Wonderful Wonderful Times

They leave the proper path and, in their usual way, scramble up higgledy-piggledy. Anna stumbles along behind the ill-matched couple. In her brother's eyes they are a well-matched couple, but her brother is the only one who thinks so. He keeps up with Sophie, making an effort. It costs Anna, who is unfit, an even greater effort. To think what a lot of sport people in America go in for. There's not much time left till then. Sophie is simply Sophie. Anna reaches out one tentative hand, then a second, to gain a hold, but she can't get a grip and almost plunges into the void, for she had overlooked the edge of a quarry. Three buzzards are circling high overhead. Or are they hawks. They utter shrill cries. Rainer has certain sensations on seeing this natural landscape which has already been changed by Man's shaping hand and he gives a detailed account of them. Anna asks in a hoarse croak if they oughtn't to sit down. You're totally unfit, says Sophie, but go on, sit down. Anna would like to go underground in America, to get to know a life different from the one she's already familiar with and start a new one. With the big pond between herself and her parents. And a lot of land too. She knows it's her only chance. She got the good grades for it. Since the mood as they sit there is so friendly, she tries to describe her America plans in detail, including plans for stays in sundry American cities, which she wants to pay for herself by working. She has already worked out an exact itinerary and is only waiting for a definite go-ahead. Today Rainer feels a sort of brotherly affection when he considers his sister, as she displays this unusual enthusiasm in front of Sophie, bright Sophie, like an animal displaying the prey it's killed. For one brief moment he feels that Anna and himself, together, are a wall that Sophie cannot penetrate. But the moment quickly passes. Sophie kicks at the wine-producing slope with the toe of her shoe, again and again, because she needn't care about the state her shoes are in, and abruptly announces that a short time ago their form teacher phoned up Sophiemother to ask if she (Sophie) mightn't like to go to America next year since a scholarship was available. She doesn't want to and she considers it kind of unfair, seeing that Anna's grades are better. But it seems you have to be capable of especially good behaviour when you're abroad because nobody knows you or where you come from. So they decide on a basis of background, which is totally absurd in a levelled, classless country like America, with its liberal-minded, permissive people. But that's the only reason Sophie can think of. Why she was chosen and not Anna.

The latter falls silent, horrified. Which has long been one of her favourite habits. And even Rainer shifts down a gear and asks if Anna can't have the scholarship if Sophie's declining it anyway. Sophie says no, she asked that too, but they're going to let it lapse this year since there isn't a worthy candidate. Rainer says it's a pity about that nice scholarship. But what he is really thinking is: Thank God Sophie's not going away, now we'll still be a couple and will be able to start university together.

Death is in Anna's white eyes. They become totally transparent, and the cold pours forth from the depths like liquid oxygen. She sinks back. None of the beauty of the landscape can reach her pupils any more. The news has struck Anna dead. The tempting prospect of escape abroad recedes forever. Anna hits her forehead with her fist, but nothing comes out and nothing goes in either.

The Vienna Lovers, with the babbling brook below them and God amidst the violins above them, do not notice this. They do not even notice that this love only travels from Rainer to Sophie and does not make the return trip. Rainer is about to give a brief report on the aforementioned love, or even to slip an arm round Sophie, beside whom he is standing on the brink of the precipice, where vines planted with utter regularity are growing, a synthesis of Art and Nature, Nature being the vine and Art the method of planting, when Sophie says that you have to get out of yourself, beside yourself, beyond, because you're normally in yourself, all the time. And she spreads two sheepswoolpulloverarms.

What you're also in is my heart, coos Rainer.

Anna eyes a busy beetle and stamps on it.

Don't kill creatures, listen to me, admonishes Sophie, because I want to go for the record, I want to hit my limits as fast as I can, for instance by making a bomb. I know the ingredients, I asked my mother the scientist, the chemist.

Anna is far away, Rainer is closer to the loved one and feels himself filling his trousers in panic. He says: Sophie, final exams aren't far off, don't you think we should do it afterwards, so we don't get expelled if they found out, or don't you think it'd be better not to do it at all? Sophie asks if he's scared.

Rainer says: No, I want to know my limits too, but they're somewhere completely different, in an artistic direction.

Anna says nothing. She also crushes three ants underfoot (one of them busy carrying something, the scrap of worm-or whatever it is-is also turned to fricassee by Anna's sole) plus her own bleeding heart, though that belongs to Hans. They have done enough damage to other people's property by now, and to other people.

Rainer says: Look, honest, I'm not scared, but I don't think it's smart to try something like that with so little time to go before our school-leaving exams, which will entitle us to take any course of study we want.

Sophie says: Down, boy, and listen. We'll have to make it out in the open, of course, so that it blows strangers up, not us, right? Okay so far. You need a broad-necked Erlenmayer retort, the big kind that takes about 500 millilitres. Next, you need two test-tubes, one filled with volatile nitric acid, the other with a 1:1 mixture of potassium chlorate and sugar. Is that clear?

Rainer says it's clear all right but in all probability he won't do it because in his opinion the best time of his life is shortly to begin, student days, which I'm not going to ruin by throwing bombs, I'm not crazy, and anyway you're only joking really. It's not in your nature. It would definitely be in my nature but I'm not going to do it because I'm staying calm and sensible and in future I'm going to be calm and sensible on your behalf as well. What is more, Love is a far mightier explosion in a body than any bomb, it's a dazzling flash straight out of Nature. As you are no doubt aware, you have been in love with me for a long time, even if you aren't admitting it to yourself.

