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Five American Plays by Christian Lanciai

The Pontiac Case Atala The Exile The Captain Cape Horn

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The Pontiac Case

Scenes from the days of the great Indian war, after Francis Parkman’s documentaries, by Christian Lanciai.

The characters : Major Robert Rogers Major Gladwyn Captain Dalzell Indian chiefs: Pontiac Wapocomoguth Black Eagle Strenuous Beaver Swift Deer Tough Bear Minavavana

Commander Sir Jeffrey Amherst Colonel Henry Bouquet Captain Norris a quaker Saint-Vincent, a French drummer Pierre Laclede, French merchant, founder of St. Louis Saint-Ange de Bellerive, the last French governor of Illinois Sir William Johnson, governor of New England trappers soldiers guards lieutenants corporals French Canadians Captain Horst (sea captain) Sailors Seamen a master-at-arms a mate a wounded sergeant Paxton men (professional lynchers) Lancaster mob a bartender of St. Louis an adjutant Indians, warlike and peaceful Black Cat an officer, his wife and his daughter The action takes place in the states of New York, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois and in Pensacola (Bouquet’s death) during the 1760s.

Dedicated to Hubert Evert, who treasured this as his favourite story. Notice. The death of Pontiac in Cahokia outside St. Louis in April 1769 was instigated by a certain Williamson, who hired an unknown Indian for the assassination. The “Black Cat” remained unknown, but his tribe, the Illinois Indians, was almost completely extirpated by the other Indian tribes. Pontiac was buried by the governor Saint-Ange. In the drama the events of the fifth act have been rearranged chronologically in consideration of the dramatic form. Colonel Bouquet, the subjugator of the Indians, actually died before Pontiac. Editor’s note. Copyright © Christian Lanciai 1992

The Pontiac Case Act I scene 1. Fort Niagara, 1760. Major Robert Rogers Men, have you ever seen a more astonishingly promising perspective? Beyond these falls of Niagara there is a vast wilderness spreading out which is totally virgin. All this unknown part of the world belongs to us Englishmen. We have fought a successful war against the French with honour and achieved the most total victory ever experienced by the British. Could anyone of you doubt, when you behold these magnificent falls of Niagara, that the land we have won must be the richest and greatest in the world? A trapper You are forgetting one thing, Sir. Rogers What? Trapper The Indians. Rogers We have not forgotten them. We are very well aware of their existence. But since when does civilisation bother about half naked savages? A soldier With respect, Sir, the French always had problems with the Indians. They almost abandoned the country to us with some joy of relief. Rogers They succeeded in extirpating the Iroqouis, though. Soldier But it almost took them a hundred years. Rogers Well, my friends, in a hundred years we will probably have managed to extirpate all other Indians as well who are stupid enough to make trouble. trapper The fact remains, that they know the country better than we and are born and brought up in it which we are not. Rogers But our children will be. With our culture they will probably better understand to govern the country than half naked savages that wallow in cruelties. A guard (entering) Major Rogers, some Indians wish to speak with you. Rogers That’s wise of them. How many are they? guard A few chiefs with some warriors. They are not more than a handful and appear to be peaceful. Rogers Bring them here at once. guard Yes, Sir. (out) (Three magnificent Red Indian chiefs enter escorted by some half dozen warriors.) Chief Wapocomoguth Greetings, Englishman. Rogers Greetings yourself. Wapocomoguth What are you doing in our country? Rogers The French have left it. So we take over all their forts. Wapocomoguth Our chief Pontiac wishes to speak with you. Rogers Let him speak. Chief Pontiac All guests are welcome to our country, but we would prefer them to first announce their arrival and not just break in. Rogers This is our country since the French have left it.

Pontiac Wrong. It took the French a hundred years to learn that it was our country. Rogers It cost the lives of many brave men to teach them that, and yet they never learned it. Pontiac Wrong. They left the country out of respect for us. Rogers Wrong. They left the country because we forced them out. Pontiac They learned to cooperate with us. That’s how they could build Canada. The English have never cooperated with others. Rogers We wish to cooperate with you. Pontiac Major, in that case you are a wise man. I invite you to live in peace and cooperate with us, but then you must respect us, like the French finally respected us. Rogers (to his nearest soldier) What does he take us for? Imbecile idiots? (to Pontiac) There is nothing we want more than to live in peace with all Indian tribes. Pontiac Let us then confirm your good will and our peace by smoking the peace pipe together. Rogers (compliant) We will be delighted. (to the soldiers) Make some space in the fort. We have to humour them so far that we take their ceremonies seriously. Never insult an Indian, but kill him if he makes trouble. soldier Yes, Sir. (leaves with some men) Rogers We shall smoke the peace pipe together. May I ask your name, chief? Pontiac Pontiac. Rogers A handsome name that suits a handsome and impressing chief. Pontiac What is your own name, Englishman? Rogers Major Robert Rogers. Pontiac A difficult name worthy a chief of a difficult people. Rogers I am no chief. I am only a major. Pontiac Humility befits the white man better than hardness and irreconcilability. Rogers Perhaps. Please enter the fort now, my friend. (takes Pontiac kindly round the shoulder. All the Indians follow them into the fort.)

Scene 2. Fort Detroit, spring 1761. lieutenant Attention! (The soldiers straighten up.) You have done well, gentlemen. The major is proud of you, whatever he says. Here he is now. Rogers (enters) At ease! (the soldiers relax.) My service here is at an end. We have done a magnificent job. The greatest free realm of the earth enjoys unparalleled peace and order. We have won the world’s greatest wilderness for civilisation! And it’s as much to your credit as to the command. (The men murmur in appreciation.) By this I wanted to bid you farewell. Behave yourselves in my absence, treat the French like the English, don’t make trouble with the Indians, and try to be fair. That’s

the best advice I can give you. Justice is the foundation of all peaceful existence. That’s all, gentlemen. Any questions? Lieutenant Allow me one question, Sir. Rogers Well, what is it? Lieutenant Is five hundred soldiers really a sufficient force to maintain order in this all too vast and unsurveyable land? Rogers My boy, in a land of peace, five hundred soldiers are really five hundred soldiers too much. Lieutenant But if anything should happen? Rogers What for example could happen? Lieutenant Imagine for example that the Indians would get the idea of trying to get rid of the white man? Rogers The lieutenant is apparently afraid of the Indians. Allow me to smile. Haven’t we respected them? Haven’t we left them in peace? Have they ever quarrelled with us? The French were always at war with the Indians. We have learned from them to leave the Indians in peace. A corporal The Indians are not happy with the settlers, Sir. Rogers The settlers are breaking new lands at their own risk. It is naturally our duty to protect them. But have they been attacked even once since we took over after the French? (silence) There. A soldier (after a moment’s silence) We don’t trust the chief Pontiac, Sir. Rogers Do you think Pontiac trusts any white man? Mistrust is mutual and natural but harmless as long as you respect each other. Anything else? (silence) Well then. Farewell, gentlemen. (departs) lieutenant Attention! (the soldiers straighten themselves up) Ready! (the soldiers raise their weapons.) Fire! (Salute is fired in the air.) Rogers Good luck, gentlemen! Soldiers Good luck, major Rogers! Lieutenant Aim! (the soldiers aim.) Fire! (the salute is fired. The major disappears.)

Scene 3. An Indian community two years later. Black Eagle The white man barges forth like a forest fire in our mohawk ruining everything in his way. Strenuous Beaver The French gave us generous gifts for maintaining the peace, but the English only destroy, take everything away from us and curse us. Swift Deer The fire water of the English affects our brothers like a plague. Every tribe that drinks of that English fire water is corrupted and lost. Tough Bear The Englishman has demonstrated that he brings no good and holds no good in his mind. He only thinks of himself and his own people. He

doesn’t care about us and ignores our right of existence. He has come to our country only to take it away from us. Black Eagle He burns our forests, guns down all our game, extirpates all furred animals and chase us and our brothers out of our own lands. Tough Bear All they want is to grab and take, share nothing and give nothing in return. They will ruin the entire country if they are allowed to continue. Pontiac My brothers from Canada and from the lands south of the great lakes, our forefathers tried to extirpate the French. They failed and were extirpated themselves. Now the French are gone, but instead we have the English, who are worse, harder and more difficult. If we try to extirpate them, which we have to do unless we wish to be extirpated ourselves or see our entire country being destroyed, then we must not fail. We have to be consistent and succeed. Every Englishman has to be extirpated. Black Eagle (after a pause) We are listening, great chief. Pontiac We can only succeed in one way. We have to attack all the forts and settlements of the English on one and the same day. We have to act promptly and strike hard. If they survive or manage to escape they have time on their side and will only be back in even greater numbers. They must not manage to escape, and they must not survive. Black Eagle That should mean that we may not spare anyone, no white woman, no child, no aged people and not let any house remain? Pontiac Exactly, Black Eagle. That is our only chance. Strenuous Beaver Chief Pontiac proclaims total war. Is there any alternative? Pontiac Strenuous Beaver, our alternatives are as follows. We could go on living in peace with the English. Then we will have to accept seeing our land and the lands of our fathers being continuously destroyed, burnt down, cleansed of all wildlife and made impossible for us to live on. We will then have to accept being obliged to constantly move further off with our tribes to areas where life will be even more difficult just to survive, and there we will then get into conflicts with our own brothers. We have to choose between war with the white man or war with our brothers. We can only win a war with the white man if we extirpate him forever and completely liberate our country from his presence. Strenuous Beaver So we have no choice? Pontiac No. Black Eagle Chief Pontiac is right. We have to make a total war, and we have to win it. And we will be able to win it if our chief Pontiac may lead it. Tough Bear Lead us in the war, Pontiac. Pontiac It is my duty to lead you and all our brothers in a successful war against the white man, so that he never more may act in violation of nature. If he wants to live in our country he must learn to respect our country and ourselves as guardians of the country and as human beings. He has neither respected the country nor us. We must therefore teach him a lesson that he will never forget. Our goal is to extirpate all Englishmen from our country. We will never be entirely successful, since their forts

by the sea are too strong. But we could succeed enough to have our free hunting grounds restored to us, that our big game may continue thriving, that our furred animals be not extirpated by reckless poaching and that our children may keep the land of their fathers. The Indians (expressing consent and appreciation) Pontiac We could succeed enough to have the English defeated, making them accept their defeat and become more humble towards us and nature. Tough Bear (after a pause) Chief Pontiac has spoken wisely. I and my tribes will follow him. Black Eagle I submit to chief Pontiac’s wise counsel of war with all my tribes. Strenuous Beaver I will participate in the war with my entire tribe. Swift Deer I will spread the message of the great war to all tribes in the south. Pontiac Then we are all agreed. The English are no more than a thousand across the country. We cannot fail. Those who do not wish to die have to escape or surrender. Let us smoke the peace pipe together for the unification and alliance of all our brothers against the English. (They light the peace pipe.)

Scene 4. Fort Detroit, May 1763. Major Gladwyn How many are they? a soldier (by the palisade) Impossible to say, Sir, but they are increasing all the time. They must have doubled since yesterday. Gladwyn They will never reach us inside the fort, but what about the settlers out there? Soldier There is not one of them left, Sir. They have burnt down every house. Gladwyn (sighs) Yes, we saw them like torches yesterday and heard the screams of women and children who were scalped. Hardly a fraction got away. Soldier Sir, a trapper is on his way here. He probably brings some message from Pontiac. Gladwyn Is he alone? soldier Yes. Gladwyn Let him in. (The gate is opened to the trapper, who enters.) Are you coming from Pontiac? Trapper Yes. Gladwyn Well, what’s his excuse for tonight’s bloody massacre on innocent women and children? Trapper He demands your surrender. He will allow you to leave the fort unharmed if you leave your weapons and belongings. Gladwyn Apparently he is serious. Trapper Yes.

Gladwyn He will learn that he with a handful of savages are fighting the British Empire. Tell him that we will never surrender. Trapper I must warn you. There is a great Indian war developing with the one intention to chase English supremacy out of the country. Gladwyn (laughs) A great Indian war! Bless my soul! His great Indian war would in Europe be like a village uprising. Tell him that we consider his ambitions ridiculous. (The trapper leaves. The gate is opened to him, and he disappears.) Soldier Was that wise, Sir? We have hardly provisions for three weeks. Gladwyn Do you think he will be able to keep up fighting for three weeks? He will tire after a few days. I know those bloodthirsty savages. A corporal Sir, there are at least six hundred of them out there, and they are fully armed with guns. Their burning arrows will easily put our straw roofs and frail wooden buildings on fire. Gladwyn I know, but we are expecting reinforcements. Several boats with provisions and ammunition are on their way here, and I will make sure they send an an extra convoy. Corporal Through the land of the Indians? Gladwyn Englishmen know how to defend themselves. We must rely on that they will make it. Or else… Soldier Or else what, Sir? Gladwyn Or else we’ll see if we are still alive in three weeks.

Scene 5. An Indian village. Pontiac (in full war paint, half naked with battle axe and his long black hair let loose) Yes, we have started the extermination war against the white man, and we challenge all our brothers of whatever tribes to follow us! Now is the right moment! The English have grown strong enough to take possession of all lands that belonged to our French brothers. The French were always friendly towards us during their long war against the English overwhelming us with gifts for evidence that they were anxious about peace and cooperation with us. After the English bereft the French of their rights, the English have ignored us and only demonstrated their wish to get rid of us and take all lands away from us like they did to the French! If we don’t extirpate the English, the English will extirpate us! an old chief Give us a sign, great war chief! Pontiac We are at present laying siege to the strongest fort of the English, which they call Detroit. Our French brothers built that fort. A hundred and twenty Englishmen are defending the fort against six hundred of our warriors. It must eventually fall, like all the other English forts are falling, one after the other. Chief A victory over small forts and peaceful white settlers is no sign. I asked for a sign. You know what I mean.

Pontiac (presenting a war belt, a Wampum) Here is the sign of the holy war! Here are the holy signs written that tell of the Delaware prophet’s revelation! He had a calling from the Great Spirit and searched for him for forty days in the wilderness without company and without sustenance. Finally the Great Spirit revealed himself. He spoke to our brother from Delaware and said: "My son, how long will you still stand the white intruder’s reckless greed and devastation of your free and sacred land? I have had enough of the destructive lust of these ruthless men of violence and their lack of sense and piety. They ruin my free nature and consume it leaving only a black smoking desert behind. He extirpates my animals and burns down my forests. He introduced fire weapons and fire water in this free holy land. With his fire weapons he started extirpating the free sons of my country, and with his fire water he destroyed their souls. Therefore I command you: he must be extirpated! And this message I ask you to bring all your brothers no matter of what tribes they are. They must all join to march against the white man, for the white man is so evil, that if he is not extirpated, he will extirpate you.” Thus spoke the Great Spirit to our brother from Delaware. And here is the belt with the holy signs that eternalise the Great Spirit’s message. This holy Wampum has wandered among all the Indian tribes between the great lakes and Mississippi and Ohio, and all tribes will take part in the holy war. Now it’s your turn to also stand up. Chief (rising) The great war chief has spoken. You have seen and heard the sign. We all know that only signs from the Great Spirit in nature are reliable. Your victories, Pontiac, are nothing to this sign. Now I believe we could succeed in defeating the white man, and we will all support each other in defeating him. But we must leave our French brothers in peace. Pontiac All our brothers of all tribes realize the importance of leaving our French brothers in peace. Only Englishmen may be killed, but all Englishmen must be killed! Chief The great Pontiac has spoken. His word is now our law as long as our holy war in the name of the Great Spirit goes on.

Act II scene 1. Fort Detroit after three weeks’ siege (May 30th, 1763). Lieutenant The situation is desperate, Sir. Gladwyn I know, but we have to hold out. Corporal The Indians are still increasing every day. They are now at least eight hundred. Lieutenant The men are tired of having to sleep sitting up and dressed up with weapons in their hands. They get lice, illnesses and starve. Corpotral The Indians attack us day and night. We never get a rest. Gladwyn But we must also never give up. I know that a convoy with supplies is on its way here. Lieutenant Why then does it never arrive?

Corporal Sir, every night one or several get delirious of exhaustion or mad of terror. (Gladwyn looks at him.) A soldier (brightens up) Colonel! Look! (shows at the river. Everyone runs to the closest aperture to watch.) Corporal The convoy! Gladwyn At last! Lieutenant Eighteen boats with supplies! They are actually here! Gladwyn Somewhat late but the more welcome. Well, my men, do you still want to surrender and decamp? Corporal The boats still have to reach here, and their men and supplies have to safely get into the fort. Gladwyn We can thank them. The worst is over. Soldier(terrified) Colonel! Look! Gladwyn What do you see that I don’t see? Soldier Look at the men in the aft! (All look and pale with fear.) Lieutenant Indians! Corporal They have taken the convoy, and the men have to row for them! Lieutenant All the supplies and weapons will end up in the Indian camp. Gladwyn This is too much! Soldier Sir! Look! In the first boat! Gladwyn Yes, I see. It’s a desperate act. It’s the man’s only chance, and it’s a brave venture. corporal They succeeded in throwing one Indian in the water, but the other one is struggling. He drags one of the officers with him over board. He pulls a knife… lieutenant Both are gone. Gladwyn But the other four can now manage, and they row for their lives towards us. We have to help them! We must cover them! Dispatch a patrol! Not one of these four brave men must die! Lieutenant Yes, Sir! (hurries out, meets a trapper in the door) Gladwyn (to the trapper) You look solemn, my friend. Do you bring bad news? Trapper I am sad to have to announce, Sir, that the forts St. Joseph, Michilimackinac, Ouatanon, Miami, Le Boeuf, Venango, Presqu'Isle and Sandusky have fallen to the Indians. Gladwyn All eight of them? Trapper Yes, Sir. Gladwyn And the ninth? Trapper Fort Pitt is still holding out, but together with yours it’s the only one remaining west of the Alleghany mountains. The entire country between Lake Erie, Ohio and Mississippi is now completely in the hands of the Indians. Gladwyn What more do you know? Any survivors? Trapper Just a few exceptions. One from St. Joseph, two from Michilimackinac, no one from Sandusky and Ouatanon; most, and that’s more than ninety percent,

have ruthlessly been massacred, including the civilian population with women and children, with one exception. Gladwyn It surprises me that there are exceptions. Well? Trapper Every Frenchman in the vast area have been spared. The Indians are making war only against England and Englishmen. The French Canadians seem to have joined the Indians out of revenge. It might have been they who persuaded the Indians to start the war. Gladwyn What more do you know? Trapper The Indians seem to imagine that the French king has not abandoned them. Pontiac has asked for French reinforcements from Illinois, that don’t exist. Gladwyn Then at last we have found a weak spot with the Indians. They are counting on French support, which never will arrive. When they realize it, they will fall out of breath. Pontiac isn’t more stupid than that he must realize that a few thousand Indians never will be able to throw the British Empire out of America alone. Well, my men, what about that? At last some light ahead! Soldier Here are the four who managed to escape with their boat. (These come bursting in, some badly wounded, all completely exhausted, supported by the lieutenant and others.) Gladwyn Well, my brave friends, I suppose you have a shocking story to tell. The least wounded We were taken by surprise by the Indians two days ago. They were simply too many. We had no chance. Only two boats managed to slip away. The rest of us were forced to go on here with the arms of the Indians aimed at our hearts. I guess the four of us are the only lucky ones. All the other sixty will probably be massacred. This is a bloody war. Gladwyn And it’s only getting more bloody. The Indians have never before been so well organised and cruel. They have massacred all English settlers between Lake Erie, Ohio and Mississippi. We are the only ones left in the country. Trapper Sir, we don’t know what the Indians do with their prisoners. It’s possible that they let some live. Gladwyn Do you think so? Are you so naïve? No, my friend, if they murder so many they will murder all. (to the rescued) The four of you are probably the only ones in the entire convoy who got away alive. The first saved Do you really mean that, Sir? Another (of the four) What about all the forts? Didn’t we have a chain of forts here in the wilderness? Gladwyn Ours is the only one remaining. The first saved (the other three also expressing great amazement) Do you really mean that, Sir? Gladwyn Yes, my friend. The Indians have embarked on a total extermination war against all whites speaking English. It’s the revenge of the French for having lost their war. That’s how bad losers the French are. The first saved (exchanging glances with the others) Can you hold out, Sir? Gladwyn (thoughtfully) That’s the question.

Scene 2. The Indians. Pontiac A chief Pontiac

Our French brothers, are they here? They are waiting for meeting their brother Pontiac. And I am longing to meet them. May they appear to meet my face. (The chief leaves to usher in a group of French Canadians.) My friends, I am anxious to learn what’s in your hearts. Canadian Great chief, we are not happy about your war. You say that you only wage war against the English, but still it happens ever more often, the longer the siege of Detroit goes on, that your Indians appear threatening to us Frenchmen, intrude in our houses with tomahawks lifted to plunder us of all we have of victuals. Is that your way of defending us French against the English? Pontiac My brothers, we never wished you any harm, and we never allowed any transgressions against you. Those who made themselves guilty of that have done it completely on their own against our advice and command. It’s not just to avenge our own wrongs that we war against the English. It’s also to avenge your wrongs. They have trampled you down like they have tread us down. That is why we wish to destroy all Englishmen and not leave a single living one left. I regret to say that I have heard that there also are some of you who have joined the English against us. We know exactly who they are, and when our French father your king will come here to help us, we will point them out to him to have them punished. I further regret all the troubles caused by the war from our constantly having to pass through your settlements. I ask you to remember, though, the war seventeen years ago, which the Ojibwa and the Michilimackinac tribes together with the Sax and Fox Indians fought against you to have you all extirpated. Who defended you against these wild tribes then? I did at the head of my Ottawa Indians and the Wyandots, the Pottawattami and the Shawanoo Indians. The chief Michinac swore solemnly that he would carry your colonel’s head to his camp and eat his heart and drink his blood. Who told him, that he, if he wanted to extirpate all Frenchmen, then first had to kill me and all my warriors? As I defended you then I defend you today. I am a Frenchman and wish to die like a Frenchman. We are of the same blood, you and I. Therefore don’t make impediments to my war. I ask no help of you, for you no longer have any power against the English. All I ask for is food and supplies to what extent you are able to provide. Of course, you are welcome to fight by our side to what extent you wish, since it’s naturally to the interest of us all to get rid of all English as soon as possible. And then when we have prevailed it’s our intention to let each one go home to his own village in peace to await there the arrival of our French father your king to our country. Live in peace, French brothers, and I will make sure no evil will happen to you. (The Canadians look at each other.) Canadian We are happy with your answer, great chief, and we trust you. And as well as we can we will help you by all means in the war against the English. Pontiac Good, my French brother. (offers him the peace pipe. They smoke.)

Scene 3. On board a ship. (Is is dark . You see the side of the ship with the lake in the background.) Master-at-arms We are passing through enemy territory, Sir Captain I know. Double the watch. Nothing is more treacherous than silence. Mate What do you mean, Sir? Captain I mean, that the damned redskins are most dangerous, when you don’t know where you have them. A sailor Captain! I see small objects approaching on the water. They must be canoes. Captain (sharpens his eyes) You are right. No one says a word. – All hands on deck, but without a sound. We will give those bloody savages a warm reception. This cargo must reach Detroit! Or else we English will have no more business in America! (The men steal quietly around, arming themselves and taking positions along the rails.) Captain Not a sound! Not until I give the signal! Not one red devil must get away alive! Every shot must hit the heart of a red murderer! We must not miss! Keep still and quiet! Let them come out into the moonlight! Let them be clearly seen! Take careful aim in peace and quiet. Is everyone ready? Quiet now. Ready. (shouts) Fire! (All shoot at the same time. You hear wild dying Indian screams at some distance.) There they got it to make them yelling! Set the cannon on fire! Aim in the middle of the canoes! Fire! (The cannon is fired while the others go on shooting.) Master-at-arms They are escaping, Sir. Captain How many got hit? Sailor I got one. Mate And I had two. Master-at-arms Maybe sixteen in all, Sir. Captain It’s not enough. Every damned Indian must be exterminated from all this country! Or else we will never be able to civilise it properly! Sailor Sir, another danger. Captain They don’t give up, those devil dogs. What are they up to now? Sailor Windward, Sir. (You see a red light out to the left.) Captain I see. The damned bastards are sending a flaming raft against us. It’s burning bright and well, but we are sailing past it. It will drift behind us. Sorry, redskins, water is an element that the British Empire masters better than you. You will never get at us out here. We will reach Detroit safely, and Detroit will never give in. Mate How happy they will be in the fort when they hear about the signing of the peace in Paris! Captain Yes, and what long faces all French Canadians will pull! Those idiots believed in their French king. Mate They say the French have started supporting the Indians.

Captain They will have themselves to blame. In that case they will die with the Indians when we exterminate them. And those who survive will have to speak English, if they want to survive. Mate It could be a long war, Sir. Captain All wars are long. That’s why we always win them. We are tougher and wiser than all the rest. The world will just have to accept it. Sailor The flaming raft is passing us by, Sir. Captain And will go out with the last hope of the cruel redskins to be able to practice their atrocities in peace. We English are here to teach them to stop scalping people. Sailor They were here in the country, though, long before us. The country is originally theirs. Captain You are right so far, my friend, but no further. Their right they have ruined themselves by their bloody and extreme cruelty. The war could last for long, but the longer it lasts, the more certainly and the more they will lose. The difference between us whites and them is, that they have nothing to win but everything to lose, while we have nothing to lose but everything to win. For we are hopelessly superior from the start, no matter what temporary victories they gain. (The light from the burning raft glides out to the right and goes out.) Sailor There the last flame of the raft went out. Captain And the future of the Indians of America. Now we shall reach Detroit safely. The Indians are already beaten. Sailor By nature or by their own inferiority, Sir? captain No, by their own destiny.

Scene 4. In a French Canadian cottage. Canadian 1 2 1 2 1

It’s a disaster for us. I never thought it could be possible. It’s a betrayal, a gigantic, nasty betrayal! But what shall we say to the Indians? The Indians are making war on the English. There’s our only chance. We have to do everything to support their war. 2 Yes, we must never accept that France has betrayed us. 1 But it will only work if the Indians never learn about it. 2 Yes, let’s keep them in the belief that France is backing them up. 1 Let Pontiac enter. 2 (moves to the door, lets in Pontiac and his chiefs) Welcome, great chief. Pontiac We are worried about you, my French brothers. 1 All we have is yours. All French are at your disposal. What is your concern?

Pontiac There is a rumour that French and English have made peace with each other and that all French in Canada from now on will serve the English. I must warn you, Frenchmen, and I ask you to let all Frenchmen know, that those Frenchmen who collaborate with the English will be treated by us like the English. They will be as little spared as any Englishman. 1 All Frenchmen know this, great Pontiac. No Frenchmen will ever collaborate with any Englishman. Pontiac What are Frenchmen then doing in the fort? And why do the French ask for protection against us by the English? Verily I say unto you, that you have to make up your minds whether you will be French or English. We will spare all Frenchmen, but we kill all Englishmen, even if they speak French. 1 I promise all of you, great Pontiac and all chiefs of Wyandot, Shawanoo, Ojibwa, Delaware, Miami, Kickapoo and Pottawattami, that you don’t need to worry. A great French army is on its way up the St. Lawrence river under the command of our king, our great French father, to drive out all the English and return the country to you and us. All will be well. Pontiac (rising) Good French brother, your speech is agreeable. Something like that was exactly what we wished to hear. Now we know we will prevail. We will fight for France until there is no one left in this country who still dares to speak English. Friends, let’s leave. (The Indians break it up.) 2 (when they are gone) That was a dangerous lie. 1 But necessary. Now their fighting spirit might perhaps endure so that they really could teach the English a lesson. 2 Do you think they could win? 1 No, but they could at least kill as many Englishmen as possible. The thing is to keep them going. Their cruelty is on our side. 2 You make them sacrifice themselves for us. 1 They will be sacrificed anyway by the English.

Scene 5. Fort Detroit. (Around the officers guards, soldiers and other people move about.) Gladwyn You are most heartily welcome, captain Dalzell. If you hadn’t come, the saga of this fort might have been finished. Dalzell I realized as much when we came up the river and were met by fire of the Indians from both shores. Didn’t you achieve a peace treaty with the Ojibwa and the Pottawattami Indians? Gladwyn You know how the Indians are: capricious, treacherous and as reliable as water. They gladly betray each other. Give them whiskey, and they will scalp each other and forget the war. Dalzell Perhaps we should export more whiskey to them?

Gladwyn In the long run that would be their certain destruction. But so far they keep laying siege to us and to harass us on a daily basis. Pontiac is not a man who gives up. Dalzell At least we got all our twenty-two boats unharmed up to the fort with the loss of only fifteen men. Gladwyn Now the fort will survive. Dalzell But why did you never make any offensive attack on the Indians? Gladwyn They are too invidious. They have their eyes everywhere and move invisibly anywhere in nature without a sound. Pontiac knows everything and as an expert on attacking from behind. Dalzell But now with all your renewed supplies of food, ammunition and weapons and 260 extra men perhaps we could dare venture on a greater raid. Their camp is after all not far from here. We burned several of their camps along the shores of Lake Erie. Gladwyn I would not recommend an attack. Dalzell How else could we break the siege? Gladwyn I imagine that the Indians will get tired of it all. I am hoping for their own division and dissolution. Dalzell In that case you might have to wait forever. Their war is well organised, and Pontiac keeps them united. You have to strike against Pontiac’s own heart, against his own village! A bold attack is maybe all we need to crush their fighting spirit. Gladwyn I will not follow. You will have to do it on your own in that case. Dalzell I am willing to wage all my two hundred and fifty men. If we strike now I think we could vanquish him. He is getting reinforcements all the time. If we wait any longer it might then already be too late. We still have him within reach now, and he hasn’t grown too strong! Gladwyn Do as you wish. I will not interfere. (They depart.) A French Canadian (who unnoticed has heard the conversation) Those fools are going to attack Pontiac’s camp! We must let Pontiac know that at once!

Act III scene 1. The English attack in darkness. Dalzell Dark is the night. But in this night the future of England in America will be decided by a bold push, a definite settlement, a courageous and determined initiative straight out into the darkness. My men, we shall take the savages by surprise so that they never will dare to show themselves in the country again! We shall cleanse them out of the forests by blasting their very heart by burning down the very camp of the great Pontiac! Forward, my men! Let’s storm the darkness! (They advance. Suddenly there are wild war cries in the air from Indians, and you hear gunfire and see flashes of rifles. Men go down everywhere and fall over each other.)

What is this? We haven’t even reached the camp yet! How then can they be all around us? major Rogers Captain, they are too many, and they seem to be all around us. Dalzell Halt! We have to rearrange and retire a few steps! (They pull back to the initial position.) a soldier They were waiting for us by the brook. Another Yes, they knew we were coming. (The gunfire stops.) Dalzell Forward now, but carefully! Make a formation! We must not expose ourselves openly to the coward savages! (The men dare advance again but with scared looks around.) Dalzell (cries suddenly) All attack at once! Now! (They make a strong push efficiently firing their arms. Nothing happens.) Rogers Where are they? a soldier Have they run home? Another Have they gone into hiding? (The men carefuilly tread their way, completely dumbfounded by the fact that the Indians suddenly are like gone to earth.) (Suddenly the Indian storm breaks loose again with wild war cries and gunfire but from a totally different direction. The men get confused, try to run away, run into each other, are gunned down, etc.) Dalzell Keep in order! Don’t give up so easily! Rogers Captain, we must retire. These savages see like cats though the night. We stand no chance against them We have to wait for the daylight. Dalzell Yes, but don’t dissolve the order! We can’t run like rabbits in a panic! Then we are really lost! A soldier Captain, the Indians are in thousands all around us Dalzell Don’t you think I know, you dumbskull! Fight like men! Don’t strand there jumping! Shoot for hell’s sake! Defend yourselves! (draws his sword, hitting the fleeing ones with the broadside, quarrels and tries to force his men to fight.) A soldier (to Rogers) We have no chance. We have to run for our lives. Dalzell (screams) Don’t disrupt the order! Don’t fall out of line! Fight bravely like men for England and the British Empire and our civilisation! They are just savages! Rogers Sir, we have to retreat. Dalzell Yes, but everything in good order! Men! Make a formation and let’s all retire in good order under cover of the fire of the major’s men! (A few Indians are seen stealing forth taking scalps of some already fallen.) A wounded sergeant (sees them) Help! Dalzell (sees the sergeant) I must help him. Or else they will scalp him alive. (tries alone to go to help the sergeant, gets shot, Indians come forth scalping him quickly, quietly and efficiently.) Rogers We can’t help him nor any other fallen man any more. Turn back!

(The English manage to protect themselves enough to be able to retreat. When they are gone, the scene is filled with exulting Indians taking scalps. The yelling and the gunfire continues. Finally blackout and absolute silence.)

Scene 2. Fort Detroit. Gladwyn (facing a sad bunch of badly wounded, who managed to come back alive) How many dead and wounded? Rogers Fifty-nine, Sir. Gladwyn I warned captain Dalzell. And how many Indians did you manage to kill? Rogers Twenty at most. Gladwyn A downright massacre on civilised people by wild barbarians! Rogers Sir, they were perhaps eight hundred. Gladwyn And you walked straight into their trap with drums and trumpets! (tired) Well, you didn’t know better. Just hear now what our scouts have to report as direct consequences of the Indian victory. Tell these brave survivors what you heard, MacGregor! MacGregor (a trapper) Pontiac is more powerful than ever. All Indians who earlier waited to see are now joining up with him. The war against the English-speaking America has become a national concern for all Indians. Gladwyn Do you understand what you have done? They are a force of several thousand murderous savages out there with their scalpels now! Several of you might still be eternalised by a scalp dangling from the belt of a screaming cannibal! We are to expect a storm attack at any moment. They have us all caught in their hands! They just need to squeeze their grip. But we will never give in. And if we are massacred to the last man, there will be others coming after us to take over. Rogers What shall we do, Sir? Gladwyn I don’t know. These Indians are like a force of nature. You never know where you have them or what they will find out to do next in their inconceivable capriciousness. They fight with nature for their means and weapons against us civilised educated human beings, who only learned to fight nature with all means. The struggle seems to be one between man and nature. And if nature really mobilizes all forces against man, what are then the chances of man? Rogers Sir, we are waiting for orders. Our captain is fallen, and we are now expecting orders from you. Gladwyn We have nothing else to do but to wait. It’s better to do nothing than to do something stupid. Go home to bed and lick your wounds. Eat and sleep until something happens, for then you will perhaps never be able to sleep or eat any more. Instead you might be eaten, like captain Campbell. Those are the only prospects for the future I can offer you now in this damned country. Rogers (to the invalids) At ease! (They march out.)

Gladwyn (thoughtfully) The devil knows if we shouldn’t have left the country in the first place. It belonged after all to the Indians from the beginning.

Scene 3. On board the ship. Darkness and fog. sailor 1 You can’t see your hand in front of you. 2 I feel the stench of treason a long way off. 3 Was it so wise to let those six iroqouis go ashore? captain Horst They were our friends. They just wished to visit their families. If we hadn’t given them leave they would have jumped over board anyway. sailor 4 We should have kept them by force and put them in irons! captain Why? sailor 4 For their treacherous intentions! captain And if they had been innocent? sailor 4 Every Englishman knows, that every Indian is a traitor. captain It may be true, that the only good Indian is a dead Indian, but still you can’t just kill them off without reason. You have to provoke them first into doing something stupid. sailor 1 Captain, I suspect some mischief out on the water. captain Double the watch! sailor 2 It doesn’t help. You can’t see anything anyway. sailor 3 First head wind all day, and then this impenetrable fog. We’ll never reach Detroit. sailor 4 (suddenly crying) Indians! They are here! Lots of them! captain Shoot, for hell’s sake! Fire the gun! (All start shooting wildly about. The cannon is fired. Indians come climbing on board with knives between their teeth.) sailor 1 Too late. (dies) (The fight gets fierce and bloody. Both whites and Indians are falling, but the Indians are constantly increasing in number.) Sailor 2 Captain, they are at least three hundred. captain And we are only twelve! We have no chance! But we must not give them the ship! Blow it up! an Indian They are going to blow up the ship. Indian 2 In that case, just let them. (The Indians leave the ship and jump over board again, all of them.) sailor 3 That was almost too narrow an escape. How many of us are dead? sailor 2 Two and four wounded. But we killed seven and wounded at least twenty. sailor 3 But they were ten times as many. How is the captain? Sailor 2 (turns the captain) Dead.

sailor 3 Sailor 2

Pity. But we saved the ship. At least something.

Scene 4. The chief of the Ojibwa Indians speaking to some trappers. Minavavana Englishmen, I am surprised at you. You say you bring peace, and that you wish to live in peace with us. Do you consider us so stupid that we could be fooled that easily? You speak with a cloven tongue, like the rattle snake, and then accuse us of being unreliable. We are reliability itself. For many years now we have helped our French brothers in their war against you, and the French king is our father. We will not fail him. It’s you yourselves, Englishmen, who wanted this war against the French and who started it, and you know very well that we are the French king’s children. How dare you then enter our country and take for granted that we will live in peace with you, when all you want is to take our country away from us? We have learned that our father the king of France is old and weak. The war against you has tired him out so that he has gone to sleep. While he slept you stole his country Canada away from him. But we are not sleeping, and we know that he will awake. And how do you then think you will be able to keep what you have stolen? Surely our father will come up the river to us and justly punish you to resume his country and give it back to us. Englishmen, you will know, that we can never be your slaves. If you can defeat the French it doesn’t mean that you can defeat us. For we are one with nature. We are this wilderness, these grand free lakes, these limitless mountains and forests, and who are you then that you could make all nature your slave? You are stupid, Englishmen, if you could imagine such a thing. I must warn you. The French king always showed us respect and gave us presents to prove his good will towards us. The English king never did that. You English have always treated us with contempt, spat at us, swore at us and avoided us, except now when you have come forth to kill us. No Indian therefore has any reason to believe any good of any Englishman. That’s why we are at total unending war against all English. However, you have come into our country without weapons with peaceful intentions and only wish to hunt and live. Therefore nothing evil will happen to you. You have articles that we gladly would obtain, and therefore we will gladly trade with you. We are especially interested in that like copper golden water, what is it you call it? trapper Whisky. Minavavana Yes, exactly, whisky. But I warn you. When it comes to fighting we stand on the side of all Frenchmen against all Englishmen, I have spoken. Now we can smoke the peace pipe. (sits down. They smoke.)

