Gerti is put in her car. Quiet, now! How shall I put it? She has been at the mercy of hands and tongues. She almost made off, angrily shifting her sticks and belts and apron strings. A mere safety belt will suffice to hold her back.

Others in bondage have advised her to use it. Just as the artist finds his way to art, so too the village children find their way to her, to endure their rhythmical trials at the hands of this woman. The child bows over its violin, the man over the child to punish it. The works choir sings on Sunday to express itself. Many of them sing, and yet they sing as one. This choir really exists, so that the members all tug as one man at their vocal chords while the factory crouches in wait high above them. Every now and then it's thirsty and swallows up the herd, and then the pylons far and wide can hear the humming of poor people getting in line. Like children. Many came but few were chosen to sing a solo. The Direktor has his work for a hobby, so he's okay. The youngsters pour into their vehicles, now they are off to their holiday homes, where they can stuff yet more into and out of themselves. The rooms are booked out. Blessed highway, crossing the flatland, preserving the peace and quiet for all but those who live there, whose ears bleed with the racket – till they themselves can get away for a holiday.

The woman tears across the countryside. Her mind is rioting in her head, banging at the walls of the skull it is contained in, that is to say: it goes to the limit. She is chased off by the skiers, who for their part are blown back on the wind, chirping in their nesting boxes (which can sometimes be as big as wardrobes, and still there's no more than a couple of little nuts in them!), to their cages. We contemplate the peace Nature has seeded in our hearts and promptly eat it up from the carton. The light bulbs shed their solitary glow on us. The last of the litter is cleared up. The fathers of families obey their whims and fall upon their dependants. They scrutinize the remains of the day to see if there's anything left to eat. At the edge of the sullen forest a deer appears, we'll take it, it'll fatten up nicely on our sandwich wrappers. They chew it over and over, then they relax with a nice book and a nasty programme. For the last of them, who just won't stop, there's a trek up a narrow path which they will presently come plunging down again, while down on the banks the wild creatures are already slinking about to whose keeping the landscape is consigned after 17.00 hours. Out of laziness the locals stay hidden away in their houses. The men give their attention entirely to the TV set, where they can look at the animals and countryside and learn about their own nonsensical customs. The women are unemployed. The wind breezes about the peaks and soothes the pain as much as is necessary if one's to be entertained by a series about beer brewers and farmers who grow sunflowers for the oil. Yes indeed, TV doesn't pull its punches, and the viewers punch the buttons and are knocked out by what they see.

Seriously, the day isn't going to be laying on that blue for much longer. Gerti takes a lengthy break in a pub on the way. How pleasant this effect of drifting distance is! She drinks for the love of it, others drink dutifully, separated from the lovable bunch who airily want a drink just as they wanted the air to play about them as they whizzed down the slope. A whole horde of them to crown the day, they crowd to the bar and tank up, brimful. Once again Nature is simple and monochrome. Tomorrow it will be woken by human voices once more and will merrily hammer the public down the pistes. Ah yes, the public. The public has shed the blanket of Nature but is still wearing its today of many colours, the pub currently on duty is completely stuffed with these tourists. A brawl that's seething around the drink source is quietened by the barwoman. How nice, from far away we come, tumbling from mountaintop to valley, and already we're full of beer. A couple of woodcutters, the most amiable of those who tend the mountains, are already making trouble in the bar, egged on by the city folk, and will presently, like axes, split their wives open. Gerti sits silent, forehead furrowed, amid the party, who have their own snack with salad garnish to get stuck into.

Tomorrow or even this evening, this woman will be standing outside Michael's holiday home spying in at the windows to see his friends making good use of what is his. And she, spurned, will vanish, no one knows whither, into the distance, like a fleeting thought. While her husband deforests the region and murders music. I'm cold. They've screwed one into the other, rummaging about in all the garbage for that treasured picture which they acquired only yesterday in the photo store. Only yesterday. And today they're already on the look-out for a new partner, to charm him into smiling please before they press the release. Yes, us! Torn and tormented, we become visible, and we want to look good for others, to think of what we paid for our clothes, we no longer have what we paid and we notice the lack when we have to undress and caress our partner in love. But for the time being this woman is living on alcohol; and the harvest of other people who drink too, the merry multitudes, is not for her to reap. There's a slight dispute over her mink coat, which a skier has trodden on, but it's soon settled. This breed of people beneath the farmhouse-style lamp: how they do contrive to show off their shapes within the colourful plastic limits they've set themselves so that their forms and norms won't run over and out (and certainly not the models from which they were constructed). They decorate themselves wall-to-wall like their flats and take themselves out.

There's plenty going on, it's divine. The woman takes an unaimed step back. A glass is shoved across to her, the day seems almost in a hurry, it is already dusk over the mountains. The poor popular opinion is sprayed at Gerti like water from a child's hand. Ponderously the poor people of these parts are leaving their nearest and dearest, to be spilt from dirty hands in the pubs, to gush forth like springs because of what they put inside them. But this woman had best be off home. They won't have her drinking here. She'd best be quiet. This is where the herd live, complete with their good shepherds, see the TV pages for the complete programme! The Frau Direktor is a bright cloud, at least that's how she looks, sinking from her seat to the floor, where she makes her bed and lies in it. The barwoman kindly takes hold of her under the armpits. A small stream puddles from Gerti's chin and spreads. This can't go on like this day after day. From outside, Nature gleams magnificently one last time, and the herds of Nature's users head patiently pubwards, glad to be able to raise the elbow at last instead of having to rebel at the lashes of Olympic broadcasts and be sent skedaddling across the hills. If these people are left alone, you'll see how quickly their true charm fades, which is that they look like film stars and look truly charming in their own photo albums, which is where we assess what we expect of ourselves. But here the waves spray up against them and they have to compete with Ideals all cut to a single format. They win by means of noise, colour, perfume and money. A song is struck up, the time of day has a-changed abruptly, the weather too. The wind is howling through the crystal ice hanging from the trees. Even more people claw hold of the woman's hollows, look, now two men are lifting her to her feet. Their loose change empties out over the woman. A glass of wine and one of schnapps are paid for her. They find pretexts, unable to conceal their coarse sexual parts, to feel Gerti up all over. A flood of laughter from their wives, who are also readying their hairy crevices, quickly, before the light changes, and taking up their positions. They are all still dripping with Nature, that is how much life they have soaked up. And it has cost quite enough, too, sitting like islands in this bar and vomiting. One man gives a woman a piggy-back for a bit of fun, she reddens between her thighs, which she squeezes left and right against the man's cheeks. Nobody wants to be missing this. They hop about, even the best of floor shows has to be over sooner or later. Just a short way, laid back in seconds with a little effort, the genitals open, and already they're inside each other and squeezing the tube, whimpering for salvation, and their bowels are thunderous with what they have put away for the wilder times to come. In the dark, the first of them are already overspilling from the fetters of their clothes. Gerti's bust is pinched; as jolly and harmless as vegetables, we thrive in our lordsandmasters' gardens, ladies! On account of the higher regions where we dwell. Only to be pleasantly surprised by the instincts that shoot out of our ski pants.