‘Pardon me?’
‘Five, madame, okay.’
‘Ahem.’
Margot went to her landlady.
The drums began to beat.
‘Now what do I owe you? Say.’
The landlady went white,
White as death is white.
‘It’s twenty francs you owe.’
Tarrabom, tarrabom, tarrabom.
‘Pardon me?’
‘Ten, madame, will do.’
‘Ahem.’
ALL singing together: Ahem, ahem, ahem.
Across the square come a troop of men and women wearing cockades.
ONE OF THE MEN: Mesdames, messieurs, come along all of you! Monsieur Courbet, the celebrated painter, will be speaking in the Place Vendôme. He will urge the necessity of flinging down Napoleon’s Column, cast from the bronze of twelve hundred captured European cannon. A monument to war and an affirmation of militarism and barbarism.
PAPA: No, thank you. We approve of the project and we shall come to see it carried out.
A WOMAN: Then join us for the broth they’re serving in the quartier.
A man whinnies.
MAN: In memory of five horses, ladies and gentlemen.
FRANÇOIS: Shall we go?
PAPA: I’m happy where I am.
FRANÇOIS: Broth.
MME CABET: Would you like to go? Where are Jean and Babette? Ah, there they are.
PAPA: Monsieur Francois, you seem to have the makings of a priest.
GENEVIÈVE: No, thank you, we’ll sit here a while longer. The men and women go on their way.
ONE OF THE MEN: Just as you please. The Commune invited you. You did not come. Oh là là!
PAPA: That’s freedom.
Jean and Babette have appeared downstairs.
MME CABET: You’ve been up there too long. I’m cross with you.
JEAN: Maman, you’re making Genevieve blush.
MME CABET: I told you, you have to act in accordance with your circumstances.
PAPA: But they are the best, madame, the very best. Paris has decided in favour of life lived how you please. And that’s why Monsieur Fritz has decided to stay with us. No more class differences between citizens, no more barriers between peoples.
JEAN: Babette, answer maman, defend me.
BABETTE: Madame, your son will not be rushed. She sings.
Père Joseph, when it rains, gets wet
His wife’s backside is bare
But she cooks something for him in the pot
By the side of the road in a stolen pot
And before he eats Père Joseph combs his hair.
‘Mother, do me something specially fine.
For a poor devil nothing is too good.
Mother, take your time, be the chef, be sublime!
Do me something – wait, some chives in the salad!’
Père Joseph in the Salpêtrière
He has no time at all for the priest
And as though he had money to spare
He sends out for a slap-up feast:
‘Warder, do me something specially fine.
For a poor devil nothing is too good.
Friends, take your time, be the best, be sublime!
And don’t forget the chives in the salad.’
PAPA: What are we here for, after all? According to my sister, the curé of Sainte Héloise answered that question so: to perfect the self. To do it, he needed quails for breakfast. To the child: We live for the extras, my son. We must have them, even if it takes cannon to get them. We do our stint. Then we needn’t stint ourselves. Cheers! – Who is the young man?
MME CABET: Victor, bring me a fork will you? The child goes into the café. His father was killed with the 93rd, defending the cannon on 18 March. He has started a meat business, rabbits, keep quiet, Jean. I buy something off him now and then, because of his …
The child comes back with a fork.
PAPA gets to his feet, raises his glass: Good luck to you. The child drinks to Papa. Music from close by. Jean begins to dance with Geneviéve, Babette with François, the waiter with Mme Cabet.
PAPA: All going very well, don’t you think?
LANGEVIN: Are you happy now?
PAPA after a pause: It’s what this city wanted, and what it was built for, what it had forgotten under the lash and what it was reminded of by us. – Anything wrong?
LANGEVIN: Only one thing. I sometimes think we’d have done better to attack on 18 March. We put the question: elections or the march on Versailles? The answer was: both.
PAPA: And what of it?
LANGEVIN: Thiers sits in Versailles, gathering troops.
PAPA: Bah, I spit on them. Paris has decided everything. They’re old men, half dead already, we’ll settle them in no time. And the troops? We’ll bring them round to our way of thinking, like we did on 18 March over the cannon.
LANGEVIN: I hope so. They are peasants.
