SECOND OFFICER He means the situation, and all that.
FIRST OFFICER Ah.
THIRD OFFICER No tarts about today.
SECOND OFFICER But Fallota’s back.
Some old men pass by. Strains of “In der Heimat, in der Heimat da gibt’s ein Wiedersehn”—
POLDI FESCH (to his companion) I’ll be out partying with the Sascha Film people tomorrow — (exit.)
(A cabby’s voice can be heard: There’s a war on — fare’s 50 times that!)
FOURTH OFFICER Know what they call old Fallota in the War Ministry? A hero, that’s what.
FIRST OFFICER Why?
FOURTH OFFICER Y’don’t know? Because he was at the front! Says he preferred it there.
FIRST OFFICER They shouldn’t detain him here, then. Live and let live! Well, it’s true, isn’t it?
(Enter Turi and Ludi.)
TURI Hey Ludi, d’y’know if Rudi Nyári’s playing at the Lurion tonight? (Exit.)
FALLOTA (enters) Hi there!
ALL Hi there, hero!
FALLOTA What’d’ya mean, hero? You having me on?!
FLOWER SELLER Yellow, lovely yellow flowers!
FOURTH OFFICER Hey, how was it? Feeling great? Tell us at Hopfner’s.
FIRST OFFICER Yes, come on, you dashing young devil—
SECOND OFFICER So, what was it like at the front?
FALLOTA A lot of dashing, certainly.
THIRD OFFICER (absorbed in his own thoughts) Not a single bit of skirt — it’s dismal.
FIRST OFFICER So, how was it then?
FALLOTA I’m still alive.
(Two leg stumps in a ragged uniform cross their path.)
SECOND OFFICER Let’s be off, nothing but shirkers here! (Exeunt.)
VOICE OF A NEWS VENDOR Ex-tra-aa edi-shun—! Losses in millions for the Een-teent!
A WHISPERING VOICE C’m over here, I’ve got news for you.
(Silence. Suddenly an enormous roar, like the thunder of patriotic gunfire: “Here he comes!” Then: “Slezak! Leo Slezak!” The clamour appears to come from the Opera House. A car door slams shut. Then silence.
(Change of scene.)
Scene 2
Optimist and Grumbler in conversation.
GRUMBLER
O gods! Who is’t can say “It is at the worst?”
It is worse than e’er it was.
And worse it may be yet; the worst is not,
So long as we can say, “This is the worst.”
Children with faces that suggest they’ve been starving for a generation, and still no end in sight! But the worst is contained in this report on a clinic for nervous diseases. One man is sitting in a blue-striped gown, incurably melancholic, atoning for the glory of Asiago where he was buried when a shell exploded. Another has a bullet lodged in his head — addicted to morphine as the only escape from the agonizing pain. In the evening he screams in despair for the nurse, and everyone is overwhelmed by tears. A mentally disturbed child is crying, born two months after its expectant mother received the news that her husband had died a “hero’s death.” For one whose sons made it back unscathed, it was too late — she went out of her mind. But who can say: this is the worst?
OPTIMIST Yes, it’s undeniable, the war is leaving its mark on everyone’s life. How much longer do you think it will last?
GRUMBLER At all events, we shall continue to keep telling lies until the last breath of man and mount. Whether we shall also keep fighting is a different matter. It seems we’re trying to escape German pressure by betraying the Special Relationship. A little treachery will be our revenge on Germany for their not having prevented us from provoking them to declare war. But who would not prefer one’s own country to suffer any disgrace rather than humanity as a whole, whose burden of shame increases every minute this war continues. Fortunately, it is now being shortened by our defeats rather than prolonged by our victories. Did I not once predict that the breakthrough at Gorlice, which we have to thank for delaying the inevitable collapse, would cost millions of human lives? What would Hamlet have said? This was sometime a paradox, but now the grandeur of the age gives it proof.
OPTIMIST Well, as for the age of grandeur, I have to admit myself that it hasn’t grown appreciably since the ultimatum to Serbia. You’re right about that, it’s probably shrunk in every respect, just as you always predicted. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that an age of grandeur was inhabited by a race of pigmies.
GRUMBLER Rotten luck! But what have you seen that supports your view?
OPTIMIST I didn’t want to tell you, but I came across a notice in the personal column of the paper today that makes you think, even though the front pages are carrying such momentous reports from the General Staff.
GRUMBLER At a time when the front pages of the papers are carrying such momentous reports from the General Staff, what possible significance can a notice in the personal column have?
OPTIMIST Judge for yourself.
GRUMBLER (reads)
My little chickadee!
Do you love me? Love me lots? Love me to bits?
Shall wait, sweetheart, till you write or come.
Mitzi.
You see, there’s still time for love. There was I thinking only hatred had grown and hunger to go with it. But as for stupidity, its dimensions are obviously expanding as I always thought they would. You want to see the Austrian face? It may be undernourished, for which it has only itself to blame, but it is reflected spiritually in the dumpling depicted on this picture-postcard, the romantic ideal of the Viennese imagination. It’s my turn now — the text must surely be by that little chickadee.
OPTIMIST (reads)
If I could have my greatest wish,
Let me describe my favourite dish!
It must be a dumpling, fine and white,
Freshly made for my delight!
GRUMBLER Published by Treuland Press! It conveys people’s deepest feeling better than Mignon’s song “Knowst Thou the Heart’s Desire.” In 1914 the population condemned itself to the ideal of the dumpling, and I could prove by the standards of the Last Judgment the linkage between dumplings depicted on postcards and bombs dropped from aeroplanes, both marking the last resort of the same materialistic epoch. If the powers-that-be, who are so godforsaken as to possess nothing but power, were capable of grasping such connections, the war would never have started or would have ended long ago.
OPTIMIST There’s not much prospect of that now that they’re conscripting the next age group.
GRUMBLER Otherwise man might forget why God created him.
OPTIMIST And why was that?
GRUMBLER So that he could appear before the recruiting board. They were naked and were not ashamed.
(Change of scene.)
Scene 3
In front of the Parliament building.
Some members of the Upper House have just left the building and are engaged in debate under the statue of Pallas Athena. A tram has stopped, with limbs hanging out on both sides. Amidst an indescribable tumult of screamed abuse, curses, and inarticulate noises, through a tangled pile of kitbags and knapsacks and squashed bodies in the second car, full of undernourished, unwashed, and ragged people crammed together like sardines — a woman who has just collapsed from hunger is dragged out.
PATTAI THE PATRIOT I won’t retract an iota from my riposte to that damned pacifist Lammasch — he can have it framed! We are the victors and we demand the spoils!
(Change of scene.)