Brecht Collected Plays: 1: Baal; Drums in the Night; In the Jungle of Cities; Life of Edward II of England; & 5 One Act Plays: "Baal", "Drums in the Night", "In the Jungle of Ci (World Classics) (28 page)

SHLINK
: Today we’ve heard the shovels of the railroad workers from time to time. I saw you pricking up your ears. You’re standing up, Garga? You’re going there, Garga? You’re going to betray me?

GARGA
lying down lazily
: Yes, Shlink, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

SHLINK
: And there will never be an outcome to this fight, George Garga? Never an understanding?

GARGA
: No.

SHLINK
: But you’ll come out of it with nothing to show but your bare life.

GARGA
: Bare life is better than any other kind of life.

SHLINK
: Tahiti?

GARGA
: New York.
Laughing ironically
: ‘I will go and I will return with iron limbs and dark skin, with fury in my eyes. My face will make people think that I come of a strong race. I will have gold, I will be lazy and brutal. Women love to nurse wild, sick men, returned from the hot countries. I will swim, trample grass, hunt, and most of all smoke. And down drinks as hot as boiling metal. I will mingle with life and be saved.’
¹⁵
– What nonsense! Words on a planet that’s not in the centre. Long after lime has covered you through the natural elimination of the obsolete, I shall be choosing the things that amuse me.

SHLINK
: What kind of an attitude is that? Kindly take your pipe out of your filthy mouth. If you’re trying to tell me you’ve gone impotent, take a different tone at least.

GARGA
: Whatever you say.

SHLINK
: That gesture shows me you’re unworthy to be my opponent.

GARGA
: I was only deploring the fact that you bored me.

SHLINK
: What’s that? You deploring? You! A hired pug! A drunken salesman! Whom I bought for ten dollars, an idealist who couldn’t tell his two legs apart, a nobody!

GARGA
laughing
: A young man! Be frank.

SHLINK
: A white man, hired to drag me down, to stuff my mouth with disgust or dry rot, to give me the taste of death on my tongue. Six hundred feet away in the woods I’ll find all the men I need to lynch me.

GARGA
: Yes, maybe I’m a leper, but what of it? You’re a suicide. What more have you to offer me? You hired me, but you never paid up.

SHLINK
: You got what a man like you needs. I bought you furniture.

GARGA
: Yes, I got a piano out of you, a piano that had to be sold. I ate meat
once
. I bought one suit, and for your idiotic talk I gave up my sleep.

SHLINK
: Your sleep, your mother, your sister and your wife. Three years off your stupid life. But how annoying! It’s all ending in banality. You never understood what it was all
about. You wanted me dead. But I wanted a fight. Not of the flesh but of the spirit.

GARGA
: And the spirit, you see, is nothing. The important thing is not to be stronger, but to come off alive. I can’t defeat you, I can only stamp you into the ground. I’ll carry my raw flesh into the icy rains, Chicago is cold. I’m going there now. Possibly I’m doing the wrong thing. But I have plenty of time.
Goes out
.

Shlink falls down
.

SHLINK
standing up
: Now that the last sword thrusts have been exchanged as well as the last words that occurred to us, I thank you for the interest you have shown in my person. A good deal has fallen away from us, we have hardly more than our naked bodies left. In four minutes the moon will rise, then your lynch mob will be here.
He notices that Garga has gone and follows him
. Don’t go, George Garga! Don’t quit because you’re young. The forests have been cut down, the vultures are glutted, and the golden answer will be buried deep in the ground.
Turns. A milky light is seen in the brush
. November nineteenth. Three miles south of Chicago. West wind. Four minutes before the rising of the moon, drowned while fishing.

MARY
enters
: Please don’t drive me away. I’m an unhappy woman.

The light grows stronger in the brush
.

SHLINK
: It’s all piling up. Fish swimming into your mouth … What’s that crazy light? I’m very busy.

MARY
removing her hat
: I’m not pretty any more. Don’t look at me. The rats have gnawed at me. I’m bringing you what’s left.

SHLINK
: That strange milky light! Ah, that’s it! Phosphorescent rot, that’s it!

MARY
: Does my face look bloated to you?

SHLINK
: Do you realize you’ll be lynched if the mob catches you here?

MARY
: It’s all the same to me.

SHLINK
: I beg you, leave me alone in my last moments.

N

MARY
: Come. Hide in the underbrush. There’s a hiding-place in the quarry.

SHLINK
: Damn it! Are you out of your mind? Don’t you see that I have to cast one last look over this jungle? That’s what the moon is rising for.
Steps into the entrance of the tent
.

MARY
: All I see is that you’ve lost the ground from under your feet. Have pity on yourself.

SHLINK
: Can’t you do me this one last kindness?

MARY
: I only want to look at you. I’ve found out that this is where I belong.

SHLINK
: Maybe so! Then stay.
A signal is heard in the distance
. Two o’clock. I’ve got to find safety.

MARY
: Where’s George?

SHLINK
: George? He’s run away. What a miscalculation! Safety.
He tears off his scarf
. The barrels are beginning to stink. Good fat fish, I caught them myself. Well-dried, packed up in crates. Salted. First set out in ponds, bought, overpaid, fattened! Fish eager for death, suicidal fish, that swallow hooks like holy wafers. Phoo! Quick now!
He goes to the table, sits down. Drinks from a flask
. I, Wang Yeng, known as Shlink, born in Yokohama in northern Peiho under the sign of the Tortoise. I operated a lumber business, ate rice, and dealt with all sorts of people. I, Wang Yeng, known as Shlink, aged fifty-four, ended three miles south of Chicago without heirs.