Anna damages an object, to be exact: a vine, by peeling strips off the stem.

Then (Sophie drags on) the two test tubes have to be inserted into the retort, which you have filled with ether, in such a way that their bases touch the floor of the retort. The test tubes are stoppered, and they and the retort are then sealed with wax.

The delightful environs of Vienna are piercing Anna like a white-hot drill, there is no rear wall to offer resistance and so they drill right through and out the back of Anna. Anna cannot find anything else to kill, so she herself is beginning to die off, which is often a slow and painful process. She would rather kill other living creatures, but it's not yet the time of year.

Rainer repeats that he won't do it, no, and in any case he (as Sophie is forgetting) is the leader. He may do it at some later date, he wouldn't rule the possibility out, once his livelihood is assured and he has a good income and needn't give a damn about anything, but not before. Later it will take even more courage because one will have more to lose. But he definitely isn't going to do it now, and neither is Sophie. Nor could Sophie love a man who did anything of the kind, because innocent people might suffer.

Sophie says that is precisely what's so good about it, and anyway nobody is innocent nowadays. Of course you have to throw the bomb so that the bottom of the retort hits the ground or else it won't explode; if it's thrown properly it'll explode instantly at the very slightest impact.

Rainer whimpers like a babe-in-arms and explains why first, second, third, fourth, in the fifth place, and anyway for all kinds of reasons, he can nevertheless not do it. Rainer's reasons are of no interest to Sophie but they are typical. You've driven all this way with the bore, specially for the purpose (and at his wish!), and now all that comes out is verbal diarrhoea. I'll tell Hans to do it. He's sure to.

Rainer calculates (to five decimal places) that Hans has nothing to lose whereas he has a lot to lose, that is to say: his future, which is mapped out, clear and shining, and includes a doctorate and several literary awards on top of it.

Anna retches, loud and hideously. You're not going to go throwing up again, I just managed to get out of the car in time when you puked the first time back there, her brother squawks bad-temperedly. Something that unappetising is the last thing he needs right now, with Sophie thinking him a coward when in fact he's simply being ultra-level-headed. Who planned the attacks and helped carry them out, anyway, Sophie or him? He did, of course.

Anna does throw up, alas, and Sophie, turning her face away, hands her a tissue. Then they change their ground, away from the vomit. Sophie is saying nothing now, and Rainer is able to explain everything at leisure, at last. He worries at it like a dung beetle shoving a ball of muck about. Once he has become Somebody, unhindered, Sophie will realise what his reasons were and approve. After that they will grow old together, and then later they will often laugh about this stupid plan. Later, with their grandchildren.

Sophie says she finally wants to experience ecstasy. Unfortunately most people cannot go beyond themselves.

Rainer says that to go beyond yourself you need a partner. The intimate loved one. He is the partner and Sophie is the intimate loved one. He says no. And without the partner you're on your own.

A striped cat is slinking up the hillside to keep watch on a mousehole. Anna briefly ponders killing it as well but does not do it because she has been weakened by her spewing. She bites one of her knuckles, practically drawing blood.

Rainer is bawling loudly into Sophie's face. Which Sophie finds in poor taste. Rainer says even if Hans does it, well, fine, it's no reason at all to believe Hans has more courage than he has, because stupidity and courage are usually the very same thing, especially where Hans is concerned. I've hit on a really great course of study, just wait till you see it, Sophie, and you'll like it too.

Sophie maintains a contemptuous silence and kicks pebbles into a ditch. Then she says: Let's be going, then, I have other things to do today.

So you've seen reason at last, you can see my point, Sophie, jabbers Rainer, he knew all along that she'd give in because he's an irresistible lady-killer. It's marvellous with you, for this and that and the other reason, but also because you put up resistance at first and then your opposition crumbles deliriously beneath my hands. Like a little animal that can be calmed down and then gives up the hopeless fight against itself and others and lies still, Sophie rolls her eyes heavenwards and Anna does the same.

The landscape recedes from Anna endlessly. In the end, nobody can stick her company for long. The clarity of the air is blocked by the mental unclarity in these youngsters, and each impedes the other. Rainer nervously smokes a cigarette. Which makes the air temporarily untransparent.

IN THE GYM changing room a bomb with a percussion fuse explodes. Numerous new, fashionable dreams of the post-War generation are totally destroyed. Among other things, flared skirts, grey flannel trousers, jeans, socks, knee-length stockings, pullovers, blouses, blazers and the dreaded kilt are destroyed. Someone had waited for a moment when nobody would be injured. Otherwise the injured person would have seen the one who threw the bomb. And nobody claims responsibility for this pupil's prank, which is in fact more than a prank, it is a criminal offence.

It was an irresponsible act, as one newspaper puts it. No wonder nobody claims responsibility.

Sophie transported the bomb in her tennis bag. The headmaster saw her and said hello. But no one stops a Sophie Pachhofen. And no one considers her capable of something like this.

The young Damians, who have nothing else on their minds, cry over their ruined clothing because it will be a long time till they've talked their parents into buying them new fashionable trousers and skirts. And to think that Sophie went to such trouble for unsuitable persons such as these. But she did it for her own sake. The gym changing room, which stank of sweat and floor polish, will have to be completely renovated. The kids who are taking their school-leaving exams will not even benefit from that, since the job is scheduled for the holidays.

