Something is always left over of the work, to which they are more devoted than to their dearest beloved. The women have been freshly prepared, or preserved. Yes, they too desire something, but not for much longer, the way they're roaring under the lash of the weather, which even dictates their attire. Thus their round fat bodies hum away, life goes on, man vanishes continually in death, the hours sink to the ground, but women flit nimbly about the house, never safe from all the blows that fate deals. How alike their habits are! Every day it's the same. Tomorrow, tomorrow. Procrastination, procrastination! But the next day has not yet come, the woman of the house cannot yet enter it, to be finished off by yet more work. Now they repose unfeelingly in each other, the pistons thrust down, a course is set for the pathless shores of bodies but the goal is missed, yes, we may fall but we do not fall a long way down, we are as shallow as the shallowness about us. If our deserts went by what we earn, we would just be able to buy ourselves some shoes for our weary wanderers' feet, but no more, and already our partners are lapping about our ankles, they want to play themselves and think they are trumps, oh horror, they really are winning the trick! And the distance to the heavens remains ever the same. Quick, let's place a foot on the runner-board of the car, which we have wrested from our bodies in the form of work, many many hours put in at the factory. We have entered as children of God, and after many a year nothing remains but to board the cheapest of mid-market cars, and we whose gears have meanwhile changed slightly are refused access to the works by a master of shifts who newly holds the stick. Right, they have eliminated our place of work entirely, and now the factory operates almost on its own, it learnt it all from us! But before poverty moves in and the car is sold, let us ourselves come back a time or two from foreign parts. Let us squander ourselves in someone else's parts a time or two more. We will not be driven away from this table by any thought that has eluded our possessor, nor by any suit advertising in the newspaper, any nonsense to put a prompt stop to our lives because we poor work-horses absolutely had to have a few more horsepower in our meadow. And then there's the Direktor: he is not the sole ruler by any means! Not even the firm, that captive buzzard, can soar as it would. Who knows what other beast it might encounter!
Thus we all have our worries: whom we could love and what we could eat.
One would not imagine for a moment that there was anything fake about their feelings. Rather, one would think they were genuine jewels that others bedeck themselves with: the throngs of thonged bodies, tricked out in their best (new shoes!) and wandering the paths of their little love affairs, turning to a restless trick or two in their rooms. A human choir sending their many-voiced echo up unto the father in the air on the chair-lift. It was he who created the erogenous zones with which Woman pretties herself up of an evening, rapidly shoving her work out of sight lest anyone pay her properly. Flabbergasted, the men gape into their women's holes, torn by life, and yes, they shudder, as if they knew that the box has long been empty from which the seeds have been shaken out for years. But the dear women are so attached to them. And tomorrow morning the first bus has to be caught, no matter how helplessly they have to thrash their wives, who are attached to them and their short barrels: shoot! Jobs don't grow on trees.
The others, too, take this road to death. They accompany each other for a while, and breathe loudly at the gate, for it to be opened to them. And there come yet more people who have fallen into each other's weakly branches, to tangle their limbs. So that they are a twosome when they have to face their foreman. One has to be able to do something or other! To be bigger and more numerous would be a good start, if one is sinking beneath the stroke of the factory's daily scythe. And from the spoils the owners pick out the very best that you experienced this year on the beaches of Rimini and Carola, where, blooming luxuriantly, you sank beneath the rubble of your short-lived pleasures.
The Direktor of this factory drags his wife back to the car, meaning to shorten this short break by breaking a record at the work he understands best: words of love from his transmitter sound in her ear, and she receives them thrashing and stammering as loving couples without a stereo receive their dance music after midnight. The window, where we can see one of those brightly coloured tracksuits such as generally fetch up in day-trip bars for filling, remains obstinately lit up. The young man stretches out his sleeves, gathered in at the ends with strong knitted cords, and stares out at these charmless people, who are nonetheless perfect in their way if one considers their income from the toil of humankind and their influence on state parliament politics. How wonderful to sing together with the rich and still not have to be in their works choir! To learn their ways and still not have to stand in the fields and have one's hair cut at harvest time! Like lumbering oxen the two cars are grazing side by side in front of the house, and one of the animals is now going to be disembowelled. The door opens, the light goes on. Words of endearment are sent to Gerti's home parts. This paterfamilias has not come to punish but to comfort and to resume possession, already there is a gleam as of a city beyond his gates. He has no desire but for his wife, who is sufficient unto him, unlike others who cannot stop making modest demands and singing and saying which of the photos in the relevant publications they prefer. How busily they bustle about at their sexual enterprises after work! And just take a look what these pikes in carp ponds have caught: it seems to me that at times Nature is inclement. The Direktor is attached to his wife. Her broad thoroughfares are familiar to him. And while the silent inmate of the home is still suspended in mid-air with his nice motorbike catalogue beyond the window, the Direktor slaps Gerti across the front seats (having first had to push a button, I won't say which), yanks her dress over her head and masters her buttocks so that, via her dirty and off-limits route, he can penetrate her interior. Tenderly hands knead the udder. A friendly tongue licks into an ear. This has often been done in the past, for people like to build a house beside one that is already there, not to support their neighbour but to torment. It is a little uncomfortable, true, summer is far off, the road is remote, the animals taste good, and everyone comes to the appointed places or at least is collected in the box not far away. This crashing surf can surge upon one as if in one's sleep, and hide on a raised look-out in the midst of Nature. Below, in the shimmer of the field glasses, the allied members liaising between work, money and the powerful who don't like to be alone, are flitting about. They forever have to lie on one another against one another. Human activity resumes with new aims, the weather is cold, and every time the Direktor withdraws his sturdy prick a little he casts a forceful glance at his silent admirer at the window. He only has to go through a slight contortion to do so. Perhaps the young man will cop a handful now as well! As far as I can tell, he's really doing it. From the waist down, we men are all members of the same club, when all's said and done. That is, our members belong to our women and in the street we allow fate to be pressed into our hands without offering resistance. Let us make ourselves comfortable in each other! Michael has his hand down the front of his tracksuit trousers, I think, and is cramming his clothing full of himself. And Gerti's dress is now completely unbuttoned too and her bags and pouches are flopping out, if you'll pardon my mentioning it. Never mind, even if the Direktor's feeling the draught, within himself he pays attention to festive-ness and quality, we forgive him. Face forward, the woman is squashed into the car upholstery, as if slumber lay concealed in these leather shadows. Her legs dangle to left and right out of the open door. And her husband, this bellowing native of the country, to whom we have entrusted our homeland for him to make paper out of it (the trees would have been condemned to a close shave anyway), he is far more at home here than we could ever be! I hear this bird shouting as he sings. He slips to Gerti's side and rams several of his loving fingers inside her. He speaks in friendly tones to her, describing the winners she still stands to score. Then he drives into her hole again with a crash. Briefly he withdraws and feels up his sceptre: as we see, his pace is unmeasured and immoderate. Now the woman is being examined by an expert who is harnessing his energy under the bonnet and sending his little salesman off, indeed, even accompanies him in person, we'll manage this, no problem, and then lock up afterwards.