Wonderful, Wonderful Times

Wonderful, Wonderful Times by Elfriede Jelinek Page A

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Authors: Elfriede Jelinek
Tags: Fiction, General
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Then the wind caresses horse and rider alike and the fresh air dispels bad or restless moods. You shouldn't rest in a breeze such as that or you'll rust.
    But Evil prefers places that are sheltered from the wind. Pale young softies would rather seek out the seclusion of cellar bars, and out there, in the light of day, you can help blind people cross the road or stroke the doggies.
    What's the racket, Witkowski one and two, would you kindly keep quiet or do you want a mark against your names in the register? No, you needn't bother with the register, just record your own blunders
    in your own private notebook. I bet something goes wrong every week. Your breath smells, your complexion's an ugly grey and your ankles are thick, Frau Professor (Anna.)
    Stifter benevolently hammers away like a woodpecker at his theme of the sheen of radiant air and wonderful April clouds shot through with occasional rays of sun and the beautiful green strips of winter seed pricking up, he'd have been better getting his prick up somewhere else, says Rainer, casting Sophie a sidelong glance as he snarls and snorts.
    Anna suggests roping in Hans Sepp, whom she only recently met at a jazz club, to commit a crime or two with them. He would make an ideal tool, and anyway, he ought to quit the working class milieu he's in. In public life, somebody is always getting a hold on some relatively helpless person, in factories, in offices, in one way or another. At the Elin Union they're urging him to mess about with heavy current. Presumably his life is constantly at risk. Current kills cleanly and unexpectedly. And likes killing. It gives no warning. It strikes out of the blue. The humiliated worker sees a great many others at work who are in the same boat, and solidarity with them is inevitable. And that solidarity gives him a strength he is not supposed to have in Rainer's gang because Rainer is and ever shall be the leader—it was his idea. Wherever Hans looks, he mustn't see any other workers like himself. Wherever it may be, he must see us alone. He is destined to become a receiver of messages, reprimands, orders, encouragement.
    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

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