Herz aus Glas

A casual observer will notice that the average filmgoer's attention span is commensurate with the time it takes for a variegated, exciting movie poster (seen from afar) to be approached and understood (seen at arm's length) as yet another ensemble of preposterous gags. Yes, we are all drawn to the gaudy and outlandish – they would hardly exist otherwise – and that brief moment is enough to lead the more impulsive among us to purchase a ticket, download a song, or enter a store with a mission. In a world filled with near-equivalents, we are naturally attracted to what involves an idealized partner, location, or version of ourselves (no nonsensical psychology classes required to come to that conclusion). Thus the least successful advertising campaign, a staunch effort at sabotage, might boast heaping doses of dreariness, ugliness, and mystification. Who would want to see such a film, and, more importantly, who would want to make it? The same small segment of mankind that can appreciate a conceptual endeavor if the images correspond to the motifs. To wit, if from that murky mystery something profound and artistic can be derived, which brings us to this highly unusual production.

Our setting is Germany and our time is around 1800. These details, we note, are gathered simply from the language spoken and the attire worn; nothing in the way of context is afforded the viewer. We begin with a shepherd gazing at some misty cows, then, much more sensationally, at lush hills that appear and disappear as the mist wends around their girths. When a ruthless cataract becomes the camera's subject, a voiceover expresses some pseudo-philosophical concerns ("I begin to feel the cataract. It pulls me down. Death pulls me down"), yet we are still uninformed as to why we're looking at these nature shots at all. After several minutes in slow preamble, our lens focuses and we follow our herdsmen whose name is Hias. Hias is probably short for Matthias, and the basis for this character, as well as for another character called Mühlbeck, may well be this alleged soothsayer (Mühlhiasl and Matthias Stormberger seem to be separate accounts of the same person), the "prophet of the Woods." Whatever one may think of such folk heroes, if one such figure is the cornerstone of your film, you are interested in neither realism nor straightforwardness. And indeed, once Hias retreats to his herd, he is besieged by villagers who claim they have seen a giant. Giants "break our trees and slay our cattle," they lament. "Did you not," he chides them softly, "pay attention to the position of the sun? Otherwise you would have seen that it was the shadow of a dwarf," which is where our film distinguishes itself from many other allegorical tales. Most films would not have gone the extra step and added "dwarf" (the elongated shadow of a normal-sized man would be frightening enough), yet Herzog underscores that what we are watching is not only a nightmare, but a nightmare destined to come true. One day, dwarfs will indeed walk like giants. But for the time being the villagers face a more immediate crisis: the death of Mühlbeck, the glass factory foreman.

Mühlbeck is never shown on-screen, augmenting his legendary status as the only villager privy to the formula of the red glass, the lifeblood of the village's economy. I should say, the lifeblood of the wealth of the factory owners, an unnamed father and son complacent and paranoid in their mansion as the rest of the town drudges through hand-to-mouth squalor. Upon the foreman's death panic strikes the locals, most of whom are employed in the factory. Protracted scenes of attempted glass-blowing and actual craftsmanship remarkable in their simplicity and beauty are interwoven with the melodramatic worries of the nobles. "Will the future see the fall of the factories just as we have understood the ruined fortress as the sign of inevitable change?" the son tells his pint-sized butler, Adalbert. Yes, the butler is a dwarf, and the son claims he will die if the secret of the red glass is not discovered ("I need to put my blood in the Ruby glass or it will trickle away"). The father, whose laugh suggests insanity, has not left his armchair for twelve years, the last time he put on his shoes and inspected the factory and the outside world. With the image of the factory owners more fully defined, it is not difficult to imagine what is really going on, especially after Hias, renowned for his prophecies, states: "Those with smooth hands will all be killed." What is being predicted is an overthrow of the ruling elite – the means of production has literally changed hands – but the villagers seem to be the last people to know. In fact, it would not be surprising if the events in this little isolated hamlet postdated this notorious period, and Hias's visions were both prescient and things of the recent past.

