Mother Night

25: The Answer to Communism ...

Resi and I dawdled on our way back to my ratty attic, looked at furniture, drank here and there.

Resi went to the ladies' room in one bar, leaving me alone. A barfly started talking to me.

'You know what the answer to communism is?' he asked me.

'Nope,' I said.

'Moral Rearmament,' he said.

'What the hell is that?' I said.

'It's a movement,' he said.

'In what direction?' I said.

'That Moral Rearmament movement,' he said, 'believes in absolute honesty, absolute purity, absolute unselfishness, and absolute love.'

'I certainly wish them all the luck in the world,' I said.

In another bar, Resi and I met a man who claimed he could satisfy, thoroughly satisfy, seven women in a night, provided they were all different

'I mean really different,' he said.

Oh, God — the lives people try to lead.

Oh, God — what a world they try to lead them in.