The Ride Across Lake Constance and Other Plays

My Foot My Tutor

The curtain opens.

It is a sunny day.

In the back of the stage we see, as the stage backdrop, the façade of a farmhouse.

The stage is not deep.

The left side of the stage, from our vantage point, shows a view of a cornfield.

The right side of the stage, from our vantage point, is formed by a view of a large beetfield.

Birds are circling above both fields.

In front of the farmhouse we see a peculiar, longish object and ask ourselves what it might represent.

A rubber coat, black, covers the object partially; yet it does not fit like a glove, and so we cannot recognize what the object represents onstage.

To the right of the picture of the farmhouse door, from our vantage point, we notice a wooden block with a hatchet in it in front of a window; or rather, a large piece of wood is lying on the block, which is not quite level on the ground, and a hatchet is sticking in the piece of wood. Round about the chopping block we notice many pieces of chopped wood, and also, of course, chips and splinters, strewn about the stage floor.

On the chopping block, next to the large piece of wood with the hatchet sticking in it, we notice a cat: while the curtain opens the cat probably raises its head and subsequently does what it usually does, so that we recognize: the cat represents what it does.

Upon first glance, we have seen someone sitting next to the chopping block, on a stool: a figure.

Now, after having briefly taken in the other features of the stage, we turn back to this figure sitting on a stool in the sunshine in front of the picture of the house.

He — the figure is that of a male — is dressed in rural garb: that is, he is wearing blue coveralls over his pants; his shoes are heavy; on top, the person is wearing only an undershirt.

No tattoos are visible on his arms.

The person wears no covering on his head.

The sun is shining.

It is probably not necessary to mention explicitly that the person squatting on the stool in front of the picture of the house is wearing a mask. This mask covers half of his face — the upper part, that is — and is immobile. It represents a face which, moreover, evinces an expression of considerable glee, within limits, of course.

The figure on the stage is young — some recognize that this figure probably represents the ward.

The ward has his legs stretched out in front of him.

We see that he is wearing hobnail boots.

The ward is holding the underside of his right knee with his left hand; the right leg, in contrast to the left, is slightly bent.

We see that the ward is leaning with his back against the backdrop representing the house wall.

In his right hand the figure is holding a rather large yellow apple. Now that the curtain has opened and is open, the figure brings the apple to his mouth.

The ward bites into the apple, as if no one were watching.

The apple does not crunch especially, as if no one were listening.

The picture as a whole exudes something of the quality of what one might call profound peacefulness.

The ward eats the apple, as if no one were watching.

(If you make a point to watch, apples are often eaten with a good deal of affectation.)

The figure thus consumes the apple, not particularly slowly, not particularly quickly.

The cat does what it does. If it should decide to leave the stage, no one should stop it from doing so.

If at first we paid too much attention to the figure, we now have sufficient time to inspect the other objects and areas (see above).

Can one gather from the manner in which the ward consumes the apple that he enjoys dependent status? Actually not.

Because we have been looking so intently, we have almost overlooked that the figure has already finished eating the apple. Nothing unusual has occurred during this process, the figure has no unusual way of consuming apples, perhaps a few seeds have fallen on the floor; chickens are not in evidence.

Now it’s the second apple’s turn.

To accomplish this, the ward stretches out his right leg completely, and with his left hand reaches under the coveralls into the right pocket of his pants. Obviously he is not making out too well.

He couldn’t reach into the pocket with his right hand, however, since he would have to lean back to do so but sits too near the wall to be able to lean back as far as he would have to.

He slides forward with the stool and leans back against the picture of the wall: no, the upper and lower parts of his body are still at too much of an angle for his hand to be able to do what it wants to do.

The pause is noticeable.

The ward stands up and while he stands reaches into his pants pocket and easily extracts the apple.

While still in the process of sitting down, he bites into the apple.

With his bottom the ward shoves the stool closer to the wall of the house again and assumes a similar, though not precisely the same, position as the initial one; the cat moves or does not move, the ward eats.

From behind the cornfield backdrop — from our vantage point, the left — a second figure emerges, the warden, judging from all visible evidence: rubber boots covered with mud up to the knee, gray work pants, a checkered shirt (white & blue) with rolled-up sleeves, tattoos on his arms, an open collar, a mask covering the upper half of his face, a hat with a pheasant feather stuck in it, an insignia on the hat, a carpenter’s pencil behind his ear, a very big pumpkin in front of his stomach.

Now that the warden has entered the stage, we see that the backdrop representing the cornfield consists of many small movable parts which are falling back into their original positions … the cornfield is calming down, the birds are again circling on one and the same spot.