Many critics have detected in Herz aus Glas not only the advent of the French and October Revolutions, but all the future of mankind. While it is not my place to belittle such assumptions, it might be better to restrict our ambition to the era in question: that is to say, the general upheaval, unification, and democratization of nineteenth-century Germany. As such, we could describe some of the minor characters: the lobotomized exhibitionist who seems to live in a convent; the sexually repressed, destructive maid Ludmilla; Mühlbeck's deaf-mute mother, garbed like a Corsican widow, who sees her son's favorite Davenport sofa torn up and restored as the nobles' search team ferrets around for the secret; the two mates, Ascherl and Wudy, who are told by Hias that one will end up dead on top of the other and decide to drink their sorrows and fears away (every time a beer mug is picked up, we assume it will be downed in one gulp); the endless assortment of clownish and clueless extras, some of whom appear to be wearing lipstick. Who are all these characters? Most of them are parodies of standard figures from German folktales, whose heyday is coming to a screeching halt. It may also help to know that Herzog, in an unprecedented move, hypnotized the entire cast apart from Hias. The herdsman then became the sole bastion of reason and, consequently, slightly aloof and disdainful of everyone else ("If nothing changes," he says to them with disgust, "you think it's a blessing"). Since Herzog has a long and vivid history of casting locals with little or no theatrical experience, it is impossible to determine what kind of performances he could have elicited had his charges not been as sleepy-eyed and sluggish. The film's best scene takes place when the sofa is actually delivered to the nobles' house. "I am excited about this letter," the young noble tells Adalbert. He then requests a letter opener, slices open the sofa as if it were a piece of daily correspondence, finds nothing except springs and padding, and declares, "when a letter's words are scrambled, it makes you think." One would hope so. One also wonders what the young nobleman thinks when Hias whispers: "You will never see the sun again and rats will bite your earlobes." And we haven't even mentioned what Hias does to that bear.  

Der Vorleser

Denial is an inconspicuous form of betrayal.

                                                                                                         Michael Berg, The Reader

Towards the middle of the eighteenth century, in prescient view of what was to come by century's end, a new form of art was created that wasn't new at all. The English term for it, which I loathe, is "bourgeois tragedy," a direct calque of the German Bürgerliches Trauerspiel. Although the words quite obviously share a root, bürgerlich ("citizen's," "civil," although also "bourgeois") and Bourgeoisie in German are normally two different things with appropriately divergent associations. For that reason was the new form of art not really about the bourgeoisie per se, it was simply not about the nobility. Gone were the kings, queens, and princes who had dozens of myrmidons and helpers to do their bidding; in their stead came a merchant, a welder, a tailor, characters who hitherto had only been part of the stage props. The result was that the throngs, whose previous portrayals had been exclusively in comedy, were now allowed to suffer. 

And suffer they did. Since that time and the French Revolution we have never stopped championing the underdog, never ceased to praise the simple values of the less privileged strata of society, and currently are more inclined to listen or read or watch a story of humble beginnings (and often ends) than sit through another tedious melodrama about a king and his crown (count me among those completely antipathetic to such drivel). Despite the futile efforts of some frustrated theorists to make the bourgeoisie evil in every language, their middle class habits and middling opinions are the center of commercialized existence and will stay that way for as long as you and I roam this earth (and probably much longer). Our bourgeoisie may be proverbially average, unimaginative, inflexible, and dull, but they are also for the most part quite harmless provided that their view of the world never usurps a more enlightened examination of human affairs. Before I am accused of snobbery, I will say this: the best thing we can do in life is treat everyone the same way. We will love only a few, and we will accord them a special status; but any other soul has as much right to our respect, admiration, and friendship until proven that these are things they do not deserve. Few are they so irredeemably unpleasant or evil as to merit our indifference, indeed, our contempt, and it is much easier to despise those who put their power and money to selfish and destructive use. But let us not overlook those aforementioned myrmidons, the small petty cowards whose actions or inactions led to death just as much as that of their vilified leaders. That question, among many others, is raised in this fine book.

