THE UNWORTHY OLD WOMAN: BERTOLT BRECHT

AN ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF BRECHT'S "DIE UNWÜRDIGE GREISIN"

My grandmother was seventy-two years old when my grandfather died. He had a small lithographer's office in a small Baden town and worked there with two or three assistants until his death. My grandmother took care of the household without a maid, looked after the old, rickety house and cooked for the men and children.

She was a small, skinny woman with lively lizard eyes, but slow speech. She had raised five children of the seven she had borne, with very meager means. She'd gotten smaller of that over the years. Of the children, the two girls went to America and two sons moved away as well. Only the youngest, who had a weak health, remained in the town. He became a printer and laid himself a too big family. So she was alone in the house when my grandfather had died.

The children wrote letters about the problem of what would happen to her. One could offer her a home, and the printer wanted to move in with her family. But the old woman was repellent to the proposals and wanted only from every one of her children who was capable of doing so; accept a small monetary support. The Lithographenanstalt, long outdated, had almost nothing to sell, and there were also debts. The children wrote to her; she could not live all alone, but when she did not respond, they gave in and sent her a little money every month. Finally, they thought, the printer had stayed in the town. The printer also undertook to tell his siblings about the mother. His letters to my father, and what he learned during a visit and after my grandmother's funeral two years later, give me a picture of what happened in those two years.

It seems that the printer was disappointed from the beginning that my grandmother refused to take him into the rather large and now vacant house. He lived with four children in three rooms. But the old woman maintained only a very loose connection with him. She invited the kids to coffee every Sunday afternoon, that was all. She visited her son once or twice in a trimester and helped the daughter-in-law with berry-cooking. The young woman took from some of her remarks that she was too tight in the printer's small apartment. He could not refrain from adding an exclamation mark in his report.

On a written request from my father, what the old woman is doing now, he answered pretty briefly, she visited the cinema. It must be understood that this was not ordinary, at least not in the eyes of their children. Thirty years ago, cinema was not what it is today. These were miserable, poorly ventilated pubs, often decorated in old bowling lanes, with screaming posters in front of the entrance, depicting murders and tragedies of passion. Actually, only went to adolescents or, because of the dark, love couples. A single old woman had to stand out there safely. And so another side of this movie was to consider. Admission was certainly cheap, but as pleasure ranged approximately among the treats, it meant "thrown out money." And throwing out money was not respectable.

On top of that, my grandmother not only did not have regular intercourse with her son on the spot, but also did not visit or invite anyone from her acquaintances. She never went to the coffee companies of the town.

For this, she often visited the workshop of a cobbler in a poor and even somewhat disreputable little street, in which, especially in the afternoon, all kinds of not particularly respectable existences sat around, unemployed waitresses and craftsmen. The cobbler was a middle-aged man who had been around the world without having done anything. It was also said that he drank. He was not traffic for my grandmother anyway. The printer indicated in a letter that he had informed his mother about it, but had received a rather cool report. "He saw something," was her answer, and the conversation was over. It was not easy to talk to my grandmother about things she did not want to talk about.

About half a year after the death of his grandfather, the printer wrote to my father that the mother was eating at the inn every other day.

What a message!

Grandmother, who had cooked for a dozen people throughout her life and only ate the leftovers, ate now in the inn! What had gone into her? Soon after, my father took a business trip nearby, and he visited his mother. He was about to go out. She took off her hat again and presented him with a glass of red wine with rusk. She seemed to be in a very well-balanced mood, neither particularly cheerful nor particularly quiet. She inquired about us, but not very much, and mainly wanted to know if there were cherries for the children. There she was as usual. Of course. the room was scrupulously clean and she looked healthy. The only thing that indicated her new life was that she did not want to go to the churchyard with my father to visit her husband's grave. "You can go alone," she said casually. "It's the third from the left in the eleventh row. I still have to go somewhere. "

The printer later explained that she probably had to go with her cobbler. He complained a lot. "I'm sitting here with these in those holes, with only five hours of work and low-paid work, and my asthma is bothering me again, and the house in the main street is empty."

My father had taken a room in the inn, but expected that he would be invited to live by his mother, at least pro forma, but she did not speak of it. And even when the house was full, she had always objected to his not living with them and spending the money on the hotel!

But she seemed to have completed her family life and to break new ground now that her life was declining. My dad, who had a good sense of humor, found her "alive" and told my uncle to let the old woman do whatever she wanted. But what did she want?

The next thing that was reported was that she had ordered a Bregg and gone to a tourist spot on an ordinary Thursday. A Bregg was a big, high-wheeled horse with places for whole families. A few times, when we grandchildren had come to visit, Grandfather had rented the Bregg. Grandmother always stayed home. She had refused to come with a dismissive gesture. And after the Bregg came the trip to K., a larger city, about two hours by train. There was a horse race, and my grandmother drove to the horse race. The printer was alarmed through and through. He wanted to call in a doctor. My dad shook his head as he read the letter, but declined the use of an Artz.

After K., my grandmother did not drive alone. She had brought along a young girl, half stupid, as the book printer wrote, the inn's kitchen maid, in whom the old woman dined every other day.

This "cripple" played a role from now on.

My grandmother seemed to have a fool eating her. She took her to the movies and to the cobbler, who incidentally had turned out to be a social democrat, and it was rumored that the two women played cards over a glass of red wine in the kitchen. "She has bought the cripple a hat with roses on it now," the printer wrote desperately. "And our Anna does not have a communion dress!"

My uncle's letters became hysterical, dealing only with the "unworthy performance of our dear mother," and gave nothing else. The rest I have from my father.

The innkeeper had whispered to him with a wink: "Ms. B. is having a good time, as you can hear." In reality, my grandmother did not live on luxuriant even these last few years.

When she was not eating at the inn, she usually ate only a little egg-food, some coffee and especially her beloved rusk. She made herself a cheap red wine from which she drank a small glass for all meals. The house kept her very clean, not just the bedroom and the kitchen she used.

However, she took a mortgage without the knowledge of her children. It never came out what she did with the money. She seems to have given it to the cobbler. He moved to another city after her death and is said to have opened a larger shop for bespoke shoes there. Exactly, she lived two lives in a row. The first, as a daughter, as a woman and as a mother and the second simply as Mrs. B., a single person without obligations and with modest but sufficient resources. The first life lasted about six decades, the second not more than two years.

My dad has learned that in the last six months she has allowed herself certain freedoms that ordinary people do not even know. So, in the summer she was able to get up early at three o'clock and walk through the empty streets of the town.

that she had so completely alone for herself. And the parish; When she came to visit the old woman in her solitude, she invited her, as is generally said, to the cinema!

She was by no means lonely. The cobbler seemed to be wrong

lots of funny people, and a lot was said. She always had a bottle of her own red wine there, and from that she drank her glass while the others talked about the worthy authorities of the city. This

Red wine was reserved for her, but she sometimes brought stronger drinks to the company. She died abruptly, one autumn afternoon in her bedroom, not in bed, but on the wooden chair by the window. She had invited the "cripple" to the cinema for the evening, so the girl was with her when she died. She was seventy-four years old.

I saw a photograph of her showing her on the deathbed and made for the children.

You can see a tiny little face with many wrinkles and a tight-lipped, but wide mouth. Much small, but nothing petty. She had savored the long years of bondage and the short years of freedom and devoured the bread of life to the last bread seed.