PAPA: To Paris, monsieur.
The dancers come back.
BABETTE: To freedom, Jean Cabet. Total!
PAPA: To freedom.
LANGEVIN smiling: I drink to partial freedom.
BABETTE: In love!
GENEVIÈVE: Why to partial, Monsieur Langevin?
LANGEVIN: It leads to total freedom.
GENEVIEVE: And total, immediate freedom, that’s an illusion?
LANGEVIN: In politics.
BABETTE: François, you can dance. What do you dance as? A physicist or a priest, a little priest?
FRANGÇIS: I shan’t be a priest. This is a New Age, Mademoiselle Guéricault. I shall study physics and Paris will pay.
BABETTE: Long live sharing! We’ve got everything, let’s share!
GENEVIEVE: Babette!
BABETTE: I’ll teach you to dance cheek-to-cheek with Jean.
She hurls herself on Genevieve.
GENEVIEVE: I shan’t defend myself, Babette.
BABETTE: Then take that and that and that!
They roll on the ground. Genevieve begins to defend herself.
BABETTE: Oh, so you won’t defend yourself? But you’ll scratch my eyes out, you bitch?
Jean, laughing, has held back François. Papa and the waiter separate the combatants.
MME CABET: You behave as though you’d got wardrobes full of clothes. Oh là là! I was against you going upstairs to hang out the flag. She’s a fighter, this one.
FRANÇOIS: A communarde doesn’t get jealous.
BABETTE: Made of wood, is she?
GENEVIEVE: No, she holds on to what she’s got. I’m glad there wasn’t a bayonet handy, Babette. Good day, Philippe. Philippe has joined them.
PHILIPPE: Here I am again. I was curious whether I’d find you still alive. According to the Versailles newspapers you are all arrested and murdered. Anyone who doesn’t say ‘Long live the Commune!’ before he goes to sleep is denounced by his own wife and tortured by the communards in the latrines until he confesses everything. That is well known. It is the Commune’s Rule of Terror.
They all laugh.
PAPA: This is the first night in history, friends, that here in Paris there’ll be no murder, no robbery, no fraud and no rape. For the first time the streets are safe, the city doesn’t need any police. The bankers and the lesser thieves, the tax-collectors and the factory owners, the ministers, the tarts and the clergy have emigrated to Versailles. The city is liveable in.
FRANÇOIS: Your good health, Papa.
PHILIPPE: I read about that in the papers too. The orgies! The orgies of the Commune! The tyrants in the Hôtel de Ville have seven mistresses each. It is decreed by law.
BABETTE: Oh Jean’s only got two.
FRANÇOIS: And why did you run away?
PHILIPPE: I won’t be at their beck and call for nothing. Monsieur Thiers is bankrupt, finished, over and done with. He’s stopped paying the army. The soldiers in Versailles are selling their guns five francs apiece.
PAPA: I get my pay.
LANGEVIN: You’re you
r own paymaster, that’s the difference.
PHILIPPE: That’s the Commune’s bad management. They talk about that. I was in the country for a day, in Arles, at home. Mother and Father send their love to you, François. I didn’t tell them you’ve become a communard, a devil that wants everything shared out.
PAPA: I dream of a side of pork. Or trotters.
LANGEVIN: But how did you get through the lines?
PHILIPPE: Nobody stopped me.
LANGEVIN: That’s bad. That is the carelessness of the Commune.
PAPA: Pierre, you have too high an opinion of Monsieur Thiers and Herr von Bismarck. Those old men! Welcome, Philippe. So they’re finished, are they? Give me a newspaper, Pierre. Langevin hands him one, he makes a childish helmet out of it, which he puts on. I’m Bismarck. Jean, you be Thiers, borrow François’ glasses. We’ll show Pierre what these old men talk about while we’re enjoying our little festivities here in Paris.
Papa and Jean strike historical attitudes.
PAPA: My dear Thiers, I’ve just created an emperor, a dolt be it said in passing, would you like one as well?
JEAN: My dear Herr von Bismarck, I’ve had one already.
PAPA: I can understand you not wanting another one when you’ve had one already. That is all very well, but if you don’t do as you’re told you’ll get your emperor back and that’s no idle threat. And by the way: would you like a king?
