The Ride Across Lake Constance and Other Plays Read online

  (PORTEN repeats what he did, producing the same sounds. The crop still in her hand, she pulls up her dress as far as the hip and pulls a large note of stage money out of her garter belt. She puts the note on the table and also places the crop next to it.

  GEORGE, astonished, hands the crop back to her, then takes a few coins out of his pants pocket and puts them on the table. While he is looking for banknotes in his other pockets, PORTEN takes the coins; but when he continues to search, she puts the coins back on the table.

  JANNINGS gets up and flashes a few notes, which he counts into her hand one by one. He closes her fingers one by one over the notes; the last finger—it is the index finger—she closes, very slowly, herself. It seems that she beckons him to come to her. At the same time they look into each other’s eyes. Everyone is holding his breath.

  PORTEN pushes the bills into her bodice; then slowly withdraws her hand, making it evident that the hand is now empty; touches her upper lip with the tongue; and, gently flipping the crop back and forth, looks so long at the two salesmen that GEORGE shifts his weight from one leg to the other and shouts indecently loud at VON STROHEIM: “Do you belong together?” VON STROHEIM and PORTEN give each other a fleeting glance, then look away. A second glance: they look at each other as though for the first time.)

  VON STROHEIM

  Can’t one tell just by looking at us? crop.)

  GEORGE

  I guess so, now.

  PORTEN

  (To GEORGE and JANNINGS) And how is it with you two? Do you belong together?

  (GEORGE and JANNINGS look at each other, look away. The second glance: they look at each other as though for the first time.)

  GEORGE and JANNINGS

  (Simultaneously) Yes, he belongs to me. (To one another, GEORGE softly, JANNINGS louder) You belong to me—you belong to me.

  GEORGE

  Why?

  JANNINGS

  Because it has always been like that.

  GEORGE

  Who says that?

  JANNINGS

  People in general.

  GEORGE

  And why do you tell me that only now?

  JANNINGS

  There was no need to tell you until now.

  GEORGE

  And now it has become necessary?

  JANNINGS

  (Looks at his cold cigar.) Yes. (He points with the cigar at the box of matches lying on the footstool. GEORGE bends down, then he hesitates and straightens up again.) There, you see how necessary it was. (GEORGE, confused, thereupon hands him the matches, and JANNINGS, content, lights his cigar. He drops the match.) You’ve lost something there.

  (GEORGE glances briefly at the match, looks away. The second glance: he picks up the match and puts it in the ashtray.)

  VON STROHEIM

  (Applauds by way of suggestion, but one hears no clapping.) Much better already! Much better! Of course, if I were you …

  PORTEN

  Who’s stopping you?

  VON STROHEIM

  Yes, who’s stopping me? (He takes a deep breath and assumes a pose. (JANNINGS takes the coins from the table and flings them into his face. VON STROHEIM shakers himself and comers to his senses. He speaks to JANNINGS and GEORGE as though teaching them something.) You’re still here?

  JANNINGS

  (Repeating, but twice as loud) You’re still here?

  VON STROHEIM

  That’s it! Exactly! That’s how I would have done it! (Pause. VON STROHEIM gives JANNINGS a sign to go on speaking. He prompts him.) What do you want here?

  JANNINGS

  What do you want here?

  VON STROHEIM

  We just want to take a look around.

  JANNINGS

  This isn’t an amusement park!

  VON STROHEIM

  Why don’t you let him speak for himself!

  (JANNINGS nods to GEORGE and sits down on the fauteuil, his back to the others.)

  GEORGE

  This is private property. (JANNINGS nods.) You’re not in a restaurant. You have nothing to say here. Please talk to each other only in whispers. If you must intrude here, at least take off your hats. Didn’t you see the felt slippers by the entrance? Look at me: I’m talking to you. You’re not at home here, where you can put your feet on the table. What has the world come to that anybody can come in? Watch your step, man-traps and self-detonating charges have been set. Danger, rat poison. Don’t touch anything. Beware of dog. Long, hard winter. Floods in spring, mud in the closets, no more cranes wake with their shrill screams in the meadows, no more June bugs buzz through the maple trees. (Pause.) It’s terribly painful to be alive and alone at one and the same time.

  (Pause.)

  VON STROHEIM

  He’ll never learn it.

  (Pause.)

  GEORGE

  It wasn’t raining yet, but farther away one could hear it already raining …

  (VON STROHEIM turns away with PORTEN and walks around with her as if he wanted to inspect the furnishings. He wants to take out a magazine, but when he straightens up with it, it turns out that the magazine is chained to the table, like a telephone book, and he quickly puts it back. Then PORTEN wants to pick up the little statue covered with a paper bag, but it turns out that the statue is either screwed or glued to the chest of drawers. She pulls the bag from the statue: it is a multicolored painted dog sitting in an upright position. She touches it and it squeaks: it is made of rubber. VON STROHEIM joins her and pulls on one of the chest drawers. It will not open although he makes repeated attempts. Finally he tries a different drawer, which opens very easily.)

