France Bevk: Krivda, drama v sedmih slikah
8 oseb (4ž, 4m) in poljubno število manjših vlog (krčma, sodna dvorana)
Typescript without date. Probably created between 1930 and 1940. Volume: 74+12 pp. (variant of the last image).
The text is under the title Mother's sin in 1926, first performed in Gorizia and later in smaller towns around Gorizia. The very next year, with the ban on educational societies in Primorska, his stage life was forcibly interrupted. After the war, on the occasion of the author's seventieth birthday, it was performed in a slightly modified version at the Primorska Drama Theatre in Nova Gorica (Guilt, premiered on September 17, 1960).
France Bevk (1890-1970), who is considered one of the most important and prolific Slovenian prose writers, began his artistic career as a poet and playwright. His first published text is a dramatic scene Happy New Year (1912). After returning from the front, in the years immediately following the First World War, he helped shape the theatrical and wider cultural life in the Goriška region. He first staged the drama Hunting thief Friedricha Gerstäckerja in jo objavil pod psevdonimom Franc Seljak (1920). Leta 1921 je uredil knjižico priredb in izvirnih iger, ki je pod naslovom Enodejanke izšla v Gorici. Že njegova prva odmevna drama In depth (objavljena v The Ljubljana Bell leta 1922, pozneje pa pod naslovom In the Cave), which takes place in the trenches and depicts the horrors of war, is fundamentally a family tragedy. The same applies to the later games Cain (1924) and Mother's sin (1926). Slednjo je Bevk predelal v prozno besedilo z naslovom Krivda, ki ga je prvič izdala tržaška Edinost (1929), za njo pa še Jugoslovanska knjigarna (1934) in DZS v četrti knjigi avtorjevih Selected writings (1955). In addition to comedy A game of chess (1939), Bevk wrote numerous plays for children and young people, and his stories and novels were used as the template for many dramatizations.
The opening conversations of the extended family in the orchard in front of the farmhouse create the dominant mood of the play: tension, distrust and insincerity are the result of poisoned mutual relationships. When the master is paralyzed after falling from the roof, the servant Ivan comes to the house against his will. He is said to have known the master's wife Ana since they were young. After the master's death, Ivan runs the farm, while the master's brother Brdar, Ana's children and his son's fiancée resist him: they cannot stand the servant ordering them around and are afraid that he will thwart their plans. Brdar hints at an intimate relationship between Ana and Ivan, which supposedly dates back to the time when his brother was still alive. Ivan's self-willed behavior and rudeness cause an argument. This escalates to threats of physical violence, which is this time prevented by Ana's arrival. In the next scene, Brdar incites his nephew Jože: he suspects that the adulterers killed his brother. Upon Ana's arrival, Brdar decides on an ultimatum: him or Ivan. Ana chooses Ivan and Brdar leaves. When she and Jože are left alone, Ana, with her statements and behavior, gives her son the impression that her uncle's insinuations are well-founded.
Z naslednjim prizorom (sliko) se dogajanje preseli v notranjost kmečke hiše. Ivan trpinči družino in Ano sili k čimprejšnji poroki. Iz pogovora zvemo, da sta imela ljubimca razmerje že pred Anino poroko. Jože je zdoma: ker je po Ivanovih kriterijih prepozen, mu ta zapahne vrata. Ko pijani Jože pride domov po harmoniko in vidi, da so vrata zaklenjena, se razburjen vrne v krčmo, kjer je tudi stric: ta ga spet hujska in podpihuje njegovo jezo. Jože z nožem v roki pohiti proti domu. Tokrat ga Ivan spusti v hišo in Ana v prepiru otrokom prizna, da se bo poročila s hlapcem. Ko se ta vmeša v njihovo prerekanje, ga Jože zabode.
The drama continues in the courtroom. After questioning the accused Jože and the witnesses, it is Ana's turn: first she accuses Jože of killing the father of her unborn child, and then she confesses that Jože's youngest sister is also Ivan's child. In response to Ana's revelation, Jože and Uncle Brdar accuse her and Ivan of murdering their deceased master. Ana claims that her husband died of excitement because he caught her with his lover, but they lock her up anyway.
The author wrote two versions of the last scene. Both take place a few months after the interrogation. Jože's sister, his girlfriend, and Uncle Brdar are waiting at home for Ana to return, who has been released. She gave birth in prison, but the child died. Ana is accompanied by her mother.
In the first version, Ana's mother forbids her from returning to her birthplace. In an argument with Brdar, Ana confesses to the murder. Since she doesn't want to stay in the house and can't go back to her old home, she hangs herself.
In the second version of the ending, Ana's mother invites her home and Brdar also picks her up from the house, where Jože will return from prison in three years. As in the first version, Ana involuntarily confesses her guilt. The drama ends with her leaving home and her uncle telling his niece that she will never see her mother again.