Brecht Collected Plays: 5: Life of Galileo; Mother Courage and Her Children (World Classics) (28 page)

THE CHAPLAIN
: Where’s that linen?
All look at Mother Courage who does not move
.

MOTHER COURAGE
: I can’t give nowt. What with expenses, taxes, loan interest and bribes.
Making guttural noises, Kattrin raises a plank and threatens her mother with it
. You gone plain crazy? Put that plank away or I’ll paste you one,
you cow. I’m giving nowt, don’t want to, got to think of meself.
The chaplain lifts her off the steps and sets her on the ground, then starts pulling out shirts and tearing them into strips
. My officers’ shirts! Half a florin apiece! I’m ruined.
From the house comes the cry of a child in pain
.

THE PEASANT
: The baby’s in there still.
Kattrin dashes in
.

THE CHAPLAIN
to the woman:
Don’t move. They’ll get it out.

MOTHER COURAGE
: Stop her, roof may fall in.

THE CHAPLAIN
: I’m not going back in there.

MOTHER COURAGE
torn both ways:
Don’t waste my precious linen.
The second soldier restrains her. Kattrin brings a baby out of the ruins
.

MOTHER COURAGE
: How nice, found another baby to cart around? Give it to its ma this instant, unless you’d have me fighting for hours to get it off you, like last time, d’you hear?
To the second soldier:
Don’t stand there gawping, you go back and tell them cut out that music, we can see it’s a victory with our own eyes. All your victories mean to me is losses.

THE CHAPLAIN
tying a bandage:
Blood’s coming through.
Kattrin is rocking the baby and making lullaby noises
.

MOTHER COURAGE
: Look at her, happy as a queen in all this misery; give it back at once, its mother’s coming round.
She catches the first soldier, who has been attacking the drinks and is trying to make off with one of the bottles
. Psia krew! Thought you’d score another victory, you animal? Now pay.

FIRST SOLDIER
: I got nOWt.

MOTHER COURAGE
pulling the fur coat off his back:
Then leave that coat, it’s stolen any road.

THE CHAPLAIN
: There’s still someone under there.

6

Outside the Bavarian town of Ingolstadt Courage participates in the funeral of the late Imperial commander Tilly. Discussions are held about war heroes and the war’s duration. The chaplain complains that his talents are lying fallow, and dumb Kattrin gets the red boots. The year is 1632

Inside a canteen tent
.

It has a bar towards the rear. Rain. Sound of drums and funeral music. The chaplain and the regimental clerk are playing a board game. Mother Courage and her daughter are stocktaking
.

THE CHAPLAIN
: Now the funeral procession will be moving off.

MOTHER COURAGE
: Too bad about commander in chief – twenty-two pairs those socks – he fell by accident, they say. Mist over fields, that was the trouble. General had just been haranguing a regiment saying they must fight to last man and last round, he was riding back when mist made him lose direction so he was up front and a bullet got him in midst of battle – only four hurricane lamps left.
A whistle from the rear. She goes to the bar
. You scrimshankers, dodging your commander in chief’s funeral, scandal I call it.
Pours drinks
.

THE CLERK
: They should never of paid troops out before the funeral. Instead of going now they’re all getting pissed.

THE CHAPLAIN
to the clerk:
Aren’t you supposed to go to the funeral?

THE CLERK
: Dodged it cause of the rain.

MOTHER COURAGE
: It’s different with you, your uniform might get wet. I heard they wanted to toll bells for funeral as usual, except it turned out all churches had been blown to smithereens by his orders, so poor old commander in chief
won’t be hearing no bells as they let the coffin down. They’re going to let off three salvoes instead to cheer things up – seventeen belts.

SHOUTS
from the bar:
Hey, Missis, a brandy!

MOTHER COURAGE
: Let’s see your money. No, I ain’t having you in my tent with your disgusting boots. You can drink outside, rain or no rain.
To the clerk:
I’m only letting in sergeants and up. Commander in chief had been having his worries, they say. S’posed to have been trouble with Second Regiment cause he stopped their pay, said it was a war of faith and they should do it for free.
Funeral march. All look to the rear
.