Scene 5. Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Commander Sir Jeffrey Amherst and colonel Henry Bouquet. Amherst Colonel Bouquet, this will not do any longer. Bouquet What more can we do than succour Fort Pitt and Fort Detroit? Amherst We can do so much more. The forts will hold. They can manage on what they have. What we can do is to fight! Have you heard what they did to Sir Robert Davies and lieutenant Robertson? Bouquet I gather they are dead, Sir? Amherst Yes, they are fallen, but not in battle. They were taken prisoners and tortured to death, colonel Bouquet. They were roasted to death over a small fire, colonel. They were roasted limb by limb, a little at a time, until they languished to death by the pain after five days! Then their hearts were eaten up, and their scalps were hanged as trophies around the belts of the savages! What do you say to that, colonel? Bouquet That’s what the Indians do also to their own enemies. They make no difference between Indians and whites in that matter. Amherst But we do, colonel Bouquet! We are civilised people! We don’t tolerate barbarity! The Indians have burnt and destroyed every fort between us and the lakes except Detroit and Fort Pitt. It will be your mission to succour Fort Pitt. At the same time we will boost the war to greater efficiency. Bouquet How, Sir? Amherst By any means. From now on there will be a bounty for every Indian. They seem to prefer fighting in the forests, where they are superior and at home, since they know their wilderness. What do you think about chasing Indians in the forests with dogs on leash? Bouquet Why not, Sir? No Englishman dares to go alone in a forest where there are warlike Indians, and the dog is man’s best friend. Amherst Exactly. The more dogs, the better. You can keep them on a leash in order to increase their appetite without the soldiers falling behind. One by one the red devils could be tracked down by bloodhounds and eliminated. But we have even better plans. Bouquet Sir? Amherst They like buying warm blankets from the white man. We infect the blankets with small pox, and then we export these blankets for charitably low prices to the enthusiastic Indians, as a proof of good will and friendliness. Then they may warm up and enjoy their blessed blankets as long as they live. Bouquet An infernal stratagem, Sir. Amherst It’s hard but fair! They are roasting our officers over slow fire! Bouquet Small pox does not primarily affect their warriors but their children, aged people and women.

Amherst So we impede the progeny! Thus at least we’ll get rid of them in the long run! Bouquet Sir, they are more vulnerable to small pox than we are. Amherst That’s just the reason why! So much the better! How many families have they turned homeless and without means in the settlements by burning their houses, murdering their fathers, scalping their mothers, kidnapping their children and flaying their old folks? At least a thousand families! And you dare have scruples? Bouquet It’s not scruples, Sir. It’s the method. Amherst And what’s wrong with the method except its possible efficiency? Bouquet It is foul, Sir. It is hitting below the belt. Amherst Hitting below the belt! You complain of a hit below the belt when they flay our children, scalp our mothers, devour our wives and torture our officers to death as slowly and painfully as possible! Bouquet Sir, it’s a sport of theirs to expose men to extreme tests of manhood. The more pain a man can endure, the more admirable he is in their eyes. To be exposed to torture is, according to their way of thinking, an honour. Amherst Not one word more, Bouquet! It will not do to defend bloodthirsty enemies! You will march tomorrow! And let the whole frontier know, that all England is marching on its way against the red barbarians with dogs and small pox. Bouquet Yes, Sir. One more thing, Sir. Amherst Well? Bouquet Two friends are applying for protection. Amherst Against the Indians? Bouquet Against the war. Amsherst Well? Bouquet The soldiers desire to kill them. Amherst Why? Bouquet (opens the door and lets them in. They are two Indians.) Amherst But they are Indians! Bouquet Yes, Sir, but a Mohegan and a Cayuga. The Mohegans and Cayuga Indians have always been friendly with all whites. These two have applied to us for protection with their families, but our countrymen wish to kill them. Amherst What are they asking for? Bodyguards? Bouquet No, just protection, Sir. Amherst (looks down) Very well. They shall have bodyguards. I will speak with the others about it. Go now. Bouquet Yes, Sir. (to the Indians) You will have all the protection you need. No one will be able to do you any harm. (leaves with the Indians.) Amherst (alone, thrusts the table with his fist) Scruples! You cannot have scruples in war! And especially not in a war with Indians!

Act IV scene 1. Bushy Run. Indian cries and gunsmoke in the forest. Bouquet Get back! Get back! They are too many! For God’s sake, don’t attack! They outnumber us three times! We can’t afford any more massacres! Disaster! Disaster! A corporal Sir, we have taken a prisoner. Bouquet One prisoner? corporal Yes, Sir, one prisoner. Bouquet And what the heck are we to do with one single prisoner when we have a hundred thousand murderers around us in the bush? corporal That’s just the problem, Sir, but the fact is that we have succeeded in taking one prisoner. Bouquet We neither have time nor room for any prisoners! We have to defend our lives against the predominance! What the hell are we to do with prisoners? corporal That’s just the problem, Sir. Bouquet Well, bring on the poor prisoner. (The prisoner is brought in, an ordinary Indian. Some twenty English soldiers bring him in.) A lieutenant Here is the prisoner, Sir. Bouquet But it’s just an ordinary Indian! corporal Yes, Sir. What did you expect? An Eskimo? Bouquet Don’t try to be funny, corporal. Well, you poor redskin, don’t you think we have enough of all your brothers out in the bush? What the hell are we to do with one more here in the middle of us? As if we didn’t have enough problems! Lieutenant Sir, what are we to do with the prisoner? Bouquet Do what you bloody well please! I am damned tired of all this most irregular war! (leaves the stage) Lieutenant That’s what I call clear instructions. corporal What are we to do with him, lieutenant? Lieutenant Yes, there is one thing clear. We can’t keep him, since we have to fight for our lives! a soldier Kill him! Another Yes, let him pay for all our hundred dead companions! A third It’s not more than fair! A fourth (to the Indian) You bloodthirsty murderer, you and your savages are slaughtering the whole peaceful population of America! A fifth You are on your way of exterminating us although we never did anything against you! A sixth All we wanted was to live in peace with you! (The soldiers appear constantly more threatening against the Indian, who is increasingly more terrified, fending himself with his hands.) The first Kill him! The second Let’s get it over with! corporal What do you say, lieutenant?

Lieutenant Well, I guess we have no choice. We can’t keep him anyway. Third soldier Get him, boys! Butcher him! The fourth We know what the redskins do with their white prisoners! (The soldiers attack the Indian with rifle butts and bayonets without waiting for further orders. The Indian disappears in their midst.) Lieutenant Stop! Wait! Corporal Too late. Lieutenant What the hell are you doing, you ruffians? (interferes and tries to separate the soldiers. These retire aside. The Indian is left alone in a twisted position entirely massacred.) corporal (examining him) He is dead. lieutenant (angry, to the soldiers) You are British soldiers, not bloody murderers! (looks furiously around them) You are here to make war on Pontiac’s armies, not to cowardly massacre a lone unarmed Indian! (Non one dares to speak.) Get back to the war! (The soldiers scatter. The lieutenant is left alone with the corporal.) I wish this had never happened. corporal Pontiac has a strange capacity for succeeding in turning the white man’s weapons against himself. Lieutenant He will not succeed with that in the long run! Let’s get back to the war, corporal! corporal Yes, Sir. (gets lost) lieutenant Damn it! (leaves the stage. The dead indian is left alone in the middle of it.)

Scen 2. Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The market with the state prison in the background. Some Paxton men appear as gang leaders. 1 It’s the fault of the damned quakers. Without them we would never have got this damned Indian war on all fronts. 2 But it’s still the Indians who make war and not the quakers. 3 But the quakers are protecting them! 4 It’s not fair! We have to have free hands against the Indians! 1 There is only one thing to do: exterminate all the Indians! 3 Yes, exterminate all Indians! 1 And let’s begin then with those who are here in town. 3 Yes, put an end to them! 2 But they have done no harm. They are Christians, and they have sought our protection just to get away from the war of their racial friends. 1 But they are Indians! 3 Are we then to maintain them and feed them and spoil them just to then let them take the scalps of our wives when there is spring again? Are we to allow cannibals to live at the cost of our Christian society? 1 That’s what the quakers want!

3 To hell with the quakers! 1 Come on! Let’s cut the process short! Let’s exume the vermin at once! To the prison! many To the prison! (They start on their way to the prison with torches and guns, a dangerous infuriated mob of mostly rowdy ruffians. A quaker stops them.) quaker Stop, my brothers! What do you intend to do with these weapons and angry countenances? Your looks bode no good. 1 Get out of the way, sanctimonious cannibal protector! Quaker I hope you will not do the Indians any harm? 1 (to his followers) We don’t wish any harm to the Indians, do we? Ha-ha-ha! (All rudely laugh him to scorn.) Quaker My brothers, you don’t know what you are doing! Don’t forget that the Indians here are our guests! (to his followers) The cannibals are the guests of the quakers! (more scornful laughter) (to the quaker) Listen, you imbecile society saboteur without any sense in your skull, you quakers are supporting the Indians in destroying all New England! From your comfortable settlements in the east, where all Indians long ago were extirpated, you preach that no evil should be done to any Indian, while the Indians all along the frontier in the west are murdering and burning our societies, men, women, children and old people! The only ones they spare are madmen like you, but you are out of their reach, for you live in safety far away from the front! So just shut your mouth and let those who are of any good manage the war! Quaker I forbid you, brothers! These Indians in the prison are from the Christian colony in Moravia, they are Christians like us and like yourselves, they suffered hardship and are mostly women and children, they were caught up by the war, they have sought protection here just to save their lives, they were placed in prison just because it was the safest place for them, and now you wish to harass them! 1 Out of the way, jerk! (strikes him down) Come on! (The mob carries on. The quaker is trampled down and is left behind them completely mangled.) Quaker (as they pass) Lord, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing! 1 (by the prison) Now we’ll let those devil have it! (shoots up the lock and breaks into the prison) Come on out, you devils! (No reaction. He fires a few shots at random. Screams and cries of anguish and despair are heard from the inside.) Throw in a torch to wake them up! (One of the men throws in a torch.) There! Now we have some light inside! (fires again. More horrible screams, more heart-rending than at first.) Indian 1 (comes out with his hands up) Don’t shoot! We are your brothers! We are Christians! 1 (shoots him down in cold blood) Listen to him! 3 Forward, boys! Finish them off! Let no one get away!

(The mob attacks and the massacre begins. You see Indian women and children come tottering out, wounded and dying, while the slaughter goes on. Finally they are all dead, and everything is quiet.) 1 There! That was all! Let’s now go on to the next town! (The mob cheers and follow him with exulting enthusiasm. They vanish from the scene.) Quaker (alone left in the square) What villainy! What an outrageous villainy! And they were just peaceful Indians who wanted to become English like us! O God, can you allow such things to happen and allow the white man’s society to go on? (cries and complains and beats the ground with his fists.)

Scene 3. Fort Detroit, October 1763. Lieutenant An Indian mission is here, Sir. Gladwyn What do they want? Lieutenant Peace, Sir. Gladwyn Is it Pontiac himself? Lieutenant No, it’s another of the lesser chiefs. He doesn’t represent the Ottawa Indians but only the Ojibwas and the Pottawattamies. Gladwyn Let’s hear then what he has to say. Lieutenant (opens the door) Please come in, Wapocomoguth. (Wapocomoguth, chief of the Mississippi Indians, enters with some Indian followers.) Gladwyn I have heard that you desire peace, Wapocomoguth. Wapocomoguth The Mississauga Indians have always lived in peace with the English. Gladwyn Still you mean that you also express the wish of the Ojibwa and the Pottawattami Indians. Wapocomoguth I have been chosen by them to negotiate peace. Gladwyn Have you then tired of making war against the white man? Wapocomoguth It is autumn, and winter is approaching day by day. We Indians live according to nature, and we have to adapt to her order. That is why it is our wish to depart from here to our winter quarters. But before we depart we want to have accomplished a peace treaty with you. Gladwyn So you want peace because of the winter. And what happens when spring comes? Will you then attack us again? Wapocomoguth I answer here for the Ojibwa and the Pottawattami Indians. The great war chief Pontiac will have to answer for himself and his Ottawa tribes. We depart probably never to return. Gladwyn You probably have the best intentions in the world, Wapocomoguth, but I don’t trust Pontiac and the other chiefs. I will gladly make a peace treaty with you, but tell Pontiac and the others, that we will never give up, that we will always bring new supplies and weapons here, that we constantly have new reinforcements, and that we intend to crush Pontiac and the Ottawa tribe if anyone dares to attack us again in spring.

Wapocomoguth That is good. Let us smoke the peace pipe to seal the lasting peace between Englishmen and the Ojibwa and Pottawattami tribes. (The peace pipe is lit.) Gladwyn May I only ask: why do you suddenly give up so easily? Wapocomoguth The great Pontiac has become uncertain. He has heard that the French have let him down. Gladwyn So he believed in the support of the French all the way until now? Wapocomoguth Yes. Gladwyn Poor Pontiac. (They smoke.)

Scene 4. Pontiac’s camp by the Maumee river. Morris arrives at the camp. Pontiac receives him standing with his arms crossed surrounded by his warriors. Morris offers his hand, Pontiac refuses it. A Frenchman in French officer’s uniform, Saint-Vincent, supporting himself on his rifle with the butt to the ground, is also at Pontiac’s side. Saint-Vincent Pontiac does not accept any white man’s offered hand, since he knows that the other hand conceals a dagger behind the white man’s back. Morris I come alone and unarmed as an ambassador of peace. Saint-Vincent You speak for yourself, but those you represent have worse intentions than you. Pontiac Englishman, you come here in vain, for it is Pontiac’s experience that all Englishmen are base liars. Morris I am not lying when I tell you that peace has been made with the Ojibwa and Pottawattami tribes. Pontiac But you are lying when you say that you bring peace. Englishmen want to buy lands from us to then drive us off the lands and constantly force us to move further away. They take for granted that free men of the wild will die out. They take no responsibility themselves for their share in our expulsion. They give us whiskey and rum in unlimited supplies and spread their spotty sore disease among us so that we die, and then they say we die out from natural reasons. Morris Great Pontiac, all Englishmen are not like that. Pontiac No, but most of them are. And they are all liars or deceived naïve victims of the lies of their chiefs. You say that the French have left America and made peace with you. Here is a letter from New Orleans that speaks the opposite! (shows a letter which he hands over to Morris) Morris (reads) "Your French father is neither dead nor fallen asleep. He is already on his way with sixty big ships across the sea to revenge himself on the English and eradicate them from America.” Great Pontiac, this if anything is unfortunately a lie. Pontiac What dare you say so openly, you mean liar?

Morris It is a lie invented by embittered French Canadians to fool you into perdition in a fatal and devastating war against us. The French hate us so intensively that they don’t hesitate to send innocent Indians in meaningless suicidal attacks against us. Pontiac Would the French be as great liars as the English? Morris I am afraid so. Pontiac But who is then to be trusted? Morris All you can trust is peace. Pontiac The peace of the Englishmen, who bring liquor and small pox to exterminate us more efficiently than by an honest regular war? Morris (looks down and is ashamed) Saint-Vincent He is ashamed of his white people, great Pontiac. Pontiac If he hasn’t anything better to say, I can’t protect his life against my warriors. Morris I will tell you whom you can trust, great Pontiac. Pontiac Well? Morris You can’t trust a single white man in all America. The white man has only come here to take your land away from you, and when he has succeeded in exterminating you he will start a civil war against himself. The white man has only come to America to destroy America. Therefore, never trust any white man. Pontiac (amazed) At last you speak a language that I understand. (gives a warrior a sign. He comes forth, and Pontiac receives a worn and torn book from him. Pontiac gives it to Morris.) Here is a gift for you from us. Morris (examines the book with wonder) Where did you find it? Pontiac With a dead English officer. Explain what it is. Morris It is the collected works of Shakespeare. Pontiac (not understanding) Shakespeare? Morris Our wisest man in England. Here are all his thoughts. Pontiac Are there Englishmen who think? Morris At least there have been. Pontiac Go home in peace, Englishman. No harm will come to you. And tell your people that they would do best in going home to England and start thinking, like that wise man. Morris They will laugh at me and at you, like they first laughed at Shakespeare. Pontiac Only fools laugh, but sooner or later their laughter sticks in their throats. We despise laughing fools, and we kill them as easily and without distinction as vermin, but we revere thinkers and divine madness, which harms no man. But you Englishmen harm everyone by your greed. All the world will hate you one day and war against you until your power has been smashed. We Indians only want freedom, but you English only want power. Power is the enemy of freedom. You will never be free yourselves until you lose all power. Morris I will tell that to my brothers. Pontiac Do so. Go.

(Morris leaves.) Saint-Vincent Well, Pontiac, will you carry on your war? Pontiac Do we have any choice? Also that Englishman was just an Englishman, and even if he understood his thinker’s book, he was rather alone. Also you, Frenchman, are alone. The majority of the whites will still remain equally destructive to us, our country and our future. Saint-Vincent You are right, great Pontiac.

Scene 5. Illinois, Fort Chartres. Pierre Laclede The Indian is here now. Sainte-Ange Do I have to meet him? Laclede We might as well get it over with. Saint-Ange Why is he coming? Doesn’t he know that we have made peace with the English? We don’t want any more trouble now. Tell him to go to hell with his war madness. Laclede Pontiac is far too wise a man to engage in war madness. Saint-Ange So what did he engage in so far? Children’s care? The care of old people? Laclede He is still at the head of eighteen Indian tribes, and all Indians look up to him. Saint-Ange His case is lost. He and his men have murdered two thousand whites and turned double as many homeless. In the future English-speaking America he can never be regarded as anything else than an outlawed murderer. Laclede Tell it to him, so that he might understand it. Saint-Ange I don’t wish to provoke him. Laclede He is not the one to be provoked. Saint-Ange Well, I might as well see him then. But nothing good will come of our meeting. It will only be the worse for himself. Laclede I think he is aware of it. I think all he wants is clear information. Surely he is entitled to it. Saint-Ange Show him in. (Laclede leaves.) This will be the most painful moment of my life. France has sacrificed America and the Indians to the British for a sultry peace, and I am the one who will have to explain the French treason of America to the noblest chief of the Indians, while the English have free hands to exterminate the Indians with rum, whiskey and small pox. Why am I a Frenchman! (Pontiac enters.) Welcome, great chief. Pontiac I greet you, the friend of the Indians of France. Saint-Ange What do you want? Pontiac I see that the French flag is still waving over Illinois. Saint-Ange It’s only until the English will arrive. Pontiac Will they arrive?

Saint-Ange Colonel Bouquet has subjected all Ohio and pacified Delaware, Shawanoo and the Miami tribes. Sooner or later they will come here, and then we must go. Pontiac Is France giving up that easily? Saint-Ange My friend, most Frenchmen are innocent. It’s those who have the power who have given up so easily. Pontiac So they sacrifice all the Indians of America and all the Frenchmen of Canada just for their conveniance? Saint-Ange They have no other choice. It costs too much to keep America French. Pontiac So the French have sold America for money? Saint-Ange I guess you could say that. Pontiac (gives up) When the English said they had defeated you we could not believe them. We thought they were lying as they always do. We never thought that you Frenchmen, whom we served so faithfully and fought for during so many years, would turn over our land to the English. We never thought you could obey the English, when they forbade you to send traders to our villages to offer us what we needed. You French have proved yourselves like women, and you abandoned us without a word and let our women and children freeze and starve to death while we continued sacrificing our lives for you without knowing that you already had failed us. We always managed better without you, but we supported you because we thought you were on our side. Instead you sold our country to the English for money, a country you never owned yourselves and which you never had the right to sell or give away. You have given the English power to exterminate us by their laws, the free red people of America, as they please. They are now bribing all my remaining warriors with floods of rum, and my warriors drink it without suspecting it will be their death, and that’s why they give them their rum for nothing. Frenchmen, I deplore you, for you are worse than Englishmen. (leaves) Saint-Ange (alone, after a moment’s consideration) The worst thing about it is that he is right.

Act V scene 1. St. Louis. An alehouse. All are drinking. The customers are exclusively declining individuals, English and French as well as Indians. Two trappers sit by a table opposite each other drinking. Trapper 1 (Jack) Have you made any good deals lately? Trapper 2 (Tom) Most Indians are still easy to cheat. Few of them have understood how balance and scales really work. In ordinary villages no one can understand how the white man weighs out three pounds of furs to make it weigh only one pound. Jack And those damned devils are so thirsty that they will give anything for any drop of rum. The bar keepers make splendid business on diluting some rum for

the Indians with twice as much water. They only drink the more and pay the full price anyway. Tom Yes, when those bastards are extinct it will be difficult for all the con men of America to support themselves. Jack But so far it works, if you are just somewhat methodic. It’s still good business to shoot Indians. In some places you still get 134 dollars for every Indian scalp of men over ten years and 50 dollars for every Indian woman scalp of over ten years. Tom How is it possible? Jack The peace is generally known only in the most peaceful regions in the east, where there are no longer any Indians. But you can’t just shoot any Indians for nothing. You can only shoot fully fledged paleface haters with a good conscience, and only the aged ones, who no longer work or make war, are worth taking the scalps of, for they cannot be cheated either. Tom But no one has succeeded in killing Pontiac. Jack No, he is still alive, and as long as he lives no white man will be safe in America. Tom I have a hot tip. (lowers his voice) He has managed this long only because he kept away in the wilderness. But now he is on his way here. Jack Why? Tom To meet the governor. They will seal the peace treaty together. Jack Do you believe it? Do you think Pontiac could ever make peace with any white man? Tom He could appear to do it, but he could never mean it. Jack Exactly what I think. Tom So he will remain a mortal danger as long as he lives. Jack And will you allow this opportunity to pass by? Tom Never. The thing is that no white man can kill Pontiac. That would only mean a total Indian war again. Jack How could you then kill him? Tom There is only one possible method. I have thought it over for a long time. (puts his hand over a bottle, lowers his voice even more) There are some thirsty Indians who can’t afford to pay for their liquor. They would do anything just to be able to drink themselves to death for as long as possible. Jack You think it’s possible to persuade an Indian to murder Pontiac? Tom It’s the only way. All whites would welcome and bless the deed, and only Indians would get the blame. Jack It’s ingenious. Tom At least it’s worth a try. (catches sight of an Indian by the bar.) Check that one. indian (to the bartender) I tell you I need liquor! bartender No money, no credit, no liquor. indian But I got to have liquor!

bartender Pay first what you owe. Or else you will be thrown out. indian But I got to have liquor! Now! Tom (to Jack) There is our man. (approaches the bar) Black Cat, do you want liquor? indian (turns around) Yes. Tom You will get as much as you want. I will pay. But in return you have to do something for us. indian Is it difficult? Tom No, it’s very easy for an old experienced warrior like you. It’s just a moment’s job. indian And then I will have as much liquor as I want? Tom Yes, for the rest of your life. Jack (to himself) It will not be long. indian Tell me what I am supposed to do. Tom Come along here. (brings the Indian with him to the table. The three men lower their voices so that no one can hear what they say.)

Scene 2. At the governor’s. governor So then at least the peace is confirmed by oath. I thank you, great Pontiac, for wanting to accept our agreement on behalf of all your Indian tribes. Pontiac I had no other choice. governor I hope though that you are serious and sincere and don’t carry any anger still in your heart or any second intentions. Pontiac I only wish to ask a few questions on behalf of my people. governor Please go ahead. Pontiac You English devote yourselves to systematical extirpation of my people. (The governor wants to protest.) Listen first to what I have to say. My people had the choice between being absorbed by your way of living or to move west to there find themselves in conflict with the Dakota. They wished for neither. Therefore they decided to make war. Unfortunately I could not keep the eighteen tribes together for more than fifteen months, for they allowed themselves to be bribed by the fire water of the English, and at home their wives and children died of the small pox of the English. Against such an enemy not even my bravest warriors could fight. You have won by your liquor and your small pox. What I want to ask is this: How do you think, white man, with all your splendid civilisation, that you could build a lasting and happy society on the grave of a free and natural people who you eliminated by such means? governor Is that your question? Pontiac Yes. Governor (after a pause) My friend, I can only tell you as it is. Only the future can answer it. I can myself no more than apologise for my people’s behaviour, well aware of how insufficient such an apology is. One man cannot apologise for a people

of several millions, and most of my people would never even think of trying to make any apology themselves. But here at least is one lonely white man who begs you, Pontiac, to accept his apology. Will you accept it? (offers his hand) Pontiac (accepts it) White father, why are you wise and good palefaces so few? Among thousands I have only met two or three. Why do you tolerate all the others, the rabble and the majority of rotten eggs? governor That question also can only be answered by the future. Pontiac (lets go of his hand) I walk from here without hatred and curses in my heart. But I wish to give the white man one word for a farewell. The red man has never cursed or ruined his country. All hatred and curses have come from the white man. governor Thank you, Pontiac. (Pontiac leaves.) He knows very well that his people now must perish, and still he is not the least bitter or revengeful. The like of patience and stoicism I have never seen. An extraordinary man. (sits and returns to his desk work.)

Scene 3. A dark forest. You hear Pontiac singing medicinal songs. Pontiac The Great Spirit rules over all spirits, all humans and animals. His whims are like the wind but far more potent than the hurricane, everything is swept along by the power of his will; but with the same unpredictability as his will causes impossible revolutions on our earth, he could the next day blow from a totally different direction to everything he started. Our Delaware prophet proclaimed the Great Spirit’s will when he revealed to us the necessity of our war, and the same Delaware prophet proclaimed with the same conviction that the war should be interrupted and concluded. What the Great Spirit really means by his unfathomable capriciousness no one will ever understand. You can just follow along, like a leaf in the will of an omnipotent thunderstorm. It’s still only the Great Spirit himself who wins and who implements his own will, which no one ever will be able to grasp or understand. indian Are you singing your death song, powerless chief? Pontiac Who are you? indian They call me the Black Cat. Pontiac You talk with the tongue of a white man. You are drunk. indian I know. Pontiac Are you hired to murder me? indianen Yes. The white man dares not take the risk of letting you live on. Pontiac So the white man murders me after I made eternal peace with him. indianen That’s the white man’s law. Pontiac The white man defends his crimes by laws that absolve him from having to think by himself.

indianen It’s the white man’s law. Pontiac The white man’s law is his established folly. It will be his own destruction. But by hurting others he will only harm himself. A French priest taught me early, that he will suffer more and longer who causes harm than his victims. It hurts more at length to do harm than to suffer harm. indian Now you are speaking with the white man’s tongue. Pontiac I am just a man. Even among the whites there were a few wise religious exceptions. indian I am not one of them. Pontiac No, you are like most whites under the influence of the fire water. indian That’s the white man’s power which no Indian can resist. Pontiac The dependence on means of intoxication is the white man’s curse, misfortune and his own destruction. Unfortunately he has managed to drag our people with him into his own death trap. indian But his destruction is enjoyable. Pontiac Is it then enjoyable to be a fool? Where do you find this joy? indian In the forgetfulness of yourself and all sorrows, in the insensibility and freedom from responsibility. Pontiac In other words: in suicide. Then I must prefer life with all its pains, its wholesomeness, clarity of mind and freedom in the home of eternal nature, where you find the spirit. But death is only the contrary to the spirit, and you advocate death, the white man’s adoration of and inclination to suicide. For me that is a disease and no sacred mental madness. Such a mental illness is not even worth any respect. indian You can’t talk me away, Pontiac, or the white man and his history. He is here to stay, and we must tolerate him and obey him unto death, for we have no choice. Pontiac Yes, we have a choice. It’s easy to say no. But like the French you have allowed yourself to be bought and not by money but by destructive intoxication means. That is even lower than the filth of a dirty animal. indian It’s our only chance of survival, for we can’t survive any longer as Indians. Pontiac Can you then survive as slaves and beasts in the humiliation of the white man’s service? Is it not just a long interminable horrible death, to get stuck in a swamp and drown in unendurable slowness? Is there any worse destiny than to relinquish your freedom for dishonour unto death? indian We can’t get away from it anyway. Then it’s just to forget all about life. You could not become one of us, Pontiac, you couldn’t even follow us into the hell of compromising with the white man’s law with fire water as your only comfort. You are lost, for the white man has so decided. He can’t tolerate exceptions from the life service to liquor and capitalism. Pontiac I am free although I die. But you are dead although you live. indian Prove it! (raises suddenly his tomahawk and strikes it home in Pontiac’s head.)

So die then, Pontiac, in freedom, if you can. But you can never convince me with the same power as the liquor, which at least is real and has some effect! (Pontiac falls. The Indian strikes again several times to make sure. When Pontiac is dead he sneaks away from the place.) (The audience has at most been able to see vague silhouettes.)

Scene 4. Bouquet severely ill in fever somewhere in the south. He is lying in his camp bed in only his shirt, sweating badly.) Bouquet (lamenting) I only asked for permission to get away from the vicious Indian war, not to be transferred to the murderous swamps of the south! (enter an adjutant.) You look upset. What news? adjutant Colonel, New England is revolting against London! It was because of that tax on tea in Boston. Bouquet Tell me! adjutant One night a band of Indians stole out to the ships and boarded them. They threw all the tea over board. Bouquet Was it real Indians? adjutant No, they were American rebels. They had dressed up as Indians. Bouquet (to himself) Now it begins. – You may leave. (the adjutant leaves.) Now it begins. Now the wild Americans start throwing out all faithful Englishmen from America. They want to relieve England of a heavy responsibility and take it over themselves without realizing what it means. We succeeded in overcoming and pacifying the Indians only to then be forced to leave their land over to the plunderers and murderers of the Indians. You brave new people, what reward will I now get for succeeding in subjecting the Indians to your future, I who didn’t even receive any other reward by the English but for this miserable sentry-duty in the feverish south? I will probably die here, forgotten by all America as the Swiss outsider I am. Well, at least the British crown will now be free from all further involvement in the destiny of the Indians. May the American republicans assume that responsibility themselves as long as they can bear with it. I have reasons to be content, for I have got my final reward: American death fever in the south for undesirable heroes who didn’t like their work as heroes. (writhing and sweating in his fever.)

Scene 5. An Indian camp Soldier Here it is, Sir. officer How could you find them? Soldier It took years, Sir. officer It doesn’t matter now that we have found them. The point is that they live and are well. Soldier I must warn you, Sir. officer Against what? Soldier Your wife and daughter are no longer quite the same. officer I can well believe that after so many years in Indian captivity. Soldier Sir, I have warned you. (leaves) officer Why did he walk away? Well, it doesn’t matter. I am expected and have nothing to fear. These Indians are peaceful. It’s just for me to enter the camp and collect them. (enters the camp.) an Indian White man, you have come to collect your wife and daughter. You are welcome. officer Thank you. Where are they? Indian Here in the tent. (opens the tent. A white lady and girl come out. They are dressed as Indians.) officer Mary! (hurries forth, embracing his wife.) After so many years! (cries in her bosom.) Mary! Don’t you recognize me? Wife Yes. You were my husband. officer And that I am still! I am alive and you are alive, and our daughter is alive! This is the miracle! After so many years’ divorce and after such a long imprisonment on your part! How terrible your lives must have been! Wife The Indians have always treated us well with respect. officer So much the better! (turns to his daughter) Susannah! Don’t you recognize your own daddy? (embraces her.) wife She doesn’t speak English. officer Haven’t you taught her English? Wife She didn’t want to speak it. She only speaks the language of the Indians. officer Wife, what do you mean? She is our own daughter! Wife John, why have you come here? officer To get you back, of course! You must be longing to get home after three years of captivity among wild Indians? Wife John, our home is here among the Indians. officer Mary, what are you saying? Wife Our daughter knows no people but the Indians. She knows no other life than the Indian life. Look yourself how cold and uncertain she is in facing you. officer Have you then been so barbarized that you no longer are civilized? Wife John, it would have been better if you never had found us. officer What is it you are saying?

Wife The truth. We don’t know you any more, and our daughter does not want to have anything to do with the white man’s world. She wants to be free, and I understand her. officer Free? Among these savages? Wife They are our brothers and sisters. We have no other family. Like them we live only for our freedom with nature, with the wind, with the free wilderness and the free spirit. officer Mary, I don’t recognize you. Wife John, you have to make a choice. We will never return with you to the white man’s world. Either you stay with us and become one of us, or you walk back alone and leave us alone. officer (stiffly rising, completely paralysed, understands nothing and finds no words. After a while:) Is there no hope? Wife We have made up our minds. officer I will come back. When I come back you must have changed your minds. Wife When you come back our camp has moved to a different location out of reach of the white man. officer Nothing is out of reach for the white man and his civilisation. Wife Yes, John. You will never get back your wife and daughter. officer But why? Wife Ask Pontiac. Ask the Indian who killed him for rum and who was instantly executed. Ask all those Indians who died in the Indian civil war after his death. Ask the tribe that was eradicated for the sake of Pontiac’s murderer, because the white man told the Indians who had done it. Take the bearings of the white man’s evil if you can, John. No white man can do that. In the same way you will never again be able to find your wife and daughter. (leaves him with her daughter.) officer (remaining standing alone with his head bent) Indian Is the white man satisfied? officer (looking stupidly at him) What do you mean? Indian Has he found his wife and daughter? officer (absent) No, my friend. Not yet. I was wrong. Some other time. (walks away dejected. The Indian looks after him and then disappears back into the camp.)

The End.

(1992, translated into English in June 2021)

Atala Romantic drama from the wilderness, after René de Châteaubriand by Christian Lanciai (2005)

The Characters: a bartender an Indian drunks Lopez Chief of the Muscogans seven Muscogan Indians Atala Father Aubry 3 cowboys The action takes place in the early part of the 19th century in Saint-Augustine, Florida, and in the wild regions north of Louisiana.

Ackt I scene 1. A saloon. Drunks, cowboys, alkoholic Indians, gamblers and ladies of doubtful reputation. bartender You have had enough, Uncas. Indian I can never get enough. drunk 1 Let him drink, Mac, so that he may drink himself to death. Indian That’s right, buddy. Only a dead Indian is a good Indian. drunk 1 Give him what he takes, Mac. He is my guest. bartender I advise against it, Uncas. Indian I am used to constantly being more humiliated. What else can you whites do with us once so free Indians? You came here with your licentious culture of sex, rape and violence, the purpose of which was only to cleanse the country from its free and natural inhabitants, in order to be able to exploit it to death yourselves. What else can we do then than to get drunk? The fire water is the only positive thing you brought with you, for at least it deafens and makes us forget. drunk 1 Refill his glass, Mac. He can take anything. bartender As long as you pay… drunk 1 Of course I pay. Lopez (has followed the scene, now comes up to join them next to the Indian) My friend, what are you doing here in town who should be with your brothers out in the wild? Indian They are all lost. Lopez Is it us the whites who have exterminated you?

Indian Not only. A disaster never comes alone. First it was the small pox. Then we were chased away from our homeland by the whites. Then there were tribal wars which forced us to move on. No one wants to have anything to do with exiled Indians. So we were all scattered and are dying. That’s how I stranded in town, for here at least there is liquor. Drunk 1 Get him drunk! Let him perform! Let him sparkle with his pathetic pathos! Let him make us laugh at him! Another drunk It’s not just only all dead Indians who are the only good Indians. There are also ridiculous Indians who are funny when they get drunk and fall around. They can’t take alcohol. Lopez (to the Indian) Come with me, my friend. You don’t belong here. Indian What can you do to soften my destiny, my good man? Lopez I have had plenty to do with Indians. I know them. I can listen to you, and we could perhaps learn something from each other. Indian Do you speak our language? Lopez I lived for several years with the Natchez Indians and speak both their language and the gesture language. Indian Then you are one of us and could understand us. I would like to hear your story. Lopez Perhaps you know some people I used to know. Come, let’s get away from here. Let’s leave these drunks to drink up their own medicine themselves. Indianen I will follow you, my good man, since you don’t seem completely unnatural. What is your name? Lopez Call me Lopez. What is yours? Indian My name is Chactas. Lopez Welcome to my home, brother Chactas. All that is mine shall be yours. Indian You speak like an Indian. Lopez Come, let’s go. (They leave the joint.) Scene 2. Lopez' apartment. Chactas You good man, you have been like a father to me and brought me back to life and restored to me my faith in the worth of living. Only your Christian religion I will never be able to embrace. Lopez What then is wrong about it? What do you have against the love and suffering of Jesus Christ? Chactas Nothing, but I don’t like the result of your religion. In the name of it you have invaded our country and stolen it away from us without right and caused us natives unsurveyable sufferings. With your religion you preach love but only cause hatred by your presumptions of power and self-sufficiency and your ruthlessness,

which is the absolute contrary to love. We Indians don’t understand and don’t like your Christian double standards, my good father Lopez. Lopez I understand you. I have lived with the Indians. We whites have committed unforgivable crimes against you Indians, but no one is more aware of that than I, for I have loved you. But it is not the fault of the Christian religion. It is only good in itself and only means well by its exclusively peaceful and loving intentions. Chactas Why then does it cause so much suffering? Father Lopez, I can’t consider you Christians as anything else than deceited and brainwashed by a sham system of indoctrination. Lopez I am sorry, my son. Are we then all liars? Chactas No, father Lopez, only clueless victims. But the worst thing is that it seems to be incurable. Therefore I must leave you, beloved father. You have helped me to get away from the tenmptations of the fire water, for that I am infinitely grateful, but I must return to my own life and find my brothers in the wilderness, if I still have any. Perhaps there are still some uprooted tribal friends erring about in the forests of the north. Lopez You do as you wish, my friend. You are born free and have the right of a free life. And I can only wish you the best of luck. Chactas Thank you, father. I value your blessing higher than your entire religion. Lopez Go in peace, my son, and find your freedom and your happiness. Chactas Thank you, father. I will do my best. (leaves) Lopez A wild native, but perhaps wiser and at least freer than any Christian. Perhaps he will one day return and let me know if he found anything on his wayward journey.

Scene 3. In the forest. Chactas Where are you, my brothers? I have searched for you all over the continent in these wild forests but only been led astray by random rumours. Am I then the only survivor of an entire tribe and people? I only know that I am lonelier than ever, since there is no way out of the Indian death trap of the unprotected ethnic minority in the hands of the whites. Indian 1 (suddenly appearing with a spear) Surrender! Chactas Who are you? Indian 1 (yells wildly; several warlike Indians appear surrounding Chactas, who has no chance.) It doesn’t matter! But you are a Natchez Indian! It shows from afar! And you were our mortal enemies! Chactas Then you must be Muscogans or Siminolans. Indian 2 Right! No Natchez Indian can expect any mercy from us! Chactas My father and grandfather have taken more than a hundred scalps of the Muscogan heroes.

Indian 3 Don’t you think we know? That’s why a Natchez is more abominable to us than all the whites! Indian 1 You will have the great honour of getting burned alive in our greatest village! Chactas I thank you for that honour and have no fear of death, since you have already killed all my relatives. Indian 2 The last one shall be our noblest victim! Indian 3 We will exult in performing our wildest war dance around your funeral pyre, which is the last thing you will see in life while you slowly die in atrocious pains! Chactas I am deeply honoured and thankful for it. Indian 1 Take him away! (Chactas is bound and taken away.)

Act II scen 1. The camp. Chief Tie him up with hands and feet! Put a noose around his neck as well, and put five warriors on guard of him each one by his rope’s end, and let them pull hard if he makes trouble! Indian 1 He has tried to erscape several times and will surely try again. Chief Show no mercy! He is a Natchez and has even been living with the whites, so he is contaminated by their posisonous civisation! Indian 2 I knew it! He is poisonous! Indian 3 More than that! He is mortal! Chief Watch him carefully! None of our five warriors may leave any of his fettering ropes until the council has decided the best way to sacrifice him and send him to his forefathers who caused us such irrepairable damage through the centuries! Indian 1 Let him vanish up in smoke! Send him to the Great Spirit! Chactas You will never get rid of me, for we will all meet with the Great Spirit sooner or later. Chief If you dare to quarrel as well, you cursed worm’s fry of the poisonous tribe of Natchez, we could gag you as well. Chactas You are welcome to torture me to death, I promise not to cry out until I have come out of reach of you on the other side of death, for physical pain means nothing to me, especially if it is caused by my deadliest enemies out of sheer sadistic vanity. Chief You are brave and you shall live long enough to be able to experience a long and painful death, and just because you promise not to complain of whatever extreme pains we propose to treat you with, we will make a sport of torturing you to death as slowly and carefully as possible. If you still complain we shall laugh at your weakness. Chactas It will be me who will laugh at you after death.

