And now these sharp pointed shoes, so shiny you could use them as a mirror to see yourself if you wanted, and Hans does want. With those shiny shoes, Hans is constantly kicking his mother in the belly, that belly he once came out of himself, and he does not even notice. They're fashionable, these shoes. A shade uncomfortable, mind you. You have to suffer if you want to look good, says Hans to his mother, wittily. Then the pay-off will be all the bigger, my pay right now is on the paltry side, alas.
You know, Hans, that time we had to surrender in the council block, the caretaker hung an old white pair of underpants in the window as a sign of submission. Though we couldn't just give up. It would have been a pity to waste a white linen cloth at a time when they were shooting at us. An undamaged linen cloth was valuable. Better for underpants to die than a good linen cloth. And a lot of people were shot even as they surrendered, that's been proved.
Suffering in his tight shoes in order to look good, Hans picks up a wad of addressed envelopes and stuffs them into the flames in the kitchen stove behind his mother's back. He doesn't know quite why he's doing this but there is some kind of compulsion, a voice that belongs to Rainer is ordering him to do it. Rainer's voice is in his ear and Sophie's image is in his heart. They are leading him, inciting him. And in the end he does something meaningless, something a good deal of effort has gone into teaching him to do. It is meaningless because Mother does not notice anything, she'll notice later but she will blame herself, not him. Right now, Hans leaves the house. It is a beautiful warm evening. A pleasure to be out and about.
Once Hans's father had been set free by his work, he died very quickly. There are a great many people who work their whole lives long and still aren't free. Before that, Hans's father had become Hans's father, but he did not have much time to rejoice in the fact. But basically every human being, be he rich or poor, experiences only a handful of brief moments of happiness. Brief but intense. After intense suffering, Hansfather dies beneath a block of original Austrian rock.
At least he was spared the mediocrity of everyday life, his son thinks. The son is constantly in danger of going under in that mediocrity, but he will do everything possible to avoid it. A brief intense life and then perhaps a brief intense death, I want to experience everything acutely, even if it's only briefly. You're only young once, and I'm young right now. Your father was never young because he never had the time. But there has to be that much time. That's what he failed to grasp, see? He got it wrong.
Hans is right, because this is a new era, at last, thanks be to God, a better age than the old one, this age belongs to the young, and the young are not tardy in grabbing it.
WHO'S THIS YOU'VE dragged in with you, asks Anna's mother. One of your schoolmates, I suppose. He ought to be pleased he can go to high school and will be able to study afterwards, schooldays are the happiest days of your life but you don't understand that till later, and then it's too late, alas, and the happiest days are behind you. Later on you have to do a job, in your case an academic job, and life is tough, you find out for yourself how tough it is.
To which Hans replies that unfortunately he's not a participating member of the happiest days because he does not go to the grammar school. But I'd like to, and that is sufficient because all that counts is the will. Where there's a will there's a way. That way might (for instance) take me to a position as a gym teacher, which would be demanding too but in a different way to being a heavy current electrician, which is what I've learnt to be at the Elin Union. Right now, at this very moment, my girlfriend Sophie is busy (deep within herself) teaching me other sports in addition to the ones I have already mastered (such as basketball, running and jumping, all at the sports centre), sports like tennis and riding. Which is the finest thing in the entire world.
Out of all of this, the only thing Mother has grasped is that Hans is an ordinary worker, which is the kind of company she disapproves of. So you don't attend any kind of general high school? Wanting to isn't enough. Actions speak louder than words. Not that every action is necessarily enough. It all depends. Best of all is having possessions. Go away and don't come back, you're bad company for my two children.
Hans says he proposes to continue his education on his own initiative. This takes energy. Which he has.
We don't learn for the sake of school, we learn for Life, he who learns more gets more out of Life. I want to learn for Life anyway, I don't give a damn about school. You can get left behind and come to a tragic end. People fail both in school and in Life.
Considering the way she is, Anna listens to this with astounding patience. All the while she is pondering how to impress Hans with sundry intellectual accomplishments later on in her room, the room which is hers alone. She will use her piano playing to skilful effect. The heavy artillery: Hans is beginning to value Art, though he does not know what Art can mean. That the two of them will go to bed can be taken for granted, Sophie doesn't do it but Anna does. She will translate a pornographic passage in Bataille for him and, once he starts to drool and slobber, God and the libido will see to the rest. She will get into the most inventive of positions, positions you see in the latest French films, though he won't recognise as much since he does not go to see that kind of film. Nothing but one-two banging. She'll play it cool and austere, but soft enough not to scare him. She looks at Hans's hard muscles beneath his pullover. They are rippling. There are not many muscles in Anna's natural environment. Muscles grow elsewhere. She likes the fact that once Hans is undressed he will be just a body and nothing else. This is a novel feeling, not like other times when the mind is still operating, forever flashing its messages at inappropriate moments. Even the way he picks up objects, you can see that his hands know exactly how to take hold of something. He is an expert on manual things, things you do with your hands. He would know how to use a hammer, nails and a file too; he moves in totally different circles. This attracts Anna. While you're young you have to find out what things are like elsewhere, you already know how things are on home ground.
Mummy says that the Latin for what she just said, that you don't learn for school but for Life, is on the tip of her tongue, she'll have it in a moment. She has a reservoir of proverbs and sayings. He will not understand, he will be devastated, and in future he will leave her daughter alone. Her family has a tradition of education, it is by no means a matter of your own initiative, it is too valuable a thing for that. Indeed, the abilities and knowledge you have are the most valuable thing of all. What you yourself have is always a risk factor, it's best to keep it aside. And incidentally, she'd prefer it if the two of them did not go to Anna's room unchaperoned. She fixed that room up herself. Flower-pattern curtains. Hardly Anna's style. Women have no business in a girl's room, it's a room for a girl, as the expression implies. Really Anna is still a child. Hans is about to comply, automatically, because Annamother inspires respect, but Anna says she can kiss their asses. And they go anyway, of course. To make up for Anna's uncouthness, Hans says he will even bring some flowers next time, a big bunch, Annamother promptly adds that that can be very revealing. At least the prole is polite. There is a language of flowers, a language Mother has learned. Roses stand for love, always supposing they are red, and carnations stand for the socialist party, again supposing they are red. And then there are flowers that can stand for constancy, devotion, trust and other similar nonsense, you have to be careful not to get them mixed up by mistake, it could be disastrous if it's someone you care for. In general, Nature has its own language, which you can only hear if you are perfectly silent. It is either within a person or it isn't, and he can only hear it if it is. This is every bit as important as book learning, though that is also necessary. You should take note of roots that are a strange shape, stones, and forked branches when you pass them along the wayside, perhaps collect them, and not deliberately ignore them. I'll pay more attention to the language of Nature in future, Frau Witkowski.