The warden sees the ward.

The warden steps up close and takes a look at the ward.

The ward is quietly eating his apple.

The warden’s watching the ward drags on.

Gradually, as we watch, the eating of the apple also begins to drag on.

The longer the warden watches the ward, the more the eating of the apple is drawn out.

When the warden has stared down the ward, the latter stops eating the apple.

The pumpkin which the warden is holding in front of his stomach is, as we see, a real pumpkin.

But we hardly notice this any more, for after the warden has outstared the ward and the ward has simultaneously ceased eating his apple, which is now lying oddly half-eaten in the ward’s hand, the stage is already becoming gradually dark. The scene is finished.

A new scene now begins in the dark, we can hear it. What we hear is a loud, prerecorded breathing that is piped in over a loudspeaker. After a period of silence the loud breathing suddenly sets in, and it continues neither evenly louder nor softer but constantly wavering back and forth within its prescribed decibel range, in such a manner that we are made to think: now it will get louder and louder and become the loudest possible breathing, but at this point it suddenly becomes quite soft again, and we think: now the breathing is about to stop altogether, when it suddenly becomes loud again, and in fact far louder than what we consider natural breathing. It is “like” the strongly amplified breathing of an old man, but not quite; on the other hand, it is “like” the strongly amplified breathing of a wild animal that has been cornered, but not quite, either; it is “voracious,” “frightened,” “ominous,” but not quite; at times it seems to signify someone’s “death throes” to us, but somehow it doesn’t either because it appears to change location constantly. In the Italian spy film The Chief Sends His Best Man (with Stewart Granger and Peter van Eyck, directed by Sergio Sollima) there is a sequence in which an apartment — which someone has entered and in which he has found his dead friend — suddenly becomes dark; after a few moments of quiet the aforementioned breathing suddenly becomes audible all over the room, and for such a long time and so intensively that the intruder, in his desperation, start’s shooting and jumps up from behind his chair, whereupon he is shot and the lights are turned on — a young man stands above him, a small tape recorder in his hand, which he now switches off, whereupon the “hideous” breathing stops: that is the kind of breathing that is meant here, without the same consequences, of course — as suddenly as it started, it stops again after a certain time.

We are sitting pretty much in the dark; judging from the noises coming from that direction, the stage is being rearranged.

While it is gradually becoming completely dark, we hear music, a succession of chords piped in very much at random, with the pauses between them varying in length. Occasionally several chords follow each other in quick succession.

The chords are taken from the tune “Colors for Susan” from I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ to Die (Vanguard VSD 70266) by Country Joe and the Fish. The piece only lasts five minutes and fifty-seven seconds, so it’s repeated over and over during the course of events, except for the very end of the tune, which is reserved for the end of the events.

Onstage, ward and warden are in the process of rearranging the stage: what was inside before is now turned inside out.

If the stage is of the revolving kind, this process is managed by turning the stage 180 degrees.

If the stage is not of the revolving kind, ward and warden simply turn the backdrops of the cornfield, beetfield, and house façade so that the backs of the backdrops now represent the inside walls of the house.

We look out through the back window, behind which the birds are circling.

Lacking a revolving stage, ward and warden take the objects that stood in front of the house (the object under the rubber coat, etc.) to the back of the stage, and now, as it becomes bright again, they bring the furnishings for the house onstage.

This is what is required for the play: a rather large table, two chairs, an electric hot plate, a coffee grinder, an assortment of bottles, glasses, cups, saucers, and plates (on the floor in back), an oil lamp, a rubber hose, a bootjack, a newspaper which sticks in the crack of the door.

On a nail on the door hangs a bullwhip; on the same nail there also hangs a pair of scissors.

We see a large monthly calendar hanging on what is, from our vantage point, the right wall of the room.

But so that we can see all of this, the following has transpired in the meantime: the warden lit a match in the dark and turned up the oil lamp. As we already know from many other plays, the entire stage gradually becomes bright when someone lights an oil lamp: the same happens here.

Now that the stage is brightly lit — let us not forget to listen to the music, which becomes neither softer nor louder — we see it in the following condition: it now represents the room of a house. But this room is still empty, except for the paper in the crack of the door, the objects on the door, and the calendar.

We see ward and warden, who come onstage from the left and right sides respectively, distribute the aforementioned objects throughout the room: each brings in a chair, then the table is brought onstage by the two of them, then comes the warden with the rubber hose, which he drags across the stage before dropping it, then comes the ward with the bottles and plates, then the warden with the glasses — unhurriedly but not ceremonially either — just as though we weren’t watching; circus workers would go about it differently. No evincing of satisfaction, no contemplation of work well done, no moving to the music.

