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A
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. A
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 (A
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 A
One thing's for sure, I can't stick this Adalbert Staffer a single minute longer, declares A
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, A
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 A
Whereupon A
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, A