Herr Witkowski wants to take his children away from the school because a thing like that has happened there. In two-part harmony they beg and implore him to allow them to stay, and he gives his permission because they'll be leaving school soon anyway and then they'll be dancing to a different tune. Witkowski senior indicates how that tune goes.

Hans (between whom and Sophie Things Are Happening, as everyone knows) bought the ingredients of the bomb, proudly and without raising any objection, in a store where normally only Institute of Technology students buy things. He hummed and hahed so long that he very nearly drew attention to himself. So proud. The mental link between him and Sophie has now been forged and soon the physical will follow. At present he is persuading Sophie that a human being without love is a mean speck of dust.

Something inside Rainer shatters, because some part of a person (usually the heart) always breaks if the loved one is unfaithful. Fear of the real suspicion that may perhaps fall upon his guiltless head cripples many resolutions relating to Sophie, though. Anna feels nothing at all in the aftermath of her shock. Only Hans can break through this paralysis, with his love. But alas, all that he is breaking these days is his vows to be faithful to Anna.

The vineyards of Vienna 's 19th District have taken themselves off to an immense distance. Mountains of fear are piling high.

The parents are going out of their minds because they have to buy new clothes.

Some pupils are unfriendly, suspecting their schoolmates. Denunciations and interrogations ensue. Bawling schoolkids all over the place. Blubbing lasses, giggling boys in corridors, toilets and Nature Study rooms.

Without any result.

Boxed ears.

Sophie descends the stairs and climbs into a taxi outside as if she never did anything else all day long.

Once, Anna Witkowski utters an inarticulate scream, and is given permission to go home. Before class is over.

Teachers talk as if they were full of understanding. The one who did it should own up, nothing will happen to him, we only want to know who it was. When they realise it's not getting them anywhere they roar like oxen.

Rainer Witkowski writes an astonishingly tame essay on The Outsider by Camus; but what he thinks is untamed and free, as thoughts always are. Parents slap girls because they want high-heeled shoes to wear instead of the flat, sensible shoes that were destroyed.

Sophie wears an Adlmiiller designed dress, and a radiant sun settles into her hair. But the colour of the sun is nothing compared with the dress.

Anna Witkowski takes leave of her senses. But nobody notices, because there was no sense to that terrible, senseless deed either. And the reactions to it are witless too.

THE ONE WHO pays for the car has the sole right to its use. Herr Witkowski pays for it, and he is driven around by Rainer. It is only rarely that Rainer is allowed to drive it on his own. Whatever their destination, the invalid has a monopoly on the passenger seat, and gives the directions and instructions.

The trusty jalopy will be heading off to the woods for the holidays, too, otherwise an invalid would never get out and about, and after all he needs oxygen as much as anyone else does.

Today Herr and Frau Witkowski say they're going to drive into town to go window-shopping. Shop windows are the gateway to the wide world. And that gateway is wide open when you're in Karntnerstrasse. Which you only get to from the suburbs twice a year at most. You squeeze up flat against the wall so as not to be crushed by the people making for the famous cafes. Today they are going there because only the best is good enough for Herr Witkowski, he tells his wife that nothing is too expensive for him because when all's said and done you have to pay the price if you want a quality article, and if you don't you end up paying more in the long run. Look at that fridge, and the washing machine, just think of the things we could keep cool or wash with them. But mostly they look at fashion stores. Modern times are making this city affluent, which only recently got rid of the occupying forces and which now belongs to itself and its own population once more, even the workers can afford the plentiful luxuries. The moment workers can afford too little they rebel. The last time this was a real danger was 1950. Communists took advantage of supply problems and stirred up gullible people against their very own country.

Rainer trots along after his parents, telling anyone who will listen that he's not with those two old farts. Only recently, Sophie ridiculed him for wanting to buy something nice with the stolen money and claimed that that was why he joined in the robbery. There are so many beautiful luxury goods here, but he doesn't want them and he will tell Sophie, too, that he doesn't want them, at all.

Gaping in wonder, the ponderous little group moves towards the palace at the corner of Annagasse where the czar of fashion, Adlmuller, has his studio and sales establishment. Heavens, what a coincidence! Through the crystal entrance door, as chance would have it, one can see inside, where by pure coincidence one can see the very same Sophie one was thinking of, standing there with her mother, turning in front of a mirror to look at herself wearing her first ever haute couture dress, a school-leaving present. Mama and Papa, there's a rich schoolfriend of mine in this store, says Rainer in spite of himself. The words are out and can no longer be taken back. They have barely slipped out but they are being regretted. Because his parents are already set to tear down the glass barrier between Sophie and themselves. By storming the gates.

The outside world threatens to crash in coarsely upon the crystal happenings in that inside world. The invalid (like a greyhound after a hare) dashes forward on his crutches, with Mother following headlong. They intend to say hello to the schoolfriend and her mother and say that they are glad to see their respective children friends and helping each other with their work and keeping up close contact in their spare time. Rainer clings onto the swaying hips of his disabled father to prevent him from lurching into the entrance, and trips his mother so that she will stay outside, where she belongs.

Enveloped in absolute soundlessness, the Pachhofens glide to and fro in front of the mirrors. Soundless so that noise from the street does not make the business of choosing difficult. They are prettying themselves with arty things that you cannot properly make out from outside.