JEAN: Herr von Bismarck, only some of us want a king, a very few.
PAPA: You’ll get one if you don’t do as you’re told. By the way, what is it they want, I mean the … What’s it called, the thing that pays the taxes? That’s it, the people … What is it the people want?
JEAN looking around him nervously: Me.
PAPA: But that’s marvellous, I like you just as well as an emperor or a king. So they don’t want one of them either? Funny. But you’ll do as you’re told, won’t you? You’ll hand the whole thing over even better than they would, the whole of, what’s it called, where we are now, yes that’s it: France.
JEAN: Herr von Bismarck, I have been entrusted with the task of handing over France.
PAPA: Who by, Monsieur Thiers?
JEAN: By France. I have just been elected.
PAPA roaring with laughter: So have we! The Emperor and I have just been elected too.
JEAN likewise laughing, then: Joking apart, Herr von Bismarck, I do feel a little insecure. In brief, I can’t be sure I won’t be arrested.
PAPA: I’ll tell you what, I’ll support you. I’ve got five thousand cannon.
JEAN: Then I have only one further wish, Herr von Bismarck. Will you allow me? May I kiss your boots? Flinging himself on Papa’s boots and kissing them. Oh what boots! Oh how good they taste!
PAPA: Yes, but don’t eat them up.
JEAN: And will you promise me, Otto, that with these, with these boots, you’ll trample IT down as well?
PAPA: Oh yes, the Commune?
JEAN: Don’t speak the word! Don’t utter it! You know, for me it’s a bit the way Liebknecht and Bebel are for you.
The cuirassier stands and raises his glass.
PAPA: In the name of God, don’t utter those names!
JEAN: But why are you so frightened, Otto? How can you be of any help to me when you are so frightened? Now I’m frightened too.
They remove the paper helmet and the glasses, and embrace.
BABETTE: Jean, that was good. Seems to me the flag’s still not hanging right. Let’s go up. She embraces him.
FRANÇOIS: I will read it to you after all. He stands under a paper lantern and reads from the page of a newspaper. ‘Tonight she will drink the wine she owes to nobody. And tomorrow, like an old woman with work to do, Paris will rise and reach for the tools of her trade, that she loves.’
CUIRASSIER raising his glass: Bebel, Liebknecht!
WAITER: The Commune!
CUIRASSIER: The Commune!
WAITER: Bebel, Liebknecht!
FRANÇOIS: Teaching and learning!
GENEVIÈVE: The children!
7
a
Hôtel de Ville. Red flags. In the assembly room, while the session is in progress, boards are being hammered up bearing these inscriptions: 1 THE RIGHT TO LIFE. 2 FREEDOM OF THE INDIVIDUAL. 3 FREEDOM OF CONSCIENCE. 4 RIGHT OF ASSEMBLY AND ASSOCIATION. 5 FREEDOM OF SPEECH, OF THE PRESS AND OF THE PROMOTION OF ANY AND EVERY OPINION. 6 FREEDOM OF THE VOTE. 29 March 1871. Opening session of the Commune.
BESLAY: It is being said against us that we should have been content with the election of the Republic’s National Assembly …
CRIES: Promoted by Monsieur Thiers! – Against Paris!
BESLAY: But the liberation of the community of Paris is the liberation of all the communities of the Republic. Our enemies assert that we have dealt the Republic a blow. We have indeed! But a blow such as drives a post more firmly into the ground. Applause. The Republic of the Great Revolution of 1792 was a soldier. The Commune’s Republic will be a worker. And what he needs most is freedom, to turn the Peace to good.
VARLIN: A Republic, fellow communards, that gives back the workers the tools of their trade just as the Republic of 1792 gave the peasants their land and so through social equality brought about political freedom. Applause. I shall proceed to a reading of our first legislative acts. Whereas all citizens equally shall hold themselves ready to serve in the defence of our national territory, the standing army is abolished.
CRY: Away with the generals! Away with the paid bloodhounds! Long live the people’s army!
CRY: NO more class distinctions among our citizens, no more barriers between peoples! We call on the workers in the German armies to shake hands with the workers in the French!
Applause.
BESLAY: Whereas the state is the people governing itself, all public offices shall be held for limited periods only, the holders being elected according to their abilities and always able to be dismissed.
