Read Online The Ride Across Lake Constance and Other Plays by Peter Handke - Free Book Online

. JANNINGS points at the cigar box. GEORGE misunderstands the gesture and looks as if there was something to see on the box . JANNINGS agrees to the misunderstanding and now points as if he really wanted to point out something .) That blue sky you see on the label, my dear fellow, it really exists there.
    Â 
    GEORGE
    ( Bends down to the cigar box, takes it, looks at it .) You’re right! ( He puts the box back on the floor and straightens up .)
    Â 
    JANNINGS
    You’re standing …

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    GEORGE
    ( Interrupts him .) I can also sit down. ( He sits down in the fauteuil with the smaller footstool and makes himself comfortable .) What did you want to say?
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    JANNINGS
    â€œYou’re standing just now: would you be kind enough to hand me the cigar box from the floor?”
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    ( Pause .)
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    GEORGE
    You were dreaming?
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    JANNINGS
    When the nights were especially long, in winter.
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    GEORGE
    You must be dreaming.
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    JANNINGS
    Once, on a winter evening, I was sitting with someone in a restaurant. As I said, it was evening, we sat by the window and were talking about a corpse; about a suicide who had leaped into the river. Outside, it rained. We held the menus in our hands. “Don’t look to the right!” (GEORGE quickly looks to the left, then to the right .) shouted the person opposite me. I looked to the right: but there was no corpse. Besides, my friend had meant I should not look on the right page of the menu because that was where the prices were marked. ( Pause .) How do you like the story?
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    GEORGE
    So it was only a story?
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    ( Pause .)

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    JANNINGS
    When one tells it, it seems like that to oneself.
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    GEORGE
    Like a story? (JANNINGS nods. Pause. Then he slowly shakes his hedd .) So you’re wrong after all. Then it’s true what you told me?
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    JANNINGS
    I’m just wondering.
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    ( Pause .)
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    GEORGE
    And how did it go on?
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    JANNINGS
    We ordered kidneys flambé.
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    GEORGE
    And you got them?
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    JANNINGS
    Of course.
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    GEORGE
    And asked for the check and got it?
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    JANNINGS
    Naturally.
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    GEORGE
    And asked for the coats and got them?
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    JANNINGS
    Why the coats?

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    GEORGE
    Because it was a winter evening.
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    JANNINGS
    ( Relieved ) Of course.
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    GEORGE
    And then?
    Â 
    Â 
    JANNINGS
    We went home.
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    ( Both laugh with relief. Pause .)
    GEORGE
    Only one thing I don’t understand. Of what significance is the winter evening to the story? There was no need to mention it, was there? (JANNINGS closes his eyes and thinks .) Are you asleep?
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    JANNINGS
    ( Opens his eyes .) Yes, that was it! You asked me whether I was dreaming and I told you how long I sleep during winter nights and that I then begin to dream toward morning, and as an example I wanted to tell you a dream that might occur during a winter night.
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    GEORGE
    Might occur?
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    JANNINGS
    I invented the dream. As I said, it was only an example. The sort of thing that goes through one’s head … As I said—a story …
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    GEORGE
    But the kidneys flambé?

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    JANNINGS
    Have you ever had kidneys flambé?
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    GEORGE
    No. Not that I know.
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    JANNINGS
    If you don’t know, then you haven’t had them.
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    GEORGE
    No.
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    JANNINGS
    You’re disagreeing with me?
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    GEORGE
    Yes, that is: no. That is: yes, I agree with you.
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    JANNINGS
    In other words, when you mention kidneys flambé, you talk about something you know nothing about.
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    GEORGE
    That’s what I wanted to say.
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    JANNINGS
    And about something one doesn’t know, one shouldn’t talk, isn’t that so?
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    GEORGE
    Indeed.
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    (JANNING makes the appropriate gesture with his hand, turning up his palm in the process. GEORGE stares at it, and under the impression that GEORGE has found something on the palm JANNINGS leaves it like that. The hand now looks as
if it is waiting for something; say, for the