Our hero and narrator is Michael Berg, a native of this German state now in his mid-fifties and, just as importantly, an attorney. But as the book opens in 1958, Berg is fifteen and stricken with jaundice. One day, a wretchedly ill Michael inadvertently becomes the guest of a woman only known as Ms. Schmitz, an almost anonymous name for a citizen without anything better to do than take care of someone else's sick teenager. After making sure he is well enough to leave and sending him on the road homeward, Ms. Schmitz becomes the center of Michael's life in a way he could never have imagined. He returns to thank her and intimacy abetted by loneliness takes its course. Yet theirs is no ordinary relationship, and not only because Michael is fifteen and his lover, whose name is eventually revealed as Hanna, is thirty-six. He loves her not because he knows what that means, but because she has made him into an adult. In other words, his love is really a discovery of his own sexuality. He writes her a poem in the style of this German poet, but the exercise is solely meant for Michael – a studious, almost nerdy lad who worships books and has little to offer the opposite sex except the promise of a great mind (at fifteen, such a promise falls on the deafest of ears) – to experience what lies behind his favorite literary works. Perhaps for that reason, he thinks, is Hanna so keen on listening to him read. 

He reads her book after book as their liaison which begins in the spring as so many do, lasts into the later part of the summer, and they follow a methodical routine of reading, bathing, lovemaking, and eating. Hanna works as a tram conductor, collecting and punching tickets, and says that she has worked dozens of other jobs in her itinerant life. To Michael, who doesn't know any better, this description of her world just makes her seem all the more vulnerable and, eventually, less attractive than some of his coevals whom he now has the sexual confidence to conquer. As the end of summer comes, so fades his connection to Hanna, which he justifies by foisting the responsibility for what happened on her:

I never learned what Hanna did when she wasn't working or when we weren't together. Whenever I would ask, she refused to answer my question. Our lives had no world in common; instead, she made the room for me in her life that she wanted to make.

Their separation is sudden, as are so many details in a book that takes its time to tell what, in the hands of someone other than Schlink, might have been a pithy cautionary tale. And as suddenly as the first part of Michael's life ends – that is, his childhood and innocence – there begins a second existence as a law student at this university where he aids a professor in documenting the trial of a group of middle-aged German women who served as sentries to some unwholesome forces in the 1940s. Among them, of course, is Hanna, and that is where the real story begins.

Numerous motifs intertwine and separate throughout the rest of the novel, but the main non-historical one is the reason why Hanna asked Michael to read aloud for her (which Vorleser means, a significance lost in the English "The Reader") – Hanna cannot read or write herself. A functional illiterate as a metaphor for wartime collaborators? Precisely this point has been made by many critics, as it would appear that only the dumb and uneducated were responsible for the atrocities of the war; yet such an interpretation could not be further from the truth. In the near-endless courtroom scene which in pages lasts almost as long as Michael's childhood, it becomes clear that Hanna's scapegoating is not intended as a font for pity; if anything, it is Michael who has had his memories destroyed by "ugly facts." A more accurate portrayal of the events presented in The Reader would suggest that the political reality of a nation or period can overshadow the smallest and most unimportant of personal details, and that historical tragedies are often reflected on every level of existence, including, most sadly, in the artistic. That said, Schlink, himself an attorney, proffers his readers a wealth of observations on the world and his characters: from the association of Hanna's mole on her shoulder with the mole of the rather unscrupulous driver who loses his temper with Michael, to the detached philosophy of Michael's father (who gives his children office hour appointments like he gives his students), a man devoted to learning and wisdom and somewhat incapable of having a normal conversation unfettered by profound concerns. That the driver's mole, like the mark of Cain, is actually on his temple, should tell you enough about the crimes on his conscience.

As can be expected from such a sensitive subject, there are also a few missteps. For example, chapter thirteen of part two is too self-conscious, too plagued (as it readily admits) by popular culture and its Philistine sensibilities. Yet this is rectified in the following chapter, a brief and harrowing account of indifference, which is indeed the worst thing that has ever happened to the human heart and intellect. And so do we contemplate indifference in its two guises: as the absence of caring or as the human body and mind's ability to heal itself, to overcome, to make do with the present and press on for survival in the future. In general, Schlink also errs when he turns his attention to the broader spectrum: terms like "collective guilt," "fate of the Germans," and a "generation of those who committed crimes, those who looked on, those who looked away, those who tolerated what was happening, and those who accepted it" are revolting clichés that ultimately disparage his book. But when he keeps it personal, when he adheres to the framework of the bourgeois tragedy of Michael and Hanna (to underscore this parallel, Hanna's first theater visit is to see this play), then he succeeds mightily. Some readers will never see past the thick, political implications of the novel, but true artistry is occasionally cloaked in topicality. What Michael recalls is love, love for being a young man in a beautiful country that affords him a myriad of opportunities to explore the world, and love for a woman who shows him the most basic pleasures of human interaction: companionship, laughter, understanding, and physical intimacy. Both ends of this spectrum meet in one lonely shade whom we should not pity, nor really seek to understand. After all, she is far more powerful a force in Michael's heart and mind than in any history book.

