All go.
SERVANT entering: Your coat, sir.
Baal’s Attic
Starlit night. At the window Baal and the adolescent Johannes. They look at the sky.
BAAL: When you lie stretched out on the grass at night you can feel in your bones that the earth is round and that we’re flying, and that there are beasts on this star that devour its plants. It’s one of the smaller stars.
JOHANNES: Do you know anything about astronomy?
BAAL: No.
Silence.
JOHANNES: I’m in love with a girl. She’s the most innocent creature alive, but I saw her once in a dream being made love to by a juniper tree. That is to say, her white body lay stretched out on the juniper tree and the gnarled branches twisted about her. I haven’t been able to sleep since.
BAAL: Have you ever seen her white body?
JOHANNES: No. She’s innocent. Even her knees … There are degrees of innocence, don’t you think? And yet, there are times when I hold her, just for a second, at night, and she trembles like a leaf, but only at night. But I haven’t the strength to do it. She’s seventeen.
BAAL: In your dream, did she like love?
JOHANNES: Yes.
BAAL: She wears clean linen, a snow-white petticoat between her knees? Bed her and she may turn into a heap of flesh without a face.
JOHANNES: You’re saying what I always felt. I thought I was a coward. I can see now that you also think intercourse is unclean.
BAAL: That’s the grunting of the swine who are no good at it. When you embrace her virginal loins, the joy and fear of created man turns you into a god. As the juniper tree’s many roots are entwined within the earth, so are your limbs in bed. Blood flows and hearts beat.
JOHANNES: But it’s punishable by law, and by one’s parents.
BAAL: Your parents – he reaches for his guitar – they’re a thing of the past. How dare they open their mouths, filled with rotten teeth, to speak against love, which anybody may die of? If you can’t take love, there’s nothing left but vomit. He tunes the guitar.
JOHANNES: Do you mean if I make her pregnant?
BAAL striking chords on his guitar: When the pale mild summer ebbs and they’re swollen with love like sponges, they turn back into beasts, evil and childish, shapeless with their fat stomachs and hanging breasts, their damp arms clinging like slimy tentacles, and their bodies collapse and grow heavy unto death. And with hideous shrieks as if they were bringing a new world into being, they yield a small fruit. They spew out with pain what they once sucked in with pleasure. He plucks the strings. You have to have teeth for it, then love is like biting into an orange, with the juice squirting into your teeth.
JOHANNES: Your teeth are like an animal’s. They’re yellow and large, sinister.
BAAL: And love is like putting your naked arm into a pond and letting it float with weeds between your fingers, like the pain in which the drunken tree groans and sings as the wild wind rides it, like drowning in wine on a hot day, her body surging like a cool wine into every crease of your skin, limbs soft as plants in the wind, and the weight of the collision to which you yield is like flying against a storm, and her body tumbles over you like cool pebbles. But love is also like a coconut, good while it is fresh but when the juice is gone and only the bitter flesh remains you have to spit it out. He throws the guitar aside. I’m sick of this hymn.
JOHANNES: Then you think it’s something I ought to do, if it’s so wonderful?
BAAL: I think it’s something for you to avoid, Johannes.
An Inn
Morning. Lorry-drivers. Ekart at the back with Luise, the waitress. White clouds can be seen through the window.
BAAL talking to the lorry-drivers: He threw me out of his nice clean room, because I threw up his wine. But his wife ran after me, and in the evening we celebrated. I’m lumbered with her and sick of it.
DRIVERS: She needs a good hiding … They’re randy as cats but stupider. Tell her to go and eat figs! … I always beat mine before I give her what she wants.
JOHANNES enters with Johanna: This is Johanna.
BALL to the drivers, who go to the back: I’ll give you a song later.
JOHANNA: Johannes read me some of your poems.
BAAL: Ah. How old are you?
JOHANNES: She was seventeen in June.
JOHANNA: I’m jealous. He does nothing but talk about you.
BAAL: You’re in love with your Johannes. It’s spring. I’m waiting for Emilie … Better to love than make love.
JOHANNES: I can understand your winning a man’s love, but how can you have any success with women?
Emilie enters quickly.