Chief That’s enough! Execute the sentence! (Chactas is stretched out on the ground with five warriors at the end of each rope tied around his hands, feet and throat, in a square.) Indian 2 Thus you can’t move without any of your guards being awakened and the rope being tightened! Chactas You are just playing games. It’s always the victim that triumphs. Indian 3 Your way to triumph after death will be long and difficult, and on that way you will fall and wail and give in to your deadly pains many times. Chactas Just torture me to death. I will only laugh at you. Indian 1 Your laughter will get stuck in your throat since the least spiteful noise from your throat will be throttled immediately! (pulls the rope of the noose) Indian 2 Don’t strangle him! We have to see him flounder first! (pulls a rope around one of Chactas’ feet) Indian 3 Not only flounder but also fence! (pulls a rope around Chactas’ hand) Indian 4 (pulls another rope around Chactas’ other foot) Fence and flounder now until you get quartered! Indian 1 In five parts! The head belongs to me! (pulls) Atala (enters) No, my friends, wait with the torture until he will be put to death. Let him flourish until then, so that his death struggle will be as prolonged as possible. Drink and live, brave warrior, as long as you can. (gives him something to drink from a jug.) Chactas Who are you, lovely maid, from another and better world? Atala Just an Indian, like yourself. Indian 1 She is the daughter of the chief and is called Atala. Chactas Pardon me, sweet Atala, but your impression as an Indian is not quite convincing, since you are too light for this dark and warlike world. Atala Every woman is that in the face of a warrior who is about to meet his death. It’s only natural of you to see me in that light. Indian 2 You offer something to drink to a doomed prisoner who has been slave with the whites and there acquired his canine madness as the dog he is, but not to us. Atala Then I must fetch some more, if you all want to drink. Indian 3 Do so, good princess, and we shall sleep better afterwards. Atala I will do so. (leaves with her jug) Chactas (aside) An angelic beauty like from a higher world and not at all like ordinary Indian women. If she wasn’t the chief’s own daughter, I would say she was of some mixed blood, but I dare not express my suspicion concerning her possible intentions… Indian 4 Keep still, you monkey, or we will break your bones! (pulls the rope) Chactas Lie still yourself, you wriggling snake, so that I at least could have some sleep my last night of living! Indian 1 No risk. Your fate will be settled before dawn. The council is having a meeting now to immediately decide what kind of running the gauntlet into death you shall have.

Chactas The sooner, the better, so that I will be rid of you. Indian 1 We will make sure enough that you will not get away so easily. (pulls the rope) Chactas You humbugs, you can torture me but not kill me as long as the council just keeps ranting away my case! Indian 1 Yes, we can torture you, and we enjoy it and will go on enjoying it as long as we may. (pulls his rope) (The stage is slightly moved to the right showing the Indians at the council.) Chief I think that we should burn him slowly, so that he is charred from the feet upwards hanging tied by his arms from a tree. Indian 5 I must insist on his running the gauntlet first, so that we may test him and see what he can take, just to first make him soft enough. Indian 6 Grease him with honey and hang him from a tree with ants and bees, so that he gets eaten in the same time that he gets charred. Indian 7 Before he dies in that manner we should throw him into a bag with two wild cats, so that he wakes up first. Chief Then no one will see him die. Atala (has come up behind her father, takes him softly round his neck from behind) Why not let him live and become one of us? He has been with the whites and could be of great help by his experience as a spy. Chief You don’t know the Natchez, my daughter. They will never lose their stripes but remain lethal to everyone else for the rest of their lives. Atala The risk is that he will survive whatever you do, since you really don’t want to kill him. Chief We have to kill him. The question is how we shall do it but still acquire his spirit. Indian 5 It won’t work unless he dies within our sight. Indian 6 Exactly. Atala I leave you to your council, but don’t let it go on all night. Then you might get sleepy and forget all about it. indian 7 There is something in what Atala says. We are already tired and have heavy eyelids. Chief It will pass if we just reach an agreement. Atala The longer you go on, the wiser you will get. Indian 5 My view exactly. Indian 6 So let’s just carry on. Chief Where were we now? How far had we reached? Indian 7 Half way. Chief No further? Indian 7 We know the sum but not the formula. Indian 6 You mean we know what weather we’ll have but not how we’ll get it. Indian 5 Yes, we understand the message but not the meaning. Indian 6 That’s the same thing.

Indian 5 That’s what I mean. (Atala has passed on to Chactas and the warriors, and the scene is turned back.) Atala You must be tired of being so on edge of guarding a chained bear. Here I have brought you something to drink. (offers them something to drink) Indian 1 You bestow life and joy on us, princess. 2 More than that. We get more than death to live for. 3 More than that. You make us relax, 4 The eternal womanly makes us feel like real men. Atala Yes, you are really brave who dare to guard so mortally dangerous a prisoner as this Natchez. Indian 1 Give us some more to drink, princess! 2 Yes, it really tastes delicious. 3 You don’t need to save anything for our doomed prisoner. 4 What does the council say? Atala They just keep on discussing and will soon be asleep. 4 That’s how board meetings always end. 3 It’s infallible. You get sleepy just by thinking of it. 2 You said it. (yawns) 1 Did you have anything left for us to drink, princess? Atala I am sure it’s enough. (intends to serve him when he falls asleep) Chactas You seduce them to sleep by your soft drink, princess. Atala That’s the point. Soon the whole camp will be asleep. Chactas Is it thanks to you? Atala No, it is only natural. Chactas My brave guards seem to completely have forgotten their important plight. Atala (comes quickly up to him) They are now all asleep. Quickly. Take the opportunity. (cuts one of his ropes and gives him another knife.) Chactas Why, princess? Atala Don’t ask such a stupid question. (He is liberated.) Chactas Can you do this and get away with it? Atala Only if I get away with you. Chactas You are then risking everything for me. Atala I have to. (reveals a small crucifix around her neck) I am a Christian. Chactas Sweet virgin! Then you are the very one I thought! Atala I can’t see the last member of his tribe being sacrificed without reason. Then I’d rather sacrifice myself. Chactas Sweet princess, so you want to follow me out into the wilderness? Atala I have to. Chactas What will your father say? Atala You are getting more stupid all the time. If I stay and you run away he will be dishonoured. If we run away together he can blame you for having seduced me and will get high for all the rest of his life on his implacable fury against you.

Chactas So we have to run away together. Atala Come now. The entire camp is asleep. Only we know what is happening. Chactas And the moon who mirror us and lead our escape away from people and their nothingness. Atala Exactly. Hurry on. (She takes his hand, and they hurry away from the camp, where everybody is asleep.)

Act III scene 1. Chactas How strange your wandering is, Atala, away from reality and its unbearable oppression and tragedies out to freeedom in this world without limits of life and love in nature. We have wandered through dream landscapes from the black night of death out into the limitlessness of light and beauty and only by your guidance. Atala, you are to me almost like a higher form of being that the Great Spirit himself has brought in my way to give me a chance to forget the abyss of terrors and misfortunes which all my life has only been so far. Atala God sent you in my way to offer me a chance of testing my wings myself although not without test and trial. Chactas You have abandoned your tribe, your family, your position and your father the chief only to share the destiny of an outcast and doomed devil without a future. Was it really worth it? Atala That’s what is worth finding out. Don’t forget that I am a Christian. I am marked by the cross around my neck, and it was the Chistian compassion that overcame me to show you mercy and save you from death, since you were innocent. Chactas My fathers were not innocent of slaughtering many of your relatives. Atala No child is punishable for his fathers’ crimes. If that happens it is the supreme inhuman injustice. Chactas But how could you become a Christian if you still are born and raised in nature as an Indian? Atala My father the chief was not my real father. Chactas Does that mean your real father was white? Has your father the chief then still adopted you? Atala Exactly. Long ago there was a white Spaniard living with us who had learned to loathe his civilisation and the white man’s methodical extermination war against the Indians, wherefore he broke with civilisation and shared a life with us and defended us against his brothers. Chactas So he begot you with an Indian but still maintained his Christendom? Atala Yes. That was the problem. He insisted on me being made a Christian, and he really taught me only what was good about that religion, but this caused some controversy in the tribe. The council demanded of my father to either become wholly an Indian or to return to his Christian brothers. Chactas How could you then maintain his Christianity?

Atala Our most difficult problems and councils usually end up in a compromise. He promised to obey the council and be off on his way on the condition that I was to retain the religion he had given me. The chief saved the situation and stepped between, for my mother was his sister. He found my father’s terms fair enough and promised to bring me up and protect me as his own daughter, and my father promised never to return. Chactas Where did he go? Atala He returned to the city of Saint-Augustine of the whites and there found himself in great demand as an adviser in connection with Indians, since he spoke our language and was highly appreciated by all Indians as their friend. Chactas Do you remember his name? Atala His name was Lopez. Chactas It’s the same man! He took care of me in Saint-Augustine and brought me away from the road to perdition by the bottle. A strange destiny has truly brought you in my way. That means, dear beloved Atala, that we are actually brother and sister as fosterlings. Atala His name was Lopez and the friend of the Indians and about double our age? Chactas Yes. Atala Then it’s really the same man. So my father took care of you. A strange destiny has united us. Did he tell about his life? Chactas Yes, he told me much about it. Most of all he told me about an admirable hermit who lived completely alone far away in the wilderness beyond all civilisation whose acquaintance he had made. His name was father Aubry, and when I left him he hoped that I would encounter him some day. Atala We are on our way to him. Chactas Do you know him? Atala I always heard about him and know where he lives. He has a small Christian community as far away from the civilisation of the whites as you could possibly get. Chactas Then you really know the ways we have been following. Atala We ought to be almost there. Look! (A cross raised up on a hill suggests Christian vicinities.) Then the hermit’s hut should be close enough. (They reach a cave.) Look! This is the sacred dwelling. Chactas (peeps inside) No one seems to be here. Aubry (coming surprisingly up to them from behind) Looking for someone? Atala We are looking for the holy father Aubry, who manages a Christian community here in the forest. Aubry Then you have come to the right place. It’s me. But who are you? Atala (falling on her knees to him) I am Atala of the Muscogan Indians, whose chief is my father, but I am a Christian. This Indian of the Natchez I saved from getting murdered without reason.

Aubry And you have found each other and love each other and are eloping trying to find protection with me. Chactas Yes. Aubry You are not alone. The pattern is familiar. Of course you are welcome, and I could also marry you if you wish. Atala Not yet, father. Aubry Do you want your husband to be christened first? Atala No, that’s not it. Aubry What is it then? Atala (hesitates) Chactas Speak, Atala! Atala Only alone with father Aubry. Chactas If it concerns religion I have noithing to do with it. Atala Yes, it concerns religion. Chactas Then I had better leave. Call on me when you are ready. (removes himself) Aubry Well, my daughter, what is the problem? Atala I haven’t told my friend the whole truth. Aubry What didn’t you tell? Atala My mother was an Indian and took my father’s religion more seriously than he himself and devoted my life already as a child to the service of the holy virgin. Aubry She had no right to do that. Atala But she did. Aubry Do you mean to say that she promised your virginity to the higher powers? Atala Yes. I would always remain a virgin as an insurance that I would always belong to my father’s Christian faith. I would never be allowed to taste the earthal love, and if I would try it anyway I would die. Aubry A terrible promise. Only an Indian could become that fanatical. Atala What is done is done, and I can’t get away from it. I am ordained to the holy virgin once and for all and cannot fail my own mother. Aubry But you do love your Indian, don’t you? Atala If I do! I adore him! He is the most beautiful and tender man in the world and couldn’t be more ideal. I fell in love for the first time in my life when I first saw him. Aubry Then we must release you from your mother’s arbitrariness. Atala How? She is dead and can’t take it back. Aubry We must apply to the church for a pardon, absolution and release. Atala There is no church here. Its only authority here is you. Aubry I am not consecrated and also lack the authority. Atala So it’s deadlocked, and if I give in to our love I am dead. Aubry Life cannot be that cruel. Nature has its own laws, and no church has any authority over them.

Atala A promise is a promise, father. I cannot break my mother’s vows. Chactas (reappears suddenly) You will have to excuse me, but I have overheard everything. What kind of an inhuman religion do you belong to, that preaches love but forbids it? Aubry My son, calm down. There is always a way out. Chactas (raises Atala by force) I love you, Atala, with a passion more irresistible than any tropical storm in the wilderness! It can tear up trees, but with my love I could smash and crush your entire church of lies and falsity by the truth and sincerity of my feelings! I could never love anyone but you! Even if you would die from me by your mother’s curse, I would then never be able to adore anyone but you! Let us have each other, Atala, for our own sake and for the sake of life! Atala My mother is dead, my beloved handsome Chactas. You can’t spite the last will of the dead or challenge their spirits. Then they will only prove their higher power over your destiny and mortal life. Chactas Atala, be sensible! Your folly is against all nature! You can’t strive against it! I am yours and you are mine, and no stupid ordinations from others could ever separate us. You must allow me to love you! Atala Handsome noble Chactas, if you take me you lose me, and I will lose you! Aubry Here the laws of both the church and nature are powerless. Chactas There you are! The church means nothing! Love means everything! Aubry My friend, the church cannot take responsibility for your love. It is too wild. Chactas So it is free to be sacred in its sincerity forever. Come, my beloved Atala, and let me take you once and for all with an eternal burning kiss! (embraces her and kisses her wildly) Atala Chactas, not even you can touch my destiny. We all have our destinies to follow, you your family tragedy with the misfortunes of your tribe and your exile, and I with the enforced virginity of my Christendom. Chactas Do you mean to say that you don’t want my love? Atala Our wills are powerless against our destinies, Chactas. Chactas What are you trying to say? That you don’t love me? Aubry Chactas, love can never be enforced. Let it speak when so it wills itself, but don’t force it to subjection. Chactas I am only following my nature, but Atala seems to make resistance against nature. Atala Alas, don’t break my sore heart, my beloved Chactas! Then you will only harm yurself! Chactas All I want is to love you! What law of nature could forbid my own natural urge? Atala Wait, Chactas, and be patient! Let love speak when it so wills itself, but if you don’t allow it some space to breathe, it will not have enough air to be able to speak and live! Father Aubry is right!

Chactas (sullen) You could as well command nature not to live. Atala A promise is a promise, Chactas. I have to consider it. Chactas And remain a virgin all your life? Who ever heard of anything so unnatural and absurd? Aubry Many live according to that law of chastity, Chactas, and save the powers of their soul for eternity. Chactas I want to live now while I am young and beautiful and have someone to love and not for some uncertain life after death! Atala Show me forbearance and patience, Chactas, for the sake of my female capriciousness! Chactas Is that all what this is all about? Atala No, it’s the word and law of life itself given to me by my mother when I was born and which nothing can break, not even you! Chactas You are only tormenting me and playing with me in the name of the whims of your deranged and unsound religion. Aubry A promise is a promise, Chactas. No one can escape his destiny. Chactas I don’t understand your clinging to your mad superstition as a law of life when it is nothing but death! (leaves in fury) Aubry He is angry. Atala He is right and will never give in. Then there is only one thing to do. Aubry What are you thinking of? Atala Subordinating myself to my destiny. Aubry That we must all do. Atala That’s what I mean. Aubry Let’s sleep on the matter as sensible beings. Tomorrow is another day. Everything will pass and also the disappointment, frustration and wrath of Chactas. Atala No. It will never pass, but it will burn in my heart forever. Aubry He must have time to calm down and come to his senses. Atala Do you think you could stop the flow of the Mississippi? Aubry No, but there the issue is not a matter of human passions. All human passions and feelings can be controlled and ruled, and it is man’s sacred obligation to rise above nature and the animals and rule himself and all feelings. Atala That’s what my mother used to say. But I can’t make Chactas disappointed and defeated. Aubry He will recover, like the Mississippi. Atala I hope so, father Aubry. If I cannot solace him, you must do it. Aubry I am sure we can do it together. Atala We shall see, father Aubry. Now I am tired and must have a rest. Aubry We all are. (They retire back into the cave.) Chactas (crying in the background, in despair) Atala! Atala! How much can I love you without perishing? How far can I drive me on

in the bolting downhill race of love without breaking down and falling? How far can I drive my own self torture in the irresistible drive of fury and madness of the boundlessness of love? That’s the infernal crux, that love has no limits, but it must hold on forever or not at all. (falls down exhausted and asleep. Darkness increases and turns to night, then light returns, and father Aubry enters and finds him. Aubry Wake up, my son. Chactas What is the matter? Aubry You can’t lie here. Chactas That’s what I have been doing. Aubry You had better come back with me to the cave. Chactas (sits up) Has anything happened? Aubry I am aftraid she is not quite well. Chactas Has she eaten something inappropriate? Aubry If only it were that simple. Chactas Holy man, you drive me crazy by your incomplete answers. Aubry I don’t have the complete answer. No one has it. Chactas But what has happened? Aubry Atala had best explain herself. (They reach the cave, Atala lies still outstretched in white but very pale.) Chactas Atala! Are you ill? Atala I am afraid so, my prince of the wild. Chactas What has happened? Atala I am afraid that my mother is calling for me. Chactas Atala, don’t joke! Atala You see how pale and weak I am. It’s my own fault. I could no longer bear my own conscience. Chactas (terrified) What have you done? Aubry Atala, don’t tell us you have done something stupid? Atala My friends and my lover, I have done what I could to fulfill my obligations to everyone. I could not live without loving you, my dear handsome husband, and thereby I could not live without violating my mother. So I could not live. That’s how simple it is. Chactas You are constantly growing more pale! What have you done! Atala I have taken the only possible medicine against my ailment, but it works slowly. I still have strength enough to talk.

Aubry She is poisoned. She has done the worst possible thing and worsened her problems a thousand times. Didn’t you know, Atala, that suicide is what your Christian religion condemns most of all? Chactas (can’t understand it) Suicide? Atala Am I then condemned for having kept my Christian promise to my mother? Aubry Suicide is worse than murder! Atala I have a good conscience, father. There was no other way to keep my faith to both my mother and my brother in my love. I die of love. Chactas (starts to understand gradually) It is not fair! Aubry Yes, my daughter, you have done the greatest possible injustice to yourself. What kind of medicine was it? Atala A herb that my mother gave me for all eventualities and which I kept ready and safe in my crucifix. You just fall asleep without pains. You might feel somewhat cold. Chactas Atala! Aubry Alas, then I know what it is, and then there is no remedy. Wretched daughter, you are given your life to administer it and make the best of it. To then bereave yourself of it is to misunderstand the whole meaning of life. Atala Forgive me my folly, father. All I did was to love. Chactas Our love was sacred, and I never touched you. Only the more then can I love you for having sacrificed your life for your fidelity. Yes, Atala, if you had been permitted to live, we could naught else but to have loved each other unto madness. Now that love is remitted instead to the realm of the Great Spirit. Atala We’ll meet again in eternity. Chactas Where we all meet again, but where the two of us always will be able to recognize each other. Atala Can you forgive me, Chactas? Can you forgive me, father? Aubry You did not know what you were doing. Atala Yes, I knew what I was doing, it was perfectly premeditated, and my mother has already forgiven me. Aubry I am not so sure of that. Under the circumstances I think she would have preferred that you had broken your promise to her. Chactas You are innocent, Atala. I forgive you, but I will never forgive your religion, which allowed this and in which name this could have happened. Atala Thank you. All I need is your forgiveness. By my action I am released from all promises and also from my religion, which blocked our love. Perhaps I will find another better religion beyond death. Chactas You would have found a better religion in our love. Atala I already have it, and I will keep it. Thank you, my dear Chactas, for having given me this as a present for all eternity. Chactas You gave me my life, my love. Alas, if only I could give it back to you, so that you could live!

Atala The life we found and made together will never die. So much I know for certain. Aubry My daughter, I am short of words, but in the name of eternity I forgive you. Atala And in the name of eternity I love you both. Farewell. (dies) Chactas (starts bellowing immediately in despair, is completely distraught, tears himself away from her side in desperation, climbs up beside the cave to the top and cries: ) If a religion thus can make itself guilty of the greatest possible cruelty, what right does such a religion then have to exist? (disappears) Aubry (brings forth his rosary, mumbles his prayers and crosses himself. More thoughtfully:) Is this tragedy a sign from the Great Spirit or from God or from both? And what would then be the meaning of it? All I can find is a dense forest of question marks. (crosses himself, closes Atala’s eyes and pulls the cover over her face.)

Act IV scene 1. Like act I scene 1, only worse – more drunkenness, dirtier sluts, more decayed bums, everything more shabby and vulgar. cowboy 1 Soon we will at last have every single damned indian and nigger exterminated from this country. 2 If it only were so bloody simple. We need the niggers for our slaves, damn it! 3 If only those plantation-owners had the sense to waste the niggers instead of multiplying them. 1 They are thinking of their money, you know. Slaves who breed slaves provide extra labour potentials free of charge. 3 But trees and slaves take time to grow up. 1 Most of them can be used for labour already at 13. Children work more efficiently than grown-ups. 2 What we need in this country is more and more efficient slavers. 1 and 3 Exactly! 2 Let’s suggest it to the president. 1 He could that way win the elections and overrun the abolitionists. Lopez Is that all you are good for, yankees? Enslave people and drive them hard to death? 1 You bloody dego should shut up! 2 Mexicans are not welcome here. You are just illegal immigrants and parasites. Lopez I have lived longer in this country than you and was even born here.

3 I think I know this bloke. Wasn’t he the one who defended the red-skins? 1 Yes, I’ll be damned if it isn’t that fucking Indian lover! 2 What the devil are you doing here, you anti-American? Why haven’t you been lynched long ago? Lopez Because I never did anything to deserve it. 1 Listen to him! (pulls his gun) Get out of the way of decent people, or I will fill you up with holes! Lopez I thought this was a free country. 2 It was until you came along. 3 It will never be free enough until it is free from all niggers and indians! 1 Precisely! bartender (interferes) Don’t touch Lopoez, boys. If you do, I will set the sheriff on to you, and he will hang you at once. Lopez never harmed as much as a fly. 1 Come on, boys. Let’s scram. There is a stench of antiracism here. 2 Worse than that. The foreigners have taken over. 3 As if we didn’t have enough shitbags all over the country already! 1 (applies his glass to pour its contents in the pants of Lopez) You seem to have pissed your pants. (leaves) 2 You are lucky not to be completely a nigger. (leaves) 3 You should introduce fried niggers and scalped indians on your menu, Mac! (leaves) bartender I am sorry about their behaviour, Lopez. They are shitbags all three of them. Lopez (hasn’t moved a muscle during the incident) Unfortunately, Mac, I have been obliged to get used to them all over the country. Chactas (very much aged, has kept apart and hardly been seen, but now treads forth) I thought I would never see you again, father Lopez. Lopez I recognize that voice. But you have aged, my son. What was your name again? Chactas Chactas. Lopez Chactas! You left me and abandoned society to search for your murdered kin. Did you find them? Chactas No, father Lopez. I only found another death. Lopez But obviously you survived. Chactas I shouldn’t have. Lopez What happened? Chactas I have spent the last three years erring about the desert lands of the north constantly screaming and crying as far as the Niagara, where I wanted to throw myself down the falls. But someone called on me. My past was still alive. I couldn’t

get away from it. I remembered father Aubry’s words, that I always had to give life another chance. He was the one who called on me. Then I understood that he was dead. Then I decided to revisit his and my beloved’s graves, to bid life a last farewell by making a pilgrimage to the only beautiful memory it had given me. Lopez So you met father Aubry in the wilderness? Chactas Yes, father Lopez. Your daughter led me to him. Lopez My daughter? Chactas Atala. (Lopez falls silent in deep thought, then gives a sign to the bartender, who immediately serves two drinks.) Lopez My friend, you must tell me more about this. So you have known my daughter? Chactas She rescued me from death, and we escaped together from her tribe out into the wilderness. There we found father Aubry, who took care of us until she died. Lopez So you have known her and loved her. Why did she die? Chactas She was a Christian. Lopez You make it sound like a disease. Chactas It was a mortal disease that spread to me and almost cost me my mind. Lopez But you have returned here to Sodom and Gomorrah, to the civilisation of violence and to the crass world of ruthlessness and licensed egoism running wild. Was it in an effort to try to look me up? Chactas Yes, father Lopez. I wanted to see you once more in life to be able to tell you how much I loved your daughter. Lopez Those were my happiest days, when I lived with the Indians to learn from them and engaged myself so deeply in their lives that I took an Indian woman for my wife. But I couldn’t let go of Christianity, my only contact with my origin. They couldn’t accept my religion, why I had to depart from them, since I had scandalized the family of their chief, but I succeeded in making my wife preserve my christianity and give it for my sole legacy to my daughter. Chactas It cost her life. Lopez How so? Chactas Her mother promised her to the holy virgin as a nun. Lopez Why? Chactas To make sure she would remain Christian. Lopez Your story upsets me to the core. So my Indian wife always remained faithful to me although I had ruined her life. And my ruination went on to my daughter. Alas, what a mess have we whites really made here of a paradisaical and virgin world, which never needed us and which now forever has been lost? Chactas Yes, father Lopez, but those whites who realize their accountability are very few. You are the only exception I have met so far. Lopez What will you do now, my poor wild Chactas?

Chactas Revisit the graves of my beloved and father Aubry. Then I will throw myself out of the Niagara. I don’t belong to your religion, so I will not be condemned for doing so. Lopez Thanks for returning to tell me all this, my son. It utterly shakes me up, my whole life is devastated, but perhaps it did some good. In any way, I am grateful to you. Chactas Forgive me, father Lopez. Lopez No, Chactas, it’s all we whites who should ask forgiveness of you. Now leave me alone. I have much to consider. Chactas Yes, father Lopez. (leaves discreetly.) Lopez (after a moment’s thought) One more, Mac. A double. (Mac serves.)

Act V scene 1. Chactas (enters tottering, worn out to exhaustion, almost old, back to the cave) Is there nothing left then except the abyssal emptiness of memories? Here an entire eternity took place in the form of love and the most intensive togetherness, but not a trace remains except the ineffaceable carvings thereof in my heart and soul, that bleeds to death at the mere reminder; but if I have any part in eternity at all it consists of all the burning tears of melting floods of lava that drown all hell by the glowing pains of their unspeakable sufferings… Atala, I have come to a last time evoke your spirit to then be able to relinquish my own, for I have nothing else to live for than my immortal longing for you in constantly sighing your eternally desirable name… My father Aubry, what part did you play in the drama of my destiny? I always wondered about that. Did you aid Atala in her act of desperation, or did she actually implement it all by herself and alone without your influence? Alas, shadows, if you are still there as spirits, then answer my questions or release me by letting me instantly die! (prostates himself on the ground) Father Aubry (comes forth) My son, rise from this unworthy position, for your despair could move a forever sleeping heart of stone to compassion. Have pity with us Christians, that’s the only advice I can give you, for I was a Christian myself and did not understand better than to just keep quiet, obey and work. We worked together here in our wilderness to create a small Christian community, which nevertheless after my death was completely scattered. So ignominious is the vanity of leaders, that after having drawn their last sigh they vanish completely without a trace. I was innocent in your beloved’s death. On the contrary, I would gladly have seen you together and regarded your union as naturally self-evident. But, alas, the problem was not that she was a Christian but that you were free. Chactas Free? Aubry Free from all infectuous considerations that aren’t natural.

Chactas How should I understand this, a poor uneducated savage? Aubry My dear son, you were too independent to ever be able to be fettered to the human world of only vanity and aberration. Chactas Do you then admit that Christianity was wrong? Aubry It was not wrong, but it was completely misunderstood from the beginning and utterly derailed by its establishment. That’s why I sought my way out into the wilderness in an effort to find its original purity. Thereby I never became more than a searcher. But I think I feel Atala in the vicinity. Chactas Atala! My beloved! Reappear to me just once so that I then could find peace and die! Atala My friend, don’t you know then that death is a lie, and that I only died to make sure to have you forever? Chactas Do you suggest that your death was our wedding? Atala Of course. Chactas Was then your sworn virginity and all your Christian arguments just roundabout means to have me? Atala Of course. Chactas Explain yourself, my beloved, for you appear to me more inexplicable than ever! Atala Not until you die you will understand everything, but then it is too late. You will see then. Chactas You avoid me after death even worse than in life, although you in your reapparition are more real than in life… Atala Everything is double and has two sides, where the other side always contradicts the first and eliminates its meaning, like death outweighs and dissolves life but only to give life a deeper sense and meaning. Chactas I understand nothing of your weird instruction. Atala Thanks for revisiting me, Chactas. Only because of that I could return one last time to our camp and our love. And instead of putting an end to your life by our reunion, I would ask you to return to life and to preserve it, maybe mostly because I couldn’t do it myself. Live in my stead, Chactas, for both of us, and I will remain faithful to you for eternity. Chactas My beloved! You condemn me to a lifetime of unspeakable pains and unfathomable melancholy! Let me rather at last be reunited with you in eternity! Atala You already are. Chactas What do you mean? Atala You will never be rid of me, and I will never be rid of you. That’s how friendship works. It is above love and spites eternity. I denied myself my mundane love to have you instead for my only friend in eternity. Chactas So all your Christian talk was just smokescreen ceremonies for a wedding of higher significance than any earthal wedding could have been? Atala Exactly. Chactas My beloved Atala, stay with my spirit forever!

Atala You give me no choice. Chactas May I then go on loving you? Atala Forever. Chactas Thank you, Atala. I can believe in that kind of love, for it is neither Christian nor anything else than just purest love which only the sincerest faith could sustain forever. Then come with me into eternity. Atala I was just about to say the same to you. Chactas Then I am ready. Atala Come, (takes him by the hand and leads him away,) my handsome Indian, my wild lover and my own brother. (They go away and vanish.) Aubry If I succeeded in doing anything good in life, this must have been it. I will therefore follow Chactas and Atala, for only they could show me the right way. (walks out after them.)

The End.

(Virhamn, Midsummer 2005, translated in June 2021)

The Exile Dramatization after Edward Everett Hale’s famous short story

by Christian Lanciai (2017)

The characters: Aaron Burr, third vice president of America Young cadets and officers, like George, James, Peter among others and other higher officers. Lieutenant Philip Nolan a captain with guards a colonel presiding as judge in a court martial another judge sergeant Marshall young cadets on board another captain a steward Mrs Graff Junior A quartermaster Danworth A ship’s doctor The action is in New Orleans 1807 and then on unknown ships up to 1863.

Act I scene 1. A baracks. Aaron Don’t worry, boys. It’s just a natural development. The president has ditched us, so it’s just for us to manage without the President. George But what do you want to accomplish? What are your plans, Sir? Aaron We can accomplish anything. The world is open to us in the west. There is an entire world to conquer and colonise, but we could start exploring it. James Were we not supposed to conquer Mexico? Aaron You said it, Jim. The Louisisana territory can wait, but Mexico is ready to fall, and many of us have already colonised large parts of Texas. It has to join the states sooner or later, and we just have to give it a hand. Peter Do you intend to act without the knowledge and support of Washington? Aaron Why not? The entire Spanish reign in Latin America is going down, it’s a rotten fruit just waiting to fall, and all we really have to do is to shake the tree, and then it’s most likely that Texas will fall straight into our hands. James Are you worried that Washington will not let us take the initiative, Peter?

Peter I think they are worried about the development here if it is led by Aaron Burr. He is after all a power point who almost became president. Jefferson was elected but is probably afraid of his earlier vice president since he sacked him. Aaron Let him be afraid. As I said, we can manage without him. At worst, we can manage without America. Peter That could be seen as high treason. Aaron It could be seen as high treason. What we do is really only to give America a push forward in the development, which is needed, as Washington is only getting slower with its bureaucracy and possessiveness. Most have already forgotten all about the war of independence and become snug and established. (noise outside) James I think someone is coming. Aaron It’s not just someone. It’s a company. George We are discovered! Someone must have squealed! Aaron Take it easy, boys. With me around you have nothing to fear. (Raid: an armed contingent with bayonets bursting in) Captain Colonel Aaron Burr? Aaron Yes, that’s me. Captain You are under arrest for suspicion of high treason. Aaron I am not the one who has betrayed the state. The state has betrayed me. Captain That’s for the court to decide. Aaron Civil or court martial? Captain It could amount to court martial, and all your fellow officers here are also under arrest as suspected accomplices in a possible conspiracy. Aaron It’s cool, boys. We have not committed any armed action, and we have raised no weapons against the state. You have nothing to fear. There will only be some interrogation, and then you return to active service. Captain I hope so, colonel Burr, for your own sake. Aaron My conscience is clear. Captain Your cadets here will not be able to testify for you, since each one has to be questioned separately. But if your conscience really is clear, you should have nothing to fear. Aaron The last thing I did in my life was to show any fear of anything and least of all of death. Captain I know. You fought in the war of independence, and your career and list of merits is at least as good as the President’s, but still you have shown tendencies to break away from the states, and many young soldiers and officers have joined you. Aaron I am certain that Texas will be American one day. I only wished to somewhat speed up the process. That’s my only crime. Captain It was a crime of insubordination. Aaron I did not act as a general.

Captain But a part of the army followed you with many young green officers, who could be regarded as seduced by your enthusiasm. Enough said. You will continue your defence in the trial. Take care of them! (The soldiers take care of the young officers and Aaron Burr and lead them out under arrest.)

Scene 2. The trial against Aaron Burr. Colonel Are you aware of what you have done, colonel Burr? Burr Absolutely. I have broken new grounds for America and the future. Colonel What do you mean by that? Burr I have tried to create a future for America which all power jealous dull minds of an established position in Washington have tried to obstruct. Colonel Your initiative may have been heroic and admirable but was at the same time foolhardy and injudicious. Don’t you understand that you have put the existence of our whole young nation at risk? Burr No, that was done by those who kicked me out of Washington. I was in a position of high responsibility and did my best to manage it well, but when I was discharged I had to find other ways to make way for America’s future. Colonel Besides putting the nation at risk and almost launching it into a civil war, you have seduced an entire generation of young officers to renegade from the constitution to instead fall prey to your adventurous politics. Burr There was nothing wrong with it. It would have carried success if it had been allowed. Colonel What did you actually want to accomplish? Burr I wished to bring Texas under the protection of the union. Colonel By starting a war with Mexico? Burr Sir, that war is unavoidable. My only crime is to have foreseen it and to have it settled at once. Colonel You have been accused of trying to make yourself a lord of Texas as an independent state of its own and perhaps also of the Louisiana territory. Burr Sir, if there was anything I learned in Washington, it was to never again have anything to do with any power politics. I wanted to liberate Texas, not rule it. Colonel The consequences of your agitation are unsurveyable especially for all those officers who followed you and who now each one of them have to be court martialled just like you, but the court finds you not guilty of the accusations against you of conspiracy and secession from the United States of America. Our court can but aquit you, no matter how much harm you have done, and I can only sincerely hope that all your fellow accused will be aquitted as well without any harm having been inflicted on their army careers. I hope you share our hopeful expectations. Burr What they have done is their business. My conscience is clear. Colonel Good. The court is ajourned. (strikes. The court is dissolved.)

Scene 3. Another court martial. Judge Well, young lieutenant Nolan, what have you got to say for your defence? Nolan What have I to defend? Judge Can you defend your course of action? Nolan I only did what I thought was right. Judge What did you think was right? Nolan Everything that captain Burr ventured on. Judge Including his conspiracies against the states, his effort to start a war, his intrigues to acquire power over the Louisiana territory and his high treason against his President? Nolan The President sacked him. He had no other choice than to leave Washington and find himself another career outside politics. He saw a possibility to break Texas out of Mexico and ventured on that enterprise. Was it wrong? Judge Did he want to transform Texas into an independent state, or did he wish to bring it into the union? Nolan We shall never know, since he was stopped. Judge What did you expect of his plans? What good did you expect to come out of them? Nolan He was no traitor but wanted to find his own way. He was disappointed with the states and wanted to create an alternative, which could have succeeded better by safeguarding freedom. Judge Is there no freedom in the United States? Nolan You have forfeited it by allowing the power to devolve into a bureaucratic machinery of capitalistic greed and establishment. Burr saw the freedom of America getting lost by the monopoly tendencies of the establishment. He saw freedom in another better future in the west and in Texas. You stopped him from realizing any of his visions, but visions is no crime. Idealism is no crime. On the contrary. It’s a necessity. Without idealism man is lost. Judge Was that the urge of senator Burr – idealism, and not opportunity and undisciplined ambitions? Nolan Yes, and he could only realize it out of America. Judge So you mean that he actually committed high treason for the sake of his idealism? Nolan He considered America lost. Judge Still he had sworn fidelity and adherence to the states, and so have you. Nolan What is the worth of such vows when you trample them down? Judge Does that justify characters like Aaron Burr and yourself to rise against America and trample down your oathsworn fidelity? Nolan You don’t understand what I am saying. You have forfeited your credibility by obstructing captain Burr’s idealism.

Judge So you don’t believe in America any more? Nolan I regard it as a lost cause, a sensible union of states that could have become something great but which ruined itself by stupidity. Judge Still you are an officer sworn under the star banner. Nolan What else is the star banner than a nose-rag? Judge I warn you. Your words could be interpreted as high treason. Nolan I am not afraid. Captain Burr has been aquitted, and all of us who followed him acted in as good faith as he. It’s only you and America that has broken your liability towards us. Judge I warn you. This court has the authority to decide your life. We give you a fair chance to resume your loyalty as a soldier of the United States. Nolan Don’t you see how ridiculous and absurd you are? The states are a failure! Most of all I would wish to never hear about them any more! Judge Do you realize what you are saying? Nolan Or else I wouldn’t have said it. Judge You have yourself pronounced your sentence, and everyone here has witnessed it. The highest justice we can give you is to give you what you are asking for. You are hereby sentenced to never again hear anything about your motherland the United States. Nolan (laughs) Are you joking? Don’t you see yourselves that all this court procedure and your sentence is all a joke? Judge The sentence will be executed in this way, that you here today will be escorted out to a ship that forever will stop you from ever again treading on American ground. You will never have permission to diverge from your exile at sea. Your commander on board will have written orders to make sure that you never will hear anything about America, and these orders he will forward to the next commander to whom you will be entrusted. You will retain your rank, but the United States of America will forever be excluded from your life. Nolan (laughing) I am grateful for the honour. Judge You will be pursued by that honour all your life. (strikes) Sentence is passed, and the proceedings of this court martial are concluded. Nolan You make the states even more ridiculous than they already were in my opinion. Judge You are young and don’t realize what you have done, but with the years you will become aware of it. (rises. All rise, and Nolan is taken care of by some guards.) Nolan I am ready, brothers. Take me out to freedom. (Nolan is taken out under escort.)

Scene 4. Nolan George

Nice of you to look me up, George, but there was no need. Do you realize what you have done?

