Authors: Bertolt Brecht
MOTHER COURAGE
: That ain’t an entrancing but a decent young person.
The chaplain and the cook go behind the cart with Mother Courage. Kattrin looks after them, then walks
away from her washing towards the hat. She picks it up and sits down, pulling the red boots towards her. Mother Courage can be heard in the background talking politics with the chaplain and the cook
.
MOTHER COURAGE
: Those Poles here in Poland had no business sticking their noses in. Right, our king moved in on them, horse and foot, but did they keep the peace? no, went and stuck their noses into their own affairs, they did, and fell on king just as he was quietly clearing off. They committed a breach of peace, that’s what, so blood’s on their own head.
THE CHAPLAIN
: All our king minded about was freedom. The emperor had made slaves of them all, Poles and Germans alike, and the king had to liberate them.
THE COOK
: Just what I say, your brandy’s first rate, I weren’t mistaken in your face, but talk of the king, it cost the king dear trying to give freedom to Germany, what with giving Sweden the salt tax, what cost the poor folk a bit, so I’ve heard, on top of which he had to have the Germans locked up and drawn and quartered cause they wanted to carry on slaving for the emperor. Course the king took a serious view when anybody didn’t want to be free. He set out by just trying to protect Poland against bad people, particularly the emperor, then it started to become a habit till he ended up protecting the whole of Germany. They didn’t half kick. So the poor old king’s had nowt but trouble for all his kindness and expenses, and that’s something he had to make up for by taxes of course, which caused bad blood, not that he’d let a little matter like that depress him. One thing he had on his side, God’s word, that was a help. Because otherwise folk would of been saying he done it all for himself and to make a bit on the side. So he’s always had a good conscience, which was the main point.
MOTHER COURAGE
: Anyone can see you’re no Swede or you wouldn’t be talking that way about the Hero King.
THE CHAPLAIN
: After all he provides the bread you eat.
THE COOK
: I don’t eat it, I bake it.
MOTHER COURAGE
: They’ll never beat him, and why, his men got faith in him.
Seriously:
To go by what the big shots say,
they’re waging war for almighty God and in the name of everything that’s good and lovely. But look closer, they ain’t so silly, they’re waging it for what they can get. Else little folk like me wouldn’t be in it at all.
THE COOK
: That’s the way it is.
THE CHAPLAIN
: As a Dutchman you’d do better to glance at the flag above your head before venting your opinions here in Poland.
MOTHER COURAGE
: All good Lutherans here. Prosit!
Kattrin has put on Yvette’s hat and begun strutting around in imitation of her way of walking
.
Suddenly there is a noise of cannon fire and shooting. Drums. Mother Courage, the cook and the chaplain rush out from behind the cart, the two last-named still carrying their glasses. The armourer and another soldier run up to the cannon and try to push it away
.
MOTHER COURAGE
: What’s happening? Wait till I’ve taken my washing down, you louts!
She tries to rescue her washing
.
THE ARMOURER
: The Catholics! Broken through. Don’t know if we’ll get out of here.
To the soldier:
Get that gun shifted!
Runs on
.
THE COOK
: God, I must find the general. I’ll drop by in a day or two for another talk.
MOTHER COURAGE
: Wait, you forgot your pipe.
THE COOK
in the distance:
Keep it for me. I’ll be needing it.
MOTHER COURAGE
: Would happen just as we’re making a bit of money.
THE CHAPLAIN
: Ah well, I’ll be going too. Indeed, if the enemy is so close as that it might be dangerous. Blessed are the peacemakers is the motto in wartime. If only I had a cloak to cover me.
MOTHER COURAGE
: I ain’t lending no cloaks, not on your life. I been had too often.
THE CHAPLAIN
: But my faith makes it particularly dangerous for me.
MOTHER COURAGE
gets him a cloak:
Goes against my conscience, this does. Now you run along.
THE CHAPLAIN
: Thank you, dear lady, that’s very generous of you, but I think it might be wiser for me to remain seated here; it could arouse suspicion and bring the enemy down on me if I were seen to run.
MOTHER COURAGE
to the soldier:
Leave it, you fool, who’s going to pay you for that! I’ll look after it for you, you’re risking your neck.