They both sit down, the ward almost first but he stops midway and the warden is seated, then the ward sits down too.

They both make themselves comfortable.

The music is pleasant.

The warden extends his legs under the table.

The ward also extends his legs under the table and comes to a halt when he touches the warden’s feet; then, after a pause, the ward slowly withdraws his legs; the warden does not withdraw his.

The ward sits there. What to do with his legs?

Quiet, music.

The ward puts his feet on the front crosspiece of his own chair, and to accomplish this he uses his body to shove the chair back, producing the customary sound; the warden doesn’t let himself be disturbed, he replies by taking off his hat and placing it on the table.

Quiet, music.

The ward slowly looks around the room, around, up, and also down, but avoids grazing the warden with his eyes, makes an about-face, so to speak, whenever he is just about to look at the warden: this is repeated so often that it loses its psychological significance.

The warden watches the ward.

The ward stands’up, takes an apple from his pants pocket underneath the coveralls, and puts it beside the hat.

The warden lowers his gaze to the apple.

The ward starts gazing around the room again. What is there to see in the room?

Suddenly, as if he senses a trap, the warden cocks his head.

The ward, caught by the warden’s gaze, stops looking around.

Mutual staring at each other, gazing, mutual looking through each other, mutual looking away. Each one looks at the other’s ear.

The ward places both feet on the floor simultaneously; we can hear it.

The warden looks at the ward’s ear.

The ward gets up carefully, softly.

The warden looks at him, at his ear.

The ward, aware only of himself, goes to the door, his steps, careful at first, becoming progressively louder as he approaches it.

The warden follows him with his eyes.

The ward bends down and pulls the newspaper out of the crack in the door.

The warden does not follow the ward with his eyes but keeps them fixed on the door: what’s hanging on the door?

The ward straightens up, goes back to the table with the paper under his arm, walking progressively more carefully again, once by the table walking almost soundlessly; while underway he uses his free hand to take the paper from under his arm and holds it neatly in his hand by the time he stands before the table.

The warden gazes at the door.

The ward neatly places the paper beside the hat and the apple.

The warden lowers his head; in the pause between the movements we hear a louder chord.

The ward sits down without making a sound, sits the way he did before; the next chord is suddenly softer.

The warden unfolds the paper completely.

He reads. He folds the paper together to the size of one page. He pretends to read that page. He reads so that it is almost a pleasure to watch him reading.

The ward, while seated, pulls, with a good deal of effort, a tiny book out of his pants pocket, the same pants from which he produced the apples, and also reads and is no less pleasant to look at.

The warden folds the newspaper page in half and goes on reading.

The ward pulls a pencil out of his pants pocket, a carpenter’s pencil like the warden’s, only smaller; he uses it to mark in the book while reading.

The warden goes on folding the paper.

The ward no longer marks in his book but crosses something out.

The warden goes on folding as best he can.

The ward is obviously starting to draw in the little book.

The warden folds.

The ward exceeds the margins of the book while drawing and begins to draw on the palm of his hand.

The warden: see above.

The ward draws on the back of his hand.

The warden is gradually forced to start crumpling the paper, but we don’t actually notice the transition from folding to crumpling.

The ward draws on his forearm; what he draws doesn’t necessarily have to resemble the warden’s tattoos.

The warden is obviously no longer reading or folding but is vigorously crumpling.

Both figures are vigorously occupied, one with drawing, the other with crumpling.

The warden completes the crumpling process and the paper is now a tight ball.

The ward is still drawing.

The warden is quiet, the ball of paper in his fist; he looks at his opposite, who is drawing.

The ward is drawing; the longer his opposite gazes at him, the more slowly he draws.

Then, instead of drawing, he merely scratches himself with the pencil and finally turns it around and scratches his arm with the other end; then he pushes the pencil into his arm without moving it. Then he stops doing this and slowly places the pencil next to the hat on the table; he quickly pulls his hand away and places it, slowly, on the forearm with the drawing on it.

The warden places his fist with the crumpled paper on the table and leaves it there.

The ward starts looking around the room once more, up, down, to the side, down along his legs.

The warden unclenches the fist holding the paper ball and places his hand next to it on the table; the paper ball slowly expands.

The music, noticeably louder now, is pleasant.

A period without movement — though that is not to say that the figures become graven images — now follows, unobtrusively introducing the next sequence.