Novalis, "Elegie auf einen Kirchhof"

A poem ("Elegy to a churchyard") by this German writer, inspired by this famous work.  You can read the original here.

O churchyard richer than gold hall, 
More precious still than human binds;
Of noble blood you hide the lines,
Of sinners you conceal the fall. 

Drink now the tears to my loves cried,             
Loves resting here and undisturbed;                      
Wherefore went hours to time's sad swerve,          
That all of us in youth allied?                         

To darkling myrtle comes tears' stain   
Which feeds our love and lets it sprout;                     
So green to gird my wilted brow,          
My sounds, which only rendered pain.           

O churchyard borne by tearful leas,   
Of gloomy boy-lost days a friend, 
D'you often hear my hoarse laments, 
As I'm abandoned choicelessly?

Ghosts (Gespenster)

You need not be a parent to understand the concern – the hourly concern – with a child's well-being. These feelings are naturally more acute when the children are younger, more vulnerable, more helpless against the tides of man and machine that conspire to end our days. But they do not abate. If it is true that we always view our children in their eternal innocence, as perfect little mammals and miracles, then we do not rest as they age and take life into their own soft hands. Life is short enough without our worries about someone whose existence we determined and began; life is long enough to hope that they will be healthy, happy, and capable of fulfilling every molecule of their potential. And what if the unthinkable occurs due to our own negligence? What if cutting a corner results not in time regained but hell released? Such is the baleful lot of a character in this film.

We begin in Germany with a handsome, middle-aged fellow in an expensive German car listening to this work. That Bach's cantata treats of affliction, of the endless suffering of those who believe and are not believed in, of those who have lost and can never recover, is not insignificant. But before we can wonder about this man's aims, we are taken to a mildly littered public park and the juvenile delinquents tasked with maintaining Germany's immaculateness. Here we find Nina (Julia Hummer), who does not meet many, if any modern film heroine criteria. She is not attractive, intelligent, self-aware, confident, or interesting; if we were to dub her average, we might insult the greater part of our own populaces. No, Nina's fate is wretched, even if she inhabits arguably the most comfortable of earth's regions. As we first see her, her attention is attracted to something almost out of view: a woman being manhandled by two stronger beings. Our initial impression – which will, in no small irony, turn out to be rather fitting – is of a prisoner herded away by the law's long and persuasive arms. Nina's intuition, however, informs her otherwise, and we follow our joint quarry just out of the camera's view, just around a corner or tree, just enough steps in front of us to prevent identification of what is taking place. Our camera will enjoy this frustrating distance as a vibrant metaphor for our plot, which I cannot wholly conceal, as that renders a review nearly impossible. What we can say is that Nina pursues this trio, finds in the rough a very fake diamond – in this case, an earring – interrupts what might have been a hideous crime, and alters, if for a day or two, her miserable existence. And for a day or two she will have the companionship of Toni (Sabine Timoteo).     

Toni may be the exact opposite of Nina, or she simply may be cloaking her insecurities in masculine bile. Her later actions suggest she has long since accustomed herself to humiliation, subordinance, and dependence; in other words, she is a perfect exemplification of a drug addict. This point is only made implicitly: her homelessness, shoplifting, pathological lies, and flailing power line of sexuality all bespeak terrible thirsts. But it is when we remember the first scene, when two ruffians who might have easily taken her honor take instead a few shots to her ribs, that we recognize the indebted pickpocket or substance abuser. Why doesn't Nina see all this? It is one of the film's finest conceits that Nina – who is neither a genius nor a credulist – does see it. She quickly identifies Toni as trouble yet wants to help her in the way that no one has ever bothered to help a teenage orphan who picks up trash in Berlin parks. Interposed with this Sapphic tale is the errand of Pierre, our opening scene's driver (Aurélien Recoing), which turns out to be the fetching of his wife Françoise (Marianne Basler) from a Berlin sanatorium. Françoise has been very sick for, well, about fifteen years now, when she committed the inexpiable sin of leaving her toddler daughter in a shopping cart for a minute unattended. Common sense screams that no one who really loves her child would ever do this; nevertheless, the warning persists for the unthinkable exception that for every parent is so very thinkable. Since the pain of such a mistake is insuperable, Françoise comes to Berlin more than once every year armed with forensic sketches of what her daughter would look like. Near our film's end, we are shown these sketches as well as the security camera footage from that Berlin supermarket and it curdles our blood. We tremble at the predator's alacrity, as well as at the likelihood that this is what Françoise sees every night when she tries so pathetically to fall asleep. 