THE CHAPLAIN
: Now they’ll be filing past the noble corpse.

MOTHER COURAGE
: Can’t help feeling sorry for those generals and emperors, there they are maybe thinking they’re doing something extra special what folk’ll talk about in years to come, and earning a public monument, like conquering the world for instance, that’s a fine ambition for a general, how’s he to know any better? I mean, he plagues hisself to death, then it all breaks down on account of ordinary folk what just wants their beer and bit of a chat, nowt higher. Finest plans get bolloxed up by the pettiness of them as should be carrying them out, because emperors can’t do nowt themselves, they just counts on soldiers and people to back ’em up whatever happens, am I right?

THE CHAPLAIN
laughs:
Courage, you’re right, aside from the soldiers. They do their best. Give me that lot outside there, for instance, drinking their brandy in the rain, and I’d guarantee to make you one war after another for a hundred years if need be, and I’m no trained general.

MOTHER COURAGE
: You don’t think war might end, then?

THE CHAPLAIN
: What, because the commander in chief’s gone? Don’t be childish. They’re two a penny, no shortage of heroes.

MOTHER COURAGE
: Ee, I’m not asking for fun of it, but because I’m thinking whether to stock up, prices are low now, but if war’s going to end it’s money down the drain.

THE CHAPLAIN
: I realise it’s a serious question. There’ve always been people going round saying ‘the war can’t go on for ever’. I tell you there’s nothing to stop it going on for ever. Of course there can be a bit of a breathing space. The war may need to get its second wind, it may even have an accident so to speak. There’s no guarantee against that; nothing’s perfect on this earth of ours. A perfect war, the sort you might say couldn’t be improved on, that’s something we shall probably never see. It can suddenly come to a standstill for some quite unforeseen reason, you can’t allow for everything. A slight case of negligence, and it’s bogged down up to the axles. And then it’s a matter of hauling the war out of the mud again. But emperor and kings and popes will come to its rescue. So on the whole it has nothing serious to worry about, and will live to a ripe old age.

A SOLDIER
sings at the bar:

A schnapps, landlord, you’re late!

A soldier cannot wait

To do his emperor’s orders.

Make it a double, this is a holiday.

MOTHER COURAGE
: S’pose I went by what you say …

THE CHAPLAIN
: Think it out for yourself. What’s to compete with the war?

THE SOLDIER
at the rear:

Your breast, my girl, you’re late!

A soldier cannot wait

To ride across the borders.

THE CLERK
unexpectedly:
And what about peace? I’m from Bohemia and I’d like to go home some day.

THE CHAPLAIN
: Would you indeed? Ah, peace, Where is the hole once the cheese has been eaten?

THE SOLDIER
at the rear:

Lead trumps, my friend, you’re late!

A soldier cannot wait.

His emperor needs him badly.

Your blessing, priest, you’re late!

A soldier cannot wait.

Must lay his life down gladly.

THE CLERK
: In the long run life’s impossible if there’s no peace.

THE CHAPLAIN
: I’d say there’s peace in war too; it has its peaceful moments. Because war satisfies all requirements, peaceable ones included, they’re catered for, and it would simply fizzle out if they weren’t. In war you can do a crap like in the depths of peacetime, then between one battle and the next you can have a beer, then even when you’re moving up you can lay your head on your arms and have a bit of shuteye in the ditch, it’s entirely possible. During a charge you can’t play cards maybe, but nor can you in the depths of peacetime when you’re ploughing, and after a victory there are various openings. You may get a leg blown off, then you start by making a lot of fuss as though it were serious, but afterwards you calm down or get given a schnapps, and you end up hopping around and the war’s no worse off than before. And what’s to stop you being fruitful and multiplying in the middle of all the butchery, behind a barn or something, in the long run you can’t be held back from it, and then the war will have your progeny and can use them to carry on with. No, the war will always find an outlet, mark my words. Why should it ever stop?

Kattrin has ceased working and is staring at the chaplain
.