Are you ashamed of your own parents, you pissy little brat, whimpers Father, and he makes as if to kick his son out of his way, so he can go and kiss Frau von Pachhofen's hand chivalrously, because he's a fellow-parent. Who knows, maybe one could score with her, as a man.

Intimidated, Mother says: Let's go, quick, we're already attracting attention. Father hisses: You snotty-nosed little sod, is that why we've been supporting you at a time when you should long have been working and paying your own keep, just so you can be ashamed of your own family. At least I saw a whole war through, in a responsible position. But it's got to stop. You're getting too big for us, the two of you, you lousy brats, it's got to stop.

Rainer is chalk-white and cringes, trying to hide within himself from the people around. Any moment Sophie's Mama, or even Sophie herself, is sure to look across. But fortunately the thick glass deters unauthorised persons from casting indiscreet glances inside the salon and making indiscreet noises while they're about it.

A manageress, dressed all in black, is taking thighish strides up and down. The fashion czar himself is weighing things up, saying this dress has this or that plus point, that one has this or that plus point, this dress might perhaps not suit the young lady in this respect and that one might not suit her in that respect.

Outside, Father informs his son that his nose'll be bleeding in a minute, as it has so often before when he's punched in the face.

Please, begs Rainer, despite the impending pain, please don't go in, please.

Let's not go in, then, Otti, I still want to look at some underwear and then we'll go back home where it's cosy, won't we. The ladies would only detain us with needless chat anyway. And you know what we're going to get up to later, don't you, proposes Mother, and with this unspoken promise she tugs Father away. He swings himself off, foaming with rage. No, one doesn't want to be detained by those two hoity-toity dames, one still has things to attend to today. A great bird flapping from branch to branch.

And so they go, and look at more shop windows, which blur in front of Rainer's grateful eyes. In the sports shop there is a brand new racing bike with a lot of gears. But beautiful, glittering things like that belong in a different world, not Rainer's. Still, the cup passed from him back then, just as in religion it passed from the Lord God.

Thou shalt not go to bed without a kiss, nor without a word, since politeness requires it, grinds Father through his incisors. He is consoled with a wee cup of coffee in the nearby Museum Cafe, plus a roll, and a decent tip. Everything drains out of Rainer and he collapses in a heap, so he's simply a bundle of humanity that looks dead. How he and Sophie will laugh at this one day, later! But not now, not yet. Later.

On the inside, Rainer has already cut all the ties with his family. This is not apparent yet on the outside.

THOUGH THE PUPILS don't really deserve it there is one more afternoon tea party at the grammar school, before the holidays and the school-leaving exams scatter them in every direction. The girls prepare the tea and the boys see to the organisation. There are stacks of carbonated drinks, stacks of exceptionally repellent colours. The boys dance with the girls, and now and then, at the prompting of a trustworthy teacher, a Mama or Grandma is whirled round the floor. The older generation discuss the abilities of their descendants, and generally they are found to be talented but lazy. Some don't have any abilities at all. Taken together, the schoolkids constitute what is known as a school community.

Anna and Rainer are stunned beyond words to find that they are supposedly part of a school community and not of the adult world.

Sophie has smuggled Hans in. He is a conspicuous foreign body wherever he goes, because as soon as he's got a beer (or several beers) inside him he bleats raucously and even finds that funny. Sophie is wearing very high heels, she is the definition of blonde and won't be caught. Rainer is the definition of stupid and tries to catch her anyway, but without success.

The dishwater tea is ladled into paper cups and sold for small sums that are being saved up for a school-leaving outing. For younger siblings there is a glove puppet show where theatre enthusiasts who buy standing room tickets for the Burgtheater prepare for an acting career. The young ones are young and even enjoy this.

One or two opera productions are discussed by groups of experts, the names Bippo di Stefano and Ettore Bastianini are mentioned, names Rainer is unfamiliar with. Anna, however, is familiar with Friedrich Gulda and his fellow-musicians.

Rainer's disabled father plus supporting mother have arrived. Cautiously (so as not to do still more damage to the cripple) one of Rainer's fellow-pupils offers him tea. Father tells her he doesn't eat out of other people's fleshpots. He still has enough fleshpots of his own. What an odd man, the schoolgirl says to her friend. Don't you think he's weird? Then the girl asks if she should put a chair by the dance-floor for him, so that he can watch the schoolkids' clumsy movements better. He says he's all right standing. Nothing's impossible for God or Witkowski. This is his second favourite expression. This character's off his rocker, he's out of his mind, says the same schoolgirl. Rainer, who has told everybody his father and his cousin take turns driving the Porsche, curls up in a corner like a caterpillar. Why can't one snuff oneself out, so all that's left is a little warm air? Suicide's the thing.

But there's Sophie, and Rainer immediately explains to her at length that Love is not the same as Eros. True happiness is the sense of having wanted the best in Life, even if it's perhaps misinterpreted. Unmoved, Sophie serves a cheese sandwich. Acting the servant is fun if you don't have to be one. Anna would sooner let them cut her hand off than hand someone cheese sandwiches.

