SECOND To my mind, it’s pretty ludicrous in any case. What do I care about any of it? One article a month — what a relief! You can depict what their lives are like. But what point is there in me signing reports when the enemy has been pushed back or when he hasn’t been pushed back? Am I General Höfer, the man who issues the military bulletins? Am I responsible for editing the World War?
FIRST What do you mean, Höfer? I’ve been out in the field longer than Höfer!
SECOND I’m not suited for any of this. I’m going to have a word with the division commander about a front theatre.
FIRST A front theatre? What do you mean? Ah, I see.
SECOND He was very taken with the idea, and it is my field. I’ll remind him at dinner tonight. I’ll tell him to his face that what I’m doing now isn’t my line.
FIRST Yes, well, we can’t all have the successes Ganghofer manages. We can’t have a battle laid on for us.
SECOND How come? I’m not in the picture.
FIRST Hadn’t you heard? It was on his last visit to the Tyrolean front. Seventeen of our men were even killed by ejected shell-bases, or at least wounded, it was the greatest recognition the press has been accorded in the World War so far!
SECOND Go on, surely that was a joke in Simplicissimus—that they had to wait until Ganghofer arrived before they could start the battle.
FIRST Yes, first it was a joke in Simplicissimus, then it became true. Count Walterskirchen, the major in charge, stormed off in a fury. He was no friend of the press, but he was never mentioned by name. I heard he was killed two days ago.
SECOND You see, people like us are never accorded such honours. I’ll mention the front theatre to him today! Even if we’re not giants like Ganghofer. What do you want me to do? Look at Haubitzer — I mean Hollitzer, the painter — there he stands and paints. A giant compared to me. He sang “Prince Eugene” in the Kaiser Bar, and you would have thought he could win a battle on his own. Look at him now, though! Trembling as he paints, you wouldn’t believe it! He’s more afraid than any of us!
FIRST More than you, perhaps! Me, no! In any case, leave Hollitzer alone. He’s brave enough to paint the battle out in the open, even though he’s caught a cold. Did you see his picture? I mean his photo in the Das Interessante Blatt? “The painter Hollitzer on the battlefield.”
SECOND You do what you want — I’m going no further, not at any price.
FIRST Take a leaf from Ludwig Bauer’s book, in the Balkan War!
SECOND In the World War Bauer is in Switzerland — wish I was too!
FIRST Take a leaf from Szomory’s book, or think of the courage of the soldiers, for that matter. They bite the bullet, they don’t let themselves be ground down — (ducks.) So you want us to go back?
SECOND Yes, to Vienna! I’ve got to capture some atmosphere and colour. I don’t mind putting my name to that! If it appears in the paper beside hers, Irma von Höfer’s, that’s fine. But beside his — I think not! Quite frankly, I’d be ashamed.
FIRST Not me! I committed myself to this, and I’ve got to see it through. (He throws himself to the ground.)
SECOND You always did have a marked weakness for the strategic moment. (An explosion is heard.) Great God!
FIRST Why are you so terrified?
SECOND Just now — I thought — it was almost — like the voice of — the Editor himself!
FIRST What a hero! — it was only the heavy artillery! (Both run off, behind them, also running, the painter Hollitzer with his portfolio, waving a white handkerchief.)
(Change of scene.)
Scene 22
In front of the War Ministry.
Optimist and Grumbler in conversation.
OPTIMIST You’re wearing blinkers, so you can’t see how the war brings out people’s intrinsic nobility of character and kindles a spirit of self-sacrifice.
GRUMBLER No, I merely refuse to overlook the degree of inhumanity and infamy necessary to achieve that result. If it takes a case of arson to find out whether two decent residents are prepared to carry 10 innocent fellow occupants out of a burning building, while 88 despicable occupants see it as an opportunity for looting, it would still be a mistake to delay calling the fire brigade and the police while praising the magnanimity of human nature. There’s no point in proving the virtue of the virtuous and thereby creating an opportunity for evildoers to become more evil. War is, at best, an object lesson since it accentuates contrasts. It may be valuable if it leads to no more war in future. The only contrast that war does not accentuate is that between the healthy and the sick.
OPTIMIST Because the healthy remain healthy and the sick remain sick?
GRUMBLER No, because the healthy become sick.
OPTIMIST And the sick, on the other hand, become healthy.
GRUMBLER You’re thinking of the famous steel bath theory? Or the established fact that grenades in this war have provided a radical cure for millions of cripples? Saved hundreds of thousands of consumptives and restored as many syphilitics to society?
OPTIMIST No! It’s thanks to the achievements of modern hygiene that so many of those who have fallen ill or been injured in the war have been cured—
GRUMBLER —and sent to convalesce at the front. But they’re not cured by the war but in spite of the war, and with the aim of exposing them once more to the war.
OPTIMIST Well, war is war. But above all, our advanced medicine has succeeded in preventing the spread of typhus, cholera, and plague.
GRUMBLER Though that is not so much thanks to war as to a power diametrically opposed to war. But it would have had an easier task if there were no war. Or is it to war’s credit that it offers an opportunity to deal in some small measure with its attendant symptoms? Those who defend war should treat these with greater respect. Shame on the pioneering science that prides itself on artificial limbs instead of on the power to prevent shattered bones once and for all. Morally, the current science of dressing wounds is no better than that which invented grenades. War has a moral power when compared with a science which is not merely content to patch up the damage war causes, but which does so with the aim of making its victims capable of fighting again. True, such ancient scourges of God as cholera and plague — the horrors of wars from the year dot — have succumbed to science and have deserted the colours. But syphilis and tuberculosis are faithful allies in this war, and a humanity contaminated by lies will be unable to conclude a separate peace with them. They keep pace with universal conscription and a technology that advances in tanks and clouds of gas. It will become clear that every epoch has the epidemic it deserves. To each, it’s plague!
OPTIMIST Well, we seem to have reached the War Ministry. Today everyone is full of expectations—
(A gang of black-marketeers can be seen coming out of the main entrance.)
NEWSPAPER VENDOR Ex-tra-aa edi-shun — World news!
REFUGEE (with fellow refugee) Let me have that! (Snatches a copy from the newspaper vendor’s hand, reads aloud.) “All well! War Press Bureau, 30 August 10.30 am. The mammoth battle continues this Sunday. Good atmosphere in headquarters, since all goes well. Weather splendid. Kohlfürst.”
SECOND REFUGEE Must be some general or other. (Exeunt.)
GRUMBLER The faces carved on the façade of this sink of iniquity — eyes right! — eyes left! — look particularly austere today. If I have to look at one of those frightful heads a moment longer, I’ll throw up!