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plates; more than once the ward steps on the warden’s heels. They continue moving about the stage, pretending to have a goal which, however, they never reach, because they always give it up just before they are about to reach it.
    Suddenly the warden is by the door, is already going out, reaches for the outside door handle to shut the door behind him—the ward seizes the door handle on the inside, wants to follow the warden, but the warden pulls without letup.
    The ward pulls in the other direction.
    The warden, by giving one hard pull, pulls the door shut behind him and in front of the ward, who has been pulled along by the violent pull.
    The ward stands briefly in front of the door, his hand around the handle, then his hand merely touching the handle.
    The ward lets his hand drop.
    The warden is outside; it is quiet.
    The ward gets down on his knees, without falling down on them, however, and is already crawling out the door, quickly: we see now that the door has an extra outlet, as if for a dog.
    Once the ward is outside, the stage slowly becomes dark.
    By now we have become accustomed to the music.
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    The pause is longer this time, for the ‘scenery is being turned inside out.
    A revolving stage needs only to revolve.
    Otherwise, the scenery is turned around in the dark.
    It becomes bright: it is a rainy day.
    Warden and ward set up the objects on the stage: the
large, longish object, covered by the black raincoat, which they have to bring onstage together, the stool, beets, melons, pumpkins.
    When everything has been distributed on the stage, the ward sits down on the stool while the warden stands next to the mysterious object.
    Without an actual beginning the play has begun again: the warden takes the rubber coat off the object, so that we see that it is a beet-cutting machine.
    The warden puts on the raincoat (he is still barefoot) and, to test the machine, lets the cutting knife drop down several times without, however, cutting any beets.
    The ward gets up and walks to the machine. The warden bends down for a beet, shoves it into the machine, and pulls down the cutting knife with one brief, effortless movement, as he indicates with a movement: the beet falls down, its top shorn off.
    The warden repeats the process in detail, demonstrating: another beet falls down.
    The ward watches, not completely motionless, but without moving very much.
    The warden repeats the process.
    The ward fetches a beet but makes many superfluous movements and detours; we can hear his hobnail boots on the floor as well as the bare feet of the warden, who now goes to the side and straightens up.
    The ward raises the cutting knife, shoves the beet up to its top into the machine, and hacks off the top.
    The warden steps up to him, stands beside him, steps back again …
    The ward goes and fetches a few beets and puts them into place …
    The warden steps up to him and stands there.
    The cat suddenly slinks out of the house.
    The ward’s next attempt to cut off the top of a beet is so feeble that the beet does not fall on the floor at once.

    The warden stands there watching him.
    With the next attempt, the beet falls on the floor.
    The cat does what it does.
    The warden stands there.
    The ward has problems with the beet again: he makes one attempt to sever its top, a second one, and then, without looking at the warden, who is starting to walk about the stage once more in his bare feet, a third attempt; then, after a certain time, when the warden is standing next to him again and is watching him, once more; then, later—it is already becoming darker on stage—a fifth time (the warden is starting to walk again); then—it is already quite dark (is the warden standing by the machine?)—finally once more, and now —we can’t bear watching it any more—once again, and we don’t hear the sound of anything falling on the floor; thereupon it is quiet onstage, for quite some time.
    After it has