Read Online Greed by Elfriede Jelinek - Free Book Online Page B

non-aggressive gentle nature, in prison the man preferred to wear pantyhose, perhaps so that in future he is better able to put himself in the position of women, this gentleman who is dead now. If he has relatives who believe in him and who are fond of him, then unfortunately it's my turn.
    The women stick out in their fragrant soft-rinsed wool, as if they were the main thing and had nothing but success with men, when they, nicely garnished with pullovers, T-shirts and scarf, success guaranteed, serve themselves up free of charge. In fact they are at best the dessert, if there's still room for it in the gentleman's stomach. That's something they don't know. Why do they feed the murderers like that? In their place at table I wouldn't have done it, I would rather have bought myself a dog, given how grateful animals are, more grateful than a man we know. I don't understand any of it. I imagine: Murderers exert a gentle hypnosis, some investigate and analyze their future victim for months. They take the trouble to attach concrete rings to them, and sink ring and victim in the nearest river. A human being is only absorbant cotton, a vacuum. If he's lucky the murderer gets a new notion of the essence of human beings, an advantage for him, which we writers will find difficult to catch up with. They are sand, human beings, there are as many as there are grains of sand on the shore. Well, I don't know… Hardly has he killed someone than new victims come running up, they even come shooting over from neighboring countries. (There are whores in Vienna, Lower Austria, Burgenland, the Czech Republic, and California, and everywhere they are throttled in a singular way with their own underwear. Mr. U., a man with whom I personally have corresponded on human and political questions, prompted it and, when he saw that he was the only man within a considerable radius and women were nothing but dirt, well then he took care of them himself, affronted by their glances because they weren't aristocrats, who would have made a better match for him. How could I have known that? Nevertheless, he didn't charm my soul, in contrast to the souls of others.) Here comes another one, I can hardly follow her, she's twenty years older than young Mr. L., a quite different case, an envious type who's a bodybuilder today and in this way has at last created an entirely new body for himself, has become another in the truest sense of the word, so Mr. L., exactly, he shot his cousin, girlfriend and her mommy full in the face with his pump-action gun, but they didn't need their faces after that anyway. Mr. L. couldn't build himself a new face, he's only grown older, as we all have. Where will it end? And now here comes a woman from Germany, who could be a substitute mother for the culprit, but would rather be his only lover, because there aren't so many places where there are no possibilities of comparison, and here she has found just such a place. It's the prison, it's the special penitentiary for almost broken lawbreakers. That's how the women imagine it: for once a man whom it's worth lifting up to themselves! And then careful you don't drop him! I fear you'll rupture yourself like that. First of all, however, thoroughly martyred by the culprit's ability to stay cool. How one longs for the rare tender moments when the core mantle melts and the sweet center of marzipan and nougat is revealed: highly explosive, I can tell you! Try a Mozartkugel, you'll soon see the difference. At least this motherly woman, with whom truth to tell the young man finds it a bit dull sometimes, is still alive. A close shave, he's still inside, safe inside. Basically this woman never talks about anything except herself, and the one listening to her can for his part talk to no one else, apart from ninety-five other women pen pals, about whom, however, the woman knows nothing. The murderer only wants to get out, which surprises no one, who knows the culprit a bit and the women who are always