MOTHER COURAGE
: I’ll buy fresh stock then. If you say so.
Kattrin suddenly flings a basket full of bottles to the ground and runs off
. Kattrin!
Laughs
. Damn me if she weren’t waiting for peace. I promised her she’d get a husband soon as peace came.
Hurries after her
.

THE CLERK
standing up:
I won. You been talking too much. Pay up.

MOTHER COURAGE
returning with Kattrin:
Don’t be silly, war’ll go on a bit longer, and we’ll make a bit more money, and peacetime’ll be all the nicer for it. Now you go into town, that’s ten minutes’ walk at most, fetch things from Golden Lion, the expensive ones, we can fetch rest in cart
later, it’s all arranged, regimental clerk here will go with you. Nearly everybody’s attending commander in chief’s funeral, nowt can happen to you. Careful now, don’t let them steal nowt, think of your dowry.

Kattrin puts a cloth over her head and leaves with the clerk
.

THE CHAPLAIN
: Is that all right to let her go with the clerk?

MOTHER COURAGE
: She’s not that pretty they’d want to ruin her.

THE CHAPLAIN
: I admire the way you run your business and always win through. I see why they called you Courage.

MOTHER COURAGE
: Poor folk got to have courage. Why, they’re lost. Simply getting up in morning takes some doing in their situation. Or ploughing a field, and in a war at that. Mere fact they bring kids into world shows they got courage, cause there’s no hope for them. They have to hang one another and slaughter one another, so just looking each other in face must call for courage. Being able to put up with emperor and pope shows supernatural courage, cause those two cost ’em their lives.
She sits down, takes a little pipe from her purse and smokes
. You might chop us a bit of kindling.

THE CHAPLAIN
reluctantly removing his coat and preparing to chop up sticks:
I happen to be a pastor of souls, not a woodcutter.

MOTHER COURAGE
: I got no soul, you see. Need firewood, though.

THE CHAPLAIN
: Where’s that stumpy pipe from?

MOTHER COURAGE
: Just a pipe.

THE CHAPLAIN
: What d’you mean, ‘just’, it’s a quite particular pipe, that.

MOTHER COURAGE
: Aha?

THE CHAPLAIN
: That stumpy pipe belongs to the Oxenstierna Regiment’s cook.

MOTHER COURAGE
: If you know that already why ask, Mr Clever?

THE CHAPLAIN
: Because I didn’t know if you were aware what you’re smoking. You might just have been rummaging around in your things, come across some old pipe or other, and used it out of sheer absence of mind.

MOTHER COURAGE
: And why not?

THE CHAPLAIN
: Because you didn’t. You’re smoking that deliberately.

MOTHER COURAGE
: And why shouldn’t I?

THE CHAPLAIN
: Courage, I’m warning you. It’s my duty. Probably you’ll never clap eyes on the gentleman again, and that’s no loss but your good fortune. He didn’t make at all a reliable impression on me. Quite the opposite.

MOTHER COURAGE
: Really? Nice fellow that.

THE CHAPLAIN
: So he’s what you would call a nice fellow? I wouldn’t. Far be it from me to bear him the least ill-will, but nice is not what I would call him. More like one of those Don Juans, a slippery one. Have a look at that pipe if you don’t believe me. You must admit it tells you a good deal about his character.

MOTHER COURAGE
: Nowt that I can see. Worn out, I’d call it.

THE CHAPLAIN
: Practically bitten through, you mean. A man of wrath. That is the pipe of an unscrupulous man of wrath; you must see that if you have any discrimination left.

MOTHER COURAGE
: Don’t chop my chopping block in two.

THE CHAPLAIN
: I told you I’m not a woodcutter by trade. I studied to be a pastor of souls. My talent and abilities are being abused in this place, by manual labour. My God-given endowments are denied expression. It’s a sin. You have never heard me preach. One sermon of mine can put a regiment in such a frame of mind it’ll treat the enemy like a flock of sheep. Life to them is a smelly old foot-cloth which they fling away in a vision of final victory. God has given me the gift of speech. I can preach so you’ll lose all sense of sight and hearing.