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conscripted. Words are taken to stand for their opposites. That is why anti-art is the art of our time.
(
The argument becomes progressively more heated
.)
    CARR : The nerve of it. Wars are fought to make the world safe for artists. It is never quite put in those terms but it is a useful way of grasping what civilized ideals are all about. The easiest way of knowing whether good has triumphed over evil is to examine the freedom of the artist. The
ingratitude
of artists, indeed their hostility, not to mention the loss of nerve and failure of talent which accounts for ‘modern art’, merely demonstrate the freedom of the artist to be ungrateful, hostile, self-centred and talentless, for which freedom I went to war.
    TZARA : Wars are fought for oil wells and coaling stations; for control of the Dardanelles or the Suez Canal; for colonial pickings to buy cheap in and conquered markets to sell dear in. War is capitalism with the gloves off and many who go to war know it but they go to war because they don’t want to be a hero. It takes courage to sit down and be counted. But how much better to live bravely in Switzerland than to die cravenly in France, quite apart from what it does to one’s trousers.
    CARR : My God, you little Romanian wog – you bloody dago – you jumped-up phrase-making smart-alecy arty-intellectual Balkan turd!!! Think you know it all! – while we poor dupes think we’re fighting for ideals, you’ve got a profound understanding of what is
really
going on, underneath! – you’ve got a phrase for it! You pedant! Do you think your phrases are the true sum of each man’s living of each day? –
capitalism with the gloves off?
– do you think that’s the true experience of a wire-cutting party caught in a crossfire in no-man’s-land? (
Viciously
) It’s all the rage in Zurich! – You slug! I’ll tell you what’s
really
going on: I went to war because it was my
duty
, because my country needed me, and that’s
patriotism
. I went to war because I believed that those boring little Belgians and incompetent Frogs had the right to be defended from German militarism, and that’s
love of
freedom. That’s
how things are underneath, and I won’t be told by some yellow-bellied Bolshevik that I ended up in the trenches because there’s a profit in ball-bearings!
    TZARA (
Storming
):
Quite right!
You ended up in the trenches, because on the 28th of June 1900 the heir to the throne of Austro-Hungary married beneath him and found that the wife he loved was never allowed to sit next to him on royal occasions, except! when he was acting in his military capacity as Inspector General of the Austro-Hungarian army – in which capacity he therefore decided to inspect the army in Bosnia, so that
at least on their wedding anniversary
, the 28th of June 1914, they might ride side by side in an open carriage through the streets of Sarajevo! (
Sentimentally
) Aaaaah!
(
Then slaps his hands sharply together like a gun-shot
) Or, to put it another way –
    CARR (
Quietly
): We’re here because we’re here … because we’re here because we’re here … we’re here because we’re here because we’re here because we’re here …
( CARR
has dropped into the familiar chant, quite quiet
. TZARA
joins in, just using the sound
‘
da-da’ to the same tune. The light starts to go. The chant grows. When
CARR
starts to speak
, TZARA
continues the chanting quietly for a few more moments under
CARR ’s
words
.)
Great days! The dawn breaking over no-man’s-land – Dewdrops glistening on the poppies in the early morning sun! The trenches stirring to life!… ‘Good morning, corporal! All quiet on the Western Front?’… ‘Tickety-boo, sir!’ – ‘Carry on!’ – Wonderful spirit in the trenches – never in the whole history of human conflict was there