and study.

  BAKER: So he’s stealing an education from the friars of Saint Joseph! Typical of you people – communards! Exit angrily into the shop.

  Geneviéve comes out of the house next door.

  GENEVIÈVE: Good morning, Philippe. How are you feeling now the New Age has begun? He growls. Because it has begun. There’s an end of violence. We’ve taken their cannon away.

  PHILIPPE: And now you women have got them. A new age, my foot!

  Dispirited, he goes into the house where the Cabets and his brother live. Geneviéve, in good spirits, pulls on her gloves. Up the street, looking grim, comes Papa.

  GENEVIÈVE: Good morning, monsieur. Didn’t you go to the rue Granot last night, where they arrested General Thomas? What happened to him?

  PAPA: He was shot, citizen.

  GENEVIÈVE: Was that right? Who shot him?

  PAPA: Who do you think shot him? The people.

  GENEVIÈVE: Without a trial?

  PAPA: Of course not. After a trial by the people.

  GENEVIÈVE: And you were there?

  PAPA: Everyone was there who was there. And don’t be worrying about the enemies of the people. This is serious. In an ill humour, he goes into the Cabets’ house. Geneviéve, the teacher, watches him go, confused.

  4

  19 March 1871. Hôtel de Ville. Staircase to the assembly room of the Central Committee of the National Guard. Outside the door sits a National Guardsman, eating bread and cheese and checking people’s passes. Papa, Coco and Mme Cabet are waiting. Delegates are arriving for the session.

  DELEGATES: If we want to call new elections we must come to some understanding with the mayors of the twenty arrondissements. – On the contrary! We must send in a battalion and arrest them. They are hyenas, they wouldn’t be mayors if they weren’t. – The main thing is to get an overwhelming majority, all of Paris will turn out to vote if the mayors join us. We must receive them. – For God’s sake, no violence! We shan’t win Paris by terror. – Who is Paris? Exit all but one of the delegates.

  PAPA addressing him: Citizen of the Central Committee, could you tell citizen Pierre Langevin in there that we have to speak to him? This is his sister-in-law. Why don’t they let people in?

  COMMITTEE MEMBER: The room is too small, citizen. And don’t forget the enemy is listening.

  PAPA: It’s more important that the people listen. At least leave the door open.

  The Committee member goes in and leaves the door open.

  VOICE: Urgent motion from the 67th Battalion: ‘That in consideration of the hardships suffered by the people of Paris and of their so generously shedding their blood in the defence of the motherland a distribution of a million francs be made in the twenty-two arrondissements, this being money saved by ceasing all payments to officials in the government that has betrayed us.’

  CRIES: Carried!

  MME CABET: They’re getting on with it, aren’t they?

  PAPA: The most important thing is we march on Versailles.

  MME CABET: There won’t only be white bread, I’ll actually have the money to buy it.

  PAPA: But if we don’t march on Versailles at once, there won’t be white bread for very long, Madame Cabet.

  VOICE: We continue our discussion of the question of elections. Delegate Varlin.

  VARLIN’S VOIC
E: Citizen Guardsmen! About two o’clock this morning the Government, with the help of a few regular battalions, made an attempt to disarm the capital’s National Guard and to seize the cannon whose handing over to the Prussians we had prevented.

  CRY: Second attempt to emasculate Paris! The first was foisting a general on us.

  Four gentlemen in top hats come up the staircase: the mayors.

  VARLIN: Citizens, why was this attack undertaken? To deliver up our country, robbed of her last weapons, to Bismarck’s most extreme demands and at the same time to make her solely and helplessly answerable to these demands. So that those who perpetrated the criminal war will get it paid for now by those who bled in it. So that from making good money out of the war they may move to making good money out of the peace. Citizen Guardsmen, the Commune will demand that the deputies, senators, generals, factory owners, estate owners and of course the church, who are to blame for the war, will now be the ones who pay the Prussians their five billion, and that to this end we sell their property.

  Loud applause. The mayors have entered the room.

  CHAIRMAN’S VOICE: The Central Committee welcomes the mayors of Paris.

  ONE OF THE MAYORS: This is the Hôtel de Ville of Paris. You have occupied it by military force. Will you please tell us by what right?

  CRY: In the name of the city’s people, Monsieur le Maire. Consider yourselves their guests and you are welcome. Cries of protest.

  MAYORS: You know what this answer means? It will be said these people want revolution.

  CRY: What do you mean ‘want’? The revolution has happened. Look around you.

  MAYORS: Citizens of the National Guard, we, the mayors of Paris, are willing to put it to the newly elected National Assembly in Versailles that you wish to elect a new Municipal Council under their authority.

  CRIES: No, no, no! An independent Commune!

  VARLIN’S VOICE: Not only the election of a Municipal Council but real municipal freedoms, the right of the National Guard to elect its own leaders, the exclusion of the standing army from the whole of Paris. In brief: a free Paris.

  MAYORS: That is the red flag. Beware! If you unfurl that flag over the Hôtel de Ville your polling stations will be avoided like plague houses and Paris will spit on your elections.