SISTER: A remark in bad taste.
WIFE: Where was the bad taste?
FATHER: Calm down now. Cheers.
GROOM to the sister: You’re not to insult our guests.
SISTER: But the guests can insult your wife.
WIFE: I never said a thing.
HUSBAND: Oh yes you did. You were offensive.
WIFE annoyed: I only spoke the truth.
GROOM: And what truth was that?
WIFE: Be your age.
HUSBAND leaning towards her: Just you control yourself.
WIFE: When a woman’s pregnant she’s pregnant.
The husband rips a leg from the table and throws it at his wife, but it hits a vase on top of the cupboard. The wife cries.
GROOM angrily, to the sister: That was the vase you gave us.
SISTER: You can’t have thought much of it, or you wouldn’t have put it up there.
GROOM: I’ve no time to argue with you now, because it was my table as well. He feels it to see if it will hold up.
HUSBAND walks agitatedly up and down: There: I’ve lifted a hand to her. So now I’m the brute. It’s always the same story: she’s the martyr, I’m the brute. Seven years I’ve put up with it, and you may well ask who made a brute of me. My hands were always too tired from working for her to be able to hit her. If I’m on top of the world she’s got a pain; if I have a drink she counts the pennies; but if I count the pennies she bursts into tears. Once I had to throw out a picture I was very fond of, because she disliked it. She disliked it because I was fond of it. When I had thrown it out she picked it up and hung it in her room. As soon as I saw it there she was happy and said, ‘It’s good enough for me.’ Then she was sorry for herself for being reduced to picking up my throw-outs. I got angry and took it off her, and then she cried because she couldn’t even have that. ‘Not even that’ was her phrase, even when it was something we couldn’t possibly afford. But that’s the way she is, and that’s the way they all are. As soon as the wedding’s over you’re no longer a beast working for its mistress, you’re a man working for a beast; and it drags you down till there’s nothing you don’t deserve.
Pause.
GROOM with an effort: Have something more to drink? It’s only nine.
FRIEND: We’ve run out of chairs.
YOUNG MAN: We could still dance.
FRIEND: I’ve had enough of that.
GROOM: You liked it earlier on all right.
FRIEND: I hadn’t got the splinter.
GROOM: Oh, I see. Laughs. Is that why you’ve been standing in that subdued way?
FRIEND: It wasn’t my chair, was it?
GROOM: No, it was mine. Was. Now it isn’t any more.
FRIEND: Then we may as well go. Goes out.
YOUNG MAN: Thank you. That was very nice. But it’s time for me to put my coat on.
WIFE: Take me home.
HUSBAND goes out and comes back with his wife’s things: And I must apologize again for this wife of mine.
GROOM: You don’t have to.
WIFE: I daren’t go home.
HUSBAND: That’s your revenge. But the play-acting’s all over now, and we’re coming to the serious bit. Takes her arm: Off we go. He leaves with his wife, who is silent and dejected.
GROOM: Now they’ve gorged they’re anxious to get away. After that we’ll be on our own, with half the evening to fill.
BRIDE: A moment ago you were longing for them to get out. One never knows where one is with you, does one? And of course you don’t love me, either.
FRIEND comes back with his hat on. Spitefully: The stink has become almost unbearable.
GROOM: What stink?
FRIEND: That glue that wouldn’t stick. I call it cheek asking people to such a rubbish dump.
GROOM: Then you’d better forgive me for not appreciating your dirty song and having let you break my chair.
FRIEND: Why don’t you wait for your nuptial dropsy bed? I wish you a very good night. Goes.
GROOM: Go to hell.
FATHER: I think we’d better go too. We can talk about the furniture another time, and the beds are there if you want them. I thought it’d be a help if I told stories that had no connection with the company. It’s always a mistake to leave people to their own devices. Come along, Ina.
SISTER: It’s a pity such a nice evening should end like this. After all, you only have it once. Life begins tomorrow, as Hans says.
BRIDE: You did your best to contribute. And just how long have you been calling Herr Mildner Hans?
YOUNG MAN: Thanks again. I thought it was a very nice evening.