During the period without movement we just listen to the music. Now the music becomes nearly inaudible, just as the main theme may disappear almost entirely during certain sections of a film.

We see the warden slowly place his forearms on the table.

In reply to this movement, the ward places his hands on the table, fingertips pointing at the warden.

The warden, without looking at the ward, slowly places his head on his forearms, on his hands, actually, and in such a way that his mouth and nose are placed on the backs of his hands, with his eyes looking across them.

Thereupon the ward slowly lowers his head toward the table until his head is hanging between his arms at the height of the table. After pausing briefly in this position and at this level, the ward lowers his head even further, down between his outstretched arms, which he has to bend now, until his head almost touches his knees: the ward remains in that position.

The warden draws his head toward himself until it lies, not with his mouth and nose, but with his forehead on his hands.

The ward spreads his knees and sticks his head deeper down between his bent arms and spread knees.

The warden pulls his hands out from under his head and now lies with his bare face, that is, with his bare mask, on the table.

(All these movements, although they occur very slowly, are not ceremonial.)

The ward lets his arms drop from the table but leaves his head hanging between his knees at the previous level.

The warden, while keeping his face in the previous position, uses his body to push the chair as far away from the table as possible, while still keeping his face on the table, his body slipping from the chair.

The ward, if possible, clenches his knees together above his head or against it.

Both of them are completely quiet onstage, as if no one were watching.

We hear the music somewhat more distinctly.

Some time passes; it has already passed.

The objects are in their places, here and there.

The warden stands up, without our noticing the in-between movements; he stands there, he represents standing, nothing else.

What will the ward do now?

Some time passes; we wait.

Now the ward sits up, without our particularly noticing the in-between movements.

What is the warden doing? He walks about the stage and represents walking.

The ward gets up; he stands there.

The warden runs; the ward begins to walk.

The warden leaps; the ward begins to …

The warden climbs up on a chair and is now standing on it; the ward does not leap but stops in his tracks and stands there.

The warden climbs on the table; the ward climbs on the chair.

The warden takes the other chair and puts it on the table and climbs on the chair on the table; the ward — how could it be otherwise? — climbs on the table.

The warden grabs on to a rope hanging down and hangs there; the ward climbs on the chair on the table.

The warden is hanging quietly, dangling a little, and the ward is quietly standing, high on the chair.

The warden lets himself drop. He lands with bent knees, then gradually straightens up to his full length.

The ward quickly climbs off the chair onto the table, from the table down onto the other chair, from this chair down onto the floor, and while doing so also takes the chair on the table down with him, putting it back in its old place and squatting down almost simultaneously.

All of this transpires so rapidly that if we wanted to count, we could hardly count further than one.

The warden slowly squats down.

The ward sits on the floor.

The warden slowly sits down also.

As soon as the warden sits down, the ward quickly lies down on the floor.

The warden slowly, ever so slowly, lies down on his back also, and makes himself comfortable.

As soon as the warden is lying on his back, the ward quickly rolls over and lies on his stomach.

The warden, emphasizing each of his movements with the sound it produces, also rolls over on his stomach, slowly.

As best he can, the ward now bends all his extremities together. We see him diminishing everywhere and becoming smaller. But he wasn’t an inflated balloon before, was he? It appears that he was. The ward becomes smaller and smaller, and flatter, the stage becomes increasingly dark. The warden stays on his stomach as we last saw him, the stage is now dark, we hear the isolated chords.

The stage becomes bright.

We see that the two figures are again seated at the table in their previous positions.

The warden gets up, goes to the bootjack, takes off his boots in a completely professional manner, without exaggerating, as if no one were watching. He kicks each boot across the stage with one kick.

The ward gets up, goes where the boots are lying, and puts them next to each other beside the door.

One after the other, warden and ward go back to their places.

A brief pause.

The warden rolls his woolen socks from his feet and flings them, bunched up, across the stage, one here, the other there, without any evidence of nasty motives, just as if no one were watching.

The ward gets up, finds the socks, straightens them out, pulls them right side out, and places them as nicely as possible across the boots. Then he returns to the table and sits down.

The warden gets up, goes to the door, takes the scissors off the nail, and returns with the scissors to the table.

After sitting down, he places his naked foot on the side crosspiece of the chair and cuts his toenails.

We know the sounds.

He behaves as if we were not really watching.

He cuts his toenails so slowly and for such a long time that it no longer seems funny.

When he is finally done he places the scissors on his knees.

After some time the ward gets up and walks about the stage, picking up the clipped-off toenails and putting them in the palm of one hand.