How this childless French couple's story intertwines with that of a German orphan will not surprise even the most callow of viewers, but Petzold sees most plots as a contrivance. What matters to him, and should matter to the discerning admirer of his cinema, is how he works almost exclusively from a woman's point of view while avoiding the topoi typically reserved for females (if those subjects do not immediately spring to mind, you are reading the right pages). Perhaps for that very reason were critics not fond of Ghosts, which offers merely what its title promises: lonely strands of spectral existences, figures bound to the belief, as Petzold himself once observed, that "love can bring them back to life." Numerous vignettes show us what exactly these characters will do for love. There is an ex gratia breakfast that ends in tragedy; a remarkable soliloquy at a moment we could not possibly have expected; and a long and beautiful march out of the asylum, with a nurse opening a series of doors, one heavier than the next, then looking back at Françoise with mounting resentment. There also obtains, throughout our film, an equable camera as curious and desperate as the characters it stalks. But strangely enough, the most desperate is not Françoise but Toni. Timoteo's eyes and gait alone say everything she could ever express, and as a dingy, gamblesome, unabashed seducer, if one who must think ahead for her next pillow and meal, she is hypnotic. So when Françoise wrongly identifies the Bachian cantata's conductor as Gardiner, not Richter (as Pierre gently corrects her), should we see any symbolism in the German name's triumph over the Latinate? Or in the fact that Richter is German for judge, both the terrestrial and the heavenly? For some, indeed, there is no end to their affliction.  

Gespräch mit dem Beter

A short story ("Conversation with a Worshipper") by this Czech writer.  You can read the original here.

There was a time when I would go to a church day after day because a girl with whom I had fallen in love would pray there on her knees every evening for half an hour, and during this time I could watch her in peace.

One time, as the girl had not come and I loitered there unwillingly gazing upon the worshippers, I noticed a young man who had prostrated his entire meager self upon the floor. Now and then he would seize his skull with all his bodily force and plummet it sobbing into the palms of his hands which lay spread out upon the stones.

In the church there were only a few old women who would often turn their kerchiefed heads to the side to look at the worshipper. Such attention seemed to make him happy, for before every one of his pious outbreaks he cast his eyes around to determine whether he had a large audience. I found this unbecoming and resolved to speak to him when he walked out of the church as to why he prayed in this manner. Yes, I was annoyed that my girl had not shown up.   

Yet it was an hour before he stood up, carefully crossed himself, and lurched over towards the basin. I placed myself in his path between the basin and the door and knew that I would not let him through without clearing up matters. As I always do while readying myself to speak with determination, I contorted my mouth. I placed my right leg out and leaned on it, while my left foot casually rested upon its toes; this attitude also strengthened my position.

Now it is possible that this man was already peering at me as he sprayed holy water upon his face; perhaps, in fact, he had already noticed me and become concerned because all of a sudden he ran out towards the door. The glass door banged hard. And as I then stepped out of this door right after him, I could not see him since before me stretched a number of small alleyways, all teeming with traffic.   

He did not come by the church for the next few days, but my girl did. She was wearing a black dress with transparent ends on the shoulders – the crescent of the blouse's edge lay beneath them – from whose lower edge the silk descended into a finely made collar. And when the girl arrived I forgot about the young man; nor did I pay him any attention when he started coming back regularly, praying as always according to his own peculiar custom. He would always pass by me in a great rush, his head always averted. Perhaps that was because I always thought of him as being in motion, and so even when he was standing, he seemed to be creeping.   

One time I was delayed in my quarters; nevertheless I still made it to the church. When I got there I did not find the girl and wanted to return home, but then I saw the young man lying there. I recalled our encounter and it made me curious.   

