Yet I fear, only if he were addressed in the Name of the Republic would it be a matter of concern to our community of the living, and that can take a long time. I am filling the time in between with my unproductive song. There is a limit, but it just isn't given to some people to be happy wanderers, although the snowdrops, that's right, it's spring now and that makes us happy, are stretching out their little digger claws towards the soil, as if they wanted to pick up the soil instead of your shoe sole doing it sooner or later. Even Kurt Janisch sometimes asks himself where this dark side comes from (for which he has a certain warrant because of his profession, and which, whenever one thinks, now the lightbulb's gone, grows even darker still. Who on earth lets down the blinds in the middle of the night? Only someone who's going to shun the light of day come the morning!). He can't work it out. His parents didn't really ignore him, they didn't encourage him either, in any respect, not even to keep going with that smart appearance of his, which was already there quite early on, someone was bound to come and hitch a ride with him, a nice girl perhaps. Someone is sure to be able to make use of it, this ghostly, pale, curly-haired and yet nevertheless robust figure, which a person can't help, but the country policeman can, because he's constantly exercising it. God has given it to him along with the commandments, so that a man forgets obedience again, because he's so busy with his appearance. Women in particular do a great deal for their appearance, so obeying an industry prepared to go to any lengths, whose products constantly contradict one another, otherwise why would there be so many? The country policeman only rarely thinks about his actions, with which we shall have to concern ourselves, prefers to stay on the surface of things, where he passes his comb through, drawing furrows in his dark-blond hair like hammers in a rock. The comb has been moistened first, on his head then it looks as if there's rain, from which one should have protected oneself. Now the country policeman has himself risen to quite a high rank, and even his grown-up son already has a good post, even if not at the station, where he would unfortunately collide with his father's position. Yes, and something else I wanted to say: His son already has a little house, too, great, even if it doesn't properly belong to him yet, it's been acquired on a life annuity. But the life, which at this point is still owner of the house, has subsequently, unfortunately and unexpectedly, with varying success, but by and large rather vigorously, gone on living, although originally it seemed no more than a ruin: an old woman who now only rarely gets a breath of fresh air, although it really should be the duty of the country policeman's daughter-in-law to take her for walkies every day, but one can't do everything oneself. Nor can one yet kill her, e.g., with lily of the valley leaves, it would be too soon, there would be talk in this tightly defined community, and the clusters of people would grow together into an almost impenetrable hedge (though loaded with good fruit!), which like a net first protects the wrongdoer from himself and then, if he has not harmed himself, hands him over to justice. The country policeman's son has a wife, who belongs to God and the Virgin and every Sunday morning and every evening bloodlessly sacrifices herself in church in front of the tabernacle. That's how she was brought up, and she has arranged with her will to go on in the same way voluntarily, even without the coercion of the nuns, who fine-ground her so that some day she will fit through heaven's gate. Ten years ago she gave birth to a child, a son, which is the sole meaning and purpose of marriage. A daughter, a few more kids even would have been welcome, too. God said nothing about having to change the diapers of an old woman. That's why the young woman is so pig-headed, there's nothing more solid than the views of the Church, so the old dear can just lie there in her own shit until evening, or until she rusts, we're going to evening mass now, she has to stand firm until it's time to go to bed, the old dear, not the Church, it has already stood firm for much longer and doesn't need any diapers either. Because it takes and takes and never parts with what it has. Perhaps that's where we learned it, no, we could do it already. And the son, let's just say what his name is, his name is Ernst Janisch, and he in his turn has a son, Patrick, but the wife belongs half to God and the ancient woman three quarters. Every day she swallows two liters no problem, she has to be given that, otherwise she throws a fit; that results in a lot of excreta, if one's not allowed to go to the john because it's one floor down, built-in to the present home of the country policeman's children, where it's used much more often. That's not how the old woman imagined it, when she indirectly put her fate in the hands of an official. But what I'm writing here is not intended to be an investigation. The diagnosis "initial stages of liver cirrhosis" is anyway certain, I think. If God still manages the last drops of the old dear, he will himself be so far gone that he won't be paying attention to anything anymore and overlook many sinners. Never mind. This house will then at last belong entirely to the country policeman's son, he'll never share a thing again, not even with this God, we can collect the money ourselves. God will get our sins, he'll have to make do with that.

None of all the promising properties of which there are expectations, there are considerably more than I was able to enumerate here, is at the moment completely paid off or has paid off or is even really in prospect, with the exception of the old woman's share, who, if nothing out of the ordinary occurs and the Lord works a miracle, seems to be declining into eternity and otherwise. The country policeman's daughter-in-law has anyhow made a nice down payment on this eternal bliss, in the shape of a son, who is still a child, especially pleasing to God. God scrubs his soul in confession, the priest scrutinizes it for dirty thoughts and tells the son, after he himself has had a good wank in the darkness of his soul, his favorite place, to join the line of little children at the back, where it's easy to get at him; the line, which the priest receives for children's mass once a week, snakes round there, hissing and scuffling and, making use of the flat of his hand, if someone chatters or passes on unpleasant truths, he sends them home again. Are these personal belongings not perhaps burdens on the development of a still young man, who would urgently need a few mortgages in order to unburden himself a little? To him even curtains are already a revolutionary decision, he's always saying he only needs the bare minimum, and that's the ownership of house and real estate. Otherwise he's stingy, the mechanic, the engineer, and his father even more so. His wife has to embellish the front garden with cuttings which, as if something like that were not constantly happening in the world on a grand scale and as a warning to us, she secretly plucks out from the pots at the nursery. Does this son of man perhaps want to keep the little house but get rid of wife and child? Can all his faithfulness so quickly be over and done with? He hasn't had the family so very long yet! Perhaps there'll be more children! We shall find out or again maybe not, depending on whether I can express myself intelligibly or not and don't mix up the dramatis personae all the time, at the moment it doesn't look as if that's going to happen. Why on earth did I start off with three generations, in fact there are even four? Oh well, they're not all present at the same time after all, and anyway they're all the same. Are we all going to get into the same boat, what do you think? Who wouldn't like to have at least one little house for themselves alone? He could drive under the bridges or drive along the motorways up above, but the house would stay patiently at home and wait for him.