CRY: Equal pay! A worker’s pay!
BESLAY: Whereas no people stands higher than the lowest of its citizens, education shall be accessible to all and shall be free of charge and the responsibility of the state.
CRY: Feed the children in school! Education begins with feeding! They can’t learn without learning to eat.
Mocking laughter and applause.
BESLAY: Whereas the purpose of life consists in the boundless development of our physical, intellectual and moral being, property must be nothing other than the right of every individual to share, proportionately to his contribution, in the collective result of the work of all. Work must be organised collectively in the factories and the workshops. Applause. Those, friends, are our first new laws. They are to be enacted at once. I hereby open this first working session of the Commune of Paris.
b
Ministry of the Interior. Led by a porter, Geneviève and Langevin enter an office. Rain.
GENEVIÈVE: You say not one official has been seen here? Not for a week?
PORTER: None. I should know, I’m the porter.
GENEVIÈVE: How many work here usually?
PORTER: 384 and the Minister.
GENEVIÈVE: Do you know where they all live?
PORTER: No.
GENEVIÈVE: How shall we find out even where the district schools are, where the teachers live, where the money comes from for their salaries? Even the keys have been taken away.
LANGEVIN: We’ll have to fetch a locksmith.
GENEVIÈVE: And you will have to go and buy me some oil for the lamp. She searches in her purse.
PORTER: Will you be working nights as well?
LANGEVIN: This is the Commune’s Delegate for Education.
PORTER: That’s all very well but it’s not my job to go running after oil.
GENEVIÈVE: Very well, but …
LANGEVIN: No it’s not all very well. You will go and buy the oil. After you’ve shown the Delegate where the registers are and the maps with the district schools on.
PORT
ER: I can only show her where the offices are.
GENEVIÈVE: I shall have to ask the cleaning woman. She might have children who go to school.
LANGEVIN: She won’t know anything.
GENEVIÈVE: Between us we’ll find out.
LANGEVIN: It would be best to build new schools at once then we’d know where they are. Everything has to be done again, from A to Z, it was always done badly anyway. Clinics and street lighting, all of it. How much do your fellow-citizens pay you to carry out your duties, among which fetching oil is not included?
PORTER: Seven francs eighty a day, but it’s not my fellow-citizens that pay, it’s the state.
LANGEVIN: Yes, there’s a big difference, isn’t there? The Delegate will direct Education in the City of Paris for eleven francs a day, if that tells you anything.
PORTER: That’s up to her.
LANGEVIN: You can go. If going happens to be one of your duties.
The porter shuffles away. Genevieve opens the window.
GENEVIEVE: He’s a poor devil too.
LANGEVIN: Not in his opinion. It was probably a mistake to let him know how low your salary is. Now he despises you. He’s not going to kow-tow to a person only earning a few francs more than he does. And kow-towing is the only thing he can learn to do.
GENEVIÈVE: By himself, perhaps. What does he see? Those who had jobs around the Minister and in the ministerial council have all fled because of the low wages and all the civil servants, even the lowest, are abandoning Paris to darkness, filth and ignorance. And we can’t do without them.
LANGEVIN: That’s the worst thing. Their chief interest consists in making themselves irreplaceable. That’s been the way of it for thousands of years. But we shall have to find people who do their work in such a fashion that it can always be done by someone else. The great workers of the future will be the simplifiers of work. Here comes Babette. Babette arrives with Philippe.
BABETTE: Nobody sees you any more. It says in the Officiel that you’ve been made a minister or something of the sort.
GENEVIEVE in a conspiratorial way, showing fear: Did he tell you where I was?
BABETTE: The porter? Philippe showed him the pistol.
LANGEVIN: I appoint you Assistant to the Delegate for Transport – that’s me. The trains on the northern line do indeed depart, but they don’t come back. All they do is carry off houseloads of furniture. I shall have to confiscate the assets of the railway company and court-martial their chief executives. That’s what it’s like in Paris now. Here nobody comes to work, there they go to work to commit acts of sabotage. But why have you come?
Collected Plays, Volume 4 (Bertolt Brecht: Plays, Poetry & Prose) 8 Page 12