Read Online Wonderful, Wonderful Times by Elfriede Jelinek - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Elfriede Jelinek
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doing just now, she's opening a packet of biscuits, his favourite, chocolate-covered kind. Rainer gobbles like an idiot. The most powerful urge known to Man is the urge to be free of manual labour. Any means that accomplishes that end is fine. Some people erroneously imagine that they have a birthright to non-manual work. Rainer thinks Hans thinks that way. Because at irregular intervals Hans says that the only thing Nature means to him is leisure, which is a positive value. In his leisure time he goes off into Nature. I agree (Sophie), in my free time I'm out in Nature almost all the time as well, that's where to look if you need me.
I'd like to change my job some time, it doesn't satisfy me, I want to become a gym teacher. Feel my muscles, Sophie, I'm building them up just for you, they get worked on every day. When I'm out in Nature I unfortunately still have to keep to the marked public paths, but as soon as I'm good at climbing I can venture off on unmarked paths and pick one edelweiss after another. Rainer avoids Nature whenever he stumbles across it. He gets out of gym classes whenever he can, pleading sickness and debility. Father mustn't know of this. Mummy writes a note for him. Sophie says that it's too bad, public places are increasingly being messed up with paper and worse, the more average people (who invariably dump their muck) go off into Nature. It is a new problem, one which is harming the environment. In the old days people had no time to harm the environment because they were busy doing harm to themselves, in the War, for instance.
Rainer: Hey, Sophie, I've written another poem, another new one about you.
Sophie: It's really the only way you stand out from the masses. Because you don't have the material means to stand out from the masses. Which naturally you'd infinitely prefer. Rainer: You really make me sick today. Money! Yuck. People's minds are independent of their worries about their daily bread. For instance, the upper strata of society often lack the necessary intelligence, whereas ordinary people can sometimes be very bright. The two things are totally unrelated.
In Hans's opinion, all that counts is a person's essential nature. You have to refine your character, Hans would like to go into a longer explanation of this, since it is intrinsically difficult for him. But alas, now Sophie sends him off to repair the record player, because for some unfathomable reason it is not working. Doubtless she thinks every kind of electric current is the same. And he would dearly like to join in the talk and profit by it. Who can say what he mightn't be able to put to use later, when he's a gym teacher! You have to think of the future too. The future is not heavy current. Rainer expounds the beauty of violence. Feeling bones and knuckles break, sinews and tendons rip and tear, taut skin burst. Or even making these things happen. He also declares that they are going to be redoing their home soon, with period furniture imported from France.
You and your fear of contact, you can't even offer someone your hand or look into someone's eyes without being embarrassed, says Sophie, and she dodges Rainer just as he is offering her an unembarrassed hand, to stroke her or paw her some other way. Sophie is well practised at dodging Rainer. Leave me alone, why do you always have to be groping me? People use their mouths to talk, not their hands.
But they kiss with their mouths, Sophie, dearest. The urge is overwhelming.
Hans immediately replies that he's far stronger, wanna bet? And look, the twerp really is reaching out his arm for a bout of arm-wrestling to prove it. However, the grammar school boy with his scrawny arm merely gives him a disgusted look. Pity, says Hans's expression, so much for the trial of strength we were looking forward to. Strength Hans certainly has. Enough for several men. What does he train for, for hours on end? For nothing, since no one recognises his achievement.
Sophie is silent. Anna is
I'd like to change my job some time, it doesn't satisfy me, I want to become a gym teacher. Feel my muscles, Sophie, I'm building them up just for you, they get worked on every day. When I'm out in Nature I unfortunately still have to keep to the marked public paths, but as soon as I'm good at climbing I can venture off on unmarked paths and pick one edelweiss after another. Rainer avoids Nature whenever he stumbles across it. He gets out of gym classes whenever he can, pleading sickness and debility. Father mustn't know of this. Mummy writes a note for him. Sophie says that it's too bad, public places are increasingly being messed up with paper and worse, the more average people (who invariably dump their muck) go off into Nature. It is a new problem, one which is harming the environment. In the old days people had no time to harm the environment because they were busy doing harm to themselves, in the War, for instance.
Rainer: Hey, Sophie, I've written another poem, another new one about you.
Sophie: It's really the only way you stand out from the masses. Because you don't have the material means to stand out from the masses. Which naturally you'd infinitely prefer. Rainer: You really make me sick today. Money! Yuck. People's minds are independent of their worries about their daily bread. For instance, the upper strata of society often lack the necessary intelligence, whereas ordinary people can sometimes be very bright. The two things are totally unrelated.
In Hans's opinion, all that counts is a person's essential nature. You have to refine your character, Hans would like to go into a longer explanation of this, since it is intrinsically difficult for him. But alas, now Sophie sends him off to repair the record player, because for some unfathomable reason it is not working. Doubtless she thinks every kind of electric current is the same. And he would dearly like to join in the talk and profit by it. Who can say what he mightn't be able to put to use later, when he's a gym teacher! You have to think of the future too. The future is not heavy current. Rainer expounds the beauty of violence. Feeling bones and knuckles break, sinews and tendons rip and tear, taut skin burst. Or even making these things happen. He also declares that they are going to be redoing their home soon, with period furniture imported from France.
You and your fear of contact, you can't even offer someone your hand or look into someone's eyes without being embarrassed, says Sophie, and she dodges Rainer just as he is offering her an unembarrassed hand, to stroke her or paw her some other way. Sophie is well practised at dodging Rainer. Leave me alone, why do you always have to be groping me? People use their mouths to talk, not their hands.
But they kiss with their mouths, Sophie, dearest. The urge is overwhelming.
Hans immediately replies that he's far stronger, wanna bet? And look, the twerp really is reaching out his arm for a bout of arm-wrestling to prove it. However, the grammar school boy with his scrawny arm merely gives him a disgusted look. Pity, says Hans's expression, so much for the trial of strength we were looking forward to. Strength Hans certainly has. Enough for several men. What does he train for, for hours on end? For nothing, since no one recognises his achievement.
Sophie is silent. Anna is
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