GRUMBLER I can’t check if that’s true, but as a metaphor it seems to authenticate a higher reality: it corresponds to how things generally happen in the world, and it perfectly depicts the use those left alive make of heroic death and glory for their aspirations and interests.
OPTIMIST To hear you talk, you’d really think the spiritual uplift that everyone expects hasn’t actually occurred.
GRUMBLER I almost believe that myself. But I also believe that this bloodbath, which those responsible wanted to tempt people to accept because of such uplift, will end as the greatest bankruptcy the planet has ever endured. Above all in the empires of this misconceived central Europe. For we spread murder and rape and pillage with the Bible in one hand and fairy tales in the other. We wanted to conquer the global market like knights in shining armour, but we’ll have to make do with selling everything off in the flea market — at bargain basement prices.
OPTIMIST (tries to light a cigarette) Funny, the match won’t light.
GRUMBLER That’s because of the ultimatum to Serbia.
OPTIMIST I said, the match won’t light!
GRUMBLER And I say, that’s because we managed to set the world alight!
OPTIMIST Is there a connection here, too?
GRUMBLER The closest of all! There is nothing in our daily lives that has remained unchanged, neither our inner nor our outer lives, neither here nor abroad, neither values nor prices. If a statesman alive in 1914 had had enough imagination to know that a match would not light in 1918, he would not have set the world on fire! He would have visualized the war he was about to declare, and the peace as well, with all the growing misery it would, and will, bring.
OPTIMIST But when peace finally comes—
GRUMBLER —then the war begins!
OPTIMIST But every war so far has been concluded by a peace.
GRUMBLER Not this one. It didn’t play out on the surface of life, but in its very core. The fighting front has expanded back into the hinterland. There it will stay. And our same old mental attitudes will be applied to an altered life — if there still is life. Like the sun, the world will set, and we won’t notice. All our yesterdays will be forgotten; we will not see what today means; nor fear for the future. We will have forgotten that we lost the war, forgotten that we started it, forgotten that we waged it. That is why it will never cease.
OPTIMIST But when peace has finally come—
GRUMBLER —we won’t be able to get enough of war!
OPTIMIST You even grumble about the future. I am and will remain an optimist. The nations will bite the bullet—
GRUMBLER —and make it even more destructive! So dumb! Dumdum!
(Change of scene.)
Scene 50
Swiss mountain railway.
Two enormous blobs of fat, whose indescribable proportions defy all human criteria, occupy the whole of one bench. The winter sports breeches and long woollen socks of the one reveal two distinct masses of flesh; the creature has massive cheeks with bluish shadows, a tufted moustache gleams under saucer eyes like a black shrub, exposing two blubbery lips. The other — a recently arrived business partner on a visit — is encased in a shabby winter overcoat. No neck, only a quadruple chin mediates between the spherical body and the spherical head, the whole completely undifferentiated and resembling a globefish. Both have alpenstocks. The former’s wife is sitting on the bench opposite, wearing a brooch inscribed “Gott strafe England!” They are the giants Gog & Magog. Through the window can be seen a landscape of glittering snow under a deep blue sky.
GOG Luverly pictures — that’s what I want next. They doan ’ave ter be Rembrandts or Böcklins—
MAGOG I’ve got masses of ’em already.
GOG A luverly picture is really luverly, Trudchen, don’tya think? Giv’us a nice big smacker, then. (He kisses her.)
MAGOG (after a pause) If you doan get rich in this war, you doan deserve to live through it.
GOG Sure thing.
MAGOG I’m goan for miniatures now, sixteenth century are best, tapestries too, snuffboxes, albums of coats of arms, stuff like that — gives me a kick. Cultural knickknacks, the older the better — that’s what I’m after.
GOG And what about your books, then? That lad of yours is one of the best in the German rare-book business right now—
MAGOG Yeah, we buy up all the numbered editions on handmade paper that come on the market. Soon there woan be nothin left. Before I left Berlin, I bought 60,000 marks worth of books, all bound in leather — gotta be leather. My taste is for Dutch-printed uncut books — Enschedé en Zonen — on handmade van Geldern paper. Gotta be handmade. Next comes imperial Japanese vellum, parchment-backed, and at a pinch Old Stratford half-linen.
GOG (glances at the newspaper) Hey, what d’ya think about this, then: (Wolff News Agency)—“60,000 kilos of bombs dropped in 24 hours! — All of Dunkirk in flames! An extraordinary achievement for our bomber squadrons. Their indubitable effectiveness in bombing Fortress London also confirmed.”
MAGOG We’re wiping ’em out on the Western Front.
GOG Must be over the moon, those fighter pilots of ours! You’ve gotta read von Richthofen’s book — the one Ullstein published — to get a sense of it! The way he blitzed those Russki railway stations — you can really feel the thrill of bombing! Great story, the way he worked his way up from a boring backroom job to undisputed ace fighter pilot! Must feel over the moon to have it all spread out beneath you, and you can smash everything — like a king, loaded with bombs, like a god!
MAGOG Our U-boats aren’t exactly paper tigers, either.
GOG No, certainly not. (Glances in the paper.) Getta load of this: (Wolff News Agency)—“Few people can fully appreciate what a magnificent achievement it was yet again for our U-boats to have sunk 16 steamers yesterday and today, as reported, while the steamer that was shot at, but which unfortunately escaped, will certainly be out of action for several months at least.”
MAGOG Yes, our boys in blue are on the ball.
GOG And listen to this, the 42-cm cannon will teach those rogues a lesson good and proper. That shot into the church the other day, slap bang into their festivities — boy oh boy, that’ll learn ’em!
MAGOG Another two months at most, and England will be on its knees. Maybe three. Sorted. Defeatism is in the air. You can tell that from all that humanitarian bleating we’re hearing again.
GOG Total humbug. What d’ya think of their protest against the use of poison gas?
MAGOG Probably shows our gases are more effective.
GOG Exactly! We Germans welcome all attempts to make international law and humanity prevail, but we refuse to be taken for a ride.
MAGOG We shall observe further developments on this issue calmly and with a clear conscience.
GOG Getta load of this — the same old story! The old chestnut about negotiations! Reuters accuses us of dodging the issue by not “clearly and honestly subscribing to the principles of a future system of international law.” D’y’ever hear such claptrap!
MAGOG International law? We’ve got poison gas!
TRUDCHEN (pointing out of the window) Oh hubby darling, just look at that—!
GOG Yes, luverly. But until we have broken the destructive will of the enemy—
MAGOG Oh, do spare me the lousy lies of the Allies. Always blathering about their negotiated peace!
GOG Bunkum! Those guys can’t fool us. What we need is a peace on German terms, and a peace on German terms is no soft touch — understand that, Lloyd George, my fine friend!