Peter Handke - The Ride Across Lake Constance and Other Plays

VON STROHEIM

Why don’t you look at me?

PORTEN

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

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

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

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

VON STROHEIM

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

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

PORTEN

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

BERGNER

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

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

PORTEN

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

BERGNER

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

PORTEN

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

BERGNER

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

PORTEN

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

BERGNER

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

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

PORTEN

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

BERGNER

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

( They stand facing one another .)

PORTEN

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

BERGNER

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

PORTEN

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

BERGNER

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

PORTEN

Someone is flinching. Conscience-stricken?

BERGNER

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

PORTEN

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

BERGNER

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

PORTEN

Someone bangs on the table. To get his way?

BERGNER

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

JANNINGS

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

GEORGE

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

BERGNER

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

JANNINGS

( Hesitates just slightly .) It’s stuck.

BERGNER

And why is it stuck?

VON STROHEIM

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

GEORGE

Yes, let it be stuck!

GEORGE and VON STROHEIM

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

JANNINGS

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

GEORGE, VON STROHEIM, JANNINGS

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