THE SOLDIER
running away:
You can tell ’em I tried.
MOTHER COURAGE
: Cross my heart.
Sees her daughter with the hat
. What you doing with that strumpet’s hat? Take that lid off, you gone crazy? And the enemy arriving any minute!
Pulls the hat off Kattrin’s head
. Want ’em to pick you up and make a prostitute of you? And she’s gone and put those boots on, whore of Babylon! Off with those boots!
Tries to tug them off her
. Jesus Christ, chaplain, gimme a hand, get those boots off her, I’ll be right back.
Runs to the cart
.
YVETTE
arrives, powdering her face:
Fancy that, the Catholics are coming. Where’s my hat? Who’s been kicking it around? I can’t go about looking like this if the Catholics are coming. What’ll they think of me? No mirror either.
To the chaplain:
How do I look? Too much powder?
THE CHAPLAIN
: Exactly right.
YVETTE
: And where are them red boots?
Fails to find them as Kattrin hides her feet under her skirt
. I left them here all right. Now I’ll have to get to me tent barefoot. It’s an outrage.
Exit
.
Swiss Cheese runs in carrying a small box
.
MOTHER COURAGE
arrives with her hands full of ashes. To Kattrin:
Here some ashes.
To Swiss Cheese:
What’s that you’re carrying?
SWISS CHEESE
: Regimental cash box.
MOTHER COURAGE
: Chuck it away. No more paymastering for you.
SWISS CHEESE
: I’m responsible.
He goes to the rear
.
MOTHER COURAGE
to the chaplain:
Take your clerical togs off, padre, or they’ll spot you under that cloak.
She rubs Kattrin s face with ash
. Keep still, will you? There you are, a bit of muck and you’ll be safe. What a disaster. Sentries were
drunk. Hide your light under a bushel, it says. Take a soldier, specially a Catholic one, add a clean face, and there’s your instant whore. For weeks they get nowt to eat, then soon as they manage to get it by looting they’re falling on anything in skirts. That ought to do. Let’s have a look. Not bad. Looks like you been grubbing in muckheap. Stop trembling. Nothing’ll happen to you like that.
To Swiss Cheese:
Where d’you leave cash box?
SWISS CHEESE
: Thought I’d put it in cart.
MOTHER COURAGE
horrified:
What, my cart? Sheer criminal idiocy. Only take me eyes off you one instant. Hang us all three, they will.
SWISS CHEESE
: I’ll put it somewhere else then, or clear out with it.
MOTHER COURAGE
: You sit on it, it’s too iate now.
THE CHAPLAIN
who is changing his clothes downstage:
For heaven’s sake, the flag!
MOTHER COURAGE
hauls down the regimental flag:
Bozhe moi! I’d given up noticing it were there. Twenty-five years I’ve had it.
The thunder of cannon intensifies
.
A morning three days later. The cannon has gone. Mother Courage, Kattrin, the chaplain and Swiss Cheese are sitting gloomily over a meal
.
SWISS CHEESE
: That’s three days I been sitting around with nowt to do, and sergeant’s always been kind to me but any moment now he’ll start asking where’s Swiss Cheese with the pay box?
MOTHER COURAGE
: You thank your stars they ain’t after you.
THE CHAPLAIN
: What can I say? I can’t even hold a service here, it might make trouble for me. Whosoever hath a full heart, his tongue runneth over, it says, but heaven help me if mine starts running over.
MOTHER COURAGE
: That’s how it goes. Here they sit, one with his faith and the other with his cash box. Dunno which is more dangerous.
THE CHAPLAIN
: We are all of us in God’s hands.
MOTHER COURAGE
: Oh, I don’t think it’s as bad as that yet, though I must say I can’t sleep nights. If it weren’t for you, Swiss Cheese, things’d be easier. I think I got meself cleared. I told ’em I didn’t hold with Antichrist, the Swedish one with horns on, and I’d observed left horn was a bit unserviceable. Half way through their interrogation I asked where I could get church candles not too dear. I knows the lingo cause Swiss Cheese’s dad were Catholic, often used to make jokes about it, he did. They didn’t believe rne all that much, but they ain’t got no regimental canteen lady. So they’re winking an eye. Could turn out for the best, you know. We’re prisoners, but same like fleas on dog.