Nolan Of course I am perfectly clear about it. I am a responsible human being. I just got fed up with the so called nation. Perhaps Burr’s disappointment passed on to me. George He was aquitted and may resume a normal respectable life. Nolan Hasn’t he gone to Europé? George Yes, but not in exile, just for some change and a holiday. Nolan That’s how I regard my journey as well. It’s a liberation. I will never be bothered about politics any more. I will vanish out to freedom. George But it’s for life. You may may never come home again. Nolan I know. It will be a holiday for good, an escape to freedom for the rest of my life. What could have been better? I may never again go ashore, but I will get a free livelihood and be respectfully treated as an officer as long as I live. I haven’t lost anything, only won everything. George It’s good that you take it that way. Nolan And what will you do? You got aquitted as well, I trust. George Everyone was aquitted except you. If they had any punishment, it was easy and momentary, but most of us got away with just a rebuke. You would have had no more as well if you hadn’t been as honest as Burr. Nolan I see that as my honour, which they want me to suffer for, but instead it will be the contrary. George I think you will manage. It will probably be just for a few years. Then you will be pardoned. Nolan (laughs) Pardoned? For what? For freedom? I deplore you, George, and all our comrades who return to the slavery and monotony of mechanical discipline of an absurd nation, which only will be capable of blunders. You don’t see what you are missing, while I alone have become privileged like no one else. George Good luck, Philip. That’s all I can say. I hope we will meet again. Nolan If you ever will serve the navy, the risk is great. Marshall (enters) It’s time, gentlemen. Lieutenant Nolan is to be taken to his ship. Nolan That’s good, Marshall. Before you leave, George, I want you to hear my laughable verdict. You do have the instructions for the captain concerning me, Marshall. Read them to my friend here, so that he will see there is nothing for me to fear. Marshall (somewhat uneasy) As you wish, Sir. It’s not against any rules. (takes out the document and reads:) ”Sir, you are to receive Philip Nolan, former lieutenant of the United States army. At his court martial he swore that he never again wanted to hear about the United States of America. The court martial sentenced him to have his wish granted. You are commanded to keep the prisoner on board your ship. He is entitled to quarter, food and clothes as befits an officer of his former rank. He must not be exposed to humiliating or insulting treatment of any kind. Under no circumstances he must ever hear anything about his country or see any information about it. It’s the intention of the authorities that he shall never again see the country he has denied.” Nolan Well, what do you think, George? Isn’t it funny? Luxury holiday for life free of charge with every comfort you can get on board the best ships in the world,

and you even will never again be bothered about or hear of those authorities that ruined our lives. Could it be better? George I don’t know if it could have been better, but it certainly could have been worse. Nolan That’s good, George. (pats his arm) Take care! – I am ready, Marshall, for my longed for and voluntary exile. Marshall Good. This way, Sir. (shows Nolan the way out) George (looks after them) A strange fate, and a remarkable sentence, but what will it lead to? Laughing he leaves for an encounter with destiny which could be more precarious than just a scaffold.

Act II scene 1. On board. Cadet With all respect, Sir, but lieutenant Nolan is a very lonesome man. When we are lying for months in a harbour he is not allowed to go ashore, and he is not allowed to read books or journals printed in America. English and foreign papers are censored for him, so that everything concerning America is cut out. Captain What is your point? Cadet We are a group with literary interests on board, and we read loud to each other. We thought it could do Philip Nolan some good if he could join us. Captain Of course it is all right, as long as you don’t read American literature. Cadet We are almost only reading English poetry. Captain Nothing is more innocent or better than that. Of course Nolan may join you. Cadet Thank you, Sir. That was all. I hope it will make him feel less lonesome. Captain I hope so too. Good luck.

Scene 2. Reading session on deck. Cadet Here is Walter Scott’s latest, a completely new collection of poems by him. Another Has it got any title? Cadet ”The Lay of the Last Minstrel”. 2 That sounds melancholy. Cadet It is purely romantic and poetic but abundant with beautiful sentiment. 3 It sounds like something for Nolan. Perhaps it could make him open up a little. Cadet Are you with us, Nolan? Nolan I have nothing against poetry, and it is completely harmless and uncontroversial. 2 Nolan has been with us before. He reads well with empathy and has an agreeable voice. He knows how to give life to poetry.

3 And Scott is the best poet we have. 4 What about the songs of Ossian then? 3 They were also from Scotland. 2 Would you like to read for us out of ”The Lay of the Last Minstrel”, Nolan? Nolan I would love to. Do I have to start from the beginning? Cadet Not at all. You can read whatever you will. 2 Open the book at random and see what you happen to find. It could be an interesting experience. Nolan You know that I may not read just anything. 4 Scott has never shown any interest for our part of the world. The last thing he would write would be anything transatlantic. 3 The only certain thing about the book is that it will be about Scotland. 2 And that it is pure poetry, beautiful texts and lovely words of romance and love and at best some dramatic pathetic death. Nolan I will do as you suggest. I open the book at random, and then we’ll see what it offers. Perhaps there will be some relevant revelation. Cadet We are bursting with excitement. Nolan (opens the book at random) I seem to have landed at the sixth song. 3 Read it! Nolan (reads, aloud with good diction and empathy) "Breathes there the man, with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land! (Nolan grows pale, almost breaks it off, the others exchange looks and hold their breaths. Nolan continues:) Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd, As home his footsteps he hath turn'd, From wandering on a foreign strand! (He is obviously touched and almost begins to stammer but forces himself to go on, almost like challenging destiny:) If such there breathe, go, mark him well; For him no Minstrel raptures swell; High though his titles, proud his name, Boundless his wealth as wish can claim; Despite those titles, power, and pelf, The wretch, concentred all in self, Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And, doubly dying, shall go down To the vile dust, from whence he sprung, Unwept, unhonor'd, and unsung.” (Nolan breaks it off, throws some dark looks around, regards his fellows almost with fury, then rushes to the railing at the centre and throws the book with all his might far into the sea. Then he rushes almost blindly away from there.)

3 We hit a mine. 4 It was nobody’s fault. 2 It was destiny. Cadet Poor Nolan. 4 Will he ever show his face to us again? Cadet We must report what has happened to the captain. 3 Yes, Nolan and his case is entirely his responsibility. 2 It was an accident. 4 Yes, it was an accident. (They consider the situation with its gloom and then disperse in different directions.)

Scene 3. The cabin. Captain You are quite right. It was an accident. What happened was nobody’s fault. None of you had even read the book yet. Pity about a good book, that it had to disappear into the sea, but you can buy another copy in the next harbour. Cadet Our concern is for Nolan. Captain It was a phenomenon of destiny. Something like that was bound to happen sooner or later, and it will surely happen again. His destiny is like devised as a Via Crucis of pitfalls. All we can do is to take all possible precautions. The other day I had to forbid his access to ”The Tempest”, since some officer thought Bermuda belonged to America. Cadet It doesn’t. It’s a British colony. Captain I pointed that out to him, but then he suggested that Bermuda still ought to belong to America, so I had to put away ”The Tempest”. Cadet It’s almost a shame. Captain It is a shame, my friend. Such a sentence should never have been passed. Six months in prison would have chastened his proud arrogance well enough, and he could have carried on as a good officer. Now the path of his destiny will inevitably be marked by constant humiliations reminding him of his dishonour, like the incident of your reading session, which never will be interrupted until he gets pardoned. Cadet Will a pardon ever be possible? Captain It must be. It cannot go on like this. It’s an absurd and outrageously unlawful situation. So Nolan hasn’t appeared since then? Cadet Least of all to us. Captain I understand him. He has begun to understand his destiny and discovered its abyss. Thanks for your concern. (pats the cadet, who leaves) Soon I will have to hand over the man without a country to another captain on another ship, and the only information I may give him concerning the prisoner’s fate is my written instructions from the admiralty. It is heavy, and it feels completely wrong not to be able to set him ashore.

Act III scene 1. Captain It has taken him two months to dare to show himself again, and his appearance now is like that of a broken man. We must do something to cheer him up. Steward What about giving a ball on board? We will soon anchor at Naples, city of great festivals, a famous court and a sparkling social life, and many of the loveliest ladies of the city would gladly attend a ball with a party on board. Captain A brilliant idea. Then Nolan would meet new people and get other things to think about than his loneliness. But how shall we avoid that he gets into any conversation of our homeland? Cadet We just have to keep him as well entertained as possible the whole evening. Steward He should have the opportunity to dance with ladies. Captain Absolutely. It’s my duty and my responsibility to make sure he doesn’t get depressed. We will have to take the risk. Get going, steward, and start making plans for the ball. I give you free hands. Steward Thank you. I am sure it will be an uplifting experience for all of us.

Scene 2. The ball. Party galore, with ladies shining in splendour and very dandy gentlemen. Nolan Isn’t it Miss Rutledge from Philadelphia? Do you remember me? I am Philip Nolan, who studied with your brother. Graff Of course, I remember you very well, Philip. But I am not Miss Rutledge any longer. I am married Mrs Graff, and my husband is here with me on board. Nolan What do you think of our little party? Graff You have really made something of it. For a warship, you have really succeeded in transforming a sinister environment into its contrary, almost into a ballroom. Nolan We have worked on it and really exerted ourselves to make it as inviting and festive as possible. Graff You sure have succeeded. Nolan What is your husband doing? Graff He is a diplomat and now attached to the embassy here in Naples. That’s why we are here. Nolan How do you make it in Italy? Graff Splendidly, especially here in Naples, wich appears to be the centre of Europe or at least its greatest city. Nolan I thought Paris was the greatest.

Graff Paris was completely ruined by the revolution. It has really declined, and then there were all the consequent wars on top of that. They say France has a great surplus of ladies, since Napoleon brought all their men with him into his wars. Nolan It will pass. In good time Paris will once more be the most beautiful city of Europe and its centre. Graff It will take many years for France to recover after Napoleon. Nolan So you don’t suffer at all from being so far away from home? Graff Not at all. I feel it as a holiday of release. Nolan Can you follow what is happening at home? Graff To a certain extent, but it doesn’t really interest me at all. Nolan It’s been two years since I last heard anything from home. Graff Do you miss it? Nolan Atrociously. I would give anything to know everything that has happened there since I left New Orleans. Graff That surprises me, lieutenant Nolan. I thought you were the man who never wanted to hear anything more about your homeland. Pardon me, I think I must join my husband. (leaves him) Nolan (wants to sink down under the earth) What a bitch! How heartless can a woman be? How could she turn so completely a blind eye to my obvious pain? (turns away, walks off to the farthest railing and faces the sea with his back turned on the party, which goes on behind him with cheerful joy and all possible festive splendour – the ball is a success, only he is not.)

Scene 3. Under deck, in darkness. The dins of war and thunder of cannons. Nolan So there is a war going on. Why not? Let the first best cannon ball hit me by all means. I was after all an artillery officer. Perhaps I could teach the marines a thing or two. (walks up on deck just as the enemy gets a perfect hit) Cannoneer 1 The cannon is wrecked! 2 We are lost! 3 Nuts, they just happened to get a momentary smash hit. 4 But they swept clean the deck! 1 Here is Nolan. Nolan Do you need some help?` 2 The cannon fodder is served, and that’s us. Nolan Not at all, boys. It’s just for you to reload and fire back. 3 You seem to have been fired at before. Nolan I have been an artillery officer and know something about handling cannons. 4 How could we get this cannon to work? 1 Can we use it at all any more?

Nolan Of course. Let it just cool off a moment. Let it recover. You are rather washed up after a discharge and a smash hit at that. 1 You had better take over here. You don’t seem to be afraid. Nolan Just take it easy, keep your head cool, just pretend it’s raining, and don’t bother about what the enemy is doing. Just shoot sharply yourselves to put all hell on fire. First of all take aim. Everything must be done with meticulous calculation. You must not press on and fumble. 2 They are constantly bombarding us. You are in the fire target. Nolan That’s the point. Let them miss as much as they want. If they aim at me they will not hit under the water line, and then their fire is worthless. Let me just dress their shots, until they tire of missing. 1 Now we have loaded the cannon. Nolan Good! Now take aim with careful precision. Try to hit just under the water line. Then you will cause the greatest damage. Don’t bother about the circumstances and the firing. It’s of no concern of ours. We have our work to perform, and it’s just to take the right aim, fire off and carry on. 2 How do you make the cannon balls stop rolling? Nolan You arrange them in a pyramid, like this. (shows them how to do it) 4 Now let’s fire! Nolan Right! (The cannon is fired in a powerful explosion.) 3 A hit! I think we returned their fire with a vengeance! Nolan I think so too. Now we must let the cannon cool off. What will we do in the meantime. Play cards? Has anyone got a deck of cards? (sits down at ease on top of the cannon) 3 Now you are dressing shots again. Nolan That’s on purpose. Let them aim at me, and they will miss everything vital. You can never get a person by a cannon shot anyway, and if you do it’s a mistake and pure chance, for you have aimed wrong. 1 You do know how to keep it up in the middle of the battle. Nolan You are a soldier and an officer at that, so you have to give a good example. Attention, now we can reload and fire off again. If we could keep it up at this pace, we could win the entire battle. Captain (passing by) You really make a good example, lieutenant Nolan. Your firing is more efficient than anyone else’s on board. Nolan Thank you, Sir. Captain No, we are to thank you. Your good fighting spirit is spreading all around the deck. Nolan We are just doing our job and try to make hits at the same time. Captain I will not forget this. Just keep it going and your spirits up. Nolan You can count on me, Sir. Captain (walks on, to himself:) We must get him pardoned! His situation is just a constant awkwardness for every ship he has to sail with, while he still remains a paragon officer of the highest quality.

Nolan (to himself) The boys are doing well. Now we will win the battle. It’s just to show them how stupid it is to mind the danger. Either you get hit and fall on your post as a man of honour, or you are victorious. There is nothing else, but probably no one else knows that I would rather have been shot and died when I had the chance, for I don’t think the authorities at home ever will bother about me any more. War is for those who wish to die, that’s why I became a soldier, but I may not die, for my destiny will not let me go. I may not even become cannon fodder or an invalid, no matter how much I adorn the cannon. The boys at least like my spirits. It’s just to keep it and not allow the bitter irony and my longing for death to shine through by revealing myself as the first of all mocking adversaries to war.

Scene 4. After the battle, in the cabin. Captain I asked you particularly to come down here to express my gratitude. Nolan For what? I did not win the battle. Your men did. Captain But your good fighting spirit and splendid humour were of some consequence. Nolan The last thing a soldier must show is fear. His job and duty is to challenge destiny and death. Captain We will contact Washington and try to get you pardoned. Until then I want you to accept my own sabre as a sign of my high regard and appreciation. (offers his own sword as a gift) Nolan But it is your own sword, Sir. Captain Exactly. That’s why I want you to have it. Nolan I haven’t worn a sword since my sentence at the court martial. Captain Then it’s about time. You certainly did deserve it. Nolan Do you really think Washington could pardon me? Captain Whoever studies your case would not be able to do anything else. The thing is just to gain the attention of the war ministry to your case. Nolan I am just an individual and a total outsider to the system. Captain Nothing is more important in the world than the individual. If his case is not considered, the entire humanity is lost. Nolan Thank you, Sir. (accepts the sabre with some emotion) Captain That’s right, Nolan. Go to your cabin and cry now, where no one can see you but Shakespeare and the Bible, but everything will pass, and so will your sorrow. Only the sea has no end. Nolan And that endlessness with its perspective of unfathomable possibilities, Sir, is my greatest daily comfort. (salutes and leaves) Captain A man of honour if any, and the perfect subject for an admiral to be, if only he could be released.

Act IV scene 1. The admiralty. Admiral But you must understand, young man, that we can’t ignore and overrun justice just like that. Cadet But it’s not an issue of justice. It’s about injustice. Admiral Lieutenant Nolan had a mild and fair sentence for high treason and evaded execution and has instead received a comfortable lifetime holiday at sea at the cost of the state. He hasn’t even lost his rank. Cadet But he has long ago atoned for his crime, if it was a crime. All he did was to lose his temper at an unnecessary and humiliating trial. All his fellow officers who were brought to trial with him were aquitted. Admiral He was the only one of them who persisted in his treason and refused to repent. Cadet He was provoked into expressing himself as he did. Admiral He cursed America and asked himself to never again hear anything about it. He got what he wanted and nothing worse than that. Cadet But many years have passed since then. He has excelled in war and done his country great service. He made considerable contributions both in the war with England and in the operations at Nukuhiva, and he continues to serve his country on board as a curator and ship’s doctor. When I met him now I didn’t at first recognize him. I thought he was some kind of preacher or quaker. Admiral He may have turned into a better man, and in that case his fate has done him some good, which gives us even less reason to alter his sentence. Cadet But he was then just an eighteen-year old stripling when it happened. You can hardly charge him with any serious criminal offence at that age for a provoked expression at the face of the predominating supremacy of a hard pressing and totally unnecessary court trial. Admiral I am sorry, my son, but there is nothing we can do. Only the President may pardon him, and the President doesn’t know who he is. Cadet That’s the tragic problem. He is allowed to be forgotten and disappear. The more years that pass, the less his chances grow for him to be able to return to reality. Admiral I am aware of this. Also for that reason it is best for him to continue his life on board. He appears to have regular routines and enjoy regular activities. He suffers no harm. Cadet But he is a man without a country, and the country which he now loves more every day has denied and forsaken him. Amiralen No, he did it himself. Cadet In a moment of carelessness. Admiral None the less, that’s what he did. He has to take the consequences. So must every soldier who commits a mistake. Cadet But it is hard and unfair. He deserves a pardon after so many years for the crime of not knowing what he said.

Admiral But he said it, and he knew then what he was saying. Or else he would not have said it. Cadet So you don’t want to help him? Admiral We must follow the rule of the law. The law doesn’t make exceptions. Cadet It’s not the law. He was sentenced without reference to the law. That’s bureaucratic sloth in not wanting to do anything about it. He has got stuck in a machinery deadlock, and no one wants to fix it. Admiral You could see it that way, but it’s worse than that. No one can do anything about it. Cadet (rising) I had hoped for some humanity on your side. Admiral My friend, we are all subject to the law, and as such we are powerless to the fact that justice is blind. Cadet No, Sir. It’s the duty of justice to see things clearly. It’s injustice that is blind. (rises upset and leaves.) Admiral He is right. But the case is so deeply buried in forgotten documents that it would be next to impossible to dig it up again.

Scene 2. (Nolan comes on board another ship, arrives with escort across the railing.) Captain Thanks for being able to come. What a godsend luck that you know Portuguese! We have liberated these slaves, but they don’t understand what we are saying. They are overjoyed and exhilarated beyond reason, but we don’t understand them either. Nolan With whom may I speak? Captain This man appears to be their chief of some sort. (Nolan is made to speak with one of the leading liberated slaves. They get hysterical of joy and start jumping and dancing around.) Captain Obviously they have got the message. Nolan What more do you wish me to tell them? Captain Tell them, that we are sailing for Cape Palmas, where they may disembark as free men. (Nolan communicates this to the liberated, which is not received well.) What’s the matter? Don’t they understand that they no longer are slaves, that we have taken their slave ship, put their commanders in iron and liberated them? Aren’t they grateful? (Nolan has discussed with the leader, who has told him a long story. Nolan turns to the captain with a troubled mind.) Nolan They don’t wish to be set ashore at Cape Palmas. They want to get home to their own land. They haven’t seen their families for a long time. They want to get home to their kin, and our friend here wants to take care of his old man, who is at an advanced age. He hasn’t seen his family for six months. They want to go nowhere

but home. They don’t care about their freedom or the whole world, if they may just come home to their own. Captain (understands Nolan’s concern) I understand. Tell them that we are sailing straight home with them and will not stop anywhere on the way. (takes Nolan aside) Sorry to have exposed you to this. I know well your situation but couldn’t guess, that our liberation of this slave ship would lead to such emotions and such a trial for you. Nolan It’s no danger, captain. I am used to it, but thanks for your accomodating concern. Not a day passes without the wound of my heart being reopened again. There is always something to remind me of what I may not be reminded of, as if its enforced absence only made it the more present and importunate. Captain You may now go back to your ship. Thanks for your invaluable assistance here. Nolan I was always interested in languages, and fortunately I knew some Portuguese. Captain That was our great luck today and your sore trial. Nolan Forget it. Captain Here is your escort. Junior Are you ready to be brought back? Nolan Yes, my friend. Junior What really happened here on board? Pardon me for asking. Nolan I am the man without a country. I was sentenced to a life of an outlawed outsider in a kind of exile for life for having in a moment of weakness, which happened to be at court, rejected the United States of America. I was sentenced to never again hear anything about them. No one may speak with me about home. But the reminders are constantly importuning, and nothing can stop them. There are always turning up new ones along the most unexpected and suprising ways, like here today, when these liberated slaves talked so heartrending about their homes and their longing for home, a feeling that for me is forbidden. But that makes it only worse. There is no stronger feeling in man than his feeling for his home. The origin is everything, he will never do without his roots, which is his only life, and if he cuts them, which I did by mistake, he will unceasingly have to pay for it for the rest of his life by a black hole of creeping, gnawing ansd consuming suffering which never ends but only constantly increases. Junior But such a verdict is absurd. You can’t take such a sentence for serious. An appeal must be possible. Nolan Several of my friends have tried but without result. I am forgotten, I am lost in the documents, as if I never had existed. I denied America, and therefore America seems to have deleted me. Junior But you are a fine and honest man, invaluable as a curator and source of knowledge on board, you are innocent and incapable of any evil, and if you once made an offence you must have atoned for it many times since then.

Nolan What help is that when the bureaucracy once and for all has decided that my case is closed? – Come, my friend, we must get back to our ship. (They cross the railing to return. The captain salutes them with the crew.)

Scene 3. The admiralty. Junior But I assure you, that he has atoned for his crime many times, if there even was a crime, as it rather was the thoughtlessness of a young man. There is no truer and more loyal American than he, and he has served his country more than well during his entire exile with personal contributions in the second war against the English and at Nukuhiva, of which there are testimonies. Ministern No, there are not. Junior What do you mean? Ministern My good man, at your special request I have made careful investigations and research about the man you will have pardoned, but he does not exist. There is no report about him, and if he really lives, as you say, in permanent exile on board American ships that constantly bring him away on new cruises as far away from America as possible, then he lives in absolute incognito, and such a person we cannot handle. Junior But he has soon lived for thirty years in exile for the sake of an offence of inconsideration. You can’t seriously mean that he cannot be pardoned? Ministern He cannot be pardoned, since there is no such man to pardon. Junior But all who know him can testify to his existence! Hundreds of sailors, officers and commanders have got to know him on his eternal voyages. He can’t be made more real than he is! Ministern That doesn’t help if there are no documents about him. Does he even have any document about himself? Get some written certification from some captain of his, who can endorse his identity, but I doubt that even such a document can be produced if he now, as you say, has been sailing for thirty years in exile. He probably no longer has any papers, and then nothing can be proved. Junior You are just messing with me. Ministern Not at all, my young man. I just state the facts as they are. You can’t get away from reality, which demands evidence and documentation if anything is to be done by law. Junior Can nothing save him then, so that he at last could return home? Ministern Does he even have any home to return to? Has he any family? Any relatives? Any friends, except such special seafaring individuals as you, who immediately vanish out at sea again? I am sorry, my friend, but without a certification of his existence nothing in the world could get him ashore again and least of all our judicial system. Junior In that case, your honour, you make him right, when he in his youth condemned America as lost and ruined by its established bureaucracy.

Ministern That could be correct, but America is far from alone. Every country suffers from a hopeless bureaucracy which makes it paralysed in almost all matters of sincerely urgent personal affairs. Junior (resigns) Pardon me for having disturbed you. Ministern No problem. Welcome back, if you meet him again, and he has succeeded in producing a written document to prove his existence and some identification. Junior So you actually never heard about Philip Nolan? Ministern According to the navy and the army and the department of justice the man has never existed. (Junior leaves in fury without another word.) Alas, the world is full of lost people who lost their way in blind alleys by just some misfortunate mistake somewhere, which turned their lives into one way only out to nothing. If Philip Nolan really exists and has happened to what this young offficer has told me, he will at least leave some story behind.

Scene 4. In the gunroom at the table after a meal. 1 Yes, there can’t be any more glorious animal than the horse. 2 I think we all could subscribe to that. 3 I have often found horses more human and sensitive than human beings. You can for example make better friends with a horse than with a dog or even a man. 2 How do you explain it? 3 If you make friends with a horse you know that you can always trust that horse. But you can never trust a man in the same way – he will always be at risk of unreliability. 1 I am inclined to agree. Nolan I remember in my youth in Texas how we used to tame wild horses. They were utterly uncooperative to begin with and tried any means to throw you off, but when we finally had succeeded in making it understand that we only wished it well and wanted to cooperate, it became more faithful and compliant than a lamb. Horses have their own language, which it takes a long time to learn, but when you finally have learned to interpret the way horses express themselves, you can have him for a better friend than a man. I wonder how it is in Texas nowadays. It was years since I read any news from there. I had hoped it would be independent when Mexico broke away from Spain, it is the Italy of North America and had the most promising future prospects of the continent, but it must be ten years since I last heard anything new from there. (Some gloom. 1 clears his throat almost demonstratively, 2 rises and starts working with the lamp, 3 has a violent fit of coughing and has to leave the table, and two others look at each other in silence.) Quartermaster Texas is gone from the map, Mr Nolan.

Nolan (wants to go down to earth, starts rising) I understand. Excuse me. I should have understood, but I never noticed that Texas had been removed from my maps. Quartermaster No, please remain, Mr Nolan. It is not your fault. It is our fault, who suffer under something like an enforced superstition when we never may speak about our homeland with you, while it is just an absurd prohibition that must be regarded as inhuman. (Some of the officers want to protest, but Q. Strikes the table with his fist.) No! I don’t want to be part of this hypocrisy any more! It’s a bloody shame! 1 We all obey the same directions which is the law. If we transgress the obligation of silence we make ourselves guilty of insubordination. Q But there must be a limit to how far indecency and inhumanity can be enforced! 2 Hasn’t Nolan’s sentence been appealed again and again? What has been the response from the admiralty? 3 I can answer that. I have brought the issue to the war minister himself. I have presented the fact, that every captain who has been charged with Nolan has desired to let him go and at last reach the shore and home. No one has been able to do this, since he would immediately be brought to trial for breaking the order of 1807, which could have led to execution, since the sentence for high treason was on parole. But the verdict has never been updated and must since very long be regarded as outdated and anachronistic. 2 What had the war minister to say himself? 3 He renounced all responsibility and had no special orders to give. Everyone who gets the care of Nolan must act accoring to his own judgement. Since constant appeals have been under treatment, patience has been observed, and no one has been willing to take the law into his own hands. Quartermaster And in the meantime nothing happens, and Nolan is continuously exposed to his shameful treatment of being kidnapped and imprisoned year after year, decade after decade. Nolan Gentlemen, please don’t get upset. Let me also have some word in this, for it is after all my concern. I am not complaining. I have never complained. I have taken the responsibility for my own destiny and reconciled myself with my sentence by regarding it as fair even if it would be for life. We all have our own destiny to learn something of, and I have learned to make the best of it. I never wished to complicate the situation for anyone who got the care of me but was always eager to cooperate and make it easier, and my reward for this has been the appreciation of almost all my shipmates. This reward I will carry with me into the zone of eternity, and the obligation to have to live without time, without future and without past, without responsibilitiy and without duties except to my own spiritual welfare, I have more and more learned to view as a privilege. I appreciate your efforts to make the admiralty see the reason of an absurd case of anachronism, and you are to go on with that, but whether it leads somewhere or not, I am satisfied as it is anyway. My life’s journey without a country has been a journey into eternity, which I actually learned

to enjoy more every year. Thank you, gentlemen, and pardon me for unintentionally having made you upset about it. (makes a short bow and leaves.) 1 (after a moment’s silence and afterthought) He has plenty to teach us. 2 Darn it, it’s a privilege to sail with him and to have him on board. 3 I guess we all think so. Quartermaster Pardon me, gentlemen, for rising in anger and daring to break a tabu. 1 It was quite appropriate. It was about time that someone did it at last. 2 Absolutely. Quite right. 3 Many thanks for that. Quartermaster I think we need another round. Can’t we bring Nolan back with a jug of rum? 3 (rising) I will go and fetch him immediately. (leaves) 2 He has travelled further than any of us but at the same time somehow come closer and reached closer to home than any of us. 1 Yes, that’s how it is. Quartermaster (rising) A toast for Philip Nolan, gentlemen. 2 Yes, an extra toast for him, until he comes. (They toast for Nolan.)

Act V scene 1. Nolan’s cabin. Danworth enters and finds Nolan in his berth in bed and aged. Nolan A visitor? How kind of you to drop in. Danworth The doctor told me you were not quite well. Nolan Nonsense. I have never felt better. I am just getting weak, like all are who reach this age. Danworth So there is nothing wrong with you? Nolan Absolutely nothing, as far as I know. But come closer, and let me look at you. (Danworth comes closer, and Nolan gets an attack of coughing.) Danworth That doesn’t sound very good. Nolan It’s just a small cold. It will pass like everything else. Danworth You appear strangely harmonic for having lived so long under the terms of a gross injustice. Nolan Do you call it injustice? No, my friend, no one ever deserved any good treatment by my country less than I, which has taught me to love my country better than anyone else. I call that the justice of destiny. Danworth I don’t know how many who during the years have tried to procure your pardon but who only were answered by bureaucratic indifference and total inhuman stonecold callousness. Nolan I don’t mind. My country has never succeeded in rejecting me, and no one has ever been able to stop me from loving my country. Danworth What do you mean? Nolan Look around. What do you see?

Danworth (looks around. The light and his eyes fall on the American coat of arms with the eagle, that decorates the wall, a provisional painting. Danworth is astounded.) Nolan There you are. I have a country. (points at a map at his feet) Take it and study it. (Danworth takes the map and studies it with some wonder.) I have tried to make my own map of the United States as I think they appear today. I have seen that the Star Banner today has 34 stars. I figured out some of the new states, like Illinois, Mississippi and Ohio, but many are missing. Would you mind completing the map for me? Danworth Shall I take it to my cabin and fill in the new states? Nolan No. Please do it here, and tell me. (Danworth hesitates.) I know it is forbidden, but is it then so serious a crime to satisfy an old man’s curiosity about the development of his country? Can anyone prosecute you for that? Danworth Where shall I begin? Nolan Start with telling me who is the President today. Danworth His name is Abraham Lincoln from Kentucky. Nolan Could it be the son of old general Benjamin Lincoln? Danworth No, Abe Lincoln comes from a poor family of settlers. Nolan It gives me joy that such can become presidents. I was always afraid that a hierarchy of rich tycoons would acquire a power monopoly of the states by helping each other to form cartells by mutual admiration, since there always was such a danger. Is he a good president? Danworth He is the perfect president for a country in danger. Nolan Are the states in danger? Are we at war again? Danworth That was the last thing I wished to tell you, but we are actually fighting a civil war. Nolan How come? Danworth The President and his party wanted to abolish slavery. The southern states are partly dependent on slavery for their economy, so they wanted to leave the union. The northern states refused to accept this, and so we had a civil war. Nolan Has it been going on for long? Danworth It’s the third year now. Nolan Then it could take long. The north states have industries and are rich, while the south states mainly live on agriculture, but people in the south are stubborn and don’t give in easily. I met Aaron Burr once more many years later. He happened to come on board a ship where I was at the time. We recognized each other immediately, but it was not a happy reunion. Danworth Did you reproach him? Nolan Not at all. He had managed well and taken a long time out in Europe to then start practising as a lawyer in New York. He had nothing to complain of, and all his bitterness and disappointment were gone. Danworth He felt no guilt in your case?

Nolan He told me: ”Let’s have it, Nolan, if you feel any bitterness against me. I know that my agitation ruined your life, and I am sorry for it, but I never had such an intention.” ”Sir,” I answered, ”what happened was an accident at work. The accident was that I forever was alienated from my country, but that was not your fault. It wasn’t my fault either, because anyone can get upset and lose his temper when he is put to trial for having done what he thought was right. I thought you were right against the states, you had been treated wrongly and been exiled from Washington, and I couldn’t retract on that, so I stood up for it, and for that I was condemned by my own word being used against me. That’s how the system works. If you are taken to court your destiny will be that everything you say will be used against you. The wrong was that we were put to trial at all. We should all have been pardoned on parole like you.” He patted my arm and apologised for anyway feeling responsible for my fall, but he had no reason to. Thus we parted, and I never saw him again. Danworth ”Accident at work.” Is that how you view your life? Nolan It was my destiny, and I have learned much of my destiny. I have learned to make the best of it even under the most abominable circumstances, like war, for example. I have become a philosopher, and the ship has become my university, since I could pursue my studies on board and undisturbed during my entire long life. At home I would never have become anything and not even a war hero. Here during a long life of freedom by exile I have been able to realize myself. Danworth So you are content? Nolan Utterly. I have been given a long and privileged life for nothing, which hasn’t been given anyone else. Danworth And you have become something of a legend as well. Nolan Am I spoken of? Danworth The very fact that the admiralty denies your existence makes this a living legend. Everyone who meets you can testify that you actually exist and that the system that denied you and scrapped you was all wrong. The stupidity is there with the authorities. The truth and knowledge is with you, which you have turned into wisdom. Nolan That was nicely put. Perhaps there is something in it. Danworth Anything else I can do for you? Anything you need? Whiskey? Any book from the ship’s library? Nolan No thank you, my friend, I think I would just like to go to sleep. I am tired now but grateful for your visit. Danworth Then I shall leave you in peace. Nolan (smiles) Welcome back. Let me press your hand. (takes his hand and keeps it long in his own.) If anything should happen to me, I have left some instructions in my Bible. If you open it you will find it at once. Danworth Does the doctor know?

Nolan Of course. You don’t have to worry, neither you nor the doctor. (let’s go of his hand and closes his eyes.) Now I am satisfied. You can put out all lights as you leave. (Danworth puts out the lights, the cabin is left in darkness, and Danworth leaves.) Danworth (outside) I think my visit did some good. He is probably sleeping well now. (leaves all behind.)

Scene 2. Next morning, on deck. Doctor I was with Nolan this morning. He has passed away during the night. Danworth (astonished) Has he turned in? Doctor Yes, he has fallen into his final sleep with a smile on his lips. Danworth (struck with wonder) How very strange. I never thought that. He was so alive when I was with him yesterday. Doctor Did you know about his will? Danworth He told me about it, but I didn’t see it. Doctor It was in his Bible. I have it here. Would you like to hear it? Danworth I would love to. Doctor (reads) ”My last wish is to come home by being buried in the sea, which is my only home, which I have been on my way to through all my life and which was a truer home to me than any homeland on earth can be. On the sea I was always free, while my sentence liberated me from all that lack of freedom which a life on land means. Let me just disappear like another wave on the sea, for more than that I learned that it could never be worth becoming, since merging in the great wholeness, the vast universal freedom, the omnipresence of universal life, like a wave on the sea, is the highest consummation any man can reach. May I in all my imperfection end in humbly merging into the universal perfection.” (lifts his eyes from the paper) That’s all. There was nothing more than that. Danworth It’s enough. In his own way he found a greater perfection than anyone else can find, by coming home as far from home as anyone could get. Doctor You understood him. Danworth I tried to. I didn’t get any further than at the beginning. And now he will remain forever out of reach. Doctor Shall I throw his letter into the sea? Danworth No, give it to me. I will procure for him a monument by his own old military school, and I know what to write on it. Doctor What will it be? Danworth His own words. ”He loved his country as no other man has loved it, but no one deserved less its love.” Doktorn Is it true? Danworth It is true in the way, that actually no one deserves his country’s love, since a country can’t love its children, since only the contrary is possible: that the

children love their country, which they can do illimitably, and I don’t think anyone could do it more than the way Philip Nolan finally did it. Doctor I think you are right. (They both turn away across the railing to contemplate the horizon of the sea.)

The End.

Gothenburg 3.3.2017, translated in Midsummer 2021.

The Captain Dramatization of Jack London’s ”The Sea Wolf” by Christian Lanciai (2015) 84

The characters: Ralph a bartender Maurice another Benjamin Humphrey van Weyden Maud Brewster Four policemen Johnson Johanson Thomas Mugridge, cook George Leach Ulf Larsen, called Wolf-Larsen, captain Doctor Kerfoot Watson, shanghaied seal hunter other sailors After the introductory scenes around San Francisco, the action takes place exclusively on board the schooner ”Ghost” on the Pacific Ocean.

Act I scene 1. A disreputable harbour hook with relevant customers. Enter Ralph like on the run from justice, taking a stand by the bar, concealing his face. bartender You look as if you had seen a ghost. Ralph Worse than that. Only living people. bartender (serves him a whiskey) Do you need somewhere to go? Ralph On the spot. Maurice I know him. Have you escaped from prison again? Ralph Are you pulling my leg? Maurice Don’t tell me that’s your pinch. Ralph I don’t think anyone is after me. bartender (whispering with another) the other We need people who have seen ghosts. Ralph For what? Chasing ghosts?

Benjamin (laying his arm around him) You have come to the right place, buddy. This is the right instance for people who want to get away from the injustice of society to freedom. Ralph And what is freedom? The other In this case the ghost ship called Ghost. Maurice (turning away) Don’t mention her! Benjamin Why not? Am I not right? Maurice Either you don’t know what you are talking about, or you are a con man. bartender Ghost is known as a ship you would gladly be shanghaied by. Ralph You don’t need to shanghai me. I volunteer. What is her cargo? Benjamin None at all. She is loading. She is going seal hunting in competition with the Macedonia. Maurice An even worse horror example of a ghost ship running on cadaver discipline. Ralph When does she sail? Benjamin Tomorrow. Ralph Suits me fine. Maurice I warn you, Ralph. It could be your last voyage. Ralph I only know I made my last trip into jail. Never again. Any freedom is better. Maurice Look out for spies and detectives, like him, for example. (indicates a more orderly guest) Ralph No, he is too clean to be a policeman. Maurice But he could very well be a detective. Ralph I don’t think so. (enter a woman, obviously stressed.) bartender Are you stressed? Maud Does the police come here? bartender Hardly. They shun this place. Ralph Are you also on the run? Maud Not at all. But they are after me. Ralph What have you done? Maud Nothing. Maurice That’s why they are on the run. bartender Do you need protection? I have a place where no one would look for you. Maud Anything is better than the grave. (accepts a whiskey) Weyden (the more orderly, prudent customer, politely lifting his hat as he accosts her) If you need an escort, I could be of service. I will just take the ferry across the bay. Maud With you for company, no one would ask me any questions. Weyden Let’s go at once then. (wants to leave with her, when he sees two policemen coming in) bartender Take cover.