Gerhard wants to swirl his idol, Anna, round in a circle and be merry, but Anna shoves him aside because she wants to get at Hans, who's jammed in between two grandmas. For his part, Hans boxes his way resolutely through the crowd in order to tear Sophie from the clutches of a schoolmate she is wafting about with, dancing a good old waltz. Together with that useless parasite, who has never earned a single schilling himself, she opened the Philharmonic Ball last winter. He's not going to be in the Philharmonic, though, he's going to be a high-flying legal eagle. His hold on Sophie is cool and impersonal, which is one of the fundamental requirements for his later profession: he is holding her with his fingertips, somewhat more firmly at her back, not a hint too firmly nor too loosely.

That's not how you take hold of a lass, you have to seize hold of her in a determined grip, I know how because I have a determined, gripping way. Come on, sugar, you're light as a feather. Hans wants to toss her in the air energetically and yodel yoohoo as he does so, he's so happy today, he fits in well with these future colleagues with their academic educations. He is a man of action. Go away, says Sophie.

That is a setback. Hans pretends he has to do up his fly.

Various schoolchildren assure each other that it's a really lovely party. Telephone numbers are exchanged. Intimate friendships are established, right on cue. An outing is planned, and a visit to a resort in the summer.

Sandwiches are spread.

Huge pieces of cake are handed round on paper plates.

Rainer dives out and ambushes Sophie, and tells her that now is the time for a new phase in their friendship to begin at last, one that's different – he's tempted to say fundamentally different – from all that's gone before. That is to say, they need to establish direct contact with each other at last. This can be done by taking evening strolls together. Every profound conversation will be the discovery of new territory, he promises. They will introduce a new kind of naturalness into their relationship, he assures her. The wonderful thing about Nature is its total consistency, the absence of contradiction.

Sophie contradicts. She says: Let me go, you're crushing my dress, can't you see it's chiffon? You're gradually degenerating, Rainer. Slowly but surely.

For the grown-ups there is even punch to mark the advanced hour. It's a weak punch. Children giggle because they're allowed a sip for once. Hans promptly gets in line for the alcohol too but is sent away because he is not an adult yet, as he is informed to his astonishment. Hans roars that he's been earning his own money for ages. An uncomprehending face that belongs to a doctor's daughter answers him.

You're not even allowed to smoke a cigarette here. The unavoidable Frau Witkowski hides herself and her teacherblood (she was once a teacher herself!) away in the crowd. What she is also hiding is her ugly pre-War dress, which she has tricked out with a velvet bow and a silk rose of the same colour, each as out of place as the other. Papa is looking elegant, his tie is screaming out loud: here I am, it's impossible to miss it. You can overlook a cripple deliberately, but not that tie.

Anna scratches feebly at the back of Hans's pullover to get his attention. Hans pats her as if she were a horse and asks if she's got the itch again, huh. If she's itchy she'd best scratch herself, hahahaha. Then he utters a high-pitched bray, plunges at Sophie, lifts her up high, and swirls her round in a circle a number of times. Then he tosses her up aloft like a ball and catches her again and addresses her as darling and doll and Sophiedear. There is a great deal of strength in him and now he's letting it out, who has he got it for if not Sophie and Sophie alone.

Sophie laughs slightly and says: Put me down, Hans. Before he can obey the command, Rainer races up from behind, pulls Sophie out of Hans's arms, and says he'll kick Hans in the balls, to which Hans replies that he'd like to see him try. Now piss off, we want to be alone.

The headmaster says in a loud voice that the exams mark the end of a period in Life and will scatter them in every direction. He trusts they will always remember their school. But their schooldays are over and Life is yet to come. It is completely different, but school prepares you for it.

Rainer and Anna tremble with fear. What they are most afraid of is change. Never again in later life will it be as easy to be a leader as here, because not everybody will know you later. Nor what you have accomplished. You'll have to accomplish things all over again. Rainer and Anna are afraid of the unknown.

Anna puts her hand up to indicate that she wants to say something on the subject.

The two young men who are too full of energy will be coming to blows in a moment. A calm and level-headed teacher steps between them and reminds them of discipline and religion. This being the religious instruction master.

Anna is actually hopping a little with excitement at being able to say something. She wants to say that Hans is hers and no one else's. Even if it may not look that way. At close range, Rainer mouths off at Sophie about what he feels for her and has always felt. Pride always prevented him from admitting it. But now it's stronger than he is. And won't be kept back. He thinks she may as well know. The next stage up would be patches of sunlight on the forest floor, rain starting to fall slowly and inaudibly, the smell of resin, Sophie wearing an old raincoat, stroking his hair, breathlessly, tenderly. After all, intellectuals need some physical pampering too. A country-style meal on a checked tablecloth and plenty of serious, profound conversations where even God will be present, in the abstract. This is every grammar school pupil's dream and it is his dream too. After dinner one lies on the bed and goes on reading Camus, whom one has been reading the whole time already. The passage where the condemned man suddenly grasps the world, a world that has lost its interest for him for ever. And he thinks of his mother. But he, Rainer, will think of Sophie. Later on, the camera loses track of them in the woods.

Sophie says that her mother is sending her to Lausanne after the holidays, so that she will be in different surroundings. Is that definite, bleats Rainer. Yes, absolutely. A boarding school. She's already looking forward to a completely unfamiliar environment and language.

Rainer asks why she wants to go roaming so far off when the good things in life are so close, to be exact: right here. What do you need an unfamiliar environment for? You ought rather to tame the unfamiliar, unknown animal within me. Now I would perform a sexual act, only it degrades the woman. That's why I need taming.