MARY
: What’s the matter?

SHLINK
seated
: You here? My legs are getting cold. Throw a cloth over my face. Have pity.
He collapses
.

Panting in the underbrush. Footsteps and hoarse curses from behind
.

MARY
: What are you listening for? Answer me. Are you asleep? Are you still cold? I’m here, close to you. What did you want with the cloth?

At this moment knives cut openings in the tent. The lynchers step silently through the openings
.

MARY
going towards them
: Go away. He just died. He doesn’t want anyone to look at him.

The Private Office of the late C. Shlink

A week later
The lumber yard has burned down. Signs here and there saying:
‘Business for Sale’. Garga, John Garga, Mary Garga
.

JOHN
: It was stupid of you to let this place burn down. Now all you’ve got is charred beams. Who’s going to buy them?

GARGA
laughing
: They’re cheap. But what are you two planning to do?

JOHN
: I thought we’d stay together.

GARGA
laughing
: I’m leaving. Are you going to work?

MARY
: I’m going to work. But not scrub stairs like my mother.
¹⁶

JOHN
: I’m a soldier. We slept in watering troughs. The rats on our faces never weighed less than seven pounds. When they took away my rifle and it was over, I said: From now on we’ll all sleep with our caps on.

GARGA
: You mean: we’ll all sleep.

MARY
: We’d better go now, Father. Night’s coming on, and I still have no room.

JOHN
: Yes, let’s go.
Looks around
. Let’s go. A soldier at your side. Forward march! Against the jungle of the city.

GARGA
: I’ve got it behind me. Hello!

MANKY
comes in beaming, with his hands in his pockets
: It’s me. I read your ad in the paper. If your lumber business doesn’t cost too much, I’ll buy it.

GARGA
: What’s your offer?

MANKY
: Why are you selling?

GARGA
: I’m going to New York.

MANKY
: And I’m moving in here.

GARGA
: How much can you pay?

MANKY
: I’ll need some cash for the business.

GARGA
: Six thousand, if you’ll take the woman too.

MANKY
: All right.

MARY
: I’ve got my father with me.

MANKY
: And your mother?

MARY
: She’s not here any more.

MANKY
after a pause
: All right.

MARY
: Draw up the contract.

The men sign
.

MANKY
: Let’s all have a bite. Want to come along, George?

GARGA
: No.

MANKY
: Will you still be here when we get back?

GARGA
: No.

JOHN
: Good-bye, George. Take a look at New York. You can come back to Chicago if the going gets too rough.

The three go out
.

GARGA
putting the money away
: It’s a good thing to be alone. The chaos is spent. That was the best time.

a history

I wrote this play with Lion Feuchtwanger

BERTOLT BRECHT

Translator
:
JEAN BENEDETTI

Here is shown before the public the history of the troubled reign of Edward the Second, King of England, and his lamentable death / likewise the glory and end of his favourite, Gaveston / further the disordered fate of Queen Anne / likewise the rise and fall of the great earl Roger Mortimer / all which befell in England, and specially in London, more than six hundred years ago

King Edward the Second
‧
Queen Anne, his consort
‧
Kent, his brother
‧
Young Edward, his son, afterwards King Edward III
‧
Gaveston
‧
Archbishop of Winchester
‧
Lord Abbot of Coventry, afterwards Archbishop of Westminster
‧
Mortimer
‧
Lancaster
‧
Rice ap Howell
‧
Berkeley
‧
Spencer
‧
Baldock
‧
The elder Gurney
‧
The younger Gurney
‧
Lightborn
‧
James
‧
Peers
‧
Soldiers
‧
A ballad-monger
‧
A monk

14
DECEMBER 1307: RETURN OF THE FAVOURITE DANIEL GAVESTON ON THE OCCASION OF THE ACCESSION OF EDWARD THE SECOND

GAVESTON
reading a letter from King Edward
:

‘My father is deceas’d. Come Gaveston

And share the kingdom with thy dearest friend

King Edward the Second.’

I come. These thy amorous lines

Whistled astern the brig from Ireland.

The sight of London to an exile’s eyes

Is as Elysium to a new-come soul.

My father told me often: thou art

Already gross with drinking ale at eighteen years.

And my mother said: behind your corpse

Less men shall walk than a hen has teeth

In its beak. And now a king moves heaven and earth

For your son’s friendship.

Holà. Reptiles!

What crawling things are these first cross my path?

Enter two poor men
.

FIRST:

Such as desire your worship’s service.

GAVESTON:

What canst thou do?

FIRST:

I can ride.

GAVESTON:

But I have no horses.

What art thou?

SECOND:

A soldier that has served against the Irish.

GAVESTON:

But I have no war. So God be wi’ ye, gentlemen.

SECOND:

God be wi’ us?

FIRST
to the second
:

England gives nothing

To old soldiers, sir.

GAVESTON:

England gave you Saint James’ Hospital.

FIRST:

To rot to death in.

GAVESTON:

Death is a soldier’s lot.

SECOND:

Is’t so?

Then do thou die in thy England!

And perish by a soldier’s hand!

Exeunt the two poor men
.

GAVESTON:

He spoke just like my father.

Ah well!

This fellow’s words move me as much

As if a goose should play the porcupine

And dart her plumes at me, imagining

To pierce me through the breast. But onward!

The day has come when many a man shall be paid home.

For too much drinking ale and playing whist cannot

Fade the memory of that paper where they wrote

That I was Edward’s whore and banished me.

Here comes my newly furbished king