Maurice They don’t see us. It’s too smoky in here and too many people. (Weyden takes Maud apart to a table out of the way where they sit down discreetly.) Benjamin What the devil is the police doing here? How dare they enter? Something big must have happened. bartender (to the policemen) What can we do for you? policeman 1 We are looking for escaped prisoners. There has been a considerable break-out, and about twelve inmates are on the loose. Maurice They are of course scattered all over the city. Benjamin You will find no one here. Not even such bums dare to show themselves here. policeman 1 No, I can see that. Here is just the usual rabble of weirdos and con men. Benjamin There are only regular seamen here. policeman 1 Yes, I can see that. Except for that man over there. (indicates van Weyden) What is such a bloke doing here? Maurice Never seen him before. bartender Casual visit. He is just going across the bay. Policeman 1 (comes up to Weyden and Maud) You haven’t by any chance seen any escaped convicts around? Weyden No. I have been looking for them myself. policeman 2 How so? Who are you? Weyden Journalist. I heard about the break-out and came here to maybe find something to write about it here, if they would pass this way, but unfortunately I haven’t seen anyone. All I can do is to cross over to the other side. Policeman 2 Is the lady with you? Weyden Yes, she is with me. policeman 1 Then we’ll just be on our way, Charlie. No inmates seem to have passed this way. bartender Good hunting, gentlemen. policeman 1 Thanks. We are sure to get them. (The policemen leave.) Maurice You made it, Ralph. No one saw you. Ralph I am good at making myself invisible to justice. My problems with injustice are worse. Weyden (rising) Come, my lady. The coast is clear. Maud (following him. To Ralph) Perhaps we’ll meet again. Ralph (surprised) Are you also on the run? Maud Only from injustice. (winks her eye and leaves with Weyden) Benjamin Are you ready, my friend? The ship is waiting. Ralph Absolutely. The sooner we are at sea, the better. Maurice Don’t tell me I didn’t warn you. Ralph You must know by now, Maurice, that I always enjoyed challenges. bartender Then you are out for a treat, if you sail with Wolf-Larsen. Ralph Is that the captain? Benjamin Yes.

Maurice The hardest of all captains. There is only one who is worse, and that is his brother Death Larsen on the Macedonia. They try to sink each other during the seal hunt, but they are equally invincible and unsinkable, as the two worst captains of the sea. Ralph Thanks, that’s enough. I enlist immediately. Benjamin Obviously you like some action? Ralph Anything is better than nothing happening at all, like in prison. Benjamin (pats his back) Then you are on the right way, pal. Have a nice journey. Ralph I hope to never come back. (leaves with the other.) bartender Do you think he knows what he is in for? Benjamin It’s best for him not to know. (has another drink, and everything returns to normal.)

Scene 2. On board the ferry. Dark weather and dense fog. At the gunwale. Weyden What are you running away from? Maud What everyone is running away from. The past. Weyden Is it worth it? Maud That depends on what you reach. Weyden Can you run away from yourself? Maud Only by denying yourself. Weyden Isn’t that lying to yourself? Maud Isn’t everybody’s life always just one great lie? Weyden It depends on what you are living for. Maud Do you have anything to live for? Weyden Not yet. Maud Do you think you could find it? Weyden Fortunately you never can tell. Maud I understood you are a journalist. What are you writing about? Weyden I review books and concerts. Maud So you are an intellectual. Weyden Yes, I am afraid so. Maud Does that satisfy you? Weyden I am always looking for something else, something extra. Maud Who isn’t? And that’s how you landed in the shabbiest harbour hook of San Francisco. Weyden What did you do there yourself? Maud You know that. I looked for a way out. Weyden From what? Maud From society. From my past. From everything. Weyden Then perhaps we are in the same boat.

Maud Are you trying to be funny? Weyden No, just spiritual. (Two policemen show up.) Maud (trying to make herself invisible) Remember, that I am with you. Weyden Yes, you are not with anyone else. Policeman 3 Pardon me, but we are looking for a lady on the run. You don’t happen to have seen a lone lady on board? Weyden No. policeman 4 And who is the lady with you? Weyden She is with me. Policeman 4 Yes, we can see that, but who is she? policeman 3 Can she identify herself? Maud Can’t you leave us alone? Don’t you see that we are together? policeman 3 If you can identify yourself, there is no problem. Weyden She has left her identification papers at home. policeman 4 And where does she live? Maud In San Francisco. policeman 3 Yes, we can understand that, but do you have a residence? policeman 4 She can’t identify herself, and she fits the description. policeman 3 I must warn you. Protecting an escaped convict makes you an accomplice of her crime. Weyden She is not guilty because you think so. policeman 4 If she is the one we think, we know that she is guilty. Weyden And can you prove that she is the one you think? policeman 4 In any case we must arrest her as a suspect. policeman 3 Just come with us, lady. (wants to force her to follow) Maud Never in my life! (strikes him with her handbag and runs away. The policemen run after her.) Weyden What on earth might she have done? She is probably just a shoplifter like everyone else. (Suddenly a deafening thrust with following noise. Everything shakes violently.) Voices Collision! That damned fog! Man over board! We are going down! Save who can be saved! Damnation in hell! Put out the lifeboats! Too late! That freighter didn’t even give a signal! (Complete chaos. Everyone runs in different directions, running into each other and pushing around each other bringing each other down.) (Blackout.)

Scene 3. A lifeboat. The same fog. Weyden (slowly recovering on the floor) Where am I? Who am I? What happened? Johnson You were overrun. We are fishing up eventual survivors. Weyden Are there more? Ralph I recognize him. We met at the joint. Weyden Of course. Where are we going? I was just going across the bay. Could you land me somewhere? Johanson Out of the question. We could at best find our ship again, nothing else. Weyden What ship? Johnson Ghost. Weyden Of all ships! Ralph You would happen to the worst. Welcome on board! Weyden We are not on board yet. Ralph You are not likely to get away. Johanson Attention! There’s another fish! Johnson And a lady at that! What a catch! We will have our nets full today! Weyden It is she! Ralph Don’t tell me it’s the one from the joint. Weyden Thank heavens she made it! Johnson She will probably be less grateful in time. Weyden What do you mean? Cook (rowing) He means, that you’ll never get ashore alive from the Ghost. Johanson Shut up, cook! Cook I am just telling them what to expect. It would be wrong to inveigle our stowaways in any false illusion of comfort by withholding the truth. If they get a clear picture from the beginning, they might have better chances to survive. Weyden You just said that no one gets home alive from the Ghost. Cook And I meant it. Johanson Attention! Rescue is coming, lady! We are here to catch you up! (The sailors get Maud all wet through into the boat.) Maud I don’t know how to thank you. You have saved my life. Cook Don’t be too sure of that. They just prolonged your misfortune. Maud (notices Weyden) You here? We are then still in the same boat. Who is he? Weyden He is apparently the cook on board and a knave who only knows how to belch venom. Maud You should never take such for serious. Cook I assure you, lady, that I was always serious and always right. Maud (to the sailors) Is that correct? Ralph Don’t ask me. I am new on board, but of what I’ve heard so far, you can only expect the worst. Maud You also here?

Ralph Voluntarily. I challenged destiny and volunteered. Maud Then we are three in the same boat. Cook No, lady, we are an entire crew, and you are just temporary stowaways, for which the captain will make life as sore as possible in the hope that you will not survive. The crew will manage and survive for being needed, but the only way for stowaways to survive is to become part of the crew. Maud Has your captain then no respect for ladies? Cook Not so far, for he never had any. None here has ever seen a live lady on board, he-he-he! Weyden (to Maud) We are apparently facing a challenge. Maud No one will bully me. I’d rather jump overboard and drown than compromise with any brute. Ralph There seems to be one decent person on board, the ship’s doctor. Weyden As long as there is a doctor on board, there is hope for life. Ralph Don’t worry, lady. There are now two of us here to stand up for your protection. Maud I am not worried, but I am curious about that captain. Who is he? Cook The flying Dutchman. Johnson Wolf-Larsen, together with his brother Death Larsen, the most notorious seal hunter of the Pacific. Maud I hope he at least will allow me to get dry on board. Johnson You can count on that, although there is nothing dry on board. Maud What do you mean by that? Johanson He means that no one ever wll get dry internally. Cook Thanks to the cook. Only he sees to it that everyone survives in spite of all by correct rationing. You had better, Miss, to stand up for strong stuff. Weyden (tries to calm her) We will make sure to get ashore at first possible landfall. Cook There’s no risk. We won’t see land again until outside Alaska. Ralph This seems to amount to an interesting cruise. Cook You can count on that, suicide candidate. You have chosen the right ship for a slow and certain perdition for all on board. Ralph You are unusually encouraging for being a cook. Cook My job is to stimulate the appetite. Johnson Ship ohoy! Voice on board Ohoy! Any survivors? Johnson A slim fish and a mermaid. Voice With tail and all? Cook She certainly has something at the back, but not for you! Weyden (hits him) Shut up! Cook Take it easy. You were not the one I insulted. Weyden Exactly! Cook You have plenty to learn, landlubber. Weyden No, on the contrary. We will have a hell on our hands.

Cook On which you will burn your hands. Larsen(’s voice) Get them the hell on board! Sailor 1 Ay ay, Sir! (They climb the ladder.)

Scene 4. On board. The first mate lies on deck apparently lifeless. The crew pour buckets of salt water on him. He is half dead, groans, writhes a little, has tremendous pains, can’t rise to his feet. When Maud is brought on board, this is the first thing she sees and faints immediately. Doctor This is no place for ladies. Carry her down to my cabin immediately. (Two members of the crew carry her out.) (Weyden is helped on board and is met with the same scene. He turns away and pukes.) At least you do not faint. Have you never seen a corpse before? Weyden He is not dead yet, is he? Doctor No, but he soon will be. Weyden What is the matter with him? What has he done? Doctor He played around in San Francisco so lavishly that he will never be able to stand on his legs any more. Larsen (from upper deck) Get some life into that body, for Pete’s sake! Whatever you do, don’t let him die away from us at once at the start of our journey! Weyden Is that the captain? Doctor Himself. Weyden I need to speak with him. We can’t stay here on board. Doctor I am afraid you have no choice. Were you the only ones to be saved? Weyden We were the only ones saved by you, if that was any rescue. This living corpse seems to indicate the opposite. Doctor It will pass. (The sailors pour another bucket of salt water over the mate. He rattles, has some breathing difficulties, suffocates and dies in a horrible death struggle.) That’s that. He is done for. Larsen (from upper deck) Don’t tell me he is dead! Doctor (turning up towards him) Yes, he is dead. Cook Not even the strongest grog will do him any good any more. Larsen (comes down in a fury) I forbade him to die! I forbade him to disable himself by drinking! I forbade him to sabotage our journey! Now we are without a first mate, and it’s entirely his own fault! You damned piece of shit, how could you be so stupid! How could you do this to me and to my ship and our journey! You don’t go down and die for me if you are the mate of my ship! You cursed devil, all we can do now is to send you down to hell! May you suffer worse tortures there than ever under my command! Throw him over board! I’s just a corpse anyway now. Doctor Shouldn’t we have some kind of a burial ceremony? Larsen Does anyone know the ritual? I don’t know it. Perhaps our lastest stowaway knows it? He maybe even is a preacher? He looks like it.

Weyden Unfortunately I cannot help you. Larsen What are you? You look as if you never had done any honest piece of work all your life. Weyden I am a gentleman. Larsen What does that mean? A loafer? Weyden I write articles. Larsen A journalist? Weyden Actually an author. Larsen Now we are getting somehwere! And has never seen a corpse before?And you don’t know your Bible? Weyden If you had a Bible on board, we could manage the ritual. Larsen We have no Bible on board and never had. We’ll have to do without it. Sow him up in a sailing bag. We will have to appoint another mate. Johnson, you be mate. Leach, you’ll be rower instead of Johnson. Leach I don’t want to be a rower. Larsen It’s an order. The captain’s orders are obeyed, or you follow the mate. You have no choice. Move up. Johanson You have no choice. Leach Damn it! (leaves) Larsen He obeys. And what shall we do about you, landlubber? You will be a cabin boy. Start from the bottom, and you will learn something. You’ll have 20 dollars a month and free food and lodging, and you’ll have your first decent employment in your life. Regard it as an honour. Weyden I demand that you set me ashore at first possible landfall, or that I may join the first meeting ship back to San Francisco. Larsen Listen to him. He makes demands. Little man, you are not in a position to demand anything. You are a stowaway and have no rights as such, least of all any human rights, unless you sign on. I offer you an employment, so that you may survive. The choice is yours. If you don’t accept my offer you won’t survive, and we have the right to throw you back into the sea. Weyden Will you threat the lady’s life in the same way or give her an even more humiliating offer? Doctor The lady is my patient and under my orders. No one can harm her. Larsen Right, doctor. Keep her to yourself. We’ll see what we’ll do about her later. Johanson The mate is all sowed up, Sir. Larsen Good. Heave him over board. Weyden No word at his departure? No decent farewell? Larsen If you can’t stand for any service to his memory, no one else can do that either. Heave him over board. It’s his own fault. He drank himself to death. Johanson And fucked himself to death. Cook He stayed too long ashore.

Larsen Heave him over board. (The mate is heaved over board.) That’s that. Back to work, boys! Mate! Take the helm! Johnson Ay, ay, Sir. Larsen Take the greenhorn along with you under deck, cook, and give him some work to do. He could always start in the kitchen. I guess you have potatoes waiting to be peeled. Cook Always. Larsen Make him peel some potatoes. He has to start somewhere. And if he doesn’t know how to do even that, you can show him, but don’t let him cut himself. Weyden I can peel potatoes. Larsen What luck for all of us. You can start at once. Or else you would not have survived the first day. Every man to his duties! The ritual is finished! The mate is washed up and gone home! Johnson is our new mate! The crew Ay ay, Sir! (Larsen returns to upper deck, and the cook brings Weyden with him down under deck. The others go to their jobs.)

Scene 5. In the doctor’s cabin. Maud lies on a bed. The doctor examines her heart. Weyden (enters) How is she? Doctor She has had a bad shock. I can’t get the hang of her heart. But she has to wake up sooner or later. Weyden Is she in coma? Doctor No, I don’t think so. Maud (awakes, sees the doctor, faintly) What kind of a hell have I landed into? Doctor You may wonder indeed. What’s this hell we all have landed into? None of us did it willingly, and none of us deserved it. Maud What are we doing here then? Doctor Enduring. (Maud faints off again.) Doctor She is very weak. She has had too much of that medicine of violence. The shock of the shipwreck, the awakening to a dead body on board, mishandled in the middle of the deck. Women are psychically stronger than men as they are more sensitive, but therefore they more easily get affected by emotions and take their blows harder. (turning to him) How do you manage? Are you harassed, like all beginners? Humphrey The cook pushes my life out of me. He forces me into slave labour. Doctor He is the worst sadist on board. He is worse than the captain. Humphrey He claims that no one could be worse than the captain on the seven seas besides his brother. Doctor Death Larsen. I never saw him, but they say he is actually harder and worse than Wolf-Larsen. Still he seems to have spared you.

Humphrey No, he has just ignored me. To him I am just a piece of shit. No one seems to be of any worth to him, since he himself is so obviously physically superior. Doctor Still there is a soul in him. You will get surprised when you get to know him. Humphrey Have you learned to know him? Doctor Enough to keep away from him. He is a monster and a volcanic beast with a strangely enigmatic intellect. Humphrey So he does have an intellect? Doctor Indeed. Haven’t you seen his books in his cabin? Humphrey Are there books? Doctor At the farthest left. They are somewhat hidden, but they are there. Humphrey I will check it next time. Doctor Now she seems to come to again. Maud (without opening her eyes) Can no one help me get away from here? Doctor As soon as possible. Maud I got out of the frying pan into the fire. Instead of being grilled by persecuting authorities, I will now be fried on a volcano. Humphrey We’ll get away from here as soon as possible. Maud I don’t think so. We ended up with the flying Dutchman, and he lets no one go. We will have to follow this ship down into the infernal abyss of eternity. Doctor She is delirious. Humphrey No, she is unfortunately realistic. Wolf-Larsen has made it clear to me that he never intends to let us ashore until we have completed his voyage. Doctor It’s well that you realize it. Then you won’t have any illusions. Humphrey What’s your story, doctor? How did you end up here? Doctor Let’s take that some other time. As long as this patient is in emergency we are positively safe in her company, no matter how paradoxical it may seem. But the risk is that she will have a hell indeed when she gets on her legs. Humphrey That’s maybe why she has made herself a patient. Doctor Nature protects her against the abuse of violence, and we must seek protection against it in her company. Whatever happens on this voyage, Humphrey van Weyden, you must not get surprised. Humphrey I will try not to. (The doctor dabs his patient’s front, while she remains a patient with her eyes closed.) Leach (looks down) Get up on deck, Hump. The cook needs you. Doctor Hump? Is that what they call you? Humphrey Yes. That has become my name on board. Wolf-Larsen gave me the name when I emptied ashes against the wind. Doctor Did it all fall on him? Humphrey And on several others. Doctor (laughs) Then you’ll just have to blame yourself. But you will learn much on this voyage.

Humphrey Captain Wolf-Larsen has indeed promised me that himself. (goes up to Leach. The doctor goes on to take the pulse of Maud.)

Act II Scene 1. Van Weyden cleans up the captain’s cabin and finds his library, studies one title after another with astonishment. Larsen (enters) So you are hear cleaning up, Hump. Just carry on with it. Hump There is not much here to clean up. Everything is in a surprisingly exemplary order. Larsen In what way? Hump At least you keep your books in order. Larsen Do I? You are the first one to have discovered them. Hump You could not believe from your ruthlessness that you were so well read. Larsen Would my seamanship and my intellectual interest be incompatible contraries? Hump Almost. Larsen How so? Hump You treat your fellow beings as if you denied them any human dignity, but at the same time you study the greatest authors of humanism. Larsen Do you call this crew of rotten eggs and drunkards with the cook for their leading them people? Are you that blind to man’s fundamentally primitive and hopelessly brutal nature? Do you allow the folly of false idealism of illusions to lead you? Hump Isn’t idealism what all your books stand for? Larsen Yes, but they are books and ideas, not people. People you find in the forecastle, where they lie drinking and fighting each other, competing about being roughest and most brutal. That’s reality. The ideals and the idealizing concept of man of the books is the desirable and well needed escape from there. Hump But it’s the books and their idealism that bring humanity forward for its development. Larsen Is that so? And is it worth it? Are people worth that you do anything for them? Do they have any soul worth cultivating and encouraging? I doubt it. You know the cook by now, since you are harassed by him every day. He is just a human being. Could you say that you love him and believe him to have a soul? Hump I assume that I am not alone at hating him, and for that I have perfect reasons. Larsen There you are. Has he got a soul? Could he be called human? Is he better than an animal or worse? Hump Worse. Larsen There you are. Animals cannot be as cruel as human beings. Animals cannot be as inhuman as human beings. Only man is capable of deliberate and

calculating cruelty. No animal knows what cruelty or evil is, but man is an expert at it. He has cultivated these talents as long as he has been civilised. Hump You admit then that she is still civilised. Larsen Is she? I doubt it. To the extent that civilisation has helped her on, it has only made her crueller and more efficient as killer and monster. Hump There are exceptions, and it’s for them we are living. Larsen The exceptions to me are my books. Well, now you have got to know me. You have seen how ruthless I am as a captain against my crew, and you have seen my back side, my library. Please assess me. Am I am monster like everyone else, or am I an exception, like the authors of my books? Or am I a combination of both? Hump It’s the very combination that I can’t fit together. You are a combination but impossible as such. Larsen Such as Napoleon and Alexander the Great were that as well, let alone Julius Caesar, a monster both as lover and dictator but a beloved general and a magnanimous statesman. Hump I must wonder, what such an intellectual capacity and such a perfectly fitted man with such excellent qualifications is doing on board of an ordinary schooner built for seal hunting as a tyrant captain for a mob of delinquents and brutal ruffians? Larsen There is nothing wrong with my ship. She is the fastest in her category. I refitted and rigged her all over myself. Originally she had much shorter masts and smaller sail area. Now I can race and beat anyone, and that’s her purpose. Hump To be the first to reach hunting grounds for butchering seals? Larsen We all have a mission in life for which we were born to make the best of. I was made a captain and seal hunter, like my brother. It just happened that way. We vie with each other and do anything to beat each other in the competition. That’s our lives. We were not born for anything better. You were perhaps born to an inherited fortune which allowed you to study all your life and do whatever you wished, but what has become of you? An incompetent weakling who can’t stand anything and doesn’t even know how to peel a potato. Hump Has the cook been complaining? Larsen If he has complained! He wants you down in the keelson as a disabled shipworm, since you are good for nothing else than being in the way. I became at least a man who always could manage by himself in any circumstances, and no one dares to do anything against me. Hump Still we have that in common that we read the same books. Larsen I am aware of this, and you are the first person I ever got on board with whom I could talk about existential matters. We will continue our talk some other time. Now I have to mind the navigation. Carry on your cleaning. (goes up again) Hump A remarkable man. I can’t make him out. (goes on cleaning)

Scene 2. In the doctor’s cabin. Maud (in bed as before) How shall I get out of this, doctor? I don’t want anything to do with this horrible crew, and the captain refuses to let me ashore. Doctor You are not alone, Miss Maud. I have been in the same situation ever since I joined on board. Maud Why did you do it? How did you happen to it? Doctor It’s a long story. I lost my practice and had to leave San Francisco. Captain Larsen thought he could make use of me, and he did, the way he mishandles his crew. I don’t think anyone of them was a beast before he became their tamer. Maud How could you lose your practice? Did you misuse it? Doctor I was too alcoholic to be entrusted any more with responsibility for any patients. I was excluded from the medical society. That was after my wife’s death. Liquour was no good substitute for her but still a substitute. Captain Larsen promised me unlimited access if I signed on. Maud So he bribed you with alcohol. Doctor No one is incorruptible. We all have our weaknesses. And there are always monsters or so called supermen who are mean enough to use them for their own purposes. Maud So your slavery under alcohol made you a slave under captain Larsen. Doctor He keeps me sober enough with his blind discipline. No one can ever relax here on board as long as he is allowed to go on, and it actually saved me somewhat from the worst addiction. Maud I have to admit as an acknowledgement that I never felt a smell of alcohol from you. Doctor You were yet another motivation for sobriety. But here is our fellow prisoner. Hump How is she? Doctor Thank you, she is alive, but she doesn’t want to appear on deck. Hump For good reasons. How long can you keep her in quarantine out of reach from the crew? Doctor As long as possible. I can always insist on her continued sick leave to captain Larsen. It suits him perfecly that she is kept away from deck. Hump Let her stay under deck as long she pleases. Doctor That’s exactly what I will do. Hump How are you, Miss Maud? Maud I never felt better. My only illness is my allergy against the roughness on board. Hump I suffer from the same illness, but I am not as fortunate as you. I am no shipwrecked woman but must manage as a man, and that is not the easiest thing under such an arch brute as the cook. Maud What is he doing to you?

Hump He does everything to make life as hard for me as possible. He claims that I must accept being shanghaied. Doctor Couldn’t captain Larsen relieve you of the cook? Hump I believe he will do that eventually. He has learned that the cook has stolen all my money. Doctor How much was it? Hump 185 dollars. The cook dried my clothes and charged for it without giving a receipt. Doctor That’s the cook. He is the worm on board. The captain is the goshawk. He sees everything that goes around on board but doesn’t strike until it suits him. Maud He must still be the worst brute on board? Doctor Yes, but there are other sides to him. The cook is just selfish and insidious. The captain is not as simple and has several hidden depths, which you must have noticed, van Weyden? Hump He is gradually letting me in to his other world of knowledge and speculation. I was astonished when I noticed he was an intellectual. Doctor (to Maud) There you are. Maud I will not continue nourishing my prejudice against him. Doctor You had better go up again, van Weyden, before they start wondering what you are doing down here. Cook (from above) Hump! Where is that miserable wretch? Maud We hold our thumbs up for you. One day the cook will have to pay. Hump I sincerely hope so. I have nothing else to live for at the moment. (returns upstairs) Cook (up there) Do you think this is some kind of a pension? And that you have the right to take liberties with the only lady on board? Doctor That cook is digging his own grave, and he is so stupid that he doesn’t notice it himself. Maud Let’s just hope that he doesn’t pull others with him down into that grave.

Scene 3. The cabin. Larsen playing cards with the cook. Larsen You already played your card, Cookie! Cook Are you accusing me of cheating? Larsen Not yet! But you are trying hard! Cook You are the one who keeps winning all my money! Larsen Imagine how lucky I am! It must be beginner’s luck. I usually never play cards, butn then I heard you were an expert at it. Cook I usually only play with the crew. Larsen So, I am not good enough? Do you have better opponents than me? Cook You just keep pulling my leg! There, I lost again!

Larsen You must have an awful bad luck to keep losing all the time. Are you really such a bad player? Cook I am the best one on board! Larsen I believe you. But your turn of bad luck must make a turn some time. No one can have bad luck all the time. Cook Exactly! And now I’ve got you! This time you won’t get away! You can’t guess what’s on my hand! Larsen Surely you must be right, if my guess is right. Give our cook some more rum, Hump, now when he is getting lucky again. (Weyden refills the cook’s glass.) Cook How on earth did that happen? My hand was sure as hell! Larsen Hard cheese, Cookie! Once more! Give luck a break! It has to turn some time! Cook Shame on him who gives up! I never give up an honest game! I never admit a defeat! I was well born! I have blue blood in my veins! No one can outwit me! Larsen I believe you. Start playing! And who were your noble parents? Cook I was born out of wedlock, but of noble parents! Discretion forbids me to reveal their names! I was born without privileges of heritage, and that’s how I became a cook on a ship. Larsen A profession as good as any other. Cook No, it’s a tragedy! I had great expectations of becoming something great! I was just born at the wrong time under the wrong circumstances! It wasn’tmy fault! I just got destiny turned against me! Larsen But you studied yourself to be a cook. Cook I had no choice. I had to leave England. Larsen Why? Were you leaving under any sort of threat? Cook I couldn’t compromise my parents by revealing my real rank. Larsen So you left England to save the honour of your parents. Cook And my own. Since then I have struggled hard all my life, when I ought to have been a student at Oxford and Cambridge! When at least I ought to have been a sea captain! When my career should have been in the navy! Larsen And you might have ended up an admiral? Cook Precisely! I should have been an admiral! But I was obliged to vanish out at sea the back way and ended up in backwater on board a primitive seal hunter! Larsen Do you have any complaints? Cook Not directly. Larsen You have yourself got a cabin boy to harass and empty your gall on. You can torture him as much as you like and that way forget your own pains and bullies, while I am probably the only one you have on board. Cook I shouldn’t have come here. You are playing me out of all my money. Larsen No risk. You have more. You should see it as a privilege to amuse your captain by a simple honest game of cards. Give him some more rum, Hump, to make him like it here.

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Cook I shouldn’t drink so much, but it is good all right. I never have such good rum as this in the kitchen. Larsen That’s why you get the more of it here. Cook Thanks for that. I don’t think I can tear myself away from here until it is finished. Larsen Have a glass youself, Hump. Help the cook winning. He deserves it. He is after all a gentleman. Cook A genuine washproof gentleman! From the highest noble circles of England! I was actually born a marquess! Larsen We believe you. Then you wouldn’t have to walk around here smelling of oil all day in an incurably dirty and tattered apron. Cook I am not complaining. Larsen And you are doing right in not doing so. Go ahead and play now. Cook It’s your turn. Larsen No, it’s your turn to win. Just play on. (They play, the cook gets constantly more excited, and suddenly he has lost again.) Cook How did this happen? Larsen You bet on the wrong card. Cook You must have cheated! Larsen Must I? Captain Larsen never cheats. Have I cheated, Hump? Hump I have not seen you cheating, but I have seen the cook trying to cheat. Cook (rising furious) What are you saying, you bastard? I will flay you alive to your bare skeleton! When I am finished with you, you will long for never having been born! Larsen Leave Hump alone, Cookie. I am the one you are playing with. Cook But I have no money left! Hump has made me play out all my money! Larsen It wasn’t Hump’s fault. He was not the one you played with. You yourself played out all your money and no one else. I can only regret that you happened to have such bad luck when you for once had the honour of playing with me. Give him a full glass for comfort, Hump. Then he is ripe for his berth. He has toiled enough for today. Cook He shall pay for sure! He will have to pay for all that I have lost! It was his fault! (knocks back the rest of his glass and goes under) Larsen (whistles, and enter a few sailors) Carry him down to his berth. He is finished here. (The sailors carry him out.) Hump How much did you win from him? Larsen Exactly 185 dollars. Hump That’s the exact amount that was taken from my wallet. Larsen I thought so. He didn’t have a cent when he came on board. Hump Could I have my money back now? Larsen No. Hump Pardon? Larsen It’s not your money any longer.

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Hump But it was my money, which the cook stole from me. Larsen Without doubt, but it was your own fault, who exposed him to that temptation. Now I have honestly won it from him and have the right to keep it. Hump But you know that he stole it from me! Larsen It doesn’t matter. Hump But you won it from him by cheating and foul play! Larsen That doesn’t matter either. All that matters here is that I won it from him and that it consequently from now on is mine. Then you and the cook may say what you like. Go and comfort yourself with the cook and make your complaints to him, if you like. He loves to take care of you. Hump You are just mocking me. Larsen Cookie deserved to lose his money. He is a mean coward who doesn’t mind plundering shipwrecked of all their possessions. Now he has lost all he owned. Serves him right. If I now would entrust you wih it, the risk is that Cookie in one way or another would rob you of it again. So it’s best for the safety of all that I keep it, isn’t it? Hump You are a slavedriver and a tyrant. Larsen I know. It’s my job. Rather that than to be under someone. How is it that John Milton describes it? It’s better to rule in hell than to be anyone’s slave. Hump Paradise lost. Satan’s spite against the lord. Larsen That’s me. We live in hell. I try to make the best of it. Within my ship I have succeeded, since no one dares to spite me as a captain. Just subordinate yourself, Hump. You will learn much from the experience of the journey. With time it could prove the best thing that ever happened to you. You are after all a venturing author. Hump I will have patience until further, captain Larsen, but I never forget anything. Larsen Don’t be too sure. We all have something we wish to forget, so take another glass before you turn in, so you might get over your worst hatred against the poor old cook. Hump ’Poor’? Larsen What else? Every rotter is to be pitied who doesn’t realize what a rotter he is. Such rotters only grow worse all the time, like the cook. Therefore he is to be pitied – he can’t get any better, only worse. It’s just to let him and all other rotters like him to go under. Sleep well, Hump. Mind today’s lessons. Hump You give me nightmares. Larsen Me or the cook? Mind you that he doesn’t appear one night to stab you in your sleep. Hump I will learn to defend myself. Larsen Yes, that’s what you are here for to learn. You never had to defend yourself earlier in your life. At last it’s time for you to become a man. Hump Do you think the cook also has something he wishes to forget?

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Larsen Do you think that rotter could be that human? An interesting hypothesis. Let’s examine the issue. (calls) Cookie! Come back! I am not finished with you yet! Cook (makes a peek) You have taken all my money away from me. What more do you want from me? Larsen Bullshit. I won it from you honestly in fair play, no matter how much you tried to cheat. Cook Me cheating? Larsen Who else? Serve me and Hump some more rum. Cook But he is my cabin boy! Larsen You could do without him for the rest of the night. Now he is my guest, and I want to see what he is good for. He isn’t even used to drinking, so we must teach him. Hump I usually have a good beer sense until I fall over. Larsen That’s what we must test. Cheers, Cookie, to the education of the cabin boy! (raises his glass. The cook joins him but all the time with creeping caution.) He wondered if you had anything to regret. Do you have anything to regret, Cookie? Cook Certainly not. Larsen No offences? No harbour fights leaving someone dead? No frauds? No embezzlement? For being so mean you must have acquired the money of others more than once. Cook Never. I am as honest as you. Larsen Then you are at least not more honest. No other crimes? No murders or homicides? However did you then land on a ship like mine? Cook It is my honour to serve under captain Larsen. Larsen Listen to him! Have you ever heard such proof of a falser hypocrisy? They are all like that. They fear me, therefore they fawn on me, and therefore they will flatter me with any lies. Can you be honest, Hump? Hump I always tried to. Larsen Did you succeed? Hump To some extent. Larsen Did you ever fail? Hump No, but it has happened that I did not reach all the way. Larsen Then you are at least trying to be honest. Now, tell me honestly what general impression you have made of me. – Serve him some more rum, Cookie! (He gladly refills Hump’s glass, who gladly strengthens himself with it.) Hump You are a wild beast but not without self discipline. You are superior in every way, which makes you dangerous, since so far I have discovered no weakness in you, but there must be one, for a human being is not human if he has no weakness. Larsen What is the cook’s weakness? Hump Cowardice. Cook I’ll be damned!

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Larsen Can’t you take criticism, Cookie? Then it’s justified. Hump is just trying to be honest. Fill up his glass. (The cook fills it up.) But I was the issue here. Do I really have no weakness? Hump You must have one, but I haven’t discovered it yet. Larsen Could I really be without any single weakness? An interesting hypothesis. I have no weakness for women. I have no weakness for liquor. I can take whatever nature exposes me to. No man is superior to me. Hump What about your brother? Larsen He is as stillborn as I. We are both hopeless. We have fought all our lives and will do it until we die. He desires my death as much as I desire his. We are both in the way of the other. To be rid of the other one has always been our most important aim in order to survive. So far none of us has succeeded. Hump This is perhaps your weakness – a perpetual conflict that never can be resolved. Larsen If it is a weakness I have never felt it as such so far. Come back with that hypothesis after he or I have perished in the conflict, which is the only real challenge in my life. Cook (to Hump) He always meets him at sea during the seal hunting season, but this year Death Larsen has a cannon at his disposal. He never had that before. Larsen A cannon on board a ship is worthless, since you cannot take aim, since the ship is constantly rolling. The constant movement of the sea makes the application of a cannon impossible. Do you want him to sink me, Cookie? In that case you will be without job and ship. Cook I am just observing, that he can sink you, but you cannot sink him. Larsen I am more sure in my aim than he is with a gun. The chances are better that I will hit him from the rail than that he will hit my hull. Fill up Hump’s cup, Cookie. He is not finished yet. What else, Hump? Your evaluation is not satisfactory. Hump That’s another part of your character. You are never satisfied. Nothing can satisfy you, you are never content, you can’t even get drunk, to you everything is just boring, but that’s how you are. It is no weakness, just a symptom of your dangerous superiority. Larsen And why is my superiority dangerous? Hump Because with your power you are capable of causing series of events that you can’t see the consequences of. You can cause more harm than what is good for yourself and can’t control yourself. You are capable of volcanic eruptions, the results of which you are not responsible for, although you started them. You can’t quite control your own forces of nature. Larsen It is true. I sometimes brought people to their death without intending to. If I squeezed your arm it would soon be broken although I didn’t make any greater effort. Therefore I am a captain and terrible as such, for no crew member could anything else than fear me. Everybody knows, that I always retaliate with more than just interest.

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Hump Still you could be human and decent, since you have a brilliant intellect, but you have never allowed this to get the better of you. In a way you have betrayed yourself by choosing the way of brute force instead of humanism. Larsen I was born that way. It was not a choice of my own. Everyone in the family are ruffians and sea bullies. It wasn’t natural to become anything else. Hump Didn’t you feel any urge to rebel against the family tradition and become something better? Did you have no private ambitions? This is perhaps what’s wanting in you. Instead of grabbing hold of your destiny and rule it, you allowed it to bring you where it pleased and where it was most comfortable to navigate. Larsen I was born in a hell of raw natural force and made the best of it. I became a captain and my own. You can’t be anything better than a captain of your own ship. If you go ashore you get stuck in the treadmill of the sick society, like you did from the beginning, for you were born in it and have never been able to get out of it, since you are dependent on your inherited annuities for your survival. Am I right? Hump I studied though, and I find no joy of life more constructive than to gather knowledge. Larsen There you are. You are not yourself aware of that you are brainwashed. Hump On the contrary. I am liberated by my knowledge. Larsen That is of no use. What knowledge? Science? Literature? History? Hump Aren’t you yourself interested in all that? Larsen Not as a permament occupation and encumberment. I don’t like sitting still too long. I have to move and exert myself physically. Or else I would stagnate, and even my brain would dry out. You never had the healthy education of physical labour. Therefore all of you is just a pitiable complex of pathetic weaknesses. Hump Still I think I am happier than you. Larsen Why do you think so? Hump Because I can see that you have never been happy. I have always been happy by the freedom I was born in to intellectual development. Larsen What is happiness? Hump To feel satisfaction. That’s what you can never do. Larsen There is something to it. That’s why you are my guest. Forget Cookie and his bully manners. From now on you will have all your meals with me, since we could have something to talk about. At least I don’t have that with anyone else on board. Cook (protesting) Do I then have to do everything myself? Larsen You did that well before Hump came on board. Just carry on with that. Pretend that Hump never existed, and you might forget him. You did miss something that you wanted to forget. (the cook groans and is malcontent) There is not much left in it, which we can use ourselves. (The cook leaves in groaning dissatisfaction.) Hump (empties the last glass almost completely) I suppose we are also rather finished here for today. Larsen Let’s then continue tomorrow. Forget the cook. He is no longer over you. Hump Perhaps then instead you could make a seaman out of me.

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Larsen I could make a seaman out of anyone and even of you. Hump Good night, captain Larsen. (downs the last drink and leaves) Larsen (alone) He will manage. But the cook will not, but the cook will not give in without a fight, and with his evil propensity for scheming his toughness could make trouble. We are far from finished with his insidiousness yet. We shall see. (empties the last of his glass and breaks it on the table.) Soon we reach the glorious hunting grounds of the seals. Then at last my war with my brother will start again. Let’s see what it will lead to this time.

Scene 4. At the doctor’s. Doctor You had better keep as invisible as possible, for your own sake. Maud (sitting on a chair by his table) Is there a mutiny at hand? Doctor Almost. Maud I don’t think they can ever do anything about that captain. Doctor I don’t think so either. But they could try, and then there would be more patients here. Hump (coming down) Thank heavens for this single oasis on board! Doctor Has anything happened? Hump Too much. Maud Mutiny? Hump No, but an aborted attempt. Doctor I heard about some scuffle up there. What happened? Hump They tried to slug captain Larsen to death and throw him over board. They thought they had succeeded, when he came crawling on board again with a hole in his head. He got hold of the log line and saved himself that way. I happened to be on deck then. I turned ice cold of terror when suddenly a wet arm from the other side of the rail took hold of me. It was the captain. He asked me to follow him down to the sleeping crew in the foc’s’le. It is dark and no space there. By feeling the pulse of the sleepers he tried to find out who had attacked him and thrown him over board. The one who did was of course awake, sounded the alarm, and then he was attacked again by the whole crew in the fo’c’sle. Only one kept out of the scuffle. Doctor Louis? Hump Yes. Maud And he managed the whole crew? Hump He fought his way step by step up the stairs again. He is now recovering in his cabin but will probably soon be here to have his damages attended to. Doctor Who were they? Hump Leach, of course. They had murdered the mate and thrown him over board and thought they would get rid of the captain as well, but that was not so easy. Doctor Then it was true. I heard about the quarrel with the mate. Maud What quarrel was that?