What I did in the gym (Sophie) was more of an event than courtship. Dynamite. Rainer says that no doubt she doesn't want to go away from him and she's just talking. And by way of proof that he trusts her entirely he is now going to confide a few ideas towards an interpretation of The Plague by Camus, because that is the next book they're going to read together. She mustn't tell anyone.

Sophie coolly moves him aside with her fingertips and says hello to her dancing partner's parents, who know her and enquire after her plans for the future, whereupon they too are told about Lausanne. They consider this good, likewise the opportunities for sports there.

Anna blows air down Sophie's neck where there is blonde down. Now she wants to say something about her own character for once. She hasn't said this much in a long time. Anna says that her character is one of blind hatred of the whole world. She wants Hans to pick her up like he picked Sophie up back then. Hans tells Anni to go fetch him some bread and wurst. Whereupon she promptly rockets off.

By now Rainer and Hans are each hanging on to one of Sophie's shoulders, listing the reasons why she should leave this dreary school party with them to have a discussion. Rainer hurriedly explains modern music, which is coming from the tape recorder. Sophie shouldn't go to French Switzerland. Hans doesn't say Switzerland till he's been told where Lausanne is.

Sophie slips out of the arms of both. They mean well but grip poorly. She slips out like an evil carnivorous plant that uses a sticky substance to kill insects, and says she won't have them bothering her in any way at all. She's going away so that she doesn't have to see the pair of them any more.

Are those your little admirers, Sophie, smiles the dancingpartnermother, have fun then, dear Sophie.

Anna comes home with the bread and wurst. Hans wolfs the salami, nervously, plucks off the little gherkin, and leaves Anna to polish off the remains of the sandwich. At his invitation. Anna eats and heads off purposefully to the toilet to throw up, hoping it isn't engaged.

Rainer says he may kill himself. This is sure to get Sophie's attention. Otherwise he'll slip through the net and be gone. The world is gently indifferent, says Camus. One has to put its hostility behind one, says Camus. Once one's hope has been taken away, one has the Present in one's hand, whole, one is Reality oneself and all the rest are extras. Which they are in any case.

You never say anything that someone else didn't say before you, breathes Sophie.

Because I already know everything that can be said, see. If Life has expired, Evening is like a melancholy ceasefire, as Camus assures us.

Hans hammers his fist at his skull as hard as he can, making a hollow sound. Nothing witty comes out, just the usual stuff, the foreman's words, to the effect that he has done some wiring wrong and is about to get a kick up the backside.

The disabled father clambers across on his crutches and tells Sophie that she plainly must be his son's little girlfriend, that's lovely, she's a trim little filly, the kind he used to have quite a lot of in the old days and only has occasionally now because with a job you don't have much time. He could show his son Rainer a thing or two in that line, too.

Anna and Rainer's mother devours the cut of Sophie's cocktail dress with her eyes. Could she run up a chiffon miracle like that on her sewing machine? Or is it organdie? It's not synthetic.

Anna clamps hold of her mother's arm like a pair of pliers. She hasn't taken hold of that arm for months. For a moment the two women are St Mary and St Martha, of necessity, since Mary only had a son, no daughter.

Hans swallows. His Adam's apple bobs. So much saliva and he hasn't even had a beer.

Sophie shakes everything off and absolutely and irrevocably departs.

Sophie leaves two voids behind, one in Hans and one in Rainer, but she does not feel them.

Often a girl in a summer holiday resort will say when her boyfriend has gone back to town: You're leaving, but a great deal remains. A great deal that he has left. But in this case not a great deal remains to profit from. In fact there is nothing left.

Frau Witkowski uses two hands, which is all she has, to cover the nakedness of the velvet bow and the pinned-on flower, but both of them peep out indiscreetly from between her fingers, making a bad impression. Herr Witkowski makes one of these too.

Anna also leaves, unnoticed by anyone, by anyone at all. She doesn't even leave the tiny dent of a metal stiletto heel in the parquet flooring. She leaves nothing whatsoever.

HANS COMES OUT of the works gate and Anna, who is outside, goes up to him. She wants to say something sensible so that he'll see she can be different. She is planning to say that it's good I can't go to America because now we can study for your night school classes this summer. But as so often she says nothing at all, she simply wails stupidly. In front of all these strangers who have been working all day and so have a right to some peace and quiet in the evening, Anna roars out loud and puts her soul, which is almost completely eaten away, into her bawling, ultimately showing that there's good in her. Only those who are not yet totally hardened can cry. Her mouth and face are distorted and ugly. A woman never benefits from this kind of facial expression, she loses. Nonetheless, a perverse kind of pity seizes upon Hans when he discovers this in Anna. Perhaps it isn't pity. Perhaps it is more of a male reflex to protect weak things. This reflex operates when a man sees a woman weeping. He places his arm around this particular weeping woman and leads her away in a hurry so that fellow-workers won't snoop. He says: What's up, Anni? What are you crying for? Come on, there! Anna says she is in despair and lets a whole lot of things burst out of her untidily, mainly fear, hatred, and at the root a touch of envy of Sophie. Hans says that envying someone who ended up on the right side of the tracks through no fault of her own is not nice. Do you begrudge it Sophie? Anna blubs an octave higher. Come on, I'll see you home, we live more or less next door to each other as it is. He tells her to calm down, and gradually she does calm down. Suddenly, out of nowhere, she sees Hans in a completely new light, with the eyes of a love that realises it is the real thing. Hans sees Anna in a completely different light, with the eyes of the male protector who is stronger. Maybe it is also the feeling of friendship likewise realising it is the real thing. It means that you will see it through with your friend, through thick and thin and other rough times.