All three go.
GROOM: Thank God they’ve gone at last.
BRIDE: Yes: to spread our disgrace all over the town. I don’t know how I can face it. Tomorrow they’ll all know what happened. And how they’ll laugh. They’ll sit sniggering behind their windows. They’ll stare at us in church as they think of the furniture and the lights that wouldn’t work and the blancmange that went wrong, and, to cap it all, that the bride was pregnant. And there was I going to say the baby was premature.
GROOM: What about the furniture too? Five months’ work! Have you thought of that? They only pissed themselves laughing over that dirty song because you’d danced with them as if you were in a whorehouse, till all the best chairs were bust. A friend of yours, she was.
BRIDE: And it was a friend of yours who sang that song. To hell with your furniture. It isn’t even stained, because you said the look didn’t matter so long as it was solid and comfortable. Five months wasted while you got it finished, and by then I was showing. This rubbish, this trash, this shoddy workmanship. What on earth did we get married for?
GROOM: Well, they’ve gone now, and this is the start of our wedding night. This is it.
Pause. He walks up and down. She stands at the window, right.
BRIDE: Why did you have the first dance with that awful creature? It’s not done. I never knew her till today. I thought she was my friend. It’s all so shameful.
GROOM: Because she’d been nasty about the furniture.
BRIDE: And you wanted her to think well of you at any price. A lot of help that was.
Pause.
GROOM: The trouble is that when you do anything different from other people they turn nasty. Specially when they know it’s something they’ve missed out on. Then they take it out on you. They couldn’t for a moment make even one of these bits of furniture, not even design it and get the wood cut. But one little slip-up, like bad glue, and they think they’re justified. I shall put the whole thing out of my mind. Goes to cupboard and tries to open it.
BRIDE: They’ll remind you. And I won’t forget ever. Sobs.
GROOM: The bad glue, do you mean?
BRIDE: God will punish you for jeering at me.
GROOM: He’s started already. To hell with this damned lock. What does anything matter now? He breaks in the door.
BRIDE: Just because the lock was bust you’ve gone and bust the cupboard.
GROOM: I’ve got my house-jacket out now, and you can clear away. How long am I supposed to wallow in this pigsty?
The bride gets up and begins to clear.
GROOM standing by the cupboard in his house-jacket and counting money: It wasn’t cheap either. And we didn’t really need to get that wine up from the cellar.
BRIDE: The table’s wonky. There are two legs missing.
GROOM: The mulled wine. The food. On top of that the repairs.
BRIDE: The chairs, the cupboard, the sofa.
GROOM: Bloody bastards.
BRIDE: And your furniture.
GROOM: The home we’d made.
BRIDE: You know just what’s there.
GROOM: And take better care of it.
BRIDE sits and buries her face in her hands: It’s all such a disgrace.
GROOM: Was it necessary to clear away in your wedding frock? It’ll be spoiled. There’s a wine-stain already.
BRIDE: You look so insignificant in that jacket. Your
face seems quite changed. And not for the better.
GROOM: And you’re an old bag. Crying brings it out.
BRIDE: Nothing’s sacred any longer.
GROOM: It’s our wedding night.
Pause, then the groom goes to the table.
GROOM: Drunk every drop. The tablecloth got more than I did. Bottles empty, but there’s some left in the glasses. Mustn’t be wasteful.
BRIDE: What are you doing?
GROOM: Finishing off what’s left in the glasses. Look, here’s a full one.
BRIDE: I’m not in the mood.
GROOM: But it’s our wedding night!
The bride takes the glass, looks away, drinks.
GROOM: Not that anybody can say I’m drinking to your innocence, what with you being pregnant …
BRIDE: That’s the worst thing you’ve said today. You’ve really outdone yourself. Whose fault was it? You were like a ram.
GROOM not to be put off: Now comes the night when, within our four walls and under the eyes of the family …
The bride laughs bitterly.
GROOM: … we must be fruitful and multiply. A holy occasion, so to speak.
BRIDE: You can talk.
GROOM: I drink to your good health, my dear wife, and may it all turn out right for us.
