Read Online The Snowman by Jörg Fauser - Free Book Online

originality of the production line, the cog-wheels of psychic impoverishment. All demolished overnight, over and done with – as if I wasn’t being ground down by those cogwheels myself. Is that bottle empty? If you don’t know where to spend the night there’s still a corner free in Prince Gorki’s potato cellar . . .”
    Shortly after midnight Blum noticed some of the scroungers filling their coat pockets with leftovers from the cold buffet. I could use a man like you, Mr Blum . Oh, children, children. He left his corner and went on exploring the house. If he couldn’t find any buyers he might at least look for a woman.
    A shaven-headed character in a shimmering silk shirt was now squatting in the room where the two men had been playing chess, a snake around his neck. Three incense candles were burning, and in the sultry haze above a mattress three sari-clad women were holding hands and uttering throaty sounds at rhythmic intervals, with their eyes closed:
    â€œAwawawa – ah!”
    â€œUlulululu – uh!”
    A film projector was whirring in a large, darkened room. The film was black and white and taken without artificial lighting, but the images left no doubt about the action: a woman was being torn apart by three bloodhounds while a naked man masturbated. The audience did not seem happy with the film.
    â€œAesthetically it leaves much to be desired,” explained a man with a Wagnerian quiff of hair. “You don’t show people suffering unless art permeates every moment of that suffering as the immanent will towards an aesthetic.”
    In the kitchen a man in a cardigan and brogues was eating pea soup, and the hostess of the party – now wearing a severely cut riding outfit – was saying, “I do hope you’re all having a good time. My husband hopes so too, don’t you, darling?”
    â€œNo,” said the man in the cardigan, fishing a piece of pork out of his soup. “I hate the cinema, I hate art. Joseph Goebbels was 100 per cent right: when he heard the word culture, he reached for his gun. Unfortunately I don’t have one or I’d mow you all down.”
    â€œThe critics misunderstood his last novel so badly,” explained the writer’s wife.
    â€œThey understood it perfectly well,” said the man, with his mouth full. A pea rolled down his chin.
    Blum found himself beside a small, slim woman with long, dark hair who was gazing sadly at the writer. She wore a long dress that emphasized her slender figure. Blum pressed a glass of champagne into her hand, which had a wedding ring on it. She took the glass and smiled at him, surprised.
    â€œCome along,” said Blum, “and I’ll show you something.”
    They went out into the hall and found a place to sit beside a lesbian couple.
    â€œHe was once so gifted,” said the woman, “and now all this wretched stuff. Why do they go to the bad so quickly, can you tell me?”
    She looked at Blum as if his answer really interested her. Blum nodded, like a man who asks himself such questions on a daily basis.
    â€œOne never tires of talent. He delivered the goods by the yard, made a killing and then gorged on it.”
    â€œYou say that very certainly.”
    â€œSomething wrong with it?”
    â€œNo, probably not. What about you?”
    â€œOh, I’m in another line entirely.”
    He produced the tube and opened it. He had not been wrong. She knew what it was and took a pinch at once.
    â€œThat’s great,” she said. “So are you the character who has so much of it and is selling for cash only?”
    â€œWas your husband one of those men in dinner jackets?”
    â€œMy husband’s in a monastery in Thailand.”
    â€œGood heavens, what’s he doing there?”
    â€œI imagine he’s looking for himself. Perhaps he’s looking for me too. Or for a cure for hay fever. You know, you’re not at all the type to