Wonderful Wonderful Times

Mother finds consolation and help in religion, in her difficult situation as breeder and household manager. Papa tolerates this without comment, even though the Lord is a man too, as the word implies. He'd better not get too close to Mother, hadn't the Lord. She's the one who is forever chasing after Him.

Rainer never thinks of those filthy photos which apparently exist, though according to his sources they are photos strange men took of his mother. The fact vanished from Rainer's head as fast as it had entered it. Supposedly there are close-up shots of genitals too. What you don't see doesn't exist.

The stewed apple is eaten up by Papa almost single-handed, though it's the children who are still growing and Papa has finished growing, indeed he has already been maimed. Mummy doesn't get any at all. After all, she was the one who made it.

Outside, some stupid clouds or other are massing and will spill all any minute. Right into an everyday evening.

The twins leave the farmhouse parlour with their arms tightly round each other and enter the world of the music that sounds forth from the record player, the artist is the very opposite of the farmer who has a parlour like that at home. A

THE CAFE IS a typical grammar school kids' cafe. So a large number of grammar school kids are there. They are discussing religious or philosophical topics. Schoolgirls go to mass with jazz music, throw their first parties, and after a lovely concert of church music bestow their first kiss. A grammar school boy seated at a marble-topped table tells the person sitting opposite him that the time may be right for their friendship, their first fleeting acquaintance, to become something else – the grammar school girl still describes the two of them as chums, which strikes the grammar school boy as reticence of an incomprehensible order. Somehow he senses that that is exactly what might endow their relationship with a quality of permanence, though, and he says it out loud. At that party last Thursday he was aware of it, too, the schoolboy says in low, soft tones. And so the pleasure he takes in symbols that can express with such marvellous directness what words can never say is all the greater.

Hans listens to this foreign-language dialogue and scans the pastel-coloured ice creams, squeezed-out tea-bags and pots of hot chocolate. But he promptly withdraws his gaze in alarm on realising that no one wants it.

Presently the schoolboy says to the schoolgirl: Not even the ca

Hans wonders: What does 'ca

The schoolgirl says that she is looking forward to the holidays and that the great day of her first ball must have been under a lucky star because it was such an exciting evening, I have good memories of it from the start to the very last moment. We were dancing and everything seemed so sparkling and beautiful. The two young pupils confuse the various past tenses; and though they constantly have to make use of them, they still remain as new in their mouths.

Hans also hears that the fellow at the next table, who doubtless has no idea what a real man has to be capable of, went skiing in the Otztal Alps. His thoughts were with the schoolgirl beside him a great deal, as they always are when he is in the mountains. The co

Hans wants to order a beer and another one later and yet another, but Sophie has already ordered a coffee and a cognac for him. Sophie's soft silence nestless into her dark pleated skirt and dark pullover. Hans is silent too, in her brother's expensive gear. All around him I

Prater Park dappled with sunshine in the first light of day, the wet grass, the wet leaves, the thrill of getting up really early for once, the horse's neck nodding, a fine spray of powder snow, the swish of steel ru

Hans wants to try a huge gateau with buttercream like that some time, but Sophie imposes her veto. He is not allowed to booze and then sing hollodero or spit at people either.

Thrilling car trips with elder siblings acting as chauffeur, Father gave them a little car as a present when they passed their school-leaving exams and later he'll give you one too. Evenings of music played en famille in a wood-panelled room, Father playing cello, Mother (who is a doctor) playing piano, the siblings playing flute or violin, loved silly by their parents. New Year's Eve at the Semmering house, the youngsters laughing and giggling and kissing as the provisions the merry party need are lugged up to the house, which has about as much in common with work as a carwash has with a blast furnace, how dearly, how very dearly Hans would like to carry loads far heavier still, so heavy that everyone would marvel at him. The itch to travel. To head off to the romantic old monastery and take part in spiritual exercises at Whitsuntide, to find what you have lost, and subsequently say it is impossible to describe that Whitsun atmosphere. They often say it is impossible to convey an atmosphere in words but they use an incredible lot of words to say so, words you wouldn't think anybody had ever heard of, but they are familiar with every one of them. Whitsuntide, says the youth, who is already a student, Pentecost, it suggests strength, the Holy Spirit – or is there perhaps something else to it?

Hans pricks up his ears and lays them back because there is undoubtedly something else to it.

Love of a young girl, for instance? Judging by the sheer radiant power of the experience, it ca

Now Hans is permitted an ice cream after all, and he splats about excitedly with his spoon in the unfamiliar pinkgreenandbrown slush, piggy that he is. Aren't I a mucky pup, demands Hans, and Sophie smiles. And now I'd really like a piece of chocolate cake. You'll be sick (Sophie). Nobody has ever seen Sophie eat, but she must do so because she still carries herself upright and walks about and uses up calories.

Birthday parties where everyone loves everyone else and minor quarrels only serve to make that love even deeper, rather than eating it away like nitric acid. A cool church, words spoken freely but not too freely, the sounds of guitars playing, the togetherness of a group of people that are as one, afterwards we have to take our leave of Father Clemens. Alas! Slide shows that are both interesting and fun. Walks on clear starry evenings, on your own land or on land adjoining your own. Something that represents a new begi