  VON STROHEIM

  You see!

  (They leave the drawer open and continue their inspection tour. He takes off and drops the cover from the first picture: a seascape, not a rough sea, not a calm sea, no ships, only ocean and sky.

  Almost simultaneously PORTEN has removed the cover from the second picture: a mirror without particular characteristics. She settles on the second, so far unused, sofa while VON STROHEIM returns from the bar with a bottle and two glasses. He sits down next to her and twists the bottle top but cannot open it. He quite casually blows into the glasses, and a cloud of dust swirls into his face. He casually puts the glasses and bottle aside. He looks at his hands, turns one palm up and down.)

  PORTEN

  (Suddenly seizes his hand.) Watch out! (Pause. She sees his hand.) Oh, it’s only your hand. I thought, an animal.

  VON STROHEIM

  Why don’t you look at me?

  PORTEN

  I don’t dare look at you closely because I’m afraid I might catch you at something! (She looks at him.)

  (Pause. BERGNER in the meantime has gone to the mirror and calmly viewed herself in it.

  GEORGE, still standing, carefully wipes the cutlery on the table with a large red cloth he pulled out of his pocket and then places it—now and then he tries to stand it on end—on a second red cloth as if he were putting the cutlery on display. He and JANNINGS are spectators.

  PORTEN has put her hand on VON STROHEIM’S knee and is caressing her own hand with her other one.)

  VON STROHEIM

  (Moves his lips soundlessly, but every so often a word becomes audible.) Snowplows … hedges … a dog portrait? (At one point he presses down the intertwined fingers of both hands so that the joints crack.)

  (BERGNER is combing herself, but with movements becoming increasingly more insecure. She does not know in which direction to comb while viewing herself in the mirror. With a small pair of scissors she wants to cut a strand of hair, holding it away from her head, but keeps missing until she finally lets go of the strand. She wants to put on makeup, pencils the eyebrows and the eyelines, puts rouge on her cheeks, powders her nose, puts on lipstick. But as she does this her movements become more and more shaky, and contradictory. She confuses the direction in which she wishes to draw the lines. She is mixed up. She wants to put the cosmetics back into the handbag but they fall to the floor. S
he walks away. She turns around, walks in the opposite direction, at the same time looking back over her shoulder, turns around again. She is totally confused, her face is badly made up. She walks in a direction where no one is and says: “Help me!” but with wrong gestures, hopping around. She bumps into things, bends forward to pick up things that physically lie behind her.)

  PORTEN

  (Calls to her.) Open your eyes! Say something! Pull yourself together! (But BERGNER does not turn her head toward her, instead to somewhere else. PORTEN gets up and walks up to her from behind.). Don’t be frightened.

  BERGNER

  (Startled, looks up toward the stairs. She tries to point to the painting with the seascape but is unable to.) It winked at me! It’s winking at me!

  (PORTEN calms her down by caressing her and leading her around the room. Together they bend down for the coins and other things on the floor. At first PORTEN guides her hand, then BERGNER reaches for the things herself and also points at them correctly again. While doing this they talk to each other, and the longer they talk, the more sure of themselves and graceful they become. )

  PORTEN

  Once when it rained I walked with an open umbrella across a wide, heavily traveled, street. When I had finally reached the other side, I caught myself closing the umbrella.

  BERGNER

  And once when I—Please, help me. (She is still insecure.)

  PORTEN

  (Grabs her and wipes her face with the stole.) Once when I bent over a bouquet of carnations while there was a great deal of noise around me, I couldn’t smell anything at first.

  BERGNER

  Once while I wanted to put a tablecloth over … (She cannot think of the word and becomes afraid again.) Help me, please.

  PORTEN

  (Speaks now very distinctly to set an example.) Once I walked down a stairway and had such an urge to let myself fall that out of fear I began to run as soon as I had reached the bottom.

  BERGNER

  (Breathes a sigh of relief.) Once I wanted to put a tablecloth over a table, I was with my thoughts (She neatly points to the picture.) at the seashore and caught myself shaking the tablecloth as if wanting to wave with it.

  (They embrace, then dance around while they put the coins and cosmetics into the handbag. They talk and move more and more lightheartedly.)

  PORTEN

  Why “caught”? Why not: “I saw myself,” “I noticed”?

  BERGNER

  I saw myself! I noticed myself! I heard myself!

  (They stand facing one another.)

  PORTEN

  Someone keeps looking over his shoulder while he’s walking. Does he have a guilty conscience?

  BERGNER

  No, he simply looks over his shoulder from time to time.

  PORTEN

  Someone is sitting there with lowered head. Is he sad?

  BERGNER

  (Assumes a modeling pose for her reply.) No, he simply sits there with lowered head.

  PORTEN

  Someone is flinching. Conscience-stricken?

  BERGNER

  (Answers in another modeling pose.) No, he’s simply flinching.

