But you shouldn’t go telling that to people you don’t know very well, whispered W.
Oh. . I know who I’m talking to! Frau Falbe shouted. I know who I’m dealing with here!
Unfortunately he had to do some shopping now, W. excused himself. — Go ahead, she said, and if you don’t find what you’re looking for, come to me. . And once more she raised her voice: It’s just about the rent. . the people here’ll be thinking God knows what! — And whispering again: But you’ll have to come up and visit me soon, and I’ll tell you the whole story. .
When Feuerbach showed up again, he asked if W. couldn’t find out when this Harry Falbe was planning his next escape attempt. — It was one of those fits of directness with which W. would grow familiar.
W. wasn’t the least bit nonplussed (it surprised him that he wasn’t nonplussed). — No, I can’t, he responded coolly, because it doesn’t interest me in the slightest. . so is that what I need a company flat for?
Sure you can find it out! You could do it, you’ve got an excellent relationship with his aunt, but of course you think a case like that is way below your level. Maybe life really is better the way you live it. . you with your bohemian existence. You know what, if you keep that up for long, one of these days they’ll have you by the short hairs, and then you’ll need someone to save your skin. Do you think anyone still remembers you down in your backwater. . they all think you’ve drowned in Bohemia already. You know what we’ve got here. . a few tattered pieces of paper with a big fat line through your name. See, the guys down there, they don’t have any more truck with you, none of them is going to get you off the hook. .
Another time (W.’s memories blurred more and more; the details of this running battle with Feuerbach, who courted him, who kept trying to induce him to move to the other flat, the separate fragmentary conversations with this person could no longer be forced into orderly sequences; they were scattered throughout the entire summer, in which at times he seemed to have escaped the first lieutenant. . who was somehow always near, though; Feuerbach’s meddling voice was in his sleep, and in his sleeplessness in the summer heat). . perhaps just two or three days later, his pursuer was in a more conciliatory mood, and said: Stay as you are, you’re just right that way. Over in the West you’d probably run into trouble with this attitude, but that’s exactly why you’d be believable. . You live for literature, you lead a literary life. Or that’s what you intend. . honestly, I have much more sympathy for that than you can imagine. But you should ask yourself how you’re planning to write in that icebox in the winter. .
Suddenly it occurred to W. that the boss — down in the small town — had harped on this subject as welclass="underline" the exodus of the literati, the fact that more and more writers were leaving the country, establishing themselves across the border, often in West Berlin; the boss had mentioned increasing reports to this effect in the Western media, while the media here ignored these things entirely.
And why should there be a public discussion? he’d said with a rather sheepish expression, as though hoping W. would object (of course he didn’t). We’re already in a position where all we can do is react to the West. . we can’t keep letting them put us on the spot. . He thought for a while: I don’t understand what people find so enticing about life over there. Of course some of them had their problems here, some of their books were published over there and not over here. . so? The problems would have passed, and the authors would have risen like phoenixes from the ashes. And on top of it they’d have kept their bonus points from over there. . of course some of them were smarter and just went over temporarily, with a visa from us!
Maybe some of them just don’t believe the system has a future any more? W. had interrupted him.
That’s a perfectly fine thing to think about. . the way you can think about lots of things. But why don’t these people think about it here? Do you suppose I’m not constantly thinking about it myself? I’m telling you, sometimes I don’t believe in this future either, when I really think it over. But one thing’s for sure, I couldn’t care less whether this system has a future or not, because that doesn’t change my function at all, not in the slightest. And a writer’s function wouldn’t change one bit either, believe me, it’s exactly the same. You could ask yourself: since when is it even necessary for a writer to be sitting in a system with a future. . just the opposite would be necessary, wouldn’t it? What’s a serious writer supposed to write about in a country that has the future on its side? That’s got to be practically fatal for that writer’s coming to grips with his world. Do we need the kind of author who preaches people better morals. . no, we don’t, I say, I say the police should see to that. Of course at the Ministry of Culture they have to go on claiming we need writers who grapple with the contradictions of socialism. But I say. . we say, no, the police should take care of that, the judiciary. I don’t know what we need, but we don’t need the kind of authors who think we’re a safe bet. Maybe we need a writer who goes down along with us, with flying colours. That would be true class. .
Would you go down with flying colours, along with the writer, really?
Me. . why me. . OK, we’d have to wait and see. But after all, our sort needs role models!
W. asked himself whether this sort of speech could just as well have come from Feuerbach. . probably not! At any rate, it all wouldn’t have been set forth with the same vehemence (Feuerbach was less authentic than the boss! W. said to himself). . he, Feuerbach, had made only scattered pronouncements along those lines, and they didn’t touch on the philosophical level, only on probabilities; perhaps that was why they contradicted each other from one day to the next. — What kind of a writer would you be over in the West, anyway, the first lieutenant had flung out one time at the end of a conversation. You’d get to play the token victim of oppression for a while, and then the next person would come along, and that’d be it with your popularity.
And so there were repeated pronouncements (W. mixed them up, his powers of recall were poor) essentially advising him against relocating his existence, his literary existence, to the West. . and yet these pronouncements kept the issue alive. . and they seemed to presuppose that he harboured such intentions, although he’d never spoken of them. — In this republic, evidently, these things were the be-all and end-alclass="underline" did someone intend to leave the country or not? Evidently this had become the main criterion for evaluating a person’s existence. The question of this intent — to stay or not to stay — utterly dominated the collective consciousness (and had long since become a paraphrase of Hamlet’s monologue); the contemplation of this question had become the sole shared trait of an entire people. The question haunted all levels of society, from the lavatory attendant’s cubicle to the People’s Parliament, and this state of affairs bore strange fruit: if anyone had so far failed to announce this intent, this was seen as a provocation. If someone professed the will to stay, he made himself highly suspect. . if someone had nothing at all to say, heaven and earth had to be set into motion to elicit his thoughts on the matter. The organs occupied with investigating the thought processes in their citizens’ brains seemed to know but one central problem: Is it true that those who persist in silence on this issue are planning their imminent defection? Why are they so adamantly silent if they don’t have this plan? How can you be silent about things you aren’t in fact thinking?