BAAL: Here she comes. And how are you, Emilie? Johannes is here with his fiancée. Sit down!
EMILIE: How could you ask me to come here! A cheap bar, only fit for drunken louts! Typical of your taste.
BAAL: Luise, a gin for the lady.
EMILIE: Do you want to make a laughing stock of me?
BAAL: No. You’ll drink. We’re all human.
EMILIE: But you’re not.
BAAL: How do you know? He holds the glass out to Luise. Don’t be so mean, Luise. He takes hold of her. You’re devilishly soft today, like a plum.
EMILIE: How ill-bred you are!
BAAL: Tell the world, darling.
JOHANNES: It’s interesting here, I must say. Ordinary people. Drinking and amusing themselves. And then, those clouds in the window!
EMILIE: He dragged you here too, I expect. For a view of the clouds.
JOHANNA: Wouldn’t it be nicer to go for a walk in the meadows by the river, Johannes?
BAAL: Nothing doing! Stay here! He drinks. The sky is purple, particularly if you happen to be drunk. Beds on the other hand are white. To begin with. That’s where love is, between Heaven and Earth. He drinks. Why are you such cowards? The sky’s free, you feeble shadows! Full of bodies! Pale with love!
EMILIE: You’ve had too much again and now you’re babbling. And with that bloody wonderful babble he drags you to his sty.
BAAL: Sometimes – drinks – the sky is yellow. Full of vultures. Let’s all get drunk. He looks under the table. Who’s kicking my shins? Is it you, Luise? Ah, you, Emilie! Well, no matter. Drink up.
EMILIE half rising: I don’t know what’s wrong with you today. Perhaps I shouldn’t have come here after all.
BAAL: Have you just noticed? You might as well stay now.
JOHANNA: Don’t say things like that, Mr Baal.
BAAL: You’ve a good heart, Johanna. You’ll never be unfaithful, will you?
DRIVER winning: Ace, you bastards! – Trumped!
SECOND DRIVER: Keep going, the tart said, the worst’s over. Laughter. Tell her to go and eat figs.
THIRD DRIVER: How could you betray me, as the lady said to the butler when she found him in bed with the maid.
JOHANNES to Baal: Because of Johanna. She’s a child.
JOHANNA to Emilie: Will you come with me? We can go together.
EMILIE bursting into tears at the table: I feel so ashamed now.
JOHANNA putting her arm round Emilie: I understand; it doesn’t matter.
EMILIE: Don’t look at me like that. You’re still so young.
You don’t know anything yet.
BAAL gets up forbiddingly: Comedy, entitled Sisters in Hades!
He goes to the drivers, takes the guitar down from the wall and tunes it.
JOHANNA: He’s been drinking. He’ll regret it tomorrow.
EMILIE: If only you knew. He’s always like this. And I love him.
BAAL sings:
Orge told me that:
In all the world the place he liked the best
Was not the grass mound where his loved ones rest
Was not the altar, nor some harlot’s room
Nor yet the warm white comfort of the womb.
Orge thought the best place known to man
In this world was the lavatory pan.
That was a place to set the cheeks
aglow
With stars above and excrement below.
A place of refuge where you had a right
To sit in private on your wedding night.
A place of truth, for there you must admit
You are a man; there’s no concealing it.
A place of wisdom, where the gut turns out
To gird itself up for another bout.
Where you are always doing good by stealth
Exerting tactful pressure for your health.
At that you realize how far you’ve gone:
Using the lavatory – to eat on.
DRIVERS clapping: Bravo! … A good song! Give the gentleman a cherry brandy, if you’ll accept the offer, sir! He made it up all on his own … What a man!
LUISE in the middle of the room: You’re a one, Mr Baal!
DRIVER: líjou did a real job, you’d do all right for yourself. You could end up running a transport business.
SECOND DRIVER: Wish I had brains like that!
BAAL: That’s nothing. You have to have a backside and the rest. Your very good health, Luise. He goes back to his table. And yours, Emmi. Come on, drink up. Even if you can’t do anything else. Drink, I said.
Emilie, tears in her eyes, sips her drink.
BAAL: That’s better. There’ll be some life in you yet.
