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The class desert the show, saying: These two professors don't know what they're talking about. They've never copped hold of a cunt or a prick in their lives.
Sophie Pachhofen goes gazelling about the rooms that pong of chalk, hunting in her purse for money to buy the notorious roll for break and a Coke. Envious, A
Rainer digs a fingernail into the palm of his hand. He is so terribly keen to have Sophie. She herself wants it just as badly. She simply won't admit it to herself.
Rainer informs Sophie that he is the beast of prey and she is the prey. Sophie says, I don't get it, what's all this about. Do you fancy coming to play te
Sophie leaves.
Everything gives me the creeps, especially today, says A
As soon as Sophie returns from the grocer's with the salami roll, Rainer will order her to hand it over to him. It will be a trial of wills. There she comes now. Experimentally, adopting a brutal expression, Rainer places a number of fingers on Sophie's jugular. Ouch, are you crazy, there's a whole lot of nerves in the neck that you can kill off unintentionally. Who said anything about unintentionally, says Rainer. I saw it in a French film.
You don't go killing people just because you saw it in a film.
Who knows what I'm capable of, says Rainer. All I know is that I'm capable of inconceivable cruelty and keep a firm grip on myself so that I don't really behave that way.
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As soon as A
Once, when she was still a child, she watched Mummy in the bathtub. Contrary to her usual bathtime practice, Mother was wearing an old pair of white panties, which billowed out like a sail in the water. There were red stains on them. Revolting. A body such as that is simply an appendage to a person, and one that easily spoils. It isn't the main thing. Even though there is a lot you can buy to put inside the body or drape on it. Whenever A
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Sophie slips nimbly past her and heads outside. Into the light. Where it is so light that Sophie no longer stands out, and disappears without trace.
HANS SEPP'S father was in the labour movement, and was killed at Mauthausen concentration camp. As if it had never witnessed such things, the light of the setting sun breaks brightly upon the Kochgasse windows, burning with a greater intensity than it has on leaving the sun. You have to close your blinded eyes for protection against the violence of Nature. The people who live here have experience in turning a blind eye to things.
Across the road there is a little shop selling knitting and sewing equipment. Brightly-coloured yarns and wools on little crocheted doilies; the pointed needles are inside the store. Touched by the things of everyday life, Hans the natural creature enters the council block where he lives with his mother. Obdurately he looks right through the old lady and her daughter (both of them wearing black work smocks); they are serving ladies who do handicraft work at home. Hans's mother does work at home too. In their untidy home she addresses envelopes. It's paid work, mind you.
There is also something natural about the potatoes and oranges and bananas at the greengrocer's. A
His mother also gazes into the reflection of the setting sun. As she does so, her head and heart are occupied with social democracy, which has often been a disappointment to her. If there are many more disappointments she will try the Communists. Where did you get that pullover, Hans? That cashmere wool is a class or two higher than what our budget will run to. Mother sets fire to a thread and can tell from the stench that it's real wool. Hans (returning home from the Elin Union, the firm where he is being trained to be an electrician) promptly informs her that he was given the pullover by his friend Sophie, whose parents are rich. He is still the man and she the woman. And things are going to stay that way. He'll see to that. If you go on like that you'll betray the cause of the workers without realising you're doing it, says Mother. Hans goes into the kitchen, the only room that is heated, and pours a glass of milk so that he will still be able to go in for a lot of sport. He sleeps in a tiny closet, Mother in the cold living room. Screw the working class, long live rock 'n' roll. It's the class you belong to. Not for much longer, if I can help it, I'm going to be a gym teacher or maybe something even better, who knows.