The Broken Jug (Der zerbrochene Krug)

The Broken Jug

Court today-Adam, village judge.

What the devil! Judge Adam What has befallen you?

To stumble one needs naught but feet.

The floor's flat.

Where's to stumble? But still I stumble.

All of us carry stumbling- blocks in ourselves.

Stumbling-blocks?

Yes. In ourselves.

Judge Adam, your lecherous old namesake

became famous for his fall.

Surely you couldn't have.

Likewise?

If I...?

I fell right here! Understand?

Figuratively speaking, you mean.

Figurative! It must have been a terrible sight.

When did it happen?

Now! Just as I stepped from my bed, My morning song fresh on my lips.

I stumble into the morning. My day's appointed round not yet begun,

the Lord God pulls the rug from under my feet.

Hm, and the left one at that.

The left one?

Heavy, at least on the paths of sin.

The foot, heavy? Why?

The club foot.

One foot's like the other!

You do your right foot wrong.

The right cannot boast of this weight And dares to tread upon thin ice.

Where one dares go the other follows.

And what has put your face so out of joint?

My what? My face?

What? You know nothing of it?

I'd have to be a liar. How does it look?

How it looks? Dreadful!

Explain yourself.

The skin's all off.

A loathsome sight.

A piece of cheek is missing!

How big? I'd need a scale to learn its weight.

Here. Now convince yourself!

Hm! Yes! 'Tis true.

It's not a lovely sight.

My nose has suffered also.

And your eye.

Not my eye.

Here, right across as if a bloodthirsty foreman raged at you.

That is the bone around my eye.

Just look. Didn't feel a thing.

Yes, yes! It goes thus in the heat of battle.

Of battle! What?

With that accursed goat's head I fought, if you so will.

Now I recall.

When I had lost my balance, like a drunk.

I grasped in space around me.

I caught my trousers which I'd hung wet there the night before.

You understand. I grab them and I hope to brace myself.

The belt tore and it and band and pants and I crash

headlong and smash my forehead

straight against the stove where the goat is on the corner.

Adam's first fall was into bed, not out.

What I wanted to say...

What's new for today?

I almost forgot!

Well?

You're about to have an unexpected visit from Utrecht.

The Inspector General's due anytime.

Who's coming?

The Inspector General. From Utrecht.

Observing the district courts, and due here today.

Today? What? Are you mad?

No! He was in Holla yesterday at the border and from there coming here.

A farmer saw his coach being hitched.

Today, here? The Inspector General from Utrecht?

An honest man who shears his own sheep won't like what he finds here.

Coming to Huisum to torment us, hm?

If he's got to Holla, he'll get to Huisum, be sure. Beware.

I tell you...

Go with your stories!

The farmer saw him!

Who knows what that bleary-eyed peasant saw!

Those bastards wouldn't know a face from a bald head.

All right, then, don't believe me. Till he walks in that door.

Walks in that door! Without warning?

Stupid, Judge Adam! This isn't the former auditor.

Walter's the auditor. He arrived in Holla yesterday unannounced.

And not only went over the accounts but suspended the judge and clerk.

Why? Who knows! Ab officio.

Damn it all!

Is that what that farmer told you?

That's not all.

If you want to know, they looked for the judge this morning.

He was under house arrest.

They found him hanging from the highest beam in his barn.

Hanged?

They cut him down, rub him, pour water on him and revive him.

He was saved?

But now then they seal him up in his house. So there he sits.

A corpse before his time. And his judgeship given to someone else.

The hangman, look!

What a lecherous dog he was.

Not a bad sort. Always good for a laugh.

But a lecherous beast all the same.

Must have been quite a tangle he had with the Judge.

This is why the farmer says he's not here yet.

He'll be here at noon without fail.

At noon?

Dear Licht, it's good we're friends.

You scratch my back, I scratch yours.

I know you'd like to be judge here.

God knows you deserve it.

But today's not the day.

Let's suffer that cup to pass us by today.

Village Judge? What must you think of me!

Two old friends like us? Go on!

Come, let's go to the Records Room.

We'll straighten up the documents lying there like the Tower of Babel.

Judge Adam!

At your service.

Greetings from Judge Walter. He'll be here any minute.

Oh, God!

He's already done in Holla?

In Huisum, yes, sir.

Liese! Greta!

Easy, Adam, easy!

Send him your greetings.

Tomorrow he leaves for Huzzah.

What do I do? What do I leave?

Put on your trousers! Are you well?

We're here!

- Who? The Judge? - No, your maid!

My bands! My coat! My collar!

First the vest...

What? Off with the coat! Hurry! Hurry!

Tell the Inspector he's welcome. We're nearly ready.

The hell we are! Go and tell his Judgeship Judge Adam will be excused!

Yes, excused! I look a spectacle.

And every fright brings on a natural purge, if you get my drift.

I'm getting sick.

You're insane.

Tell the District Judge he's welcome.

Liese! Greta!

What do you want, sir?

Bring the cheese, ham, butter and beer from the Records Room!

Hurry! No, not you! The other!

You stupid mare! Yes, you! Liese! Good God! In the Records Room!

Then say what you mean, sir.

Shut up, girl! Get me my wig. Where?

In the bookcase! March!

The man's not well!

Tell the District Judge he's welcome.

Old fool, old fool.

You gave yourself away. -How so?

Embarrassed, eh? -Me, embarrased?

Yes, embarrassed! Liese!

What's that? Braunschweiger sausages, sir.

That's obvious! Take them back to the Records Room!

The sausages?

Sausages! Hell! The documents!

Not in the bookcase, sir. Your wig?

Why not?

Well, sir, because you, last night, at eleven...

Stop stuttering!

You came back without your wig.

Without my wig?

It's a fact, sir. Liese can testify.

Your other wig's at the wig shop. I was ...?

Bald as an eagle you come home last night.

You says you fell. Don't remember, sir? I washed blood off your face.

The hussy! I was telling the truth!

Shut up! You hear? You're lying!

So the wound's from last night...

Today the wound, yesterday the wig!

Last night I wore it powdered. Took it off when I came home.

She probably washed it!

Go to hell! And take those back to the Records Room!

Ask the sacristan to lend me his.

The cat littered in mine last night, the dirty swine!

Found it under the bed this morning. What a mess! I just remembered!

The cat! What? Are you...

Yes! Upon my life!

Five. Yellow, black and one is white.

I'll drown the black in the river. What can one do? Want one?

In the wig? -The devil take me!

I hung my wig on the chair, then I went to bed.

I must have bumped the chair, and off it fell.

Then the cat grabbed it in her mouth.

And carried it under the bed and had kittens.

The scoundrels! They mate and litter where they are.

Curse my abdomen.

Come, come now Grete.

Should I go?

Give my best to the sacristan's wife.

I'll return it later today, undamaged, and not to say a word to the sacristan. Hear?

I'll do my best, sir!

You jug-breaking vermin! You'll hear about this!

What drivel! If one of us broke your jug, you'll get damages.

Me? Compensated? Als ob ein Stück von meinem Hornvieh sprÃoche.

You mean justice is a potter?

Leave her be. The broken jug isn't her problem, it's the busted wedding!