They drink.
BRIDE: Well, you said one true thing tonight: this is a party, and one can’t be too fussy.
GROOM: It could have gone worse.
BRIDE: What with your friend …
GROOM: And your relatives.
BRIDE: Must we quarrel all the time?
GROOM: No. On our wedding night.
They keep on drinking.
BRIDE: Our wedding night. Chokes. Laughs heartily. What a scream. Some wedding night.
GROOM: Well, why not? Cheers.
BRIDE: That song was dirty. Sniggers. ‘ And who beat her …’ That’s you men all over. ‘Laying her across the stair.’
GROOM jumping up: And those stories of your father’s!
BRIDE: And my sister out in the passage! It’s enough to kill a cat.
GROOM: And the way that silly bitch nearly fell on the floor!
BRIDE: And the way their eyes popped when the cupboard wouldn’t open!
GROOM: Well, at least they couldn’t see inside.
BRIDE: I’m glad they’ve gone.
GROOM: They just create noise and dirt.
BRIDE: Two’s company.
GROOM: Alone at last.
BRIDE: I don’t think much of your jacket.
GROOM: I don’t care for that frock. He rips it down the front.
BRIDE: You’ve ruined it.
GROOM: Who cares? Kisses her.
BRIDE: You’re so wild.
GROOM: You’re pretty. Your breasts are so white.
BRIDE: Oh, you’re hurting me, darling.
GROOM pulls her to the door, opens it. The knob comes off in his hand. There goes the knob. Ha ha ha. What next? Throws it at the lamp, which goes out and falls down. Come along.
BRIDE: But the bed! Ha ha ha.
GROOM: Well, what about the bed?
BRIDE: That’ll break too.
GROOM: Doesn’t matter. Drags her out. Darkness. Noise of bed collapsing.
The Beggar or The Dead Dog
Translator: MICHAEL HAMBURGER
Characters
The Emperor • The beggar • Soldiers
A gate. To the right of it crouches a beggar, a great ragged fellow with a white forehead. He has a small hurdy-gurdy which he keeps concealed under his rags. It is early morning. A cannon shot is heard. The Emperor arrives, escorted by soldiers; he has long reddish hair, uncovered. He wears a purple woollen garment. Bells are ringing.
EMPEROR: At the very moment that I go to celebrate my victory over my worst enemy and the country blends my name with black incense a beggar sits in front of my gate, stinking of misery. But between these great events it seems fitting for me to converse with nothingness. The soldiers step back. Do you know why the bells are ringing, man?
BEGGAR: Yes. My dog has died.
EMPEROR: Was that a piece of insolence?
BEGGAR: No. It was old age. He struggled on to the end. I wondered, why do his legs tremble so? He had laid his front legs over my chest. Like that we lay all night, even when it turned cold. But by the morning he had been dead a long time, and I pushed him off me. Now I can’t go home because he’s beginning to putrify, and stinks.
EMPEROR: Why don’t you throw him out?
BEGGAR: That’s none of your business. Now you have a hollow in your chest, like a hole in a drain; because you’ve asked a stupid question. Everyone asks stupid questions. Just to ask questions is stupid.
EMPEROR: And yet I shall ask another: who looks after you? Because if no one looks after you, you’ll have to remove yourself. This is a place where no carrion may rot and no outcry may rend the air.
BEGGAR: Am I crying out?
EMPEROR: Now it’s you that are asking, though there is mockery in your question, and I do not understand the mockery.
BEGGAR: Well, I don’t know about that, though I’m the person involved.
EMPEROR: I take no account of what you say. But who looks after you?
BEGGAR: Sometimes it’s a boy whom his mother got from an angel while she was digging potatoes.
EMPEROR: Do you have no sons?
BEGGAR: They’ve gone.
EMPEROR: Like the Emperor Ta Li’s army, buried by the desert sand?
