Anna says stealing wallets is kids' stuff, what I'd like to do is blow something up. Then people would sit up and take notice. The world out there wouldn't be gently indifferent. They'd pay attention.
Rainer brags, saying that, whenever his father flies to New York, looking down from on high practically blows up (his expression) his chest with happiness, because up above the clouds there is freedom. The only snag about this is that his father has not been beyond Zwettl, beyond the woods, since the War. A detail Rainer doesn't add. Anna thinks of how she once gave Daddy a bunch of lily of the valley for his birthday, which he flushed down the toilet. Whatever put that into her mind now?
True, it has to be visible to others, but anarchism is sufficient reward if it is practised for yourself alone. Then (and only then) it has a liberating effect. It is wrong to want it to achieve an end. And especially for a group of people, irrespective who those people might be.
De Sade says you must commit crimes. In using the word crime we're adopting the consensus term, though among ourselves we would not describe any of our actions as such (Anna). We need the universally valid norm to get a kick out of our own extremeness. We are monsters, even if we disguise ourselves as ordinary people. We are the children of ordinary people but we are not content with that. Inwardly we are consumed with wickedness, outwardly we are grammar school pupils.
Rainer, who is reading The Outsider by Camus, says he would like to put the hostility of the world behind him. Once your hope for something better is taken from you, then at last you have the present all in your hand. Then you yourself are reality. Others are extras. When Rainer contemplates an evening he says that evening is a melancholy ceasefire where all life has come to an end.
The German teacher tells the Witkowskis to stop disturbing the rest of the class with their constant gabbling.
Stifter says: Then there were the pale russet woods stretching along the mountains, cloaked in a frail blue haze. Stretching their legs ha ha. Off on their travels. Hope they bought a ticket. No, joking aside (Rainer), if you commit crimes you need the support of someone who loves you. In his case it is a woman. Sophie. It is not the kind of support a woman gives a bourgeois philistine, it is the support a woman gives a young artist. If a human being ventures so far into illegality there has to be a partner waiting at the threshold, all tenderness and intimacy: Sophie. In reality I am revolted by my desires. But the desires are stronger than I am. And my love of you is stronger than I am too. There is no physical desire in it, though. We're keeping that for later.
Crap, says Anni, love is nothing but one skin touching another.
One thing's for sure, I can't stick this Adalbert Staffer a single minute longer, declares Anna. If anyone will force this darning needle from my needlework kit under his fingernail during class without shouting out, and when I say full force I mean full, I'll go to the boys' toilet with him, the cubicle on the left. Rainer finds this kind of revolutionary. Anna says: No, it's not, the aim isn't equality for all, that would be contrary to Nature and genetic theory, this is the exact opposite. Total discrimination and isolation. Equality can only be of interest to those who are incapable of rising to the ranks of the strong. They compensate by downgrading the strong and then imagine the strong are weak as well. Now how about that needle? Gerhard Schwaiger, an average kid, a late birth, covered top to toe in pimples-or at least the parts of his body you can see-and with a tendency to blush, sees his big chance, here it is, zero hour, and instantly rams the needle beneath the nail of his left forefinger. Ow! Sophie gives a smile, like white wool, dabbed with talcum powder for good measure. Rainer is astounded that it's Schwaiger of all people, who's normally interested in nothing but chocolate. Schwaiger is pale as a handkerchief and says: Ow, how that hurts. Anna sizes him up joylessly. The Frau Professor says Schwaiger is like a child but if he's so desperate to go, go ahead, go, but next time remember to go during break. And off Gerhard goes, larding his way out the door, first giving Anni a conspiratorial look that is meant to be eloquent. It isn't eloquent, though, it's pathetic. Help me, Anni, please, I've been worshipping you for ages and now I need you to be a bit friendly and obliging or I'll never get a hard-on and be able to shove my prick inside you. Just a morsel of love would be the loveliest present you could give me, baby.
Him of all people, Rainer says to his sister. I hope I don't have to come along with a screwdriver and extract you from the fat, Anni. Got a rubber?
I've got one left. But if I know him he'll have had one on him for months, looking forward to a chance like this. The rubber will be thin and brittle by now and won't do its job.
Witkowski Anna, could you kindly go on reading where we just left off. Yes, Frau Professor, Stifter tells us that people are not free, that they are slaves to the Laws of Nature. So you have to commit violent deeds (if you don't have anyone to do other kinds of deeds with), actions that ordinary people would call crimes but which we define as the norm, though of course it is our norm and not that of the rest.
Whereupon Anna is sent out of the class. Which was what she intended. So while Adalbert Stifter goes on holding forth about the rosy-hued faces of young people who blush if you look at them unexpectedly (the drooling old paederast gets off on shame) Anna strolls absolutely calmly to the toilet and red-faced Gerhard lying in wait for her. Come, come, come to me, Anni, I can't stand it any more, crash, he nearly ends up in the bowl, the jerk with his blubbery white ass didn't get a proper grip, you can see right away that he's inexperienced. Anna slips her panties off and gives curt instructions as to the position he's to get into. Needless to say he doesn't have a hard-on now, might have guessed, that's the last straw. Anxiety and agitation can do for someone who's never done it. D'you expect me to do that too, huh? At last, at long last there's a sign of life, it stirs, it moves, to the accompaniment of deep crimson and pallor on the part of Gerhard. First it collapses a time or two, like a house of cards. Anna observes the manipulation of Gerhard's member with interest and plays with the rubber. Will it, won't it, yes it will. There we go. Fine. When she sees his red glans pointing her way she thinks: Hang on, perhaps not after all, how revolting, who knows if I can stand it. But presently the question is answered in the affirmative, the wretched under-achiever shakes and rubs his member desperately till it more or less stands up hard, it peeks about and all it sees is the stinking cubicle with its peeling green oil paint, Love has never chosen a setting such as this, nor has Love chosen it this time. The incompetent has been madly in love with Anna for a long time, but this fact is of little help.
A promise is a promise, so she lowers herself upon this over-eager cry-baby, he can hardly grasp that at last the great day has come, hooray hooray, he'll tell some of the other kids his age all about it afterwards, in detail. Memory will make it all more important than it is, in any case, oh that's good, that's so good, I could handle this every day, no problem, but unfortunately I don't get it every day. Unfortunately you have to wait till you're more mature, but right now I feel very mature already, Anni honey. People need this, I need it more than anyone else because my libido is so strong, I love you, I love you, oooh Anni, now, now! Please stay, don't go now. Best of all, don't ever leave me at all, I'm going to study medicine some time, soon. Shut your trap, d'you have to yap like that, they'll hear us! Can't you be quieter when you come? Oooh Anni, go on, please, don't stop now, it'll be fantastic if I come now, no one has ever felt this just the way I do, the rest don't feel it so strongly, let's face it, I'm stronger than all the rest. You're so beautiful and you have a great figure, so thin, I'm going to lose weight now too, you'll see, I'll lose weight just for you so that we go together, there's never been anything like this, Anni sugar. This happens millions of times a day, jerk. Come on, you nobody, shoot your wad, get a move on, Kraftmann'll notice if we're both out so long. I feel as if my insides were being hauled out, Anna, my beloved, that's what you are now, no doubt about it, I love you, I love you. My whole heart is yours. Look, are you going to shoot your juice or not, else I'm stopping. But Gerhard is coming, massively-he gives a loud squeal like a branded pig. If no one heard it's a miracle.