The Ride Across Lake Constance and Other Plays by Peter Handke

do the same for me?” “What you don’t have in your head gets stuck in your throat.” “Your parents don’t seem to have brought you up to let other people finish what they are saying.” “Take one look at these characters and you get a permanent itch in your trigger finger.” “I won’t take back one iota of what I said.” “Our economic accomplishments give us the right not to be constantly reminded of the past.” “Oh, I see the lady is a gentleman!” “Those people with their caveman feelings and their Stone Age laughter want to set back our discussion by a thousand years.” “You don’t even notice how useful you are to us!” “Long hair and dirty fingernails are no proof that you’re right!” “Just take one look at them, that’s what they all look like!” “All I say is: Stalin, Stalin, Stalin!” “There’s only one weapon against radicalism, and that’s the vote.” “They should first condemn the torture of the prisoners in North Vietnam.” “We are controlled by the iron law of history.” Plus what other set rejoinders of this kind exist [campaign speeches contain some rich pickings.—Trans.]. Not that the characters exaggerate them or address them directly to the audience or someone particular in the audience—rather, they speak them as asides, almost in a monologue, quietly and with finality, while they walk about the stage in their state of extraordinarily malicious and melancholy solitude. If someone fails to recognize this, and wants to join
them on the stage, the bodyguards gently and without hurting him or her should lead the person off. To let the person remain on stage would only be a show of disdain.
    While all characters begin to busy themselves more and more with themselves—stroking their hair, forehead, cheeks, lips; cracking their joints, picking lint off their clothes, slapping themselves on their arms, stomach, neck, and throat, stopping occasionally to tug at their earlobes—one also hears fragments of monologues which keep breaking off or become inaudible, as though the speakers were ashamed of what they were saying: “ … I decided to join the company as a silent partner …”—“Last night I dreamed of Arizona …”—“ … I saw the people’s faces change color in the completely sold-out stadium …”—“ … I wrapped the boa around my neck and winked at him like Jane …”—“ … I suddenly saw a landscape as quiet and dreamlike as the transparent wing of a butterfly …”—“ … I kept the option of taking further steps …”—“ … at that time when I slipped off a pile of logs in my dream …”—( A lady slowly raises her dress, beneath which she is completely. naked, and slowly lets it fall again .) “ … and I heard my baby sister sighing in the kitchen …”—As though remembering, a few characters shake their heads one after the other and walk on. And while they are already walking again one of them says: “ … while I was about to fall asleep I saw two hanged men dangling from one noose …”
    For some time, that is, at least until the audience begins to pay attention, the characters move quietly around the stage like this, with their belt buckles, their collar patches, brooches and rings glinting in the muted light. Then while the chatter gradually subsides, because more and more characters stop talking, one can still hear one of them say: “What, when the pain becomes unbearable you want to simply waste them like animals?” And another replies: “Yes, should animals be any worse off than human beings?” And a little later someone else: “Yes, if I’d defended him at the
trial, he might even have been able to wriggle his way out.”