Through thick and thin Hans walks Anna home. What's up with Annidear, he says time after time, he can't think of anything else to say. Nothing, it's all right, she says. Want to come to supper?

No, says Hans promptly, because he can't stand Anna's parents. But he says it'll soon be Sunday and perhaps they could do something together.

Various worries leave Anna, and an unaccustomed cheerfulness takes hold of her, a mood that even extends to supper, which will doubtless taste revolting. In the very near future there will be a Sunday cycling trip with Hans. Perhaps the trip will represent a new start, on a new basis. The basis does not always have to be material things. Money can sometimes be irrelevant. Feelings are independent of it.

In the Witkowski flat, dinner is being served. Father is grumbling away, without pausing for breath. You're so used to it that you don't even take it in any more. He threatens Mother with sundry appalling kinds of torture that he proposes practising upon her. Mother is flicking through a mail order catalogue, where she comes across a dress that hurts her eyes. It hurts and hurts. It hurts particularly badly because dresswise she disgraced herself so awfully at school yesterday and within herself is still smarting from the blow.

Father asks Rainer if he'll play chess with him afterwards. Rainer says yes, and will in fact play. For supper there's bread and wurst.Plus potatoes in some dreadful sauce. Then the chess match is played. The disabled man utters misleading warnings and advice concerning Rainer's mental state or Rainer himself. Rainer seems not to be concentrating and loses. Father is insanely pleased, seeing that recently he's been beating his lordship the stuck-up grammar school boy with his airs and graces only rarely. Nevertheless he tells Rainer he'll give him a good wallop if he doesn't make more of an effort when he plays chess with his father. Rainer says that winning is pointless and is dealt the aforementioned wallop.

There is something soft in Anna's features that was not in them this morning. Where has it come from? She is even drying the dishes.

Mother escapes from her failure as a mother into the role of martyr and beseeches Father not to use a prop tonight, it hurts. Father says wittily that he'll think about it (but in the event he hits her more, if anything, not less). Then they go to bed.

Anna eats an apple before she goes to sleep.

Rainer also eats an apple before he goes to sleep, reading Camus on absurdity and obsession.

Lights out. They sleep.

At half past six Rainer wakes suddenly. Unusually, both his hands are damp with sweat. He doesn't weigh up any of the pros and cons. He can hear Mother in the bathroom. He gets up, goes into the hall and fetches the key of the pistol case from Father's bunch of keys, which is dangling from the front door. The case is 8 cm deep, 30 cm long and 15 cm wide, and made of iron. The wallet is lying on it and has to be moved first. The flat is silent, apart from the disagreeable bathroom noises made by Mother, who is always the first to get up. Rainer opens the pistol case to take out the 6.35 mm calibre Steyr-Kipplauf pistol. There are photographs under the pistol, showing his mother's genitals. These genitals make no perceptible impression on him, though it was through them that he first entered the world.

Taking the pistol, Rainer goes over to his sister, who has been sleeping right beside him all night beyond the thin partition wall and is still doing so, trustingly. He shoots Anna in the head, at point-blank range. The shot shatters her frontal bone but merely renders her unconscious, immediately. A few scraps of sound from Schonberg's op. 33a plus the Berg sonata (only half of which she has committed to memory) quaver through Anna's brain in shock and then, hesitantly, reluctantly, disappear for ever. No more music, ever again.

After firing this shot, Rainer goes out into the hall, where Mother comes towards him, not speaking or making any kind of utterance at all. He knows he has to kill the whole family now so that there will be no witnesses to betray him to the police. Instantly Rainer shoots his mother, also in the head. She collapses without a sound. Her upper jaw is completely smashed but she is not yet dead. Mother lies in a heap on the hall linoleum, her death rattle gurgling. One can't tell if her brain is still functioning or not, probably not. The pistol is now no longer loaded and Rainer puts it aside and fetches the axe from the toilet. It is honed razor-sharp and weighs 1.095 kg. The blade is 11.2 cm long. Oddly enough, Father has been sitting quietly in the living room throughout the murders, wearing a cardigan over his pyjamas. Rainer goes in to his father, with the axe. Father expresses silent astonishment. Rainer wields the axe and strikes out without thinking anything at all. Aiming at the head. Rainer's progenitor instantly caves in beneath the fearful axe blows, bleeding heavily. Bones break, knuckles splinter, tendons tear, veins are severed beyond repair. Rainer aims mainly at the head and neck, which is quite enough. He keeps on wielding his blows till Father has been totally cut to pieces. Then Rainer picks up the axe and goes over to his mother. A parcel of humanity lying gurgling and frothing in the hall. He strikes at her too. He is still not weighing up the pros and cons, or anything at all. He wants to inflict mortal injury, and he does. When he fired that last shot he knew already that he'd go over to the axe to finish the job. Nobody says anything or screams. Mother is lying on her stomach, and in that position she is dealt the death blow. She dies. The whole time, Rainer does not budge a single millimetre. Things lie where they have fallen.