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Hump Mate Johnson complained about the bad oilskin clothes. The sailors have to pay for their oilskins themselves on board, while the ship must accomodate them, but captain Larsen can’t take criticism. He took mate Johnson’s complaint so badly that he almost beat him to death. Doctor How dared he complain? Hump He would never have done it himself. He complained to mate Johansen, who forwarded the complaint to the captain, who then summoned mate Johnson, who then could not keep quiet about his remonstrances. Doctor So the captain almost beat Johnson to death, and Johnson and his fellows took revenge by doing away with mate Johansen as an informer. Hump Something like that. They only made it half way. The captain got back on board. Maud Here he is now. Larsen (coming in, grasping his head in pain) They tried to beat me to death, doctor, but they didn’t succeed. They will never succeed. Doctor (examines his head wounds) The axe has almost cloven your head. Larsen Almost is no good. They will never be able to do a thorough job. Doctor Take it easy for a few days, don’t take any new risks, leave the crew alone, and try like Miss Brewster here to keep as invisible as possible. Larsen A captain can’t do that. He has to be a captain. Can you fix the hole in the skull? Doctor It will heal by itself or not at all. How does it feel? Larsen I have been slashed in the head before. It’s just an old damage that now has been reopened. It hurts like hell, but I won’t die of it. Doctor At least it doesn’t have to be sown. It could have been worse. Larsen Yes, I could still have been lying out there in the sea without anyone noticing my absence until tomorrow.This is just the beginning of a struggle between me and the rebel leaders, and one has already gone down. There will be more. Maud Wouldn’t it be wiser to treat your seamen as human beings? Larsen Are they human beings? No, Miss, they are wild animals. They are more evil and more soulless than any real wild animals. Wolves are angels in comparison with these irrational maniacs who really are good for one thing only: to fight until they die for what never can be settled. Maud And you only make matters worse by mistreating them. Larsen Mistreatment? I am rubbing them up the right way! They mishandle and abuse themselves! That’s all that base ruffians of their deficient sort is good for! Doctor Take it easy, captain. Don’t get excited. Then you will just have your headache back again. Larsen I already had it for days. Hump Headaches? Doctor The captain suffers periodically from the worst kind of migraine, but no one must inform the crew. No one knows about it apart from us.

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Larsen (rising again) Since I have survived everything so far, I will just have to continue surviving. That’s all I can do. But I will heed your word, doctor, and try not to beat anyone to death for a few days. (to Maud) Your diplomacy would be needed up there among the ruffians, Miss. Will you always keep hiding down here? Maud Only as long as the doctor advises me to. Larsen (to the doctor) Is there anything wrong with her? Is she still in a state of shock? Doctor She is just generally weak and easily take strong impressions of the sailors’ behaviour. Larsen I know. Female over-sensitivity. The sailors only know brute force, and she can’t stand it. Come on, Hump. We are one mate short. You will be mate. Hump But I can’t navigate! I have no experience! Larsen You can hold on to the helm. That’s all you need. And you can read the compass. Hopefully you can also obey orders. Also you are not one to get into trouble with the crew. You are the only one on board who has made friends with both them and me. Doctor It’s not so difficult to manage the ship, van Weyden. What you don’t know already, you will learn quickly. Hump I hardly have any choice. Larsen No, you don’t. Come on. (leaves with Hump) Maud How serious was the damage in his head? Doctor It looked bad, but he has been up to worse things. He will manage. His headache is a more serious matter. Maud What about it? Doctor It’s getting worse all the time, recurs constantly more often and lasts for longer periods. That’s no good. Maud High blood pressure? Doctor His iron health is the best possible. He has never been and can’t be ill. But already as a young sailor he had a serious damage to his head, and that has now worsened. Maud What could it lead to? Doctor Anything. If he only could control himself, he could manage, but he lost control when faced by the mate’s complaint. That sign is worse than any symptom. If that nastiness in his head takes over him, the ship and all of us are lost, for he is the captain. Hump (returning) I have some other bad news, Maud. Maud Well? Hump The captain orders that you start eating with us in the cabin. Maud With the crew? Hump Not all of them, just the command, that is the captain, me and the mates and the hunters. Maud That’s bad enough. I will not have any appetite. Doctor You can’t just sit down here all the time, Miss Brewster. Sooner or later you must get to know the crew.

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Maud It feels as if I already knew them better than what is good for me. Doctor That can’t be helped. You will get hardened like van Weyden here. He was also completely at a loss and impotent when he came on board. He has at least become a seaman. Maud I will never be that. Doctor You don’t have to. But you must prove human. Hump You could then in front of the whole command ask the captain when he intends to let you go ashore. Doctor A relevant question, which captain Larsen has to answer. Maud Well, I will take the risk and stick out my head so that captain Larsen may hang me, if he dares. Doctor That’s good, Miss Brewster. Thus you will gain the respect of both him and all the others. As long as you just keep hiding down here you are at point zero.

Act III scene 1. The cabin. Kerfoot Is it true that the lady from now on will be having her meals with us? Larsen She will have no other choice. I have commanded her. Or else she will have to do without food. Cook She can’t just go on keeping invisible at length anyway. Kerfoot But what about her health? Wasn’t she on sick leave? Larsen She will have to be well now. Or else she will be. Cook Here they come. (leaves for the pantry) Larsen Welcome, Miss Brewster. (does not rise) Make yourself at home. Maud Thank you, I never will on board. Larsen It will pass. Maud Yes, as soon as I get ashore. When will I get ashore? Larsen Perhaps in four months, at best in three. Maud But aren’t we just one day off Yokohama? Larsen Yes, but that’s not our destination. Maud I was on my way to Yokohama when you came in between. Isn’t it the duty of a captain to a shipwrecked to bring her ashore as soon as possible? Larsen My duties are to the company I am working for. My duty to them is to hunt and kill seals. Our destination is the seal colonies, not Yokohama. Maud So you will keep me on board for four months by force and against my will. Larsen No, you will remain on board voluntarily for as long as you please, if you don’t prefer jumping over board. I am afraid that is your only possible alternative. Kerfoot Unfortunately no one has ever been able to compromise with captain Larsen madam. He does whatever he pleases on board his own ship, and no one can stop him.

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Maud No wonder then that there are mutiny attempts while others try to escape. Larsen Accidents at work. It happens on board of all ships. Maud But it appears to be getting on worse on your ship than on others. Larsen So? Do you have anything to compare with? I thought you made your first sea voyage when you happened to a shipwreck bringing you into my claws. Maud The doctor has told me one thing and another. Larsen Like what? In his drunkenness? He is usually intoxicated. Maud Is that so strange? Like me, he also hasn’t been able to leave the ship. Larsen Why aren’t you eating? Do you have no appetite? Maud Is that so strange, the way you just keep bantering me and making a joke and a trifle of your own inhuman cruelty? Larsen It is no joke. Maud That’s why I have no appetite in your company. Larsen Is there some particular tale of horrors that the doctor has been troubling you with? Maud The source of the worst one was sober. Larsen So? Tell us! Maud Your treatment of the sailors Johnson and Leach. I witnessed myself how you intentionally played your cruel game with them by constantly sailing away from them when they tried to come back on board, until they could make it no longer but drowned, since you didn’t even want to save their capsized rowing boat. But when they were gone you saved the boat. Larsen We can’t afford losing any hunting boats. We could afford losing Johnson and Leach, for they had sworn to kill me and had tried. Hump can testify to that. They had nothing more to do on board. Still they tried to come back from their escape. They couldn’t make up their minds. In the same way I could not make up my mind whether to accept them back or not. If I had saved them they would only have tried to kill me again. They threw me over board once, but to their immense horror I managed to get back on board by the log line with a hole in my head. Both Hump and the doctor can testify to that. I am sorry, madam, but there are almost only rotten eggs on board, one worse than the other, and whoever gets lost and are wasted in the rough rounds on board, there will always be some even worse ones left. Believe me. I have been a captain for many years and seen many crews. None is better than any other, but they are all worse than all others. Hump He exaggerates, Maud. Don’t take him seriously. Maud Unfortunately the reactions of my stomach are unmistakable. They react strongly against his entire being of predominant brutality. Larsen You will get over it, madam. Hump was as squeamish as you when he got on board, and look now how he even speaks for my defence with all my brutality. He has almost become a man. Relax, Miss, and obey Hump’s reasonable recommendation not to take me to much for serious. Have some rum, and your

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stomach will get more tolerant. It might even help your appetite. (pours her some) Fetch some more, Cookie. (The cook goes to fetch some more.) Hump It will do no harm to try, Maud. You have to stay here on board anyway, so it’s just as well to make the best of it, which as a human being you even can do in hell. Maud Have you ever before had a crew member like Humphrey van Weyden, captain Larsen? Larsen No, he is a sensation. I admit it. I see him as an interesting experiment, and you add to it. Maud Then you never had a woman on board either? Larsen No, thank heavens. So far we have managed without the necessary evil of life here on board. Maud I can promise you that I will do my best to become a challenge for you. Larsen I take your word seriously. Maud Cheers, captain! I am a lone woman on board against an entire crew, but no man has ever defeated a woman at length. Larsen Except by rape. Maud Pardon me, captain, but I actually don’t believe that of you. Larsen You are right in doing so, Miss Brewster. I accept the challenge. (They toast.)

Scene 2. On deck. Cook Why the devil are you picking on me? I was not I who squealed! Ralph Yes, it was! We are tired of your dirty tricks and your wicked intrigues! Kerfoot Throw him over board! Let him have a bath! Cook (terrified) What will you do to me? Ralph Just an ordinary keel hauling. Captain’s orders. Cook Captain Larsen! You can’t mean this! I am innocent! Larsen No one is innocent on board and you least of all. A cold bath will freshen you up and teach you not to tamper with the food any more! Cook I have not tried to kill you! I have not tried to throw you over board! Larsen No, but you are behind all other covert attacks and actions that happened on this journey so far! You are worse than a hoodlum! You manipulate! Cook Not at all! All the others do it but not I! Kerfoot Listen to him! Cool him off! Let him get fresh! Ralph Let him bathe! Cool him down! He needs a freezer! (The sailors tie a rope around his breast and throw him over board aft, while they let out the rope like a log.) Hump Do you think that will make him better? Ralph He could anyway not get worse. Maud (coming in) What is happening?

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Hump You don’t want to be part of this, Maud. Maud Why not? New brutalities going on by order of captain Larsen? Kerfoot It’s just the cook, madam. He has messed with us once too much. Maud What have you done to him? Ralph Thrown him over board. We should have done that long ago. Hump It’s just a keel hauling. Maud Just? A sailor Look out! Shark ohoy! Larsen (at once) Haul him in at once! (All sailors work in panic together to get the cook back on board.) Maud Are all sailors such beastly bastards? Larsen You have only seen the beginning, Miss Brewster. There are worse sailors, like my brother, for instance. Kerfoot Too late! (They haul up the cook, who lands half drowned on deck, bleeding copiously from the leg.) sailor I think the shark took his foot. Ralph He was lucky to get off alive. Larsen (comes to inspect) At least we seem to have got the cook back alive on board. Is there anything left of him? Kerfoot Everything but the foot. Cook (yelling) You damned bastard! You will never again have any peace for me! I was just an innocent cook! Larsen (untouched) Is he trying to threaten me, or is he just hysterical? Kerfoot Attention! He has sharp teeth! (The cook bites Larsen in his knee. Larsen removes him like a pinching crab.) Larsen Carry him down to the doctor. Make sure he never gets sober again until we have got him a prothesis, so that he doesn’t go on biting people around him at random. – What do you think about his wound, doctor? Doctor (has come forth) He has undeniably lost his foot. We must stop the bleedings. Larsen Do that and keep him out of reach from the crew. He is no longer accountable. Maud (to Hump) I can’t bear it any longer! Hump You have to. We have no choice. We have to make the best of it. Maud No one can do anything good about this ship and its damned captain and crew. Hump Then you have surrendered to him. That’s the last thing we must do. Maud Several have taken a boat and escaped. Couldn’t we do the same? Hump We have to wait for the right moment. Maud I see it as our only hope. Soon no one will stay on board here any longer. Hump (to the doctor) Could he become a man again, doctor? Doctor That is the question. He was always resentful. Now he will never give up until he has got some kind of a revenge, and his mind is the most insidious on board.

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I am afraid you will have to manage the kitchen alone from now on at least for some weeks. Hump It will actually be easier to manage the kitchen without Cookie. Maud I could assist you. Hump Thank you, Maud. I didn’t know that you could cook. Maud I happen to be a woman and have learned many things. We shall see. What I don’t know I can learn. Doctor We always needed a woman in the kitchen. Larsen Carry down that body so that we don’t have to see that creep any more! It would have been better for him to have died. Ralph Perhaps the best for all of us. Larsen What do you mean, Ralph? Ralph Nothing, but all evil on board came from the cook’s intrigues. Larsen Even all evil that I did? Ralph It was always the cook who got you started. Larsen Take care of him, doctor! Keep him inebriated, until he gets happy again! If he never does, then keep him constantly drunk anyway, for general security. (The cook is carried out and down under the care and direction of the doctor by some of the sailors.) Back to work, Hump. Mind the helm. (to Maud, softer) The shark was not according to plans. I hope you can endure the sight of blood. Maud Captain Larsen, you are playing with the lives of your fellow beings and don’t hesitate to risk their lives flor nothing, and even less you hesitate to kill them. Larsen Is it an accusation or just a statement? Maud It’s a protocol for the future and its court! (leaves in a fury) Larsen (looks thoughtfully after her, after a short while) You know what, Hump? I am actually more afraid of her than of the cook. He is just inriguing and causing general damage and mischief, but she causes nothing but instead actually means what she says. Hump If anyone of us will survive this journey, captain Larsen, I don’t doubt that her word will weigh heavily. Larsen Don’t worry, Hump. The only ones who don’t survive my journeys are such who aren’t worthy of them. (leaves, smoking his pipe.) Kerfoot Captain! A smoke! A ship! Larsen Indeed! It could only be the Macedonia. Hump Your brother’s ship? Larsen Exactly. Just as we are arriving at the seal colonies. He is naturally here to anticipate me. Well, we shall see who will anticipate who. The one who first launches his seal boats will be the first to pay. Hump What will you do? Kerfoot He will board his brother’s seal boats, if they come within reach. It’s the same combat every year. Death Larsen has more boats and places them as a barrier to Wolf-Larsen’s fewer and lesser boats, but then he attacks the boats.

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Hump Open war between the brothers? Kerfoot It’s more like a tornament. There will be many rounds. It will be like a tug-of-war between the brothers of the seal hunters. Hump As if we didn’t have trouble enough on board already. Kerfoot We never have. There is always more to come. Hump No place for a woman. Kerfoot Yes, that will be the new interesting ingredient in the conflict and war about the sea. I don’t think even she could reconcile the two wildest brothers of the seven seas. Hump I will ask her to not even try. Kerfoot That would be the best thing for her. Larsen (giving orders) Keep still! We wait and rest on our resources! He has his cannon, so we must keep out of reach. We wait until he feels safe enough to launch his boats. (BOOM! A cannon shot) He has discovered us. That’s his signal that he claims the entire ocean for himself. Have you ever been in a naval battle, Hump? Hump Never in my life. Larsen That will be yet another new and enriching experience for you. I can guarantee that the naval battle will be double. Hump Double? Kerfoot You’ll see, mate. There will be both cannon thunder and drinking bouts. Larsen Attention all men! Keep ready when he starts launching his boats! various sailors Ay ay, Sir! Kerfoot Suddenly everyone is with him on the alert. Now starts the game and the fun. It’s for this that they at all signed up with him. They know he will always offer plenty of drama. Now it begins. There is the smoke puff! Another cannon shot! Cover your ears when then bang comes! (covers his ears. Another cannon crack.) Hump He must be aware that he cannot hit us. Kerfoot He thinks he can frighten us. He is the last one to frighten Larsen. Not even the cook can frighten him with his insidious intrigues. But I think he is afraid of that lady. Hump He is. Kerfoot We shall see what it may lead to. Hump Still she is the least dangerous of all. Kerfoot She is not the danger. It’s the dangers that a woman releases, which she always does. Hump I see what you mean. Kerfoot You are also in love with her, of course? Hump It cannot be denied. Kerfoot I suppose everyone in the crew is who at all are still in possession of any human feelings. But I am not sure about the captain. Hump So he is himself.

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Kerfoot Exactly. There I see the danger. Larsen Attention! He is launching a boat! Set full speed! Make the boats ready! We must make certain to always have the wind on our side! Kerfoot He means, that he must be able to get away when Death Larsen sets on to chase him. Hump It sounds like a well rehearsed strategy. Kerfoot But every year there is something new. We’ll see what it will be this year. Now I must get to my seal boat. See you! And keep a watchful eye on the cook. He is so desperate now in the harm of his despair that he could start doing anything. Hump Trust me. Kerfoot That’s why you are a mate. Everybody trusts you. (leaves) (Great stir and movement on board with the preparations for the coming manoeuvres.)

Scene 3. The cabin. Doctor You have to drink more. It’s the captain’s order. Ralph Drink yourself, doctor! It’s your whisky! Doctor That’s what I am doing. But you must also drink. It’s the captain’s order. Watson What a bloody captain you have! Shanghais strangers on board and drowns all resistance in whisky and rum. What a generosity! What a splendid sense for efficient bribes! What a business mind! What corruption! Doctor Drink some more! Watson What are you doing here yourself, doctor? How did you get here on board? Were you also shanghaied? Ralph He was baptized by force in whisky and brandy. Doctor The whisky was my salvation. Or else I would have perished long ago. Ralph Whisky only prolongs the perdition and makes it more bitter and pathetic. Doctor Says you, Ralph, who only lives for your distruction. Ralph What else have I to live for? That’s why I signed up on this ship of madness. All on board are monsters. This is the fore-court to hell, and the captain keeps whipping us all down the abyss and enjoys it and teaches us to enjoy it as well. It’s a school of sado-masochism all the way until we die or escape or perish at sea in absolute loneliness and desertion, like Johnson and Leach. Doctor Shut up, Ralph. You don’t know what you are talking about. Ralph You are right, doctor. You know the captain better than I. Is he Lucifer or Satan? Doktorn Both. Ralph That’s what I thought. Watson What an honour in that case to serve on his ship! It’s just that he has provoked Death Larsen to even wilder madness. Death Larsen will not give in until

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Wolf-Larsen is annihilated. You don’t provoke Death Larsen, and even less you cheat and defeat him. Ralph Tell that to Wolf-Larsen. I don’t think he will listen. Doctor Of course he will not listen. He never did. He just goes on running over everyone else. He doesn’t know of anything else. Watson It will be interesting to see what will happen when Death Larsen finds him out. He can’t stay hidden in the fog forever. Death Larsen never gives in, and when the fog lifts, Wolf-Larsen will be finished. Ralph We’ll see about that. Watson What do you think, doctor? Doctor I don’t think anything. I am here to repair the damages, not to speculate in them. When the battle is over, the barber-surgeon comes to amputate. He has nothing to do with the madness of the generals. They will have to account for that themselves. Watson That’s right, doctor. Tranquilize the patients and the damages and your own considerations with whisky. It always helps. It scatters the broodings and extinguish the memory. Keep under the influence, and you will manage. Ralph And thus he manages the patients as well. It’s just to keep them drunk. That’s the infallible policy of Wolf-Larsen. In that way he overcomes all his enemies and all resistance and get all his victims to follow him. Doctor It’s not quite that easy. Wolf-Larsen only thinks of himself and his ship, but I am thinking of everyone’s optimal survival. Ralph Including your own? Doctor That’s not equally important. I have nothing to live for anyway. I will die on board at sea and vanish without notice. Ralph What were you before you became a doctor on board this flying Dutchman? Doctor It doesn’t matter. I was something that I am not any more. Watson You were a society doctor, weren’t you? It shines through your language, your ways, your sensitivity and your gentle way of doing your job. You are no barber-surgeon. You are rather like a gynaeologist. Doctor I was a gynaeologist. Ralph In San Francisco? Watson Did you pluck at the ladies too carefully? Doctor It was worse than that. I fell in love and went under in a scandal, but let’s take that some other time. (drinks deep) Kerfoot (enters) Doctor, the captain asks for you. Doctor What is it now? Kerfoot He is engaged in deep conversation with Hump and the lady and wants you to join. Doctor Just that?

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Ralph He is too drunk. He can’t stand on his legs. He has spent all his day obeying the captain’s orders to keep the newly shanghaied under deck and drunk, and he has succeeeded, so he is the most drunk of all. Doctor I am coming. (tries to rise, fails pitifully and falls) Kerfoot I will help you. (offers him a helping hand and manages to get him on his feet) Come now. (takes his arm around his shoulder and tries to get him out) Watson That will never work. Ralph Don’t be too sure. The captain always gets what he wants. We’ll have to amuse ourselves in the meantime. We still have some whisky left. Watson The captain seems to have unlimited resources. Ralph He must have, since he has to shanghai so many seamen to make sure the crew of his ship will not die out. There must be constant refills. For that labour you need at least one extra boat load of whisky. Watson Let’s entertain ourselves with that as long as it lasts and meanwhile try to forget what kind of death ship we have ended up on. Ralph The doctor will stagger over board one of these days. Watson In that case he will get a narrow escape. Ralph In contrast to the rest of us. Watson How many have escaped? Ralph Only one boat with two people have succeeded. All others have been recaptured or been forced to capsize and allowed to drown. Watson Did they have any choice? Did they prefer coming back on board to drowning? Ralph They actually tried to get back on board, some of them, although they never would have survived for long on board. They were doomed. But the captain particularly enjoys playing cat and rat with such unlucky ones and pretended to entice them to get back on board before he let them die. Watson What kind of a captain is that? Ralph Don’t ask me. Our only hope is to pass over to Death Larsen and let him annihilate his brother. Watson He isn’t any better. Ralph Could he be worse? (They drink and toast in mutual understanding.)

Scene 4. The cabin. Larsen That’s what I’ve always said. Of what good is all the knowledge of the world? What else are books for than escape from reality? It’s a greater challenge in life to get into clinch with reality than trying to avoid it in the books. Hump But books are experience and wisdom. You must know that who at least has studied Kant.

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Larsen Kant is a meaningless dried out bore and pedant like all German philosophers, possibly with the exception of Schopenhauer and Goethe, but the best idea of Goethe’s was his association with Mephistopheles. Hump It’s just a play. Larsen But alive as such. The devil has never been presented more alive and convincing. Maud Do you believe in the devil? Larsen It’s not a matter of belief. Either you accept such an existence or you do not. To refuse to do it, suppress it and deny it is also a kind of reality escape. Hump You call the devil an existence. Is he then neutral? Larsen An essence, a dark force in all of us, that could take control of anyone and lead him to hell or worse places, a kind of subconscious additional ego like your own reverse side and contrary, a demonic complement to yourself, an inexhaustible extra power of resource. Maud So you mean that everyone has access to this demonic nature? Larsen No, only those who are willing and who understand to handle it and use it. It’s a kind of an extra association with a supernatural power, which none the less is latent in all of us. Hump Here is Kerfoot with the doctor. Maud (rises as Kerfoot stumbles in with the doctor) How is he? (helps them) Kerfoot He has had too much whisky. Hump Just that? Kerfoot No, plenty of rum and brandy as well. Larsen He is used to that. He can take anything and just gets a little groggy sometimes. He is as wise and pathetic as a drunk as when he is sober. – How are you, doctor? What about a drink? You are in good company here. Doctor (drunk) Huh? Kerfoot I think he needs a glass of water. Maud (offers) Here. Kerfoot Have some water, doctor, for a change. Larsen Let him relax. Drop him on that bench over there. We were just talking about Kant and other nonsense like that and thought you could enlighten us on the subject. Doctor You don’t know what you are talking about. Larsen That’s why we felt we needed you. Doctor What can I do about it? Larsen Enlighten us. Doctor How? Maud Captain Larsen thinks there is a demonic power in all of us that could take over control of anyone. Doctor It has at least taken control of him. Larsen From the beginning. Doctor I am willing to certify that.

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Maud Is there no hope then for captain Larsen? Doctor No, there never was. He is doomed like everyone sailing with him. Larsen Is it that simple? What are we waiting for? An angel of death from heaven? Doctor You believe you have defeated your brother and lured him away, but he is always there and will always come back. Your victory is just a short respite. Maud What will happen to us? Doctor Death Larsen will be back and sink us, because he has a cannon. Larsen I sail faster than he. I can always delude him and abscond him. Doctor It was only the fog that saved you, but the fog must dissolve. Larsen Have some more whisky, doctor. It will do you good and keep you in good spirits. How are the others in your cabin? Doctor They are all your victims. Larsen So they are converted to our leadership. Doctor They are all drowned in whisky and will never surface again. Larsen That was the intention. As soon as they sober up they will gladly work for me, since I am a better captain than my brother, who is completely insensitive and cold like a psychopath. I have at least human feelings and sail better on an honest ship while he only drives on with his dirty steam engine. Kerfoot The future belongs to the motorships. Larsen Not my future. Doctor You have no future. Larsen What makes you so certain? Doctor Captain Larsen, you are a monster of perfection. No one can compare with you and your physical resources. You are the greatest expert on fast sailing on the seas and can sail away from anyone especially motorships, but you are too superior. It has to backfire some day. Larsen How? Doctor We shall see. What about your attacks? Any recent headache? How is the damage in your head? You should actually have been trepanned and that at an early stage. Do you still have your fleeting fits of blindness? Larsen Shut up! Doctor You will not admit it, but you are gradually going blind by that damage in your head you suffered long ago. Each time you have a new attack it gets worse. Each time you have a new fit of temporary blindness it lasts a little longer. You are doomed, captain, and the fact that you refuse to admit it to yourself is if anything a vain escape from reality. Larsen Shut up! I haven’t had a fit for months now. Doctor Then there will be one coming up any moment. (Cannon shot) Larsen (rushing up) Macedonia! Kerfoot Here we are. Macedonia has found us out. Larsen All hands on deck! We have to move out of reach!

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Doctor (sits still and calm) Now the end begins. If you are wise, children, you will escape from the ship. It’s not far to Japan. Hump I know. 150 miles. Doctor You can make it in six days. Hump In good weather. The weather is never good at length. Doctor It’s worth a try. Take the opportunity while there is a bustle up there and everyone is busy with the battle against captain Death Larsen, the only one on the seven seas who is worse than Wolf-Larsen. Hump What are his chances? Doctor None of them has any chance in the long run, since none of them ever will give in until one of them is disposed of, and both are such that everyone who has anything to do with them will have every reason to see them dead. Hump Come, Maud. We have planned this since long. Maud Do you think it’s time? Hump I believe it’s about high time. Doctor Good luck, children. Never come back. Hump Good luck yourself, doctor. I hope to see you again some time in a somewhat better condition. Doctor No risk. I will myself never get off this ship alive. (Maud and Hump walk out. Kerfoot and others in the cabin have disappeared long ago. Only the doctor is left.) Doctor Blessed bottle. You are everything I have left. (drinks) Cook (who all the time has kept discreetly in the background but carefully observing everything) No, doctor, you also have me. Doctor Have you heard everything that we have been saying? Cook Of course. But trust me. I obey the same obligation of silence as you. Doctor Was that meant as a joke? Cook The captain is the joke. Now we’ve got him. We only have to wait for the next attack. Doctor You are the evil genius of this cursed ship. Cook Or conscience? Or nemesis? Have I not the right to avenge the loss of my foot? Doctor It was an irrational animal that took it. It was not part of the program. Cook But the captain is responsible! Doctor Your ill will has turned you mad. Cook And you are just a worthless alcoholic. You could never operate any more. Your hands are trembling like on a hundred year old man. You are finished. When we take the ship you will only be good for being thrown over board, like an overused squeezed out rag. Doctor You sound like a worse edition and corrupted version of the captain. Cook I have had too long a detention in his school of inhumanity. Doctor We all have. Still I think he will survive us all. Cook Over my dead body! Doctor (thoughtfully) Yes, that will probably be the case.

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Cook Drink, doctor, as long as you live, for one day death will force upon you the eternal sobriety! Doctor O horror! Worse than any hell! Cook Worse than life on board of the Ghost? Doctor You are right, Cookie. No hell could be worse than that. Still I have learned to make myself at home here. Cook It will pass, doctor. Doctor No, it will never pass. All hells are made never to pass, so you might as well get used to them. A toast to hell, Cookie! (empties the rest of the whisky bottle in one draft, then goes under the table.) Cook It would be best for him to never wake up any more. But there will be some awakenings here! (leaves. From the outside a din of fighting, gunshots and an occasional cannon shot.)

Act IV scene 1. On deck. Larsen Is it true? Kerfoot Yes. Hump and the girl are gone, and a boat is missing. Larsen They got away cheaply. Damn it! He was developing into a reliable mate! Who will now navigate us to hell? Kerfoot The entire crew. Larsen I believe you. They are good for nothing else. But we must get out of reach. Kerfoot We are well on our way. He can just miss anyway. Larsen So often as he keeps missing, he must some time make a hit. (grasps his front and protects his eyes) Kerfoot What is the matter? Larsen It will pass. Kerfoot Are you not feeling well? Larsen I never felt better, but the headache is raging again. Kerfoot You had better go down to the doctor. Larsen He is drunk. Kerfoot He is never more sober than when he is drunk. Larsen You can lead me there. Kerfoot I am needed here on deck. Cookie, lead the captain down to the doctor’s cabin. Cook Is he not well? Kerfoot He is just a little dizzy. Headache. Cook Can’t he get down by himself? Kerfoot Lead him down, Cookie. It’s an order. Cook Come, captain Larsen. I will make sure that you will not stumble. (takes Larsen by the arm and leads him. Larsen sees nothing but tries to conceal it.)

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Larsen Yes, Cookie, lead me to hell, like you always wanted to. Cook No, captain Larsen, we are not going to have that much fun yet. (leads him away) Ralph (to Kerfoot) We are out of range now. What’s the matter with captain Larsen? Kerfoot An attack. Ralph His old migraine? Is it so bad that the cook has to lead him? Kerfoot It will pass. He will soon be up here again. Say nothing to the others now when we are under fire of Death Larsen. Ralph If it is as bad as I think, mate, neither Larsen nor the cook will come up any more. Kerfoot What do you mean? Ralph I have seen it coming. I never wanted to divulge what I suspected, but the captain is ill, mortally ill. It’s his old damage in his head. It’s not just headache. His entire nervous system is affected and especially his senses and his sight. Kerfoot Do you mean to say that he is going blind? Ralph Perhaps he already is. We shall see. A cry Death Larsen is attacking! Kerfoot Let him attack. If Wolf-Larsen is not on deck we will surrender ourselves to him. Ralph That’s how simple it is. Kerfoot Yes, that’s how simple it is.

Scene 2. The cabin. Larsen (in a pitiable condition) What is happening up there, doctor? Doctor I don’t know. Larsen I can hear that my brother has caught up with us and attacked us. Why haven’t we sailed away from him? Doctor Because you are not there to give the order. Larsen I have given the order from here. Doctor They know that you are blind. Larsen I gave my order to Kerfoot. Doctor He fears your crew more than you nowadays. Larsen Who has told them that I am blind? You haven’t. Doctor The cook. Larsen Of course, the insidious snake, the coward hyena, the scumbag of dishonour! Cook (coming down) Are you coming up, doctor? Larsen Come down here, Cookie, so that I may hug you to death! Cook Never in my life. No one is afraid of you any more, captain Larsen! Everybody knows you are blind! I have told them all about it! You are now the most worthless man on board! No one gives a damn about you any more! Everybody is

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abandoning the ship to join your death enemy your brother! Doesn’t it feel marvellous? Larsen You infernal death worm of shit, let me just get hold of you, and I will tear you apart limb by limb! Cook You’ll never get me! The game is over, captain Larsen! Don’t imagine that we’ll take the risk to remain on board until you recover your sight! Now is our opportunity, and so much hated as you are, no one will lose it! The only ones who could have helped you have escaped! Are you coming, doctor? Or will you remain to go under with the captain? Doctor What will you do with the ship? Cook Abandon it. Death Larsen is waiting for us with open arms. Larsen You are lost! If I was difficult, he is the ultimate death trap! Cook We’ll take any risks just to get away from you. Make your choice, doctor. Give life a chance, or go under. Doctor (to Larsen) They appear to be ready to leave you in peace. The ship will bring you where it pleases. Larsen With your help we could navigate. Cook Don’t think for a moment that you will get away, captain Larsen! We are cutting off all sheets and ropes! We will not leave you before we have made your ship unnavigable. Larsen (to the doctor) Listen to him, doctor. And do you still want to make me believe that there was a single one in my whole crew with any kind of human dignity? They will all sail to hell with Death Larsen and perish and vanish out to nowhere, while I yet brought them somewhere. Doctor I will go up and view the situation. Larsen If you do, you will never come down again, doctor. They will kill you. Doctor Honestly speaking, captain Larsen, I don’t care. I am to die anyway, and the sooner, the better. I have thought so for many years, and now at last I might get my chance. Larsen Doctor, all these drunk crew members have no chance, and neither have you, if you follow them. Doctor I wasted my last chances long ago. I am sorry, captain, but I am tired of my own dishonour. If this now will be the end of me, so let it. I am coming up with you, Cookie, if you promise to leave captain Larsen in peace here on board. Cook (laughs) We had no other intention. He may stay here on board in his loneliness and blindness as much as he pleases to slowly go to rot. It will be a long and agonizing death in a constantly more insufferable slow motion that never will come to an end. You are welcome, captain Larsen! You will have the same fate that you condemned the shark to which took my leg! It’s only fair! (leaves laughing in malicious joy up again, and the doctor follows him.) Larsen I warn you, doctor. I am getting away, but you will not. Doctor We shall see. Here I will not get away from you. If I follow them I will anyway at last get away from you. (disappears going up)

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Larsen Death and damnation to all of them! May all the storms of the Pacific persecute them and my brother! I should have killed him long ago! I should never have spared him nor any single man! All my conclusions about the baseness of man have been verified. She is just an animal and the worst of all parasites on the goodness of nature. (raises his fist, like against heaven) Welcome, darkness! Replenish me with your enlightenment, so that I can have a clearer sight than any seeing moron! I will survive them all just to spite them and my destiny! I will chase them all down to hell with my curses and preside over them myself, like a Lucifer! To hell with all humanity! I will carry on persecuting them long after I am dead! (hits a bottle on the table by mistake, picks it up and observes that it isn’t empty, and breaks it against the floor.) Who needs whisky any longer? My rage is a better intoxication than all delirium in the history of man! It shall never leave them in peace! (threatens the sky with his fist and finally hits the table, so that the entire table collapses and falls apart.) If I only could annihilate all humanity in the same way! But my rage is blind and vain. Calm down, Larsen, and wait in patient peace for your sight to return. It always returns, and if not, I will simply have to learn to penetrate the supreme darkness.

Act V scene 1. Two weeks later. On deck. Everything is in total disorder, fallen masts and yards, sheets and ropes cut off, everything just a chaotic mess. The sound of seagulls. Larsen (coming up slowly and gradually, suddenly considerably aged, extremely tired and almost like an old man.) What is this land we have drifted into? I hear the noise of gulls and the barking of seals. This must be the seal colony I was always searching for. So have I then found at last the eldorado of the seal hunter and his promised gold mine and cannot take possession of it. All the world is mocking me. I am richest in the world but alone with all my riches that I cannot touch. Is this what I have lived for? To reach this ultimate irony, the universal scorn of who was the perfect man and superior in everything, a blind invalid who hardly even can totter to his kitchen to make his last supper? The cook was right. It will be the slowest and most insufferable of all ways to die, a torture of loneliness without end, a slow constantly prolonged agonizing starvation, while the gulls and the seals joyously triumph and bark at me with their hearts’ content. I may have been a blasphemer all my life, but I never succeeded in mocking God so infernally as now the entire universe is mocking and scorning me, the divinely gifted, perfect superman. But quiet! There are strangers coming on board. (grows quite still and listens) Hump (coming up over the rail) Everything is abandoned. It’s obvious that the last man has abandoned the ship. What could have happened? Shipwreck or mutiny or both? Larsen Welcome back on board, Hump. (Not until now Hump notices him.) It was neither. My brother just promised all my men a higher share of the profit. He bought

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them, and they caught on. They will suffer for it, he will drive them more surely to death than I, but they got better paid, and greed always wins over sense. Hump Are you then left alone on board? Larsen Alone with you. How is Maud? Is she alive? Hump We have lived here shipwrecked for two weeks, until a strange providence sent your ship drifting ashore in front of our camp. Larsen That providence has provided me with the untouched seal colony I always dreamed about, but I can’t touch a single seal. Hump The seals thank you for that. Larsen You don’t have to be afraid of me any more. I can’t touch you either. Hump You seem tired and worn out. Are you hurt? Larsen You could say that again. I am stone blind. Hump The headache and the attacks? Larsen Yes. The doctor said it would come, and he was right. When it couldn’t be concealed any more to the crew, they sent word to Death Larsen about the situation, and he come on board himself one night and bought every one of them. Next day they were all gone. I heard myself how he came on board and persuaded them. It wasn’t even a mutiny. It was the ratter of Hamelin who lured away all the children. Hump And the doctor? Larsen He followed them. I would have become a troublesome patient for him if he had remained. Hump What will you do? Larsen What can I do? Nothing. I can sit here and listen to the gulls and the seals, how they bark and are happy about no one coming to hunt them, while the greatest seal hunter of the Pacific is sitting here as a stranded wreck. Hump Have you given up? Larsen Don’t be ridiculous. There is nothing for me to give up. I am finished and have done my job. It’s a matter of fact. I can never sail any more, and I can never hunt another seal, while my brother has taken over my crew, which he will drive unto death with much greater efficiency than I. One stroke has already hit me, and all I have to do is to wait for the next one. Hump You are at least on board of your own ship. Larsen What ship? I am glad that I cannot even see it any more. She was scuttled alive, the finest and fastest schooner of the Pacific, subject to the most heinous sacrilege and rape in naval history! But there is only one thing I regret, Hump. Hump What? Larsen That I can’t see that lovely girl any more. Hump Maud? Larsen I actually fell in love with her. When I tried to express it she got hysterical and decided to escape from the Ghost by any means, which she did. She escaped with you, didn’t she?

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Hump We never reached Japan. The winds were wrong. Larsen Sooner or later you will be found and collected here, but then I will be gone. Hump Don’t be too sure. There are many hunters around. One ship could pass here any day. It’s high season, and this is an inviting bay. Larsen It is as if the Ghost herself found her final anchorage. Still there is one thing I would like to ask of you, Hump. Hump Well? Larsen Try to put her in order when I am dead, and to sail her for your salvation. Then when you meet a schooner, which can carry you on, you can abandon my ship with me left as its only ballast. That’s my life’s last wish. Hump There was always something of the Flying Dutchman about you. Is that what you wish to become? Larsen A flattering career. I admit that his destiny was always a temptation to me. Hump I will gladly start making your ship seaworthy at once. Larsen That’s the first thing in all my life that has awakened some gratitude in me. Now I beg your permission to retire. It was a pleasure to meet you again. I never thought you would come back. No one else did. Hump Perchance you might even get your sight back, so that you could set your eyes on Maud again. Larsen Don’t expect too much. I have myself no more illusions or expectations. I know when my last voyage has reached its end, and I am glad that my last home harbour was found as far outside and away from the human world as possible. (rises in weariness and finds his own way down the stairs to his cabin again. Hump looks after him and then returns back over the rail.) Hump He always remained a captain anyway and never lost his ship. (climbs back over board.) The End.

Gothenburg 27 february 2015, translated in July 2021.