I glided over on my tiptoes towards the door, gave the blind beggar sitting there a coin and hid myself near him behind the open wing of the door. There I sat an entire hour, probably with a cunning look on my face. I felt well there and resolved to come more often. As my second hour began I decided it made little sense to remain beside the beggar. And yet, irate as I was, I nevertheless spent a third hour there, as spiders crawled all over my clothes and the last people, breathing noisily, exited the darkness of the church.   

Then he appeared. He was walking carefully, his feet airily touching the ground before stepping on it fully.

I stood up, took a broad step squarely in his direction and laid my hand upon his collar. "Good evening," I said, and pushed him down the steps onto the well-lit square.   

When we were down on the square he spoke to me in an utterly unfortified voice:

"Good evening, my dear, dear sir. Please do not take umbrage at me; I am, after all, your most humble servant."

"Yes," I said.  "I, sir, want to ask you a few things. The last time around you escaped me; today you will hardly be so lucky."

"I see that you are merciful, sir, and that you will let me go home. I am a pitiable creature, and that is the truth."

"No!" I screamed into the blare of the passing streetcar. "I will not. These are precisely the stories I like. I congratulate myself: you are quite a find." 

Then he said: "Oh God! You have a lively heart and a head made of cinder block. You call me a lucky find, how fortunate then you must be! For my misfortune is unsteady, an unsteady misfortune faltering atop a narrow peak. And if one were to touch it, it would fall upon its head. Good night, sir."

"Alright," I said and held on firmly to his right hand."If you do not answer me, I will start shouting right here in the middle of the street. And all the shop girls running out of the stores and all their lovers looking forward to seeing them will gather because they are going to think that a droshky horse fell over or something like that happened. Then I will show you to the people."

Crying, he kissed both my hands in turn.  "I will tell you what you want to know. But I beg you, we had better go into the side alley over there." I nodded and there we went.

But he was not satisfied with the darkness of the alleyway, lit as it was only by distantly spaced lanterns. So he took me into the first floor entrance of an old house beneath the light of a lamp sagging at the foot of a wooden staircase. With a gesture of importance he took out his handkerchief, spread the handkerchief on a step and said: "Please sit down, my dear sir, so that you may better ask your questions. I will remain standing so that I may better answer. But please do not torture me."

I sat down and spoke, looking at him through a squint: "You're a real loon, aren't you! How you behave yourself in the church! How annoying and unpleasant for onlookers! How can one be forced to look at you and remain devout!"

He had pressed his body against the wall; only his head was moving freely in the air. "Do not be annoyed. Why should you get annoyed over things that do not concern you? I get annoyed when I behave myself clumsily; when another behaves himself badly, however, I am pleased. So do not get annoyed when I say that the aim of my life is to be looked upon by others." 

"What are you saying?" I called out, a bit too loudly for the first floor, but I was afraid to have my voice sound weak. "Really, what did you say?  Yes, I suspect, that is to say, I already suspected, since I saw you that first time, in what condition you would be. I have experience and I'm not joking when I say that this is a seasickness on dry land. Its nature is such that you have forgotten the true names of things, and in your haste bestow upon them random names. Rush, rush, rush! But hardly have you escaped them than you've forgotten their names again. The poplar in the fields which you called the 'Tower of Babel' because you didn't know or didn't want to know that it was a poplar, sways namelessly again, and you would then have to call it 'Noah, when he was intoxicated.'"      

I was a bit dismayed when he said: "I'm happy that I did not understand what you said."

Excited, I said quickly: "The fact that you are happy about it means you understood."

"Of course, my dear sir, I showed I have; but you also spoke quite strangely."

I laid my hands on one of the upper steps, leaned back and asked in this almost unassailable stance, which is the last resort of the wrestler: "You have a funny way of saving yourself: you assume that others have your condition as well."

Here he became bolder. He placed his hands together to give his body a wholeness and said with mild reluctance: "No, I do not do that against everyone, for example not against you, because I cannot. But I would be glad if I could, because then I would not have any need for the attention of those churchgoers. Do you know why I need it?"   

This question led to my awkward silence. Surely, I did not know why; I also believed that I did not want to know. I hadn't even wanted to come here, I said to myself then, but the fellow had forced me to listen to him. So now I only needed to shake my head to show him that I didn't know.  And yet for the life of me I couldn't move my head. 