Once she's dead, Rainer goes over to his sister, whom he has already shot in the head (because that was the only part of her body exposed above the blanket), and hacks away at Anna's head just as he hacked at Father's and Mother's heads. Anna's head is smashed to a pulp of bones, blood, tendons and brain matter, with stray teeth showing up palely out of it and a single eye, almost detached. Some time, soon, Anna will die too. And then all three will be dead.

Most of the cuts have been dealt to their heads and necks. Now Rainer goes to the cardboard suitcase and fetches the bayonet out from amongst the heap of toys, the slide projector and the felt. With this bayonet he quite needlessly jabs at the three corpses. In doing so he is methodical, taking one body after another. First Father is stabbed in the neck, chest and navel with the bayonet. Then his dead mother is stabbed violently, mainly in the abdomen. Next he stabs his dead sister with all his might. Now, at last, he is through. The bleeding heaps of humanity are not making a sound. Nor can they be told apart any more. After all, Death the Leveller annihilates all distinctions. The sexes of the bodies can still be just about made out, but nothing else. You have to take your bearings from that if you want to decide which corpse is whose.

Through this absurd action, Rainer is out to preserve his narcissistic belief that he has achieved something extraordinary.

Now he tries to hide his father's body so that it won't be spotted the moment people come in. Panting, he drags the parcel of flesh, dribbling blood, across to the big farmhouse chest, from which he has first had to remove a load of useless junk so that the corpse will fit. There is such a terrible lot of blood that he is unable to hide the other carcasses. His nerves won't take it any more. And Rainer fails in his task.

He takes off his blood-soaked pyjamas and takes a shower. Then he stows the weapons in a briefcase and leaves the house at an early hour, to establish an alibi. He takes his pyjamas along too. He drives over to a schoolmate's to revise for the exams together and borrow money for petrol from him. He is planning to throw the murder weapons off a bridge, into the Danube, but doesn't dare because there are so many passers-by near the river, quite pointlessly so early in the day. So the arsenal ends up in the boot, together with his pyjamas, which go under the spare tyre.

After revising for the exams and borrowing 500 schillings out of a cigar box, he drives off with his schoolmate to Ketlassbrunn in Lower Austria. There they call on a priest who used to be the school catechist.

Here they are, already in Ketlassbrunn. The priest is surprised and pleased to see them. He invites the two young students to lunch at an inn, where they eat roast pork and dumplings. Afterwards at the Catholic youth hostel there is a seminar with a professor from Vienna, on the subject 'Man as Cosmos', and 'Crime and Punishment'. As always, Rainer tries to show off by asking questions on these subjects. When they take their leave, the priest shakes their hands and gives them some pastries. Then the schoolmate is taken home. It's been an eventful day, he says, and he enters his flat, which smells of vanilla sauce.

Once again Rainer drives out to the mighty Danube, that great symbol. It is now 7 p.m. He drops the murder weapons into the river near Berger's, the seafood restaurant. The bloody pyjamas are left in the car.

Then, from a public call-box, Rainer phones a girl he hasn't seen for months. She works as an au-pair for a couple who are both doctors, downtown. Their parents met in her home town out in the woods. Renate, the girl, is invited to go dancing at the Picasso Bar. She does in fact dance with Rainer at the Picasso Bar. Rainer drinks two Campari and sodas, Renate drinks a Martini and a Fanta lemonade. Rainer gives a rambling explanation of the structure of the modern music which is coming from the loudspeakers. Then he stops explaining and takes Renate home.

Next, Rainer drives to the parental flat, where his mother (with forty serious and countless lesser injuries), his sister (with twenty-six sharp-edged deadly injuries, not counting the smaller ones) and also his father (completely pulped, in the carved farmhouse chest) have been decaying the whole time. The three bodies received way over eighty axe wounds, all told, not counting the stab wounds. The heads have been totally smashed in. He used both hands to strike, so the blows would be forceful. Rainer can't spend the night along with this frightful carrion. It gives him the creeps.

He enters his home, which is no longer a home, and switches on the light for a moment, so that people will think the terrible sight is a shock to him. He switches the light off again right away and goes to the police station, where he announces that his mother is lying in the hall, murdered, come and help me find the killer. One policeman runs back with him immediately. Such indescribable amazement, to find two corpses, which you can't tell apart at first, so mutilated that you don't know which is the mother and which the daughter.

The policemen are staggered. Rainer is lying on a stretcher, pale and half unconscious. The doctor gives him a sedative. But his pulse is astoundingly regular, considering the shock, thinks the doctor.

Where are your pyjamas, and where is your father? asks the inspector. My pyjamas must be around somewhere, 1 took them off this morning and left the house early. I've no idea where my father is.

The bodies are totally unrecognisable with brutal injuries like these, says the policeman, nauseated, although he has seen a thing or two in his line of business. The corpses of the mother and the sister have not been moved. Now the sight of them moves the soul.

But soon the question is raised: where are Rainer's pyjamas and where is Herr Witkowski. Both of these bodies are female.

Was the father the one who did it, maybe? But presently the bloodstained fatherremains are retrieved from the chest. Remnants of his brain that weren't put in the chest are on the floor beside it.

Now the only mystery left is the pyjamas. The question is asked again. This time with a hard-edged suspicion behind it.

When the inspector asks where are your pyjamas for the hundredth time, they must be some-where, Herr Witkowski, Rainer finally answers: They're stained with blood and you'll find them under the spare tyre in the boot of the car.

Now you know everything. I am at your disposal.