  PORTEN

  Two people sit there, don’t look at each other, and are silent. Are they angry with one another?

  BERGNER

  (Delivers her sentence in a new pose.) No, they simply sit there, don’t look at each other, and are silent!

  PORTEN

  Someone bangs on the table. To get his way?

  BERGNER

  (In a different pose.) Couldn’t he for once simply bang on the table? (They run toward each other with a little yelp of joy, embrace and separate again at once, looking at one another tensely. BERGNER points to GEORGE. ) He’s polishing the cutlery and putting it on display on a red cloth. Does he want to sell it? (PORTEN is standing there with arms hanging down, only shakes her head briefly. GEORGE, feeling as if released, now begins to polish the utensils lightheartedly. BERGNER points to JANNINGS, saying simultaneously) He turns his back on us, sits in the most comfortable fauteuil. Does that mean he’s more powerful than all of us? (PORTEN looks into her eyes and only shakes her head briefly. JANNINGS stretches himself, relieved, in his fauteuil, obviously delighted to have lost his significance. BERGNER points with her head to VON STROHEIM. ) He’s sitting alone in the corner on a big sofa. Does he want to tell us that we should sit down next to him? (PORTEN now merely smiles as one does about something that has turned out to be a dream. VON STROHEIM also forgets himself, smiles amiably, and is obviously relaxing.) And the mirror over there?

  JANNINGS

  (Gets up and strolls toward the women.) It’s quite a simple mirror.

  GEORGE

  (Joins in. ) Perhaps there’s a flyspeck on it!

  BERGNER

  And why can’t the drawer be pulled out of the chest?

  JANNINGS

  (Hesitates just slightly.) It’s stuck.

  BERGNER

  And why is it stuck?

  VON STROHEIM

  (Jumps off the sofa.) Let it be stuck!

  GEORGE

  Yes, let it be stuck!

  GEORGE and VON STROHEIM

  (Skip and dance toward each other, lifting their legs like dancing bears.) Let it be stuck!

  JANNINGS

  (Joins them.) Let it be stuck! Let it be stuck!

  GEORGE, VON STROHEIM, JANNINGS

  (The three dance around one another.) Let it be stuck, the drawer! The drawer, oh, let it be stuck! Let it, the drawer, let it, oh, let it be stuck! (They sing in unison.) Oh, let the drawer be stuck, oh, oh, let the drawer be stuck! (They stand still and sing the same words to the melody of “Whisky, Please Let Me Alone” in a canon with assigned voices, with a break in the middle, after an “Oh,” whereupon they all look at one another in silence, raise their index fingers, whereupon one of them continues singing an octave lower: “ … let the drawer be stuck!” whereupon the other two voices also join in one by one, also an octave lower, and they finish the song in harmony. They all look at one another gravely and tenderly.) We are free? We are free! (Pell-mell ) We only dreamed all that! Did we only dream all that? What? I have already forgotten! And I’m just noticing how I’m forgetting! I’m standing quite still and am myself observing how I gradually forget. I’m trying to remember, but as I’m trying to remember, I notice that it sinks down lower and lower, it is as if I had swallowed something, and with each attempt to regurgitate it, it slips down lower and lower. It is sinking and you loom more and more. Where have you been, I was looking for you?! Who are you? Do I know you? (They embrace, bend their heads toward one another, hide them, rub them together, caress each other with heads and hands. They separate and busy themselves lightheartedly with the objects: touch them, press them to their bodies, lean playfully against them, prop them up, cradle them in their arms, bring two objects into contact as for an embrace, pinch, pat, and caress them, wipe dust off them, remove hairs from them … While doing so, they sigh, hum, giggle, laugh, trill … Only once they become briefly uncertain and quiet: one of the women stands leaning against the bannister, her face turned away and her shoulders twitching. After an anxious moment, one of the men walks up to her and turns her timidly around; she is laughing quietly, and by and by they all become merry again.

  At one time one of the men walks from an end of the stage toward the others, who are just walking toward him. He walks as if they will collide, but just when one seems to see them collide he feints with his body and steps elegantly aside. He does that across the entire stage. The other men imitate him, walk toward the women and skirt them elegantly before walking on in the same direction; the three men avoid objects the same way. They are delighted with one another, and the women laugh.

  One of them turns a cartwheel; the other leaps merrily over an obstacle over which he could have simply stepped; the third elegantly demonstrates a gesture with his lower arm by lifting the arm and quickly bending the elbow, letting, as if by magic, the sle
eve slip to the elbow. He repeats this several times, finally with the same movement giving himself playfully a light.

  At last, quite as a matter of course, one after the other sits down by the table, the women in the fauteuils with footstools, VON STROHEIM in the fauteuil without footstool, JANNINGS in the easy chair, GEORGE in the straight chair. As in an afterimage they still hint at their previous playful acts, still repeat what they said to one another.) I forgot myself completely. “I”? We! We forgot ourselves.