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Afterword I would never have entered the idea of dramatizing Jack London’s greatest novel, if I hadn’t come across the film version of 1941 with Edward G. Robinson in an interesting interpretation of the main character, which appeared much more human than Jack London’s Nietzschean captain. The possibilities of nuancing of the role appealed to me, and I couldn’t resist attacking the issue. In the film directed by Michael Curtiz (of ’Casablanca’ and many other classics) there was also the doctor, who is not in the novel, while Ida Lupino made a captivating Maud Brewster and Alexander Knox a deeper Humphrey van Weyden. Barry Fitzgerald as the cook took the prize, though, and that character can never be made better on stage. Captain Ulv Larsen remains though the central figure, and the main interest for me in the dramatization of this unequalled sea novel has been to try to reach his humanity, which still had to be there somewhere, even if it was unreachable to Jack London.

Cape Horn after Jack London’s novel by Christian Lanciai (2010)

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The characters: John Pathurst Pike, first mate Captain Anthony West Margaret, his daughter Mellaire, second mate Charley Davis Trunk-Murphy Bert Rhine Raimo, carpenter and the rest of the rather gruesome crew The action is on board the ”Elsinore” in 1913 Copyright © C. Lanciai 2010

Act I scene 1. Pathurst But you don’t understand! I’ve got to have that cabin! Mate I am sorry, but it is not possible. Pathurst But why is it impossible? All other captains sell their cabins! Mate But captain West needs his cabin himself. Pathurst But there are several! Why can’t we just switch cabins? Mate Because there aren’t any more. Pathurst But there are at least three cabins! If the captain doesn’t want to change with me, there is a third one! Mate That one is occupied. Pathurst Are there more passengers then than I? Mate Here he comes himself with the third mate. Pathurst Good lord! He brings a woman! It’s against all rules! I told you expressly that I would refuse to travel with you if the captain brought his wife with him! Mate We haven’t violated your condition. It’s not his wife. It’s his daughter. Pathurst Had I known I would never have… Captain West (enters with his beautiful daughter) Any problems? Mate? Mr Pathurst? Mate Mr Pathurst wants your cabin. Captain I have told you it’s not possible. Pathurst And I told you from the beginning that I must insist on no woman following on such a dangerous voyage! Captain My daughter is not following, Mr Pathurst. She is only here to say goodbye. Pathurst What about the cabin then! In that case there are three cabins after all!

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Captain The third one is just for emergency, for instance for someone in dire need or someone shipwrecked. It is much worse than the one you have now. You will certainly be able to make yourself at home and feel comfortable after a few days. If not, we could then further discuss a possible cabin exchange. Is everything ready, mate? Mate We just have to make sure your daughter’s piano is properly secured first. Pathurst A piano? A piano on board a ship? Mate It’s just a cargo like any other. It just has to be the more firmly secured in the store and protected against any possible risks of water. West Exactly. It must arrive as safely as you, Mr Pathurst. Margaret I think I’ll come along after all, father. West It’s a dangerous journey. It would be safest for you to travel by land. Margaret Am I then not a captain’s daughter? And don’t bother about securing and protecting the piano. Put it in the lounge instead, so that I can play on it during the voyage. – Don’t worry, Mr Pathurst. I play no jigs. Pathurst I am just astonished at the mere existence of a piano on board a sailing ship going round the Cape Horn. West Are you in doubt concerning my seamanship, Mr Pathurst? Pathurst But isn’t it slightly – daring? What happens when the weather gets stormy and the piano starts rolling around? West We’ll see when it happens, Mr Pathurst. You can never do anything about a situation until it occurs. You could provide against possibilities in any thinkable way, but all seamanship is only about doing what’s necessary for the moment. Margaret You are in safe hands under the commando f my father, Mr Pathurst. See you down in the lounge. I have to supervise the safe conduct of the piano. Pathurst At what time in the lounge? Margaret When I call for you when tea is ready. (leaves) West Don’t worry, Mr Pathurst. Don’t you think I tried to dissuade her? She is as impossible to persuade as I. Pathurst I will have to trust you then. West I don’t think you have a choice, if you still want to follow us on the journey. If our cabin remains dissatisfactory we could make a switch out at sea. Until then I ask of you to at least give the one you have a try. Pathurst Thanks, captain. I will go to watch the loading. (leaves) West (after he has left Landlubber! Such a one should never have been released. He will be a security risk to the entire shipping. And he is cross with me just because I know better. Well, he has chosen to come along all by himself. If he does not like it, it will be his own problem. (leaves)

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Scene 2. The lounge. (The piano is in position.) Margaret (sitting at the tea table) What is a lounge without a piano? What is life without a piano? Is it life that makes music, or is it music that makes life? Of course it’s music that makes life. A life without music is no life. (enter Pathurst.) Some tea, Mr Pathurst? (He takes a seat. She pours.) Are you still worried about the piano? Pathurst It seems safe enough and well secured, but how safe will it be when it comes to Cape Horn? Well, we’ll see when we get that far. No, there is something else that worries me. Margaret What? Pathurst The crew. What kind of a crew is this really? They all seem rather scary, to say the least. Margaret All crews are like that, Mr Pathurst. Have you never been to sea before? Pathurst No, this is my first extensive voyage at sea. Margaret Why do you undertake it at all? Pathurst Good question. I found life at home intolerably boring. I needed some change, the greater, the better. So I chose the greatest possible. Margaret You chose with some distinction. You threw yourself out into an abyss. You know of course that many seas are deeper than any mountains on earth? Pathurst Some of them haven’t even been reached the bottom of yet. Margaret Exactly. And we are sailing across them. Better not look down. Pathurst You don’t see anything in the darkness anyway. Margaret Maybe it’s safest that way. (pours some more tea) What’s your concern about the crew? Pathurst It looks so nasty. Some of them look like absolute savages, and that man who went over board after having gone mad – he had evidently tried to kill himself. Margaret People get mad sometimes. It could happen to anyone. Pathurst And your father was remarkably passive. He just stood with his hands in his pockets looking on. Margaret He could do nothing more than to save the poor man’s life. Was that wrong? Pathurst No, not at all. Margaret He always knows what he is doing, Mr Pathurst. He only does the least possible and what’s absolutely necessary. That’s why he never makes a mistake. Pathurst Who does not commit mistakes? Margaret He. At least it never happened so far. On one occasion we rammed a steamboat. It was the fault of the steamboat, which tried to get ahead of us through the Golden Gate in San Francisco. Our bow went straight through the plate and almost split the entire ship. Father put his hands into his pockets and went up front to supervise the rescue work. We had already started taking down the sails, but now he gave the order to set them all again. Pathurst (confused) Why?

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Margaret As long as the bow was stuck in the ship there was less water let in, and the steamboat went down more slowly. Or else it would have sunk like a stone. Steamships always go down like stones. Now all those on board could be saved, and as soon as the operation was completed, he gave the order to take down the sails again. The bow was set free, and the steamboat went down like a stone. He had never taken out his hands from his pockets. Pathurst A remarkable captain. Margaret He knows his business. Pathurst Is he not concerned about his crew at all? They all seem utterly unreliable to say the least. Margaret To him the crew doesn’t exist. He only needs his mates to manage his ship, which is his only task. The mates also know their business, which is to set the men at work. You can still walk back ashore, if you don’t dare to follow. The towboat can bring you back. Pathurst No thank you, there is too much on board that interests me, my reading, for example, and you. I still haven’t heard you playing. Margaret (slightly laughing) I am afraid the piano could be rather out of tune. Tuning was not part of the delivery. Pathurst The music sets the mood, and the ear adjusts it, to some degree. Margaret We’ll see how much I could strain your limits. But did you have anything on land to run away from except your boredom? Pathurst No, actually not. Margaret So you are really a bachelor. Pathurst Absolutely. Margaret What then drove you to attempt a journey round the Cape Horn for your first voyage at sea? It appears somewhat desperate, to say the least. Pathurst I will gladly tell you. I fell for this beautiful ship, perhaps the last great sailing ship for cargo and passengers that ever will be built in America. The brutal steamships seem to take over all shipping traffic with their ugliness, noise and impurity. Everything is dirty on board of them. I saw this beautiful “Elsinore” as perhaps my last chance to make a real journey with a real sailing ship. Of course the sailing shipping will continue, but hardly with passengers and least of all round the Cape Horn, since they are now constructing a canal through the Panama isthmus. You only need to observe the crew to understand the total declination in the sailing shipping traffic. The heroic age of the clipper ships with the contests for Australia are long since passed forever, and instead the motor ships are polluting the seas in increasing fervour while constantly more sailing ships are committed to wharfs or kept going with constantly cheaper and worse crews. Margaret So you think this your first voyage will be your last? Pathurst Yes, with a sailing ship. May I now hear you play something, please. (Margaret gets up to the piano and plays a simple Chopin waltz. After a while Pathurst interrupts the music.) Are you not at all afraid of the crew, Miss West?

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Margaret Why should I be? Pathurst Because it is so obviously scary. There are all kinds of nasty elements apart from downright monsters. I have seen them at work when we set sails. Mr Pike almost had to lash them to work. They are slow and did everything wrong, as if they were all inveterate anarchists. Margaret They will learn soon at sea. Pathurst But there are some revolting types, stinking whisky, fighting all the time with no end to their visiousness and work most reluctantly. How could they manage a storm out on the ocean? Could they even take down sails? Margaret All crews can take down sails. Or else they would not be a crew. Don’t worry, Mr Pathurst. They are after all human. Pathurst And the second mate with his deep gash in his head. How did he get it? Margaret You have seen it? He doesn’t want to show it to anyone, and few have seen it. A mad cook once hacked him with a meat-axe for not being allowed to go ashore in Baltimore, although they were in Bangkok. Pathurst Was he operated? Margaret The cook? Pathurst No, the mate. Margaret Yes, but barely. Pathurst How so? Margaret They were already at sea, so he had to wait with the operation until Hongkong. In the meanwhile the ship’s doctor filled the gap with syrup and plastered it. It had to suffice, and it did. The wound healed, and in Hongkong Mellaire didn’t want to hear about any operation. He has managed all right sia nce then, and he is good second mate. Pathurst So it’s the brain directly under the naked skin? Margaret Yes. Pathurst Then he is a living miracle. But I would never consider such a man dependable. Margaret Neither would I. But he has never committed a mistake. Pathurst He looks as if he constantly waited for the chance. Margaret To commit a mistake? Pathurst No, to let out the devil within. Margaret I assure you, Mr Pathurst, that all crews are the same. They all consist of men without women, extreme originals, madmen and idiots, morbid eccentrics and extreme maniacs with some mark of Cain to conceal, like the second mate. No one is quite whole as a human being, and if he is he will not go to sea or is far too weak and naïve. Pathurst But even Mr Pike says this crew is worse than all others. Margaret Then so it is according to Mr Pike’s experience. I wouldn’t worry, Mr Pathurst. That’s the last thing my father does, and I have sailed with him all my life. Pathurst And never a shipwreck?

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Margaret Oh yes. His fifth ship foundered with him and me on board. It was a tsunami that caught us and thrust us up on land in San Francisco in the large earthquake. It was nobody’s fault. I was a girl then. The anchor chains broke, and the ship was thrown so hard against a rock, that the rock collapsed over it. Such a wreck no one can repair, although it was in the harbour. That’s why everyone could be saved, though, who hadn’t been smashed to death. Pathurst What a shock! Margaret Not at all. Just something you have to survive. Pathurst Like everything else, no matter how boring it s. Margaret You will not be likely to be bored here on board with the scariest crew in the world. Pathurst Do you suggest there could be a mutiny? Margaret That’s the last thing my father is afraid of. Pathurst Play some more for me, Miss West. Pardon me for having interrupted you. Margaret It doesn’t matter, Mr Pathurst. You are welcome to interrupt me again. I need some practice. No pianist is ever accomplished and I least of all. (When Margaret has started playing again a simple prelude by Chopin, the ”sea prelude”, Pike enters with his funnel gramophone.) Margaret (breaks off at once when she notices him) Welcome, Mr Pike. Pathurst But mate, what’s that contraption you are carrying? Pike Since you are getting on with music anyway, I thought this could interest you. It’s a gramophone of the latest model. I have records also, Caruso, Melba, and others. Margaret I didn’t know you were interested in music, Mr Pike. Pike Others get drunk ashore. I look up music. I am old enough to have had time to mature. My knuckles are hard, but my heart is soft. Would you like to hear? Margaret I would love to! Pike (winds up the gramophone, puts on a record, wipes it carefully with a comb of camel hair and cautiously sets the needle: an aria by Verdi with Caruso.) I love opera. I have always loved opera. Pathurst How old are you, Mr Pike? Pike 69 years, but tough like an elephant. I have never fallen on deck, Mr Pathurst. I know the sea. Both Miss West and the captain get seasick at times but me never. And no one ever made trouble with me. You need hard knuckles to keep this crew in order, but I’ve got them. (looks at Margaret) The captain need not worry. Margaret He never did. Pathurst Maybe I am too sensitive and inexperienced, but every time I hear your fights and fisticuffs from the prow and find new damaged knuckles on your hands I wonder how this is going to end. Pike The captain doesn’t care. Neither should you. I will arrange a new sleeping-place for you, so you don’t have to hear what’s going on. This crew is impossible, the craziest and most unmanageable I’ve ever had to deal with, but it can

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do some work and must be forced to it, and it’s my job to make them work. Whatever you do, don’t try to interfere. The less you see and hear of what’s going on, the better. Pathurst Are you used to this, Miss West? Margaret I was used to it from the beginning. It’s life at sea, Mr Pathurst. You’ve only got to get used to it. Pathurst I wish I could, but it’s getting more difficult the worse it grows. And now it’s too late to turn back. Pike (casually) Yes, it is. Margaret Well, what do you think about my playing, Mr Pathurst? Pathurst You have a good and almost masculine touch. It’s self-assured and completely convincing. I have no objections. Margaret But? Pathurst Something may be missing, like that special extra thing, you know. You play perfectly, but still the most important is missing, a lack which almost all professional pianists are suffering from. You are good at Chopin but lack his lyricism. Perhaps Schumann would suit you better? Margaret I actually prefer Schumann, but everybody loves Chopin, he is inexhaustible, while few are knowledgeable about Schumann, since he falls in the shadow of Chopin. Pathurst Why do you prefer Schumann? Margaret Because he is more liberated, masculine and generous. Pathurst And the others? Liszt? Debussy? Margaret I never play them. To me they are no longer music, especially not Liszt, except in exceptions like Liebestraum, Un Sospiro and Funerailles, which though in large parts is a travesty on Chopin’s 6th polonaise. His Hungarian rhapsodies are also of course quite valid, but concerning Debussy there are few pieces that hold water, mainly only Clair de Lune, ‘The girl witrh the linen hair’ and ‘La Cathédrale Engloutie’. I find it difficult to learn Debussy by heart, while there never is any problem about the classics, maybe because they always are structured, while Debussy seldom is. .Pathurst Beethoven? Schubert? Margaret No problem. They are unsurpassed. Pike And the modern composers? Rachmaninoff? Paderewski? Sibelius? Margaret Sibelius is somewhat too nice to be acceptable. His music is too lovely and endearing. Rachmaninoff allows technique to supersede the purely musical, which is the wrong that most modern composers commit. Paderewski has composed less but better – as much gold as Chopin. Pike I leave you to your piano. I have to get back to work and mind the crew. Don’t play the gramophone if there is a storm. Then the needle will glide and scratch the records. (leaves) Margaret There he goes to cudgel the crew again. That’s the only thing he knows.

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Pathurst Except his job. Margaret He minds his job by cudgelling the crew. Pathurst Is your father completely ignorant of what is going on on board? Margaret What do you mean? Pathurst Do you think that he as commanding officer could turn a blind eye to the fact that members of the crew beat each other to death and that mate Pike every day have new wounds on his knuckles after fights that only grow worse every day? Margaret He has no choice but to trust his mates to do what they must do. If someone fails he can be replaced. No one is irreplaceable except my father. By the way, how did you get on board yourself? Normally we don’t accept passengers. Pathurst I am shipped as third mate, and my servant as a cabin boy. You do always take some passenger, don’t you? Margaret Only by exception. The only function of ‘Elsinore’ is to transport coal, much coal, we have five thousand tons in the cargo, and our only obligation is to make sure the cargo reaches Seattle. We actually have no obligation to any passenger, he signs on at his own risk, even if naturally it is in the interest of all of us that he also gets through alive. You bribed your way on board. Had you done so also if you had learned about the crew before the departure? Pathurst Certainly not. I am willing to risk anything for some change but not my life. Margaret Do you think your life is at risk here? Pathurst Mate Pike is only able to keep his crew at work by violence. My servant has told me that there is a conspiracy going on in the fo’c’sle, maybe to do away with Pike, maybe to mutiny. Margaret Never against my father. Everyone respects him. Pathurst And what if Pike one day is murdered? Who would replace him? Margaret It would automatically be second mate Bellaire. And that would make you second mate. Pathurst And if I told you that the second mate is in league with the worst rogues in the fo’c’sle, the three former convicts, what would you say to that? Margaret Nothing. That’s exactly why my father doesn’t want anything to do with the crew. It only causes worries that least of all should be of any concern to you. Pathurst Everything that goes on on board a ship, especially on such a splendid barque as this one, a brittle shell of steel of just a few inches with 5000 tons of coal on board, should be of concern to everyone on board, since everything the captain does concerns everyone. And the captain should be well aware of everything that goes on on board in order to be able to anticipate dangers. Margaret He is. I am just worried about his health. Pathurst I have seen him turning white and pass out for a few seconds while you watched him with alarm. Margaret Exactly. I am afraid his heart will give in. That’s why he is so intentionally resigned and as little active as possible. He has to take it easy. Pathurst I understand. So there is a risk he will go off?

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Margaret It has been imminent all his life. It’s the same for all of us. There is no life without death. Pathurst But he has a heart failure? Margaret I don’t want to discuss it, and that’s the last thing you should do. Pathurst I would speculate in the consequences of a crisis. Margaret No one would do that on board, at least not among the command. Pike (returns) Now those submen have been given a round again! They seem to insist on sailing us to hell as soon as they are given free reins. Pathurst There are no submen or overmen, Mr Pike. There are only human beings. Pike Would you suggest that a negro is as good as an American or Englishman? Don’t you see there are different races, that some are yellow and some are black and that’s only the whites that can make the others work? There is not one single pure-bred idiot in the crew. It’s only we in the aft who are white and blue-eyed who can manage them. All the rest is damned, and you have to admit the differences are more than obvious. Our crew consists of limpings freaks with crooked backs and faults to more than one limb except that they are all either madmen or idiots. That difference between them they can’t see themselves. But there is a long distance from their level to ours, as long as from ours to captain West’s, who is principally the only indispensable one on board for his superior invaluable knowledge. Only knowledge raises man above the state of animals. Is there any knowledge in the crew? Can they play the piano like us or even understand or hear music? Do they know anything about Edison or Emerson? They can ’t even manage a ship. The negroes of Africa have lived by waters just as long as we whites, but did they ever enter the idea of navigation? No, when we came to Africa with compass and charts they were still paddling around in their lumber stocks. Does that make them as good as human beings as we? Margaret (trying to make a joke of it) The Neanderthal man got his name from the German village in which he was found. The Cro Magnon man was found in France. He considered himself superior to the Neanderthal man and called him flatskull. Is that why we have had wars between France and Germany ever since then? Pathurst You have to admit, Mr Pike, that it would be worth accepting any people as nothing less than human people just to avoid unnecessary wars and troubles. Margaret That was my point. Pike There will be wars anyway. You might as well be a realist from the beginning. Pathurst We don’t have a war on board yet. Pike Are you so naïve, Mr Pathurst? I never sailed any ship where there weren’t conflicts that sooner or later led to war with some casualty or other. Since the murder of captain Somers I always fought bitterly on the side of the command. That’s the only way for the ship to reach its destination. Pathurs Who was captain Somers?

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Pike He was an old man, more than seventy. They said he had a stroke – I wasn’t present then, but heard about it later. The second mate beat him to death in the middle of the night. It was eleven years ago in San Francisco. But the worst was not the murder of a man broken by stroke, but that the murderer was pardoned after seven years. He should have been hanged at once. He blamed some mental illness since he had had his skull cloven long before by a mad cook at sea. He was a scumbag, but he belonged to an old powerful family of Virginia called Waltham who stood him by anyway and used all their influence. His name was Sidney Waltham. (Pathurst grows pale.) What is it, Mr Pathurst? Have you seen him? No one knows where he is today. Margaret (makes a sign to Pathurst to keep quiet with a finger on her mouth. Pathurst controls himself.) Pathurst Nothing. I thought maybe, but I don’t know. Pike (alert) What did he look like? Pathurst I can hardly remember. (It starts blowing.) Pike There is a storm coming up. I have to get out. There’s probably some madman by the helm who has jumped over board again. (vanishes) Pathurst (when he is gone) Do you think he could be the one? Margaret It could hardly be anyone else. There are hardly two cases of mad cooks hacking the head of a mate with an axe. The probability is obvious. Pathurst What shall we do? Margaret What can we do? Nothing, until the storm comes. Pathurst Sit down by the piano again, please. We need to calm down after this. Margaret It will be difficult to stay put on the chair in the increasing sea. Pathurst Try your best. Let the music transcend all the disharmonies of the universe. Margaret It will be difficult just to endure the loaded disharmony on board, which appears like a gunpowder magazine with already a lighted fuse. Pathurst Then perhaps the music might save us. Margaret Or nothing will. Let’s see if I can outdo the storm. (starts on Chopin’s revolution study, but the competition from the increasing storm outside is hard.)

Act II scene 1. In the fo’c’sle. Pike You rotten scumbags, if you don’t at once get down to work you will get stuck here in the grave of the ocean all of you, unless you don’t want me to throw you all over board, if you don’t get going with your work! Davis Mate, we are not impossible. We are as much human as you, perhaps even more. You never even read a book, while here in the fo’c’sle there is more cultivation than in your entire ship’s cabin.

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Pike Shall we bet? Shall we fight about it? (menacingly untucking his sleeves) Mellaire Mate Pike, take it easy and give us a chance. Let me handle the men. Using violence will only make it worse, but I stand closer to them and can actually persuade them to manage the vessel in any weather. You go up and take orders from the captain, and we’ll manage the rest and the rig. Stay on deck and scowl the wind, which might take you more seriously than we do. Pike Then move your bloody legs! Nothing gets done if we don’t at once have all hands on deck! Mellaire We’re coming, mate. Give us a chance to climb the rig, and you’ll see that not one of us will fall down until all sails are in order. Pike You had better, Mellaire. I give you ten minutes. Be on deck then, and I will give you the captain’s latest orders. (leaves) Mellaire (to the men) He is an old violent sourpuss who is impossible to reason with, but he is right. You actually must work. We must all work together if we are to get this smack round the Cape Horn. Davis He is all washed up. He is after all almost seventy and only lives by his toothless roars, as if that could scare us. Murphy He also has hard knuckles and still knows how to fight. He is not counted out until someone knocks him to death or sends him over board. Davis Forget it. No one sends him over board. No wave could displace him from deck. His old sealegs are like earthed rocks on board of a ship. We could only get rid of him by using force to murder him. Murphy And then? What next? Do we then take the ship? Davis Not as long as the captain lives. Murphy He is even older. Davis But he is the captain, and no one knows the ship better than he. He could manage it alone. We could hardly do that. Mellaire Forget all your bullshit and get going! We have a storm to face. Let’s take one storm at a time. Any attempt on mate Pike’s life you’ll have to discuss in calmer weather. As long as it’s storming around the Cape and we haven’t got round it, everything else must wait. Davis You are the only one who can make us work, mate. Number one just keeps brawling and paralysing us by his empty threats. Mellaire That’s what I mean. You need more than just brute force to bring a ship to harbour around the Cape Horn. Get up on deck now, boys! (They all get going.)

Scene 2. In the cabin. West What do you think about the crew, mate Pike? Pike It’s the worst I ever sailed with. How could the shipowners get us such a worthless crew? You have to lash them to work if they are to work at all. They are all of them just rotten crooks, and I can’t find one among them whom you could trust.

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West Still the second seems to be able to get them to work. Pike That doesn’t make them any better, and between ourselves I think the second is a little too close with them. West That’s his job. It’s perhaps the only way for him to make them work as they should. Pike I don’t trust him. West You don’t have to. Just make sure he works and that the crew works for him, and you don’t have to do anything further, least of all to have anything with him and them to do. Pike Thanks for that, but if you don’t beat the hell out of them they will never start working. West I don’t accept your methods, mate Pike. They are all your own. My only interest is that you and the second obey my orders and make the crew cooperate, for the interest of us all. After all, we are all interested in surviving, aren’t we? Pike That’s about the only thing that keeps those rotten eggs going. West Be content with that, and don’t be afraid of them. Pike That’s the last thing I am. West Why then do you beat them? (smiles and winks and sucks his pipe) It’s all right, Mr Pike. Just mind your work, and all the others will mind theirs as well. (winks him off. Pike leaves.) This will probably be my last voyage. Cape Horn has never defeated me so far, but it doesn’t age, while I unfortunately must confess that I no longer am as young as I ought to be to be able to endure her perpetual fury, which at length is getting tiresome. (enter Margaret.) My daughter. That’s all you wanted, Margaret How are you, father? West As usual. How are you yourself? Margaret You sound rather disinterested as usual. West I couldn’t be less interested. Margaret The entire crew is fighting for their lives against the storms. West How fares the piano? Margaret It will manage. West You should never have brought it along. Margaret It’s weight is nothing to the five thousand tons of coal. West I am thinking of its sensitivity. Nothing is more sensitive than music, especially against such barbarity that now is thriving on board. Margaret I hope you are not worried about the crew? West That’s the last thing I am worried about. Everyone else is worrying to death about it. Margaret So you fear no mutiny? West Never in my life as long as I am captain. A crew instinctively knows better than to revolt when they have a captain who is capable of handling the ship, and when they have that they feel it. They will only mutiny if the captain doesn’t

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behave, like for example the poor miserable captain Bligh, who went hysterical. Then the crew has to resort to mutiny. Margaret There is one more thing, though, that you don’t know about. West And that is? Margaret Second mate is using a false name. His real name is Sidney Waltham. He was the one who hacked captain Somers to death eleven years ago. West (takes for the first time his pipe out of his mouth Does the first mate know? Margaret Not yet. West (puts back his pipe) He had better not. Margaret No one knows about it except the four of us. West (takes out his pipe again) Who is the fourth? Margaret Our dandy passenger. West (puts back his pipe) That knave. Does he worry? Margaret None of us will squeal, naturally. West Will number one be able to recognize him? Margaret Only if he removes his cap and reveals his scar. West Yes, I have seen that gash. If number one knows what it means we are done for, if he discovers it. Then we run the risk of losing both our mates. Margaret It will be the state secret of the ship. West We must live to keep it. What else is he like, that paying stowaway? Margaret He is not as stupid as he looks. He is a hopeless snob and landlubber, but he could learn a great deal on this journey, if we make it. West We always make it. My only concern from the beginning was if he would make it. Margaret He made it so far. He likes and understands music. That might save him. West That gives us a certain hope. Go on treating him with music, and you might make him propagate the family. Margaret He is not like that. West Just you wait. All men are like that at heart. Neither I was like that before I married. Still I got married. Margaret You should have had a son instead of me. West I never complained. Margaret Neither did I. West Get back up now and take care of our guest. He must not get worried. Margaret He is afraid of the crew. West He has no reason to be as long as I am on board. Margaret You are old, father. We are worried about your health. West I know. I am at the end of the line. I just told to myself, that this is probably my last journey. Not that my strength is lacking, but my heart is not quite with me all the time. That’s why I do as little as possible and only what’s absolutely necessary. I cannot for instance engage in intrigues of the crew. The sailors and mates will have to manage by themselves. I only give orders, nothing else. Margaret You are right in doing so. No one can question your seamanship.

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West That’s why I am still a captain although more than seventy-five. Margaret And mate Pike is sixty-nine. None of you must fail. West We know that well enough. Go ahead and flirt with your guest now, so that he feels good and forgets about the crew. Margaret Yes, father. Just take it easy yourself. West Indeed. (She leaves.) That was not good. If my mate learns who his second mate is, anything could happen. But I trust the second mate is wise enough to always keep his cap on. (sucks his pipe)

Scene 3. The lounge Pathurst (sitting comfortably smoking) What does she mean? Is she trying to court me? I was quite clear already when I got myself on board, that I would accept anything but no woman on board. Still that infernal captain brings his own daughter along, an insolent beauty, who even plays the piano most seductively. Can you happen to a more insidious life danger and death trap? Margaret (enters) There you are. Don’t tell me you are waiting for me to play for you again? Pathurst However could you believe such a thing? The sea is increasing. What does your father the captain say about the weather? Margaret You don’t have to tell me you are a landlubber. You have to have heard as much of Cape Horn, that it is always lashed by violent storms and that you always head against the wind? Pathurst That should depend on from which direction you come. Margaret There is always headwind against the direction from which we come. It never blows west around the Horn, only east, and it’s the hardest winds in the world. Pathurst And still your father intends to sail round the Horn? Margaret It’s his art and craft, for which he is paid. It’s his profession. He never foundered in a storm, only by unpredictable accidents. He never sailed a ship to destruction, least of all round the Horn, which he in contrast to almost everyone always managed well. Pathurst I believe you, but how is he? He seems somewhat like running out. Margaret He appears to be clear about this being his last journey at least round the Horn. For the rest, he is all right. Pathurst If a captain is aware of sailing out on his last journey, nothing is well with him. How old is he really? Margaret Over seventy-five. Pathurst Shouldn’t he have had his pension long ago? Margaret Try saying that to him. He will throw you overboard. Pathurst The mate then? He cannot be much younger. Shouldn’t they both go ashore and stay there together?

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Margaret The mate would be even quicker in throwing you overboard. You had better stay silent with the sailors about their professions. Pathurst How do you think the piano will manage the storms? Margaret Well, as long someone plays on it and keeps it working. Water is not likely to be able to enter it. What usually affects pianos is that someone spills whiskey or liquor or wine or beer in it. Then no one can play it any more. Music instruments can take water but not alcohol. Pathurst Honestly speaking, how is your father really? Could he really manage this journey? Margaret As long as he lives there is no danger. The mate looks after him, and he couldn’t have a better mate. The only security risk is our friend the second mate with the gash in his head and the murder of a captain in his past, whom we never can be sure of, and a most capricious and unpredictable crew. Pathurst But it’s to the interest of all of us that we get through, especially for the crew and second mate, since they must be well aware of how old and frail their command is. Margaret Yes, I think that’s what will save us. Pathurst And everyone in the crew is not a dumbbell. Margaret Crew members are usually underestimated. They are superstitious and violent, but they possess impressing natural forces and have an enormously high developed natural instinct. Like my father every one of them can sense a change of weather and climate crisis days in advance. They have a sixth sense, which it is very stupid to ignore. If something goes wrong, if some injustice is carried through, if a crime is committed they react with a vengeance. There was never in naval history any mutiny that wasn’t reasonable. Pathurst But here on board a mutiny would never be reasonable. Margaret No. Pathurst I believe you. (enter Pike, ill abused, beaten black and blue and with a blue eye.) Here is our friend like by order. Pike There! They got it down their throats! Now they are working again! Margaret Have you beaten the crew to death once again now, Mr Pike? Pike Only some of them who asked for it. No one looks for trouble with Mr Pike! What about some Caruso? Margaret You are welcome. The gramophone is all yours. Pathurst Don’t you think the sea may make the needle slip? Pike Let’s risk it. Let’s try Madame Melba, to play it safe. (puts on a screaming scratchy record with Madame Melba) Pathurst The one with the peaches? Pike Yes, she is actually the one with the peaches. Margaret How long do you think we will have to beat around the Horn before we get past it? Pike You never know. It could take weeks, and it could take months. If you get well past it you could be back again behind it without having noticed it. All

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winds and currents are against us. You’ll just have to stick it out until it works. Shame on you if you give up. All will finally get past it who don’t founder. Margaret Right you are, Mr Pike. Pike As long as your father runs the ship there is no danger. Pathurst He says it will be his last voyage. Pike Did he say that? That surprises me. Seamen never say a thing like that even if it is. It bodes no good. Why would he give up, of all people? Margaret I haven’t said that he is giving up. He only thinks he will have reason to get a pension after this voyage. Pike How old is he? Seventy-seven? Margaret About. Pike He still has a long way to go. Trust me. I am sixty-nine but have muscles and sinews and powers left like a nineteen-year old. I am older than anyone in the crew, but they are all like moths to me. No one can stick up against me or the captain. Pathurst Still you’ve had wounded knuckles and several bruises besides a formidable black eye. Pike They are only flesh wounds. I never get interior damages, but I give them to anyone who asks for it. Pathurst Thanks, I promise to never be in your way. Pike But your father’s melancholy is a serious sign, Miss West. I hope he doesn’t think the days of the sailing ships are over? Margaret It could have something to do with that. He never wants to tread the planks of a steamship. All his expert seamanship is only for sailing ships, and they are a vanishing tribe. This is probably the last cargo of coal going under sails from Baltimore to Seattle. If he doesn’t get any more job on a sailing vessel after this, he will probably prefer staying ashore, even if that would be the worst of all and death to him. Pike We refuse to give up, he and I. Sailing ships will always be needed. The motor ships are the parasites of the oceans, testifying to the fact that humanity is totally derailed. If humankind converts to that pollution she is doomed. It will not take many hundred years. She has already departed from the safe guardianship of nature to general denaturalisation and dehumanisation, which is a straight suicidal course. You mark my words. Humanity isn’t worth as much as a lapping any more if she takes one step away from nature. Pathurst There is a writer who tries to call man’s universal decadence to attention, that she is only growing more unhealthy and unsound all the time, but that there will still always be individuals who will be able to save her, like God saved Noah. Pike Nietzsche? Pathurst No, Spengler. Pike Never heard of him. Pathurst He is still young. Pike We’ll see. Who lives will see. We will at least survive this journey, Miss, you can be sure. (returns out in the blast)

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Pathurst Honestly speaking I am not so sure of that. Margaret We’ll see, Mr Pathurst. We can’t do much else than take one day at a time. Pathurst Yes, and that will be enough indeed, with a mate beating the crew to death every day and taking for granted that it will not mutiny. What happens when he discovers the scar on the second’s skull? Margaret Don’t talk about it. That if anything we must prevent at all costs. Pathurst It will pass for the time being and some time, but on the day when he sees it anything could happen, if the game isn’t finished then. Margaret It isn’t finished until we reach the end of the journey. Pathurst You are an optimist. Margaret No, a realist, as far as possible. If one day it’s no longer possible, we’ll have to resort to surrealism, which actually could become a reality on a ship like this. Pathurst I’ll have to trust you and your realism. You know more about life at sea than I. Margaret What about some water music? (sits by the piano and starts on the raindrop prelude. When the storm section starts, the storm outside also accelerates.)

Act III scene 1. Mellaire You must understand that it’s a matter of life and death, boys. We can’t give up now, not as long as the captain is in command! Murphy He just keeps sitting in apathy smoking in his lounge and saying nothing. He doesn’t even show up any more. Davis While his wench keeps fawning on that cad from Baltimore, who never should have placed his foot on board a ship. Bert Rhine Especially not on a ship like this, with only scumbags and unblessed devils on board. several Ha-ha-ha! Davis But that captain’s wench I would sure like to have by myself for some time. Mellaire Forget it, Davis. Don’t you see, that as long as you keep messing about your job the mate will just keep beating you around even worse than so far! Haven’t you noticed that he has dynamite in his fists and that he like the captain is not likely to ever give in? Davis The captain is old, and the mate is almost just as old. If the captain falls off, the mate will not be able to hang on, and then the ship is ours. Mellaire Don’t even think of mutiny, boys. The captain is the toughest man on board, and he doesn’t budge until we get past the Cape Horn, and then the danger is over.

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Murphy If only that damned carpenter wasn’t on board all the time throwing vicious glances around, as if he constantly cursed us, we would have got past the Horn long ago. Mellaire But as it is we are not, and only we ourselves can get our ship around it. Davis No, mate, we need a change of wind. As long as the wind is on to us we will never get round the Cape. Murphy And it’s that cursed carpenter who makes sure the wind doesn’t turn. He only wished us bad weather from the start. Mellaire You can’t see yourselves how childishly superstitious you are. The carpenter is just an honest and hard working Finn. Murphy But he is quiet and says nothing and keeps away from us, as if he didn’t want anything to do with us. Every devil of a seaman knows, that Finns have the power to manipulate with the weather, and if the weather is hard against us, as it has been now for a month, it could only be because we have a nasty and invidious Finn on board. Bert Rhine Throw him to the sharks. Davis There are no sharks here on these latitudes. Bert Rhine To the mermaids then, which will make both him and them happy. Pike (appearing) What is going on here? Are you intriguing again, you nitwits? Why aren’t you up in the rig? We’ll never get round the Horn if you are to keep on skulking all the time! Mellaire I just told them the same thing. We are on our way up now. Pike That’s good, Mellaire! Get the boys going and make them work! Or else they wouldn’t even do as shark fodder, and then the only thing for me to do would be to beat them to death! Mellaire Well, boys, what about breaking the Horn? Davis If only we get favourable wind… Pike You need more than favourable wind to break the Horn, and every sailor knows that since infancy! And if you just put your shoulder to the wheel you can knock out the horn without even wind in your sails! The captain was just about to do it from the beginning, when the weather and the currents pleased to play games with us and force us backward. It wasn’t our fault. We fought like men, and we are going on like that until we have rounded the horn! Aren’t we, mates? most (can’t resist him) Yes, Sir! Pike That’s the spirit! Up to the sky with all of you! If you just show you have some gunpowder in you perhaps the wind will get impressed and turn around! Maybe that’s all that’s missing! No one is giving up here on this vessel, and least of all a true sailor! (The boys get into some action, and all go out on deck, the mates at last.) There is no foul intrigue going on down here, I hope, mate? Mellaire What do you mean?

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Pike The captain doesn’t like that you are on such a good footing with the crew. They are here to work, not to have their fancies blown up by mate who stoops down to their level. Mellaire It does no harm to be on the level with the men, Sir, especially not when you have to make them work against all odds. Pike I hope indeed, Mellaire, there is nothing else going on between you. (leads the way up, Mellaire going first.) Bloody journey! Who knows when you will ever be able to sleep at all again? (leaves after the others and Mellaire.)

Scene 2. West It’s the ultimate showdown at the end of the world, like it was already in Maghellan’s days, when he waged everything on one card and had no other choice but to win. We are wearing out the storms, that are wasting their energy on us in vain, while we just keep struggling on and refuse to give up. There is no higher degree of heroism than a Cape Hornian who just keeps carrying on fighting against the wind and the hardest storms in the world and against all the assembled power resources of the world’s greatest ocean, which furiously keeps raging against us and wreaking their stormy billows over us day out and day in, while the sailors just go on climbing the yards, freezing to death and falling down. But there are always new ones. No one is more inexhaustible when it comes to human and spiritual resources than a hardy sailor. Here is our mate again with his ordinary dejecting reports. What’s new, mate? How many have now gone over board? Pike (has entered) Only one, but like all the others he was irreplaceable. West That’s again one too much, mate. How did it happen? Pike He slipped and lost his grip. Perhaps he was tired. The sailors are not allowed to sleep any more, as you know. Their berths are full of water, and they can’t get rid of the water in the fo’c’sle. They get flooded in their sleep, if they challenge fate by daring to fall asleep. West And the three new ones? How are they managing? Pike They are a phenomenon. We don’t know from there they are. We were about to ram another ship that suddenly turned up in front of us from nowhere, another ship that probably has been pitching here for weeks, and the only reasonable explanation would be that they fell over board from the other ship and managed to get on board here. West And no one understands their language? Pike They are probably locals from here. They are tall and ash blond, like people often are from this land, and they purr like cats. That’s no human language, at least not one with words and grammar. West And you are the right man to determine linguistic conditions, who only knows English and hardly event hat. Pike No one else understands them either.