THE CHAPLAIN
: That’s good milk. But we’ll need to cut down our Swedish appetites a bit. After all, we’ve been defeated.
MOTHER COURAGE
: Who’s been defeated? Look, victory and defeat ain’t bound to be same for the big shots up top as for them below, not by no means. Can be times the bottom lot find a defeat really pays them. Honour’s lost, nowt else. I remember once up in Livonia our general took such a beating from enemy I got a horse off our baggage train in the confusion, pulled me cart seven months, he did, before we won and they checked up. As a rule you can say victory and defeat both come expensive to us ordinary folk. Best thing for us is when politics get bogged down solid.
To Swiss Cheese:
Eat up.
SWISS CHEESE
: Got no appetite for it. What’s sergeant to do when pay day comes round?
MOTHER COURAGE
: They don’t have pay days on a retreat.
SWISS CHEESE
: It’s their right, though. They needn’t retreat if they don’t get paid. Needn’t stir a foot.
MOTHER COURAGE
: Swiss Cheese, you’re that conscientious it makes me quite nervous. I brought you up to be honest, you not being clever, but you got to know where to stop. Chaplain and me, we’re off now to buy Catholic flag and some meat. Dunno anyone so good at sniffing meat, like sleepwalking it is, straight to target. I’d say he can pick out a good piece by the way his mouth starts watering. Well, thank goodness they’re letting me go on trading. You don’t ask
tradespeople their faith but their prices. And Lutheran trousers keep cold out too.
THE CHAPLAIN
: What did the mendicant say when he heard the Lutherans were going to turn everything in town and country topsy-turvy? ‘They’ll always need beggars’.
Mother Courage disappears into the cart
. So she’s still worried about the cash box. So far they’ve taken us all for granted as part of the cart, but how long for?
SWISS CHEESE
: I can get rid of it.
THE CHAPLAIN
: That’s almost more dangerous. Suppose you’re seen. They have spies. Yesterday a fellow popped up out of the ditch in front of me just as I was relieving myself first thing. I was so scared I only just suppressed an ejaculatory prayer. That would have given me away all right. I think what they’d like best is to go sniffing people’s excrement to see if they’re Protestants. The spy was a little runt with a patch over one eye.
MOTHER COURAGE
clambering out of the cart with a basket:
What have I found, you shameless creature?
She holds up the red boots in triumph
. Yvette’s red high-heeled boots! Coolly went and pinched them, she did. Cause you put it in her head she was an enchanting young person.
She lays them in the basket
. I’m giving them back. Stealing Yvette’s boots! She’s wrecking herself for money. That’s understandable. But you’d do it for nothing, for pleasure. What did I tell you: you’re to wait till it’s peace. No soldiers for you. You’re not to start exhibiting yourself till it’s peacetime.
THE CHAPLAIN
: I don’t find she exhibits herself.
MOTHER COURAGE
: Too much for my liking. Let her be like a stone in Dalecarlia, where there’s nowt else, so folk say ‘Can’t see that cripple’, that’s how I’d lief have her. Then nowt’ll happen to her.
To Swiss Cheese:
You leave that box where it is, d’you hear? And keep an eye on your sister, she needs it. The pair of you’ll have me in grave yet. Sooner be minding a bagful of fleas.
She leaves with the chaplain. Kattrin clears away the dishes
.
SWISS CHEESE
: Won’t be able to sit out in the sun in shirt-sleeves
much longer.
Kattrin points at a tree
. Aye, leaves turning yellow.
Kattrin asks by gestures if he wants a drink
. Don’t want no drink. I’m thinking.
Pause
. Said she can’t sleep. Best if I got rid of that box, found a good place for it. All right, let’s have a glass.
Kattrin goes behind the cart
. I’ll stuff it down the rat-hole by the river for the time being. Probably pick it up tonight before first light and take it to Regiment. How far can they have retreated in three days? Bet sergeant’s surprised. I’m agreeably disappointed in you, Swiss Cheese, he’ll say. I make you responsible for the cash, and you go and bring it back.