The man standing across from me smiled.  Then he crouched down on his knees and began to talk with a sleepy expression: "There was never a time in which I was convinced of the life I had.  As it were, I comprehend things in notions so decrepit that I always think these things had once lived but now they are sinking.  Always, dear sir, do I want to see things the way they might be instead of the way they appear.  So do they become beautiful and calm.  It must be so, because I often hear people speaking about them in such a manner."

Since I was silent and only revealed my discomfort through uncontrolled contortions in my face, he asked: "You don't believe that people talk that way?" 

I thought I must have nodded, but I couldn't.

"You really don't think so?  Now you had better listen: when I as a child opened my eyes after a short midday nap, I heard – even though I was still mired in sleep – my mother ask in her natural speaking voice from the balcony below: 'What are you doing, sweetheart?  It's so hot.'  A woman answered: 'I'm have a snack out here on the lawn.'  She said it without hesitating and not very clearly, as if it were to be expected by everybody."

I thought I was being asked, so I reached for the back pocket of my pants as if I were looking for something there.  But I wasn't looking for anything; I only wanted to change my appearance to indicate my participation in our talk.  So here I said that this event was rather remarkable and that I could not understand it at all.  I added that I did not believe it was true and that it must have been invented with a particular aim in mind – which for the moment I did not see.  Then I closed my eyes because they hurt.     

"Oh, it's good that you share my opinion, and it was rather nice on your part that you interrupted me to tell me that. 

"Now really, why should I be ashamed – or why should we be ashamed – that I walk arduously and not upright, that I do not tap my stick on the pavement and graze the clothes of noisy passers-by. Perhaps it would be more appropriate if I defiantly complained that I bound along the houses with my narrow shoulders like a shadow, sometimes even disappearing into the panes of the store windows.

"What kind of days are these that I spend! Why is everything so poorly constructed that sometimes tall buildings collapse without our ever finding an outward explanation? I climb over the piles of debris and ask everyone I meet: 'How could this happen! In our city – a new house – that is already the fifth one today – just think about it.' And no one can answer me.

"People often fall down in the middle of the street and lie there dead. Then all the shopkeepers open their doors draped with goods, come by swiftly and take the dead person into a house, come back out smiling with both their mouth and eyes, and say: 'Good day – It's overcast – I sell a lot of handkerchiefs – yes, yes, the war.' I go inside and after timidly waving my hands numerous times I finally knock on the caretaker's window. 'My good man,' I say amicably, 'a dead person was brought to you.  Please show him to me, I beg you.' And as he shakes his head as if he can't make up his mind, I say in a resolute tone: 'My good man, I am an undercover police officer. Show me the dead person immediately.' 'A dead person?' he then asks, almost offended. 'No, we have no dead person here. This is a respectable house.' I pay my regards and leave.

"And yet whenever I have to traverse a large square, I forget everything. The difficulty of such an endeavor confuses me and I often think to myself: 'If one built these huge squares in a fit of immense courage, why don't we also erect a stone railing that could lead one through the square? Today there is a wind from the southwest. The air in the square is agitated. The city hall spire seems to be tracing small circles. Why don't we bring peace and quiet to the throngs? All the window panes rattle and all the lantern poles droop like bamboo. The stormy air is tearing at the shroud of the Virgin Mary wrapped around the column. Does no one see this? The gentlemen and ladies who are supposed to walk on these stones float. When the wind catches its breath, they stand still, exchange a few words, and bow to one another in greeting, but the wind keeps pushing and they cannot resist the wind, and all of them simultaneously raise their steps to go. They literally need to hold on to their hats, and yet their eyes seem amused, as if this were only mild weather. Only I am afraid.'"

Mistreated as I was, I said:"The story that you told me earlier about your dear mother and the woman in the garden I do not find remarkable or odd. Not only because I have heard and experienced many such stories, but also because I have even taken part in many of them. This matter is quite self-evident. Do you mean to say that had I been on the balcony I wouldn't have been able to say the same thing or reply from the garden in the same manner? A very simple case."

As I said that, he seemed very content. He said that I was dressed very well and that he particularly liked my necktie. And what fine skin I had! And confessions will always be the most clear when they are remembered.