KART gets up and comes round slowly from the bar to Baal. He is lean, a powerful man: Baal! Brother! Come with me! Give it up! Out to the hard dusty highroad: at night the air grows purple. To bars full of drunks: let the women you’ve stuffed fall into the black rivers. To cathedrals with small, pale ladies: you ask, dare a man breathe here? To cowsheds where you bed down with the beasts. It’s dark there and the cows moo. And into the forests where axes ring out above and you forget the light of day: God has forgotten you. Do you still remember what the sky looks like? A fine tenor you’ve turned into! He spreads his arms. Come, brother! To dance, to sing, to drink! Rain to drench us! Sun to scorch us! Darkness and light! Dogs and women! Are you that degenerate?
BAAL: Luise! Luise! An anchor! Don’t let me go with him. Luise goes to him. Help me, everyone.
JOHANNES: Don’t let him lead you astray!
BAAL: My dear chap!
JOHANNES: Think of your mother, remember your art! Resist! To Ekart: You ought to be ashamed. You’re evil.
EKART: Come, brother! We’ll fly in the open sky as blissful as two white doves. Rivers in the morning light! Graveyards swept by the wind and the smell of endless unmown fields.
JOHANNA: Be strong, Mr Baal.
EMILIE holding hini: I won’t allow it! Do you hear? You can’t throw yourself away!
BAAL: Not yet, Ekart! There’s still another way. They won’t play, brother.
EKART: Then go to the devil, you with your soft, fat, sentimental heart! He goes.
DRIVERS: Out with the ten … Damn it! Add up … Let’s pack it in.
JOHANNA: You’ve won this time, Mr Baal.
BAAL: I’m sweating all over. Got any time today, Luise?
EMILIE: Don’t talk like that, Baal! You don’t know what you do to me when you talk like that.
LUISE: Stop upsetting the lady, Mr Baal. A child could see she’s not herself.
BAAL: Don’t worry, Luise! Horgauer!
DRIVER: What do you want?
BAAL: There’s a lady being badly treated here, she wants love.
Give her a kiss, Horgauer.
JOHANNES: Baal!
Johanna puts her arm round Emilie.
DRIVERS laughing and hitting the table with their fists: Press on, Andreas … Have a go … high class, blow your nose first … You’re a bastard, Mr Baal.
BAAL: Are you frigid, Emilie? Do you love me? He’s shy, Emmi. Give him a kiss. If you make a fool of me in front of these people, it’s the finish. One, two …
The driver bends down. Emilie raises her tear-stained face. He kisses her vigorously. Loud laughter.
JOHANNES: That was evil, Baal. Drink brings out the evil in him, and then he feels good. He’s too strong.
DRIVERS: Well done! What’s she come to a place like this for? … That’s the way to treat them … her kind break up families! … Serves her right! They get up from their card game. Tell her to go and eat figs!
JOHANNA: How disgusting! You ought to be ashamed!
BAAL going up to her: Why are your knees shaking, Johanna?
JOHANNES: What do you want with her?
BAAL a hand on his shoulder: Must you also write poetry? While life’s so decent? When you shoot down a racing stream on your back, naked under an orange sky, and you see nothing except the sky turning purple, then black like a hole … when you trample your enemy underfoot … or burst with joy at a funeral … or sobbing with love you eat an apple … or bend a woman across a bed. Johannes leads Johanna away without saying a word.
BAAL leaning on the table: It’s all a bloody circus. Did you feel it? Did it get under your skin? You have to lure the beast from its cage! Get the beast into the sun! My bill! Let love see the light of day! Naked in the sunshine! Under a clear sky!
DRIVERS shaking him by the hand: Be seeing you, Mr Baal! … At your service, sir! … For my part I always did say Mr Baal had a screw loose. What with those songs and the rest! But one thing’s certain, his heart’s in the right place! – You have to treat women the way they deserve. – Well, somebody exposed their precious white bottom here today. – Good-bye, Mr Circus. They go.
BAAL: And good-bye to you, my friends! Emilie has thrown herself sobbing down on the bench. Baal touches her forehead with the back of his hand. Emmi! You can calm down now. The worst is over. He raises her head and brushes her hair from her tear-stained face. Just forget it! He throws himself heavily on her and kisses her.
