FRAU ROSENBERG Prove! What do you mean, prove? The proof is on your hat!
FRAU BACHSTELZ That’s from last year, as you well know!
FRAU ROSENBERG You’re behaving just like an ostrich, burying your head in the sand!
FRAU FUNK-FEIGL So what! You’re wearing a bit of ostrich on your head yourself!
FRAU ROSENBERG That’s from last year, as you well know! I’m wearing a war blouse!
FRAU FUNK-FEIGL So what!
FRAU BACHSTELZ You can’t compare my blouse with your blouse — that’s pure fantasy! We were the ones who took the plunge and created a new Viennese fashion!
FRAU POLLATSCHEK You, with your figure! That’s a laugh! My taste compared with your taste!
FRAU BACHSTELZ (screeching) You’re one to talk! If it weren’t for the grandeur of the age, I’d soon lay hands on you!
FRAU ROSENBERG Just ignore these noisy publicity seekers, fortunately more vital interests call at this critical time, and if we form a phalanx we can simply dismiss this despicable and impotent yapping. We know what’s making them so furious, don’t we?
FRAU BACHSTELZ You—! If you repeat that slander one more time!
FRAU ROSENBERG What do you mean? Was it something I said? Just because the inspector spoke to us longer yesterday in the communal kitchen than with you, that’s no reason to get worked up, my dear—!
FRAU BACHSTELZ (in a paroxysm) That’s an infamous insinuation, you’ll regret — just wait — I’ll put my husband on to you — wait and see, the whole of the Central Austrian Imports Board will be on to you!
FRAU ROSENBERG My husband will soon see him off, and the rest of them, you can rest assured! He has the whole of the Milk Marketing Board behind him! Just a word from him and the UFA studios and the Viennese Car Manufacturers will be on to you, too — he’s on the executive board!
FRAU BACHSTELZ Well, my husband can call on the Department of Arms and Munitions Supply! My husband is an Honorary Counsellor! How your husband got exempted is well known!
FRAU ROSENBERG Yes, he was able to pull strings — what of it? You’re furious because he has connections. He’s well in with Sascha Publicity Films. Just wait, I’ll bring this all up at the committee meeting, that means a vote of no confidence at the AGM, that I guarantee!
FRAU FUNK-FEIGL You’re the one who’s utter rubbish, you’ll get thrown out of the IAAH, that I guarantee, the CACKV will show you — I’ve got connections, I’ll take it to the Neue Freie Presse—
FRAU POLLATSCHEK In the next edition of the Morgen you’ll be able to read — let me see, we of the IAAH—
FRAU FUNK-FEIGL Don’t mess with us, we of the CACKV—
(All four screech away, only the words IAAH and CACKV being audible through the noise, and leave, gesticulating vehemently. A disabled person on crutches hobbles past. Enter a beggar woman holding a boy by the hand and an infant in her arm.)
BEGGAR WOMAN Ex-tra-aa edi-shun—Neue Freie Presse—
BOY New Vile Pressure—!
INFANT Vile — lying — liars—
(A pregnant woman passes by.)
GRUMBLER
A touching prospect when the multitude are dying!
Yet better for us to be spared this interlude,
though it reminds us of a final natural order
to which debased humanity still clings,
which ends in natural death — without negating life.
But rarely is what follows an advance. So look away,
for such remnants of humanity in a race
now pledged to other goals is painful to behold.
Uncanny is the thought that this same woman,
revealed to us as she placidly comes walking by,
bearer of life and hope, full of her sacred mission,
with pain accompanying the blessed gift,
could give birth to an army profiteer!
The pride of motherhood, glorious since the dawn of time
Keeping profoundest sympathy within its natural bounds,
used rightly to be proud to keep from prying eyes
the harmony of creation known to mothers alone.
But faced with man’s deformity, such pride
loses its former sanction. So turn your gaze away
and let pride veil its face once more. Look away, mother,
alone, you are too weak and lacking modesty.
This is well-meant advice, but also an appeal
a hundred thousand mothers may hear and understand
that they have suffered greater pain than that
which you alone are due to bear. Go home,
why do you bear your burden to the marketplace,
as if what you can offer the world were better far
than what it’s lost, no, more than that, as if now
finally, the new longed-for redeemer could be born,
as if a Socrates were the least of the gifts
you could conceive. We’ve learnt our lesson from a weight
of harsh experience. We are in any case no longer curious,
no longer wish to know, however good the news,
we wish that what awaits you should be your own affair,
chastely maternal, as is fitting, till one day fulfilment
merits the world’s attention. Go home, mother, we shall come
when the time’s ripe, enduring until then no deeper suffering
for you than for the newborn life soon to be mobilized,
claimed from the thrall of motherhood by death’s domain,
the greatest of the sacrifices birth brings. Go, make yourself
fit for service. Wait for your age group’s time. You’re a volunteer,
what have you to offer? Stay at home, one day is like the next,
death always looks like death. Go home! Surprise us!
(Change of scene.)
Scene 19
Belgrade. Destroyed houses. Enter Alice Schalek.
SCHALEK I’ve fought my way through. What appeals to me above all, here as so often, is the human interest story. Is this place supposed to be civilized? These houses are as bad as the most ramshackle offices and shops in our teeming suburbs, that’s why they deserve to be bombarded. The desolation of the place is so great that a photographic reproduction is simply out of the question. But what I never cease to find shocking is that the town wasn’t even paved. That may have contributed to the decision to raze it to the ground. Even the royal palace has nothing to offer. The souvenirs we took are not worth mentioning. What sort of monarch buys his china dinner service from a provincial manufacturer in Bohemia! There is such a thing as poetic justice. It’s a thought that haunts me wherever I go in Belgrade. If only one knew whether these are the houses of the people who invented their national fanaticism? I’ve finally become convinced that no person of character could live in such a city.
(Some Serbian women appear and laugh as they encounter her. One runs a hand caressingly over Schalek’s cheek. Then a rapid conversation bubbles up among them, again they all laugh happily, loud and clear. Schalek, aside:)
This laughter is getting on my nerves and I can’t find out what’s causing it. It could conceivably come anywhere on the scale of human feelings, but the fact that Belgrade has been shot to pieces is scarcely a cause for laughter.
(One of the Serbian women offers Schalek a jar of preserves and laughs.)
A baffling mystery.
(Enter an interpreter.)
INTERPRETER (after speaking to the women) They say it’s just a matter of holding out for a few terrible days. The people of Belgrade think the conquest of their city is just an interlude. They think we Austrians will soon be driven out again, that’s why they’re laughing with malicious glee.