The warden gets up, goes to the ward, grabs him by the shoulder, without expressing anything (that is, not violently), and turns him around.
The warden, after a pause, changes the position of his hands and turns the ward around once more.
The turning around gradually turns into turning around and turning around, now into turning around pure and simple.
The warden turns the ward with ease, almost as though he were thinking of something else, and the ward turns easily, also as though he were thinking of something else.
Without transition, without either of them staggering, we suddenly see the warden standing by the bottles and plates.
The ward has been standing still for some time before we really notice that he is standing still.
The warden has already bent down and while bending down throws a bottle toward the ward: the ward shows how he would like to catch but can’t — the bottle falls on the floor and does what it does.
As one can imagine, it goes on like this: Bending down, the warden throws bottles, plates, and glasses toward the ward, but the ward, although apparently making an effort, lets all the objects fall on the floor, and the objects either break or they don’t.
This process also lacks a regular rhythm: they wait now and then, then the warden throws once more, then the ward misses again …
Suddenly, even before the collection of bottles has been disposed of — amid the nicest possible throwing and breaking — the ward catches an object, as if by accident.
We are startled.
At the same moment the stage becomes dark, abruptly.
And again it becomes bright, and both of them are sitting at the table. The warden gets up and goes where? Apparently he doesn’t know where he should go.
No, he doesn’t want to go to the calendar.
He turns around, turns around, is turning around.
The ward gets up and walks after him; he shows how he shares the warden’s indecision and imitates the warden’s gestures, his leg movements as well as his indecisive arm movements, although the imitation need not be a complete aping.
They almost collide when the warden suddenly changes direction — he is probably avoiding the pieces of the broken bottles and plates; more than once the ward steps on the warden’s heels. They continue moving about the stage, pretending to have a goal which, however, they never reach, because they always give it up just before they are about to reach it.
Suddenly the warden is by the door, is already going out, reaches for the outside door handle to shut the door behind him — the ward seizes the door handle on the inside, wants to follow the warden, but the warden pulls without letup.
The ward pulls in the other direction.
The warden, by giving one hard pull, pulls the door shut behind him and in front of the ward, who has been pulled along by the violent pull.
The ward stands briefly in front of the door, his hand around the handle, then his hand merely touching the handle.
The ward lets his hand drop.
The warden is outside; it is quiet.
The ward gets down on his knees, without falling down on them, however, and is already crawling out the door, quickly: we see now that the door has an extra outlet, as if for a dog.
Once the ward is outside, the stage slowly becomes dark.
By now we have become accustomed to the music.
The pause is longer this time, for the ‘scenery is being turned inside out.
A revolving stage needs only to revolve.
Otherwise, the scenery is turned around in the dark.
It becomes bright: it is a rainy day.
Warden and ward set up the objects on the stage: the large, longish object, covered by the black raincoat, which they have to bring onstage together, the stool, beets, melons, pumpkins.
When everything has been distributed on the stage, the ward sits down on the stool while the warden stands next to the mysterious object.
Without an actual beginning the play has begun again: the warden takes the rubber coat off the object, so that we see that it is a beet-cutting machine.
The warden puts on the raincoat (he is still barefoot) and, to test the machine, lets the cutting knife drop down several times without, however, cutting any beets.
The ward gets up and walks to the machine. The warden bends down for a beet, shoves it into the machine, and pulls down the cutting knife with one brief, effortless movement, as he indicates with a movement: the beet falls down, its top shorn off.
The warden repeats the process in detail, demonstrating: another beet falls down.
The ward watches, not completely motionless, but without moving very much.
The warden repeats the process.
The ward fetches a beet but makes many superfluous movements and detours; we can hear his hobnail boots on the floor as well as the bare feet of the warden, who now goes to the side and straightens up.
The ward raises the cutting knife, shoves the beet up to its top into the machine, and hacks off the top.
The warden steps up to him, stands beside him, steps back again …
The ward goes and fetches a few beets and puts them into place …
The warden steps up to him and stands there.
The cat suddenly slinks out of the house.
The ward’s next attempt to cut off the top of a beet is so feeble that the beet does not fall on the floor at once.
The warden stands there watching him.
With the next attempt, the beet falls on the floor.
The cat does what it does.
The warden stands there.
The ward has problems with the beet again: he makes one attempt to sever its top, a second one, and then, without looking at the warden, who is starting to walk about the stage once more in his bare feet, a third attempt; then, after a certain time, when the warden is standing next to him again and is watching him, once more; then, later — it is already becoming darker on stage — a fifth time (the warden is starting to walk again); then — it is already quite dark (is the warden standing by the machine?) — finally once more, and now — we can’t bear watching it any more — once again, and we don’t hear the sound of anything falling on the floor; thereupon it is quiet onstage, for quite some time.
After it has been quiet onstage for some time we hear, quite softly at first, a breathing that becomes increasingly louder. We recognize it. It becomes louder, that is, larger and larger — a death rattle? A very intense inhaling? Or only a bellows? Or a huge animal?
It becomes steadily louder.
Gradually it becomes too large for the house.
Is it here, is it over there?
Suddenly it is quiet.
After a long time it becomes bright again.
The house, the cornfield, the beetfield.
We see neither the cat, nor the warden, nor the ward; not even the beet-cutting machine remains onstage — except for the three backdrops, it is bare.
Now someone enters from the right: it is the ward.
He is carrying a small tub in front of him, and wound about his upper body is a rubber hose.
He is no longer wearing his coveralls.
The tub is placed on the floor, the hose is unrolled.
One end of the hose is placed in the tub; the ward takes the other end offstage, straightening the hose in the process.
We hear the water running into the tub for some time.
Then the ward returns, a sack of sand in one arm.
He puts the sack next to the tub.
He reaches into the sack with his hand.
He straightens up and lets a handful of sand fall into the tub, without letting the sand slip between his fingers first.
He again reaches into the sack and, standing, lets a handful of sand fall into the water.
He again reaches into the sack and, standing, lets a handful of sand fall into the water, nonchalantly, irregularly, unceremoniously.