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West But they can work, and that’s the point. They are welcome on board. We have lost a number of hands, so they couldn’t have come here more conveniently. Make sure they are well taken care of and provided for, so they will miss nothing. Pike Certainly, Sir. West What does the crew say? We have been pitching here now for almost six weeks. Pike That’s not unusual, Sir. The crew is patient. West Because they have to since you keep cudgelling them all the time if they don’t work their hecks off. Those who fell down from the masts or froze to death had more or less been forced out on the yards by you and by force, I gather. Pike We all must work, Sir. We can’t have a single slacker on board. West Except the passenger. Pike Who paid for it. West But I don’t quite like that the second is so intimate with the crew. Pike He is an able sailor, Sir, and almost as indispensable as I. My confidence in him is complete. West A mate who makes friends with the crew is always speculating in mutiny. Pike Not he. West How do you know? Pike You may rest assured, Sir. Like me he is aware of the necessity of making the crew work since it is so reluctant and deficient. I force the bastards to work with the whip and by force, but he knows to apply friendly persuasion. We are both successful. West And how is the general mood in the crew in face of our months of adversities? Pike They are afraid of the carpenter, Sir. West The carpenter? Pike He is a Finn, Sir. West So what? What makes a Finn different from a Norwegian or a Dane or a Scotsman? Pike It is well known since of old among all kinds of sailors that Finns know to manipulate the weather. If storms and adversities consistently harass a ship for weeks and there is a Finn on board, he is the one who maintains the headwind and the storms. West This is Cape Horn, mate Pike. The weather conditions around the Cape Horn are not the fault of any special person and least of all of any Finn. Pike Still it’s the Finn they are afraid of, not the storms. West Is there any risk that anything may happen? Pike If I were you, Sir, I would keep further off the coast. West We are far enough from the coast. Pike We can’t see it. If the view is bad it could be closer than we think, and it’s speckled with insidious bays which it would be way too easy to pass into by mistake without a chance of getting out again.

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West Trust me, mate. I know these waters as if they were the duck pond of my own private garden. Pike Naturally we all trust you, Sir. But I would still keep more off the coast, especially since we can’t see it. West We will probably make the Horn any moment now, and our only chance is to keep as close to the coast as possible. If we fall out the least at sea our chances will be drastically reduced, and we might have to continue struggling on for weeks. Who wants something like that? Not I. Pike Not anyone. West So, Pike, just trust me, and wait for further orders. Pike Yes, Sir. West You may leave. (Pike leaves.) What does he think of me? Does he imagine that I could make a mistake and misjudge the distance to the coast? Doesn’t he think that I know every insidious bay in our course with all the collected wrecks everywhere? If there is anything we never do, it’s entering any of the murderous traps found all around here. Which only exist for bunglers and landlubbers who can’t hold on to a helm. If there is anything I know, it’s manoeuvring a full-rigged vessel in full storm, even around the Tierra del Fuego and the Cape Horn. (resumes calmly his seat with his feet up on the table and sucking his pipe, as he has been doing all through the scene.)

Scene 3. The fo’c’sle. Murphy This won’t do any more. Someone has to do something about it. Bert Rhine What can we do about the weather? Murphy It’s not just the weather. The captain is sailing us to hell. Every time we are forced back he presses closer to the land. Davis We haven’t foundered yet. Murphy Will you wait until we do? Davis As long as the captain doesn’t sail us aground, I consider the risk minimal that he will. He knows his trade. Or else he would not be captain. Bert Rhine Are you preaching mutiny now again, Trunk-Murphy? It will not work. You don’t mutiny until there is no other desperate measure to resort to. Making mutiny would be committing collective suicide, especially here by the Cape Horn. Murphy I didn’t preach mutiny. There are other dangers aboard. Davis Like what? Murphy Miserable outcasts that manipulate the weather by black arts. Bert Rhine Don’t be so miserably superstitious, Trunk-Murphy. Murphy And stop calling me Trunk-Murphy! There is no bloody trunk in my face, is there? It’s just an ordinary nose, like everybody else’s! Davis To be offended for having your leg pulled is the best way to keep the joke going.

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Murphy This is no joke! It isn’t funny! It’s just downright humiliation! Bert Rhine Don’t mind, Trunk-Murphy. You know too well you’ll never be known as anything else. Murphy You bloody cursed black puddings! You don’t see the curse hanging over you! Can’t you see how that insidious carpenter all the time casts his evil eye with dark furtive glances and hateful looks over all of us? He will not cease until we all have been lost and swept clean from the deck by the damned heavy seas of Cape Horn, which he alone is conjuring against us! Raimo (the carpenter) Of course, you worthless dumbbells, of course I alone am mobilizing the entire Pacific Ocean against you! Who else would it be? I am the only Finn on board, and everybody knows what magicians all Finns are and have to be! They just keep working hard and keeping silent like death, so you could suspect them for all the worst kind of evil! You don’t care how hard they work, but just because they are silent you have to get at them and harass them and torture them and abuse them and give them more work, so they all go on remaining silent! You damned rotten eggs, I never sailed with such a lousy and worthless crew like you! You don’t even want to work and make good for your salary! Here you sit on the finest sailing vessel in the world and have the honour of sailing round the Horn for maybe the last time, and all you can do is to sit and consider mutiny and how to get rid of your carpenter, who has been working hardest of all on board ever since we left Baltimore and who is the only one never to complain! Of course he alone must be guilty of all your defeats and adversities and all the storms of the world, of course he alone could be responsible for all the ships that sailed to their destruction round the Cape Horn! I challenge you, miserable patsies! You can’t even sail! I am the only one working on board, and all you want is to throw me over board just because of that! Davis (o the others) Don’t provoke him any more. He is dangerous. Raimo As if you ever did anything else during the entire journey! You have let everything out on the carpenter, who just kept quiet and went on working in murderous silence. Yes, I wish my murderous silence could have been murderous enough to murder at least all the worst of you. We have the best captain in the world and some of the most qualified mates on board one of the proudest and fastest, finest and most unique of ships, and all you want is to ruin the life for everyone on board! You are all but miserable humbugs of failed sissies! Bert Rhine That’s enough, carpenter. Don’t abuse them any more Raimo You are the ones who are abusing me, damn it! So just throw me over board, and get done with it! You will not sail any better anyway, and you will go on pitching here around the Cape Horn until you turn into the likes of the Flying Dutchman and his immortal crew of ghosts, who also just keep on pitching without ever getting round the Cape! Murphy That’s enough, blockhead! Raimo Blockhead yourself, you incurable rotten cabbage head! Murphy No, that’s enough!

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Raimo Do you want to fight? You are welcome! I will take you all on one by one! Let’s have it settled! Let me throw you all over board, for not one of you deserves anything better! (puts up his heavy fists) Bert Rhine That’s enough, Raimo! Calm down, boys! We haven’t rounded the Horn yet! Raimo No, we haven’t indeed, and we’ll never get round it as long as you just keep on lazing and sabotaging the work of others instead of doing some work yourselves! Mellaire (has entered) What’s going on here? Murphy The carpenter is abusing the crew. Raimo I scold them for not working. They don’t have the guts to work. They are incompetent. Throw them over board, I say, for they are all but spoiled rotten eggs, they don’t deserve any better, but all they want is to throw me over board! They would be good for that indeed! And then they will go on throwing each other over board. Mellaire No more argument! Get up on deck all of you! That’s where you should be and not here! Or else we’ll never get round the Horn! Raimo We’ll not get around it anyway. Murphy (attacks him) Shut up, Raimo! Raimo (knocks him down straight with his right) Asking for trouble, you monstrous freak? (turns against the entire crew) Come on, if you be men, you slimy muckrakers! (Full fight at once. Everyone fights everyone. Raimo knocks out one after the other, but finally he is overcome by a crowd of cowards.) Murphy (yells) Get him out of here! Throw him over board! We don’t need him! He has just been messing with us all journey! Mellaire Stop it! Bert Rhine It doesn’t work, Mr Mellaire. The carpenter has gone too far. He has promised to make coffins for us all during the whole journey, but we don’t want them. It’s him or us. (A majority of the crew gets Raimo up on deck under constant fighting and forces him towards the rail.) Raimo You are worse than cockroaches, you superstitious misfits! You will perish, everyone of you! Murphy (screams) Get him over board! The men Yo-ho! (succeed in throwing Raimo over board) Mellaire (shocked) This is going too far. Now we’ll never get round the Horn. (retires) Murphy (after him) Tell the captain that we threw the Finn over board! Now the coast is clear for sailing round the Horn! He was the only one in the way! Mellaire (terrified) You animal monsters! You are worse than savage beasts! (retires out)

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Davis Now we’ll see what happens. Either the Finn will be proven right in his damnation of us, or else we have prevailed and will at last make the Horn. I suspect the latter. Murphy Well done, boys! At last we got rid of the carpenter! Bert Rhine I am afraid this will only be the beginning of our problems. Murphy Are you superstitious, Bert Rhine? Bert Rhine I would rather not be, but he Finn’s body is a difficult load on the log to have to drag behind for the rest of the journey. Murphy But we got rid of him! Bert Rhine Do you think so? I think the contrary. Now we’ll never get rid of him. Murphy (to the others) He is superstitious. Davis Is that so strange? You have committed murder! That’s the worst thing you can do on board of a ship! Murphy Me! You were all part of it! You all share the responsibility! Davis Do you think we want to? Never. This responsibility will be entirely yours and no one else’s. (leaves) Bert Rhine Come on, boys. Mate Mellaire is right. We will never get round the Horn unless we work. (They all return to work.)

Act IV scene 1. The cabin. West What did I do wrong? How could I go so wrong in the navigation? Or can the weather and nature really be so unconsciously cruel, that they expose a poor weather-beaten captain, who never in his seventy-seven years of seamanship committed any mistake, to such a cruel practical joke, that they almost force him into shipwreck with the loveliest and safest ship he ever sailed, which would have been his last as the worthiest possible conclusion to a long life of infallible seamanship? Could I really have committed a mistake? If number one had not discovered it in time and immediately applied drastic measures to move us out of the bay we would have foundered here with men and all against the most frosty and murderous, blackest and sharpest rocks, which we couldn’t even see in the darkness of the storm. They were lurking like insidious cheats just waiting to crush and rub us to death against the sharp-toothed razor edges of the coastal rocks. Here he is now. Welcome, Pike. You have executed some heroic deeds tonight. Pike We were lucky. West Don’t blame our luck. If you hadn’t noticed that I had gone wrong we would have foundered. That you noticed it straight was the supreme evidence of your high qualifications as a seaman. I will never be able to forgive myself that I could commit such a mistake.

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Pike We don’t know if it was a mistake, Sir. We were perhaps driven into that trap by the currents, that could do anything here to make any ship sail completely astray out of course. These are the most perilous waters in the world. West You don’t have to tell me. The more unpardonable it was that I could do wrong. Pike Don’t blame yourself, Sir. It is over now. We have worse problems to cope with. West Well? Pike The crew has thrown the carpenter over board. West The Finn? Pike Yes. West Why? Pike Superstition. They blamed him for the bad weather and that we couldn’t get past the cape in six weeks. West Then the crew is more out of control and incompetent than any of us could have guessed. Pike I am afraid so, Sir. West We can’t tolerate such a thing, not murder. We can’t stop seamen from going over board if they lose their footing in the rig, but murder is not allowed. Pike No, Sir. West Who was responsible? Pike All the worst ones. West Not third mate, I hope. Pike He tried to avert it but failed. He will come down soon to give a report. West Then we can deal with the case in due order as soon as we have rounded the Horn. Mellaire (appearing, coming directly in from the storm) Pike Here he is, Sir. West Good, Mellaire. What do you have to report? Pike Remove your cap when you speak with the captain. Mellaire (ignores him) A miracle, Sir. After the carpenter went overboard the wind has suddenly shifted, as if the sacrifice of Jonah had had some effect. West Nonsense. Don’t pull my leg. Who threw the carpenter overboard? Mellaire The worst conspirators, Sir, those who worked the least and worst, and most kept under deck with all kinds of excuses like claimed handicaps and illness and other follery, Davis, Murphy and Bert Rhine above all. West Is i true that the wind has shifted? Mellaire Yes, Sir. Suddenly the men work with enthusiasm, and if we are lucky we could now get around the Horn. Pike Off with your cap in front of the captain, Mellaire, I said. Mellaire (to the captain) With your permission, Sir, I’ll keep it on. West Is your head cold? Or have you got a damage?

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Pike Off with your cap, I said! (snatches off his off. Mellaire at once clasps his head as if to cover his scar, but nothing can conceal its terribility, and Pike almost totters backwards) West What is it? What has he done? Pike (like in an approaching volcano eruption) It was you! Mellaire (turns completely around and runs off in a panic, disappearing completely) West (can’t understand anything) What is this, Pike? What scar was that in his head? Pike (infuriated but controlled) It was he! He was the one who murdered captain Somers on the ’Jason Harrison’ in cold blood! It is Sidney Waltham himself! And we have had him on board all the time! West Pull yourself together, man. You are hysterical. Pike No, I have sworn to kill him if I ever would catch sight of him! He murdered his own captain in his sleep and was only sentenced to seven years! West Pike, I will not tolerate any open conflicts on board. Pike That scum! This time he will not get away! (rushes out into the storm after Mellaire) West Stop him! Stop him! (rises to rush out after him but has a sudden attack and must check himself. At that moment Margaret comes rushing in.) Margaret Father! What kind of loud and upset voices is this! West (clenches his heart) Our mate is going to murder the second. This won’t do. I can’t stand this. It will be too much. First the wrecking danger and then this. (has a new attack and doubles up) Margaret Father! (hurries to his assistance and helps him down in the larger armchair) West (after having somewhat recovered) This will certainly be my last voyage. But it’s not fair that I should be interrupted in the middle of it… Margaret Take it easy, father. Calm down. Just rest. (enter Pathurst.) Now you really came like by order. Father has had an attack of some kind, perhaps a stroke. Get me some water at once. (Pathurst immediately complies.) Pathurst I heard loud upset voices from here. What has happened? Margaret Everything has happened. The crew has mutinied and thrown the carpenter overboard, the wind has shifted so that we now can get past the Horn, the first mate wants to kill the second mate, and father has had a heart attack. That’s what has happened. Pathurst What can we do about it? West (with effort) If Pike insists on killing Mellaire, the whole crew will stand for Mellaire against Pike. In that case it’s mutiny. Then you are alone, if I will be gone as well. Damn it! If at least we had got round the Horn! Margaret Take it easy, father. West How the devil could I take it easy under the circumstances? Perhaps it would have been better if I had sailed us to wreckage. Then we would all have died infallibly at the same time. Now it will be a prolonged struggle of life and death between the few capable ones and the entire mob… Pathurst Has Pike discovered Mellaire’s identity?

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Margaret It seems like it. That’s all we wanted. West It’s all my fault. Margaret Not at all, father. It’s no one’s fault. It’s destiny. We had bad luck from the beginning. West (smiles on Margaret and takes her hand) How is the piano? Margaret It has managed so far. West Go on playing it. Margaret Of course, as long as it holds. West Is it still in tune? Margaret You can’t expect that during a delivery round the Cape Horn. West I would like to hear you play it one more time before it is too late. That lovely waltz by Brahms… Margaret The one in A flat major? West Yes, I suppose so. May I hear it one last time? Margaret Take care of him, John. (rises and goes out. John takes charge of the captain. Soon you hear the music from the lounge.) West Yes, that’s the one, very simple but sincerely lovable. If only all music was like that. The simplest melodies will last the longest. Let me just remain sitting here and enjoy… (drowses off) Pathurst (notices it at once and calls:) Margaret! Margaret (interrupts, enters and understands at once) Pathurst I am afraid the ship is now sailing without a captain. Margaret Then it all depends on the crew. Pike (returns, observes the situation) The captain? Pathurst Dead. Pike Heart stroke? Margaret Immediately after your quarrel. Pike It was no quarrel. It was the unmasking of Sidney Waltham. He and the crew are now entrenched in the fo’c’sle. The ship is at the mercy of the wind and the waves sailing on its own with a boy at the helm, but we are actually round the Horn. Pathurst At least something. Margaret What happens now? Pike I have to settle with Waltham. Then we can try getting back our crew. Margaret Isn’t it to the interest of all of us that we just get back north first of all? Pike We are on our way. But Waltham will never give himself up. He knows that he is dead and that I intend to kill him, and as long as he lives we have the entire crew against us. Margaret Couldn’t you try to cooperate, for the sake of the survival of all of us? Pike He will not give in, and neither will I. That’s just how it is. I am sorry, Miss. War for life and death. That’s all that counts. The ship may sail to hell in the meanwhile. All mutineers know that the only thing expecting them ashore is the gallows, and that applies to Waltham, our indispensable mate Mellaire, most of all.

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Scene 2. The fo’c’sle. Davis What the devil shall we do, mate? The captain is dead, the vessel is drifting and disabled, and you have made the first mate your deadly enemy. What was the good of that? Mellaire It wasn’t me. It was him. Bert Rhine You have to make it up with him. It’s our only chance. Davis Or else we’ll be sitting here adrift until we end up like some other Flying Dutchman, who never gets a mile out of his position forever. Murphy They are right, mate. You have to speak with the first mate. Mellaire Do you think that’s possible? He is irreconcilable. All the journey he has been mercilessly beating us up. He has the hardest fists in the world, and his heart is even harder. He will never spare us. We are safe here until further, but we cannot go out, while they are sitting down in the cabin in deadly fear of us, but they have all the weapons and the bridge. But they can’t manage the ship without us. Bert Rhine That’s why you have to talk with him. Pike (outside) Ohoy! Anybody there? Davis (answers) Ohoy! We are all here! The second wants to speak with you! Pike (outside) What does he want? Davis Come to terms with you, so that we can go on with the journey. Pike He must give himself up. He is a murderer. He has nothing else to expect than justice. Mellaire Damn it, Pike, it was eleven years ago! I was given seven years for the trouble. And it didn’t happen as you think. Pike You have murdered a captain and should never have been admitted to a ship ever again! You should at least have got a life sentence! At sea you would have been hanged, which would have been the only fair punishment! Mellaire We have a new captain who is dead now, Pike, and no one has murdered him. The crew is innocent, but you want to sacrifice an entire crew including passengers and a captain’s daughter just for a fixed idea and an unreasonable thirst for revenge! You are out of your mind! Pike Are you then in possession of your wits, you murderer, with your skull almost cleft in half? How do you think you could ever be regarded as a normal human being? You are an incalculable psychopath who could murder again at any moment and even any harmless soul while he sleeps! Don’t believe a word of what he says, the rest of you down there! As a madman and murderer he is a mortal danger to anyone alive and nothing less! Mellaire We’ll never get out of here if you reason like that. Pike Yes, we’ll get out of here as soon as you have given yourself up. Mellaire I have already been sentenced and punished for the death of captain Somers many years ago. You can’t reopen that case.

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Pike You have started a mutiny on board. That demands court martial. All I can promise you is safe conduct ashore for further interrogation and trial. If you give yourself up all the others will be aquitted, for it was only you who caused a rebellion. Mellaire Even if I give myself up you will never let me reach land alive. I know you. Pike I take responsibility for the ship and the security of all. That also includes a mad murderer. Mellaire I don’t trust you. You are mad of desire of revenge and blinded by your fixed idea. We have seen you fighting all the journey, and we have all felt your hard knuckles, especially those who went overboard, whether it was voluntarily or they were thrown over board. Pike You have murdered the carpenter. That’s my most serious charge against you. Mellaire It was not I. Then you have to accuse the entire crew, which they will never accept. We will rather remain entrenched in safety back here. Pike So you want war. Mellaire No one here will give up freely. We know how justice works ashore. Only injustice is working there. Pike You have no chance, Mellaire. If you don’t give up without fighting you will all go down one after the other. We could begin with starving you. We have all the supplies here with us. Mellaire Don’t try it, Pike. Okey, starve us if you can. But you know, seamen have tougher resources of survival than any man in land. Pike You sacrifice an entire crew for your obstinacy. Mellaire No, it’s you who sacrifice it. Pike Have you any better suggestion? Mellaire Let’s make a settlement. Pike How? Mellaire I know you. You will never give me a chance. If you get me in your hands and closed in I will be beaten to death before the next dawn. Our only alternative is then to make a settlement. Pike You mean that we should fight unto the bitter end? Mellaire May the best man win and sail the ’Elsinore’ home to Seattle. Pike You are serious. Mellaire I can see no other way out. Pike War then for life and death? Mellaire Come and get me if you can. We shall crawl in to you at night and smoke you out and poison you out and give you a hell until you have lost and we are alone left on board. Pike You will never succeed, and even if you would succeed you’ll stand no chance afterwards. Pirates are no longer valid. They are outdated. Mellaire We’ll see about that.

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Pike Let us know if you need water. We have enough, and when you have given up it will be enough for you as well. Mellaire Get lost, you infernal sadist, Pike! Is slavery and tyranny all you ever were good for in life? Pike No, I can sail and manage ships also, and you know it, and so did the captain, when I rescued the ’Elsinore’ out of the bay at Cape Horn in which we almost foundered. But to manage a ship you need discipline, and you didn’t have an ounce of that during the whole voyage. You only lazed and made mutiny. You are good for nothing. You are a bunch of mouldy sacks of meal and clubfooted ragamuffins all of you! Mellaire Now you sound exactly like the Finn. What did he get for that? The others He went to hell! Mellaire Exactly. Pike I retire, Waltham. I promise to at least discuss your points with the others. Mellaire What others? The woman and that cad? The only ones you’ve got over there besides are the cook and some servant. Pike That’s enough. The ’cad’ is now first mate, since you have quit. Mellaire Go to hell, Pike! I will never give in! Pike And you want me to believe that? Ha! I will have you crawling on all fours in front of me, and the longer it takes, the greater will be your pains. I am just showing you your great expectations. The sooner you confront it, the better will be your chances, and the contrary. Mellaire I have nothing more to say. Pike Yes, you have – to the judge in Valparaiso. (leaves) Bert Rhine It didn’t sound too good, all that. Mellaire No, it didn’t. Murphy What will you do? Mellaire The war is on. Now we’ll just have to stick it out and wait for them. They are much fewer, and one of them is a landlubber, the cook is Chinese, and on top of that they are bothered by a woman. We must win. Davis And then? Mellaire Do we have any choice? Get them over board, and ours will be the freedom. Bert Rhine It’s not going to be easy. Mellaire All we have to do is to let time work for us.

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Scene 3. The cabin. Situation unchanged. Captain West is still sitting in his favourite armchair in peace as if he slept. You can understand that Margaret and Pathurst have been unwilling to move him. Enter Pike. Pathurst How is it going? Pike It is not going at all. Margaret What is not going? Pike They are transforming the fo’c’sle into an unimpregnable fortress. We can never reach them there or get them out of there. Mellaire refuses to give in, and the whole crew is with him. They dare nothing else, those cowards. (sees the captain in the armchair) And the old man is still there doing nothing. Pathurst He is dead, Pike. Pike And you want me to believe that? We are not sailing with corpses in the cargo. Do you think he will abandon us after what has happened? No, I feel how he carefully keeps watch of every nook and crannie of the ship more carefully than ever. He is with us still, indeed! Margaret What will you do? Pike I wish we could do something, but what can we do? We can’t even sleep! If we fall alseep those rotten eggs will come sneaking on us and cut our throats, that’s for sure! They will from now on constantly grow more desperate, as if they hadn’t been desperate enough already throughout the voyage! They will lurk on us like vultures! The least mistake committed by any part will be the last of him, and he will have lost the game. I haven’t been sleeping for all the journey, every night I have to get up to fight that monstrous crew who are the worst workers of all seamen on the seven seas, every night I have to knock my knuckles to bleeding sores to get them up the masts and keep us upright, and then this happens! The captain is dead, and second mate is the worst murderer at large of the oceans! Margaret Have you tried speaking with them? It’s our only chance to get anywhere. We have to make a deal with them. It’s to the best interest of us all. If no one sails we will keep spinning around here round and around until we all are dead. Pike Don’t you think I know? Don’t you think I have been going through the situation a thousand times? We are stuck in a deadlock! They will never give in, and we can never let them take over! It’s hopeless! Not even a miracle could save us! (observes the captain) Whatever you do, don’t move the captain one inch. He is perhaps the only one who can save us. Pathurst (regards him suspiciously) Have you had too much whiskey? Pike Not one drop. You know that, constipated landlubber, that I am a teetotaller and the only teetotaller on board! Pathurst The captain is dead, Pike, and you appear to have some doubts about it. Shouldn’t we get rid of the body first of all, to have some better space? Pike Don’t touch him! What were his last instructions? Margaret? You must have heard his last words. What did he want? What was his final order?

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Margaret (reflecting) ”Let me just sit here and enjoy.” Pike I knew it! Even if everyone dies and the ship goes up in smoke, we must not move him an inch! Pathurst Pike, you are ill. You are over-wrought. You haven’t had enough sleep and perhaps no sleep for weeks… Pike Months! But don’t you think I can manage? I did save the ship when the captain misjudged the currents, so that we went back into that cursed bay of shipwrecks, where all who had been pulled therein earlier had been smashed against the rocks! Only I could have done it, for I was awake! The captain was sitting there in his armchair smoking his pipe doing nothing, for he didn’t expect the elements to be so mean and cruel to trick him. He didn’t understand that the Cape was about to cheat him to destroy him! He didn’t understand that he was about to die! But I tell you, that he isn’t dead, for now he tries to understand everything afterwards in order to maybe do something about it! Pathurst (makes a sign to Margaret by screwing a finger to his front about Pike) Margaret No, Pike is the best seaman in the world. He knows what he is doing, and he is more aware of the situation than any of us. He is right. Only he could save us out of the bay of death. How is the situation now, Pike? Where are we drifting? To me it seems we are slowly moving backwards all the time. Pike (lower, almost solemnly) That’s the worst of all. We are drifting back down towards the Horn. We will not get any further. We are forced to remain here. The currents bring us back to the bay of death. We are the hostages of the powers of the weather. We thought we got round the Horn, but the Horn has tricked and cheated us once more. We passed Staten Island once and got through the sound and out on the other side, but then we didn’t get any further but were driven by the storms and the currents back west of the Horn. Now they start all over again by slowly but inevitably forcing us back down to the storms and the Horn and the unavoidable bay of shipwrecks, which is swarming with the eternally unblessed ghosts of dead sailors haunting and dragging other ships down to them forever… Pathurst Shut up, Pike! You are unwell! Pike What do you want us to do? Take the crew by surprise and force them to work? They are all lost. They will never work any more. They have had enough. It was the captain who kept them going, but now when he is gone they have lost their souls and don’t care about anything. They will all perish with us or without us, and we can’t stop them. Margaret What is your plan? Pike We starve them out. They have no food. We have all the food. When starvation gets too much for them they will try to take us by storm, and then we’ll shoot them down, every one of them, Mellaire first of all. Margaret Wouldn’t it be better after all to leave Mellaire in peace, let his crime be prescribed, he has even served his time, and persuade him to get the crew back to work? Isn’t that our only chance?

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Pike He is and remains a captain killer. Now we have yet another dead captain on board, and even if Mellaire is not guilty, he is responsible by his mere presence on board. Why do you think he uses another name? Because no ship in the world would have let him on board if they knew who he was! He has a hole in his head! The axe clove half his skull! He is incalculable and might murder again at any moment! There is nothing more invidious than a half cured patient, and Waltham could never become normal again. His crushed skull was filled up with syrup! We had no access to any healthcare on board, so he had to wait until we reached the harbour of Hongkong, until then the hole in his head had to be repaired provisionally, and the cook used syrup. It worked. When the bandage was removed the skin had grown and covered the gash, and even if his brain lay bare directly under it, Waltham refused to go ashore and have the damage reopened. He let it be as it was. And here he is now with a dead captain on board and a gang of gangsters to command of mainly madmen and criminals, which position he enjoys. I will not let him get away. He knows his only chance is to get us all killed here in the cabin, which includes your cook and your servant, Mr Pathurst and the few weak sailors who didn’t get stuck in the fo’c’sle. He will lurk and wait for his chance as long as he lives, and our only chance is to get him first. Mellaire (outside) Pike! Let’s make our settlement! Pike He dares to come here, that devil! (loud) What do you want, you devil? There is nothing here for you but death! Mellaire You can’t manage the ship without a crew! She is drifting disabled back round the Horn! You have to work with us! Pike Give up, and you might have a chance to survive! Mellaire No, Pike, you are the one who must compromise. You are not a worse sailor than that you don’t realize that we can’t but founder if we don’t cooperate. Margaret He is right. Pathurst Let’s for God’s sake have an end to this farce, Pike! Open the door to him, and let him negotiate! We have to survive, for goodness’ sake! Pike He is a captain killer! It will not work. He will only try to deceive us in order to take the lives of everyone here. The crew is sure to lurk behind him. We can’t take any risks. (loud) Give yourself up, Waltham! It’s your only chance and my last offer! Mellaire All our lives are on your responsibility if you don’t cooperate! Pike I know how cunning you are. You can fool everyone but not me. Give yourself up, and everything is settled. Or else we’ll starve you out, until we’ll have to drag you out on deck half dead. All the supplies are here. You have no chance to survive without them. Mellaire I will talk with the crew. If they agree I will come back. (He leaves.) Pike He will never be back. Pathurst How do you know? Pike I know him. He couldn’t fool us. So he goes to the crew and figures out another strategy. Don’t expect any mercy from such pirate freaks! They know it’s a

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war on to the last dying man, and they will not give in until they are all dead or have killed us all. It’s either or. You can’t compromise with a captain killer. Margaret Pike, go to bed. You need some sleep. We will keep watch. Pike Can I rely on that? Margaret There are two of us, and we also have the cook and the deck hand. You have to get some sleep. You are worn out and overstrained and under hard psychic stress on top of that. Pike The captain died. I have lost one captain too many and seen one captain too many go foundering. This captain I will never leave. Margaret We will not touch him. He will remain sitting there until this crisis is over. Pike It will never blow over, for he is dead. (rises and retires) Pathurst What do you think of him? Margaret He is breaking up. He will break any moment. He has been too much awake for too long, and there is not much go left in him. He has to have a rest. Or else he could be the end to all of us. Pathurst And Mellaire? Margaret However cunning he is, he is right. We cannot navigate without him and the crew. We have to reach an agreement. Or else we will all be lost. Pathurst Do you think he was serious or really just wanted to play tricks with us? Margaret He is testing his way. He doesn’t know himself what he wants. Alas, father, what kind of mates did you have to catch up with, one worse than the other, and mortal enemies at that! Pathurst It was not his fault. It just turned out that way. Margaret But that he would happen to it on his last voyage! It’s not fair! Pathurst Nothing in life is fair, Margaret. Justice is an ideal you can live for, but if you are a realist you have to realize from the beginning, that it can never be made by us humans, only perhaps by destiny. Margaret Then we’ll have to hope for destiny at least, but it seems to be more against us than anything else. Pathurst Go and sit by the piano. If everything else is lost, we could at least stick to the music. Margaret Poor piano. Water has entered it. Pathurst It will dry up. Margaret You know nothing about pianos. If there is anything that can’t take a beating, it’s the music. Pathurst Play anyway. We need that comfort. Margaret If the piano will allow me. (rises, and they move over to the lounge.)

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Act V scene 1. The fo’c’sle. Mellaire Bad news, boys. The mate has gone mad. Davis Mad? In what way? Mellaire He thinks he still owes his captain his loyalty, as if he wasn’t dead. He leaves captain West sitting in his armchair and refuses to allow him to be touched by anyone, as if he still was in command of the ship. You mark my words, he is at the end of his tether. Bert Rhine Did you speak with him? He must understand that he can’t manage the ship without us. Mellaire It’s hopeless, boys. He refuses to compromise. He suffers from the fixed idea that he must see me hang from the yard for what I did eleven years ago and served a sentence of seven years for, as if that punishment never had occurred, and still I was legally judged by law. He is out of his mind. As long as he refuses us even a helm to cling to we are done for, and all we can do is to sit here until we die and let the ship go to hell back south of the Cape Horn. Murphy Can’t we attack the cabin and finish all those parasites at once? We don’t need them to run the ship. Only they need us, and if they don’t realize that, they are worthless. We outnumber them by far. If we just could get rid of them, we could then manage on our own. Mellaire Yes, just go ahead and gun them down, if you can. They have all the guns, and they sit on all supplies. They have everything we need, and we can’t get at them without their defending themselves and shooting us down one by one. We are in a deadlock, boys, and the mate’s folly impedes us from getting out of it. We will have to accept being run back down to the Horn and perhaps even to the south pole but will then at least have an honourable death without anyone hanging us or getting to know what happened on board. Davis We can’t just sit here waiting for death. Mellaire Do you have any better idea? Davis Try again. Make another effort. Negotiate. They are exactly as unwilling to perish as we are. Mellaire He has made an ultimatum. I have to surrender myself to justice, which means death. I refuse. We are all mutineers, and as such we have nothing more than the gallows to expect or at best life sentences. I refuse to accept that. I am a free man, and I was a good sailor. I would rather drown at sea than languish to death in prison. Bert Rhine You have to talk with him, Mellaire. Give him a last chance. Give him an ultimatum as well. Cooperation or death. That’s how simple it is. They have to be reasonable or go down with all of us. Mellaire I’ll never give in. Davis None of us will. Murphy We are with you. Give them a last chance, or we drive the ship on the rocks. Mellaire Very well. I’ll go.

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Bert Rhine Good luck. (Mellaire exits again.) Murphy Does he stand any chance? Davis Hardly. At best. Mellaire and Pike will settle their issue alone by themselves, and then we’ll have to manage the rest. Murphy You mean, if they both get lost? Davis Exactly. Bert Rhine We’ll see. Is there still any rum? Davis Not much for a booze. Bert Rhine Some sip has to be the last one anyway. Let it pass around. (They pass a bottle of rum around with only a small remnant left in the bottom.)

Scene 2. The cabin. Pathurst What the hell did I have to do on this vessel? Margaret There is only one thing for us to do, and that is to make the best of it. Pathurst Can anything get better than the worst in this situation? Pike One thing troubles me. Pathurst Well? Pike How the hell do the elves do it when they reproduce? Pathurst The elves? Margaret We are at sea now, mate Pike. Pike I am well aware of that, but I wondered about that all my life. How do they do it? They are not like us humans, and it is difficult let alone impossible to imagine intercourse between the elves. It just can’t be done that way. In that case anyway they cannot be elves. Margaret Is that your greatest concern? Pike Yes, it is actually. Everything else becomes unimportant compared to that mystery. Margaret Can you help him, John? Pathurst How do the mermaids do it? Do they also have such problems? Pike There must be some explanation. Margaret So you take for granted that there are elves and mermaids? Pike Well, you just have to, don’t you? Or else we wouldn’t know of their existence. Margaret Can you refute that logic, John? Pathurst I have a suggestion. Suppose they are not earthal beings but simply ethereal spirits of the air. Seamen have through all ages had the idea that dolphins and albatrosses are the spirits of dead seamen. Suppose that also the mermaids and elves are spirits of former human beings. Could that ease the problem? Pike You mean, that lost people and seamen after death simply would be assumed in heaven or the sea as elves or mermaids? Pathurst Something like that.

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Pike That would actually be the only reasonable explanation. I can’t figure any other. Margaret Does it satisfy you, Mr Pike? Pike I think so, at least for the moment. Pathurst I am afraid the storm is increasing again. Pike Let it come. We have solved the problem. We become elves after death. Pathurst Except Margaret, who becomes a mermaid. And I might be a manatee. Pike Don’t joke about it, Pathurst. It’s serious. Pathurst Yes, it’s dead serious. Mellaire (outside) Pike! Margaret Here he is again! Pike (calling) What is it? Do you have more brazen suggestions? Mellaire We only have one choice, Pike. I refuse to give in, and you refuse to compromise. Meanwhile the ship is heading for perdition in our personal deadlock, in which a crew and some more will perish for nothing and unfairly. They have no part in our quarrel. Come out, and let’s fight it out man to man. Pike You mean a fight to the death? Mellaire We should give the innocents that chance. If one of us goes down the deadlock can be resolved. Pike I am almost starting to respect you, Waltham. Mellaire I am a sailor like you, and you never had any reason to question my seamanship. Pike I am on. (rising) His deal is fair. Let the captain remain at rest. I’ll be back. (goes out into the storm. Margaret and Pathurst look at each other.) Margaret What do you think? Pathurst They will beat each other to death. Both are at the end of their journey. In this storm they will hardly even be able to hold on to the deck. I don’t know if the tackling still can be used. Most of it is blown to shreds since it was left unreefed. We are back in the vicinity of the Horn and could without qualified sailing easily be smashed to pieces again the first rocky coast. Margaret We are still alive, though. Pathurst Yes, we are, but I don’t think neither Mellaire nor Pike will ever come down under deck. Mellaire knew what he was offering, and it was noble of him to sacrifice himself. He offered Pike to sacrifice himself in the same way, and Pike fell for the chance of an honourable end. He is finished anyway. He is soft in the brain and only thinks of maintaining a dead captain and of elves and mermaids. Mellaire knew how distracted he was. Or else he would have waited him out and taken over when Pike was gone. Margaret How they must enjoy hacking each other to death up there. Pathurst Pike hasn’t done anything else during the entire journey. Now he can concentrate on one single person, but Mellaire knows how to defend himself. Margaret Who is stronger?

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Pathurst Pike has stronger knuckles and is steadier, but Mellaire is faster and still has his brains. Margaret What results could that give? Pathurst No one can surrender. So they beat each other to death. Either they are both swept over board when their forces are spent and they can’t stand upright any longer. Margaret A Cape Horn combat in full storm to death. Pathurst No one even wants to be a spectator in this storm. What about some entertainment music in the meantime? The piano is almost the only thing of value we still have left of the entire journey. Margaret It has managed better than anyone of us. Perhaps it could help us get on. Pathurst Let it sing prayers of appeal to the powers of the weather. Margaret Yes, I will let it sing until we die. Pathurst Let’s first wait for the death of the others. Margaret I will play for father. He is still the only captain of the proudest sailing ship of Cape Horn. Pathurst Do so. Let him lead us to security in safe custody to the other side. Margaret Have you really given up? Pathurst All except the music. Margaret You are right. Music is the only thing that never can give up. Pathurst Play Chopin and Schumann, so that the universe will hear that we are alive. Margaret We are sailing to hell, but what does it matter, as long as we do it with music? Pathurst Exactly! (Pathurst makes himself comfortable in the armchair closest to the captain’s, while Margaret goes to the lounge to play. Soon the loveliest Chopin nocturnes are heard from the lounge, while the storm continues to rage…)

Göteborg 21.5.2010, translated in May 2021.

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