BEGGAR: He marched through the desert, and his people said: It’s too far. Turn back, Ta Li. To that he replied every time: This territory must be conquered. They marched on each day, till their shoe leather was worn away, then their skin began to tear, and they used their knees to move on. Once the whirlwind caught a camel on the flank. That camel died in front of their eyes. Once they came to an oasis and said: That’s what our homes are like. Then the Emperor’s little son fell into a cistern and drowned. They mourned for seven days, feeling an infinite grief. Once they saw their horses die. Once their women could go no farther. Once came the wind and the sand that buried them, and then it was all over and quiet again, and the territory belonged to them, and I forgot its name.
EMPEROR: How do you know all that? Not a word of it is true. It was quite different.
BEGGAR: When he got so strong that I was like his child, I crawled away, for I allow no one to dominate me.
EMPEROR: What are you talking about?
BEGGAR: Clouds drifted. Towards midnight stars broke through. Then there was silence.
EMPEROR: Do clouds make a noise?
BEGGAR: Many, it’s true, died in those filthy hovels by the river that flooded its banks last week, but they didn’t get through.
EMPEROR: Since you know that much – do you never sleep?
BEGGAR: When I lie back on the stones the child that was born cries. And then a new wind rises.
EMPEROR: Last night the stars were out, nobody died by the river, no child was born, there was no wind here.
BEGGAR: In that case you must be blind, deaf, and ignorant. Or else it’s malice on your part. Pause.
EMPEROR: What do you do all the time? I’ve never seen you before. Out of what egg did you creep?
BEGGAR: Today I noticed that the maize is poor this year, because the rain hasn’t come. There’s such a dark warm wind blowing in from the fields.
EMPEROR: That’s correct. The maize is poor.
BEGGAR: That’s what it was like thirty-eight years ago. The maize perished in the sun, and before it was done for the rain came down so thick that rats sprang up and devastated all the other fields. Then they came into the villages and took bites out of people. That food was the death of them.
EMPEROR: I know nothing of that. It must be a fabrication like the rest. There’s nothing about it in history.
BEGGAR: There’s no such thing as history.
EMPEROR: And what about Alexander? And Caesar? And Napoleon?
BEGGAR: Sto
ries! Fairy tales! What Napoleon are you talking about?
EMPEROR: The one who conquered half the world and was undone because he overreached himself.
BEGGAR: Only two can believe that. He and the world. It is wrong. In reality Napoleon was a man who rowed in a galley and had such a fat head that everybody said: We can’t row, because we haven’t enough elbow-room. When the ship went down, because they didn’t row, he pumped his head full of air and kept alive, he alone, and because he was fettered he had to row on – he couldn’t see where to from down there, and all had drowned. So he shook his head over the world, and since it was too heavy, it fell off.
EMPEROR: That’s the silliest thing I have ever heard. You have greatly disappointed me by telling me that yarn. The others were at least well told. But what do you think of the Emperor?
BEGGAR: There is no such person as the Emperor. Only the nation thinks there is such a person, and one individual thinks that he is the one. Later, when too many military vehicles are being made and the drummers are well rehearsed, there is war and an adversary is looked for.
EMPEROR: But now the Emperor has defeated his adversary.
BEGGAR: He has killed him, not defeated him. One idiot has killed another.
EMPEROR with an effort: He was a strong adversary, believe me.
BEGGAR: There is a man who puts stones into my rice. That man is my enemy. He bragged, because he has a strong hand. But he died of cancer, and when they closed the coffin they caught his hand under the lid and didn’t notice it when they carried the coffin away, so that the hand hung out of it, limp, helpless, and empty.
EMPEROR: Don’t you ever get bored, then, with lying about like this?
BEGGAR: In the past clouds used to drift down, along the sky, endlessly. I look at those. There is no end to them.
EMPEROR: Now there are no clouds moving in the sky. So your talk makes no sense. That’s as clear as the sun.
BEGGAR: There is no such thing as the sun.
EMPEROR: Perhaps you are even dangerous, a paranoiac, a raving madman.
BEGGAR: He was a good dog, not just an ordinary one. He deserves a good deal of praise. He even brought me meat, and at night he slept in my rags. Once there was a great uproar in town, they all had something against me because I don’t give anyone anything worth talking about, and even soldiers were brought in. But the dog drove them off.