Baal’s Attic
Sunrise.
Baal and Johanna sitting on the edge of the bed.
JOHANNA: Oh, what have I done! I’m wicked.
BAAL: Wash yourself instead.
JOHANNA: I still don’t know how it happened.
BAAL: Johannes is to blame for everything. Drags you up here and behaves like a clown when he sees why your knees are shaking.
JOHANNA gets up, lowers her voice: When he comes back …
BAAL: Time for a bit of literature. He lies down again. First light over Mount Ararat.
JOHANNA: Shall I get up?
BAAL: After the flood. Stay in bed.
JOHANNA: Won’t you open the window?
BAAL: I like the smell. – What about another helping? What’s gone’s gone.
JOHANNA: How can you be so vile?
BAAL lazily on the bed: White and washed clean by the flood, Baal lets his thoughts fly like doves over the dark waters.
JOHANNA: Where’s my petticoat… I can’t … like this …
BAAL handing it to her: Here! What can’t you … like this, darling?
JOHANNA: Go home. She drops it, but then she dresses.
BAAL whistling: God, what a girl! I can feel every bone in my body. Give me a kiss!
JOHANNA by the table in the middle of the room: Say something! Baal is silent. Do you still love me? Say it. Baal whistles. Can’t you say it?
BAAL looking up at the ceiling: I’m fed to the teeth!
JOHANNA: Then what was it last night? And before?
BAAL: Johannes could make things awkward. And Emilie’s staggering around like a rammed schooner. I could die of starvation here! None of you would lift a finger for me. There’s only one thing you’re out for.
JOHANNA confused, clearing the table: And you – didn’t you ever feel differently about me?
BAAL: Have you washed? Not an ounce of sense. Did you get nothing out of it? Go home! You can tell Johannes I took you home last night and spew gall at him. It’s been raining. Rolls himself up in his blanket.
JOHANNA: Johannes? She walks wearily to the door and goes.
BAAL suddenly turning: Johanna! Goes from his bed to the door. Johanna! At the window. There she goes. There she goes.
2 Noon.
Baal lies on his bed.
BAAL humming:
The evening sky grows dark as pitch
With drink; or often fiery red.
Naked I’ll have you in a ditch …
The two sisters come into the room arm in arm.
THE OLDER SISTER: You said we were to come and visit you again.
BAAL still humming:
Or on a white and spacious bed.
THE OLDER SISTER: Well, we came, Mr Baal.
BAAL: Now they come fluttering in pairs to the dove-cot. Take off your clothes.
THE OLDER SISTER: Mother heard the stairs creak last week. She undoes her sister’s blouse.
THE YOUNGER SISTER: It was getting light on the landing when we got to our room.
BAAL: One day I’ll be stuck with you.
THE YOUNGER SISTER: I’d drown myself, Mr Baal.
THE OLDER SISTER: We came together …
THE YOUNGER SISTER: I feel ashamed.
THE OLDER SISTER: It isn’t the first time …
THE YOUNGER SISTER: But it was never so light. It’s broad daylight outside.
THE OLDER SISTER: And it isn’t the second time.
THE YOUNGER SISTER: You get undressed as well.
THE OLDER SISTER: I will.
BAAL: When you’ve done, come on in! It’ll be dark all righ
THE YOUNGER SISTER: You go first today.
THE OLDER SISTER: I was first last time …
THE YOUNGER SISTER: No, it was me …
BAAL: You’ll both get it at once.
THE OLDER SISTER standing with her arms round the younger
one: We’re ready. It’s so light in here!
BAAL: Is it warm outside?
THE OLDER SISTER: It’s only April.
THE YOUNGER SISTER: But the sun’s warm today.
BAAL: Did you enjoy yourselves last time?
The sisters do not answer.
THE OLDER SISTER: A girl threw herself into the river. Johanna Reiher.
THE YOUNGER SISTER: Into the Laach. I wouldn’t go in there. The current’s too strong.
BAAL: Into the river? Does anyone know why?
THE OLDER SISTER: There are rumours. People talk …
THE YOUNGER SISTER: She went off one afternoon and stayed out all night.
BAAL: Didn’t she go home in the morning?