He does this so slowly that it, too, is no longer a laughing matter.

When the ward finally straightens up and returns to the table, the warden takes the scissors from his knees and now begins to clip his fingernails.

The ward turns around and goes to the calendar hanging on the right-hand wall.

The warden cuts and the ward tears off a sheet from the calendar.

The warden cuts and …

The warden cuts and …

It is a slow process, without rhythm; it takes the warden a different amount of time to cut off each nail, and the ward needs a different amount of time to tear off each sheet from the calendar; the noises of the snipping and tearing overlap, are not necessarily successive, sometimes occur simultaneously; the calendar sheets flutter to the floor.

Now the calendar has been completely shorn: all we can see of it is the rather large empty cardboard backing left hanging on the wall.

But the warden is still cutting his fingernails, and the ward is standing inactively by the wall, his face half to the wall.

The music, which becomes more distinct, is so pleasant that the noise the scissors make hardly affects us.

And now that the stage is becoming dark the noise stops at once.

It becomes bright.

The two persons are sitting in their initial positions at the table, quietly, each by himself.

The warden gets up, goes to the hot plate. He takes the teakettle from behind the row of bottles and puts one end of the rubber hose into the kettle.

The warden exits, returns immediately.

We hear water running into the kettle.

The warden exits and returns at once.

He takes the hose out of the kettle, lets it drop. He puts the cover on the kettle and puts the kettle on the hot plate.

The warden drags the rubber hose onstage.

As the hose is apparently very long, he has to drag for quite a long time. Finally the warden drags the entire hose onstage.

Nothing funny happens.

He winds the hose in an orderly manner over hand and elbow, goes to the table, and places the rolled-up hose with the other objects on the table. He resumes his position.

Quietly, contemplating each other, the two figures squat onstage.

Gradually we begin to hear the water simmering in the kettle.

The ward gets up, fetches the coffee grinder, sits down, makes himself comfortable on the chair, clasps the coffee grinder between his knees and starts to grind. We can hear the grinding …

The ward gradually stops grinding …

Now the stopper is probably blown off the kettle, so that it becomes quiet again.

The music sets in at the appropriate moment, when the stage once more becomes dark.

On the bright stage we see the two persons at the table, the hot plate having of course been turned off in the meantime.

The warden gets up and goes offstage.

But he returns quite soon, a frying pan with glowing incense in one hand, a big piece of white chalk in the other.

We smell the incense and also see clouds of incense.

The warden goes to the door and starts writing something on the top of the door.

The moment he puts chalk to wood, the ward turns toward him on the chair; the ward reaches into his pants and throws something at the warden … it must be something very light because the warden does not stop his very slow writing, which looks almost like drawing.

The ward makes himself comfortable on his chair and throws again, unhurriedly.

The warden writes; the ward throws.

We see that the ward’s projectiles are sticking to the warden’s shirt: yes, they are thistles.

While the warden is slowly writing, the ward occasionally throws a thistle at him, yet without expressing anything with the manner in which he throws it.

We hear the music and smell the incense.

The warden’s back is slowly but surely covered with a cluster of thistles while he writes.

He writes slowly down along the door:

The ward now takes the thistles out of his fist and throws them with the other hand.

The warden, while writing, takes the bullwhip from the door.

Now he steps back.

The ward happens to be throwing again.

The warden turns around as though accidentally, not quickly; at the same time, the ward throws a thistle, which hits the warden’s chest (or not). The warden is standing there by himself; the ward throws the remaining thistles at the warden.

The warden is holding the pan with the incense in front of him. The longer the warden holds the pan, the longer the intervals between the ward’s throws.

Meanwhile, it gradually becomes dark once again, and the music … (see above)

The two figures are sitting on the stage, which is bright again; they are sitting at the table, each one by himself.

All at once we notice there is blood running from the ward’s nose. The blood trickles out of his nose, across his mouth, over his chin, out of his nose …

The warden is sitting there by himself, the ward doesn’t budge from the spot, doesn’t budge from the spot …

Gradually it becomes dark again on the stage.

Once we can see again, both of them are sitting in their positions at the table.

The ward gets up and stands against the rear wall, with his back to us.

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.

He again reaches into the sack and, standing, lets a handful of sand fall into the water.

Now we hear the isolated chords again.

The ward reaches into the sack and, standing, lets a hand

The ward reaches into the sack and, standing, lets a hand

ful of sand fall into the water.

ful of sand fall into the water.

The curtain closes.

Translated by Michael Roloff