What struck W. most about these circles, or this ‘milieu’—and what made both words seem righter to him than the expression ‘Scene’, though he used it constantly, it being the word that both the Scene and the State Security used in common (just as the term ‘Firm’ was used in common by the State Security and the Scene) — and what had also occupied Feuerbach for a time: the milieu had emerged unplanned, without preamble, as it were, and it continued its existence unplanned and divergent without anyone giving it a thought. Suddenly this Scene was there, in many places at once, in the urban neighbourhoods where renovation costs couldn’t be covered, sprouting like weeds from the rubble whenever you’d looked away for a moment, characterized by the persistence of disorganization, in the equal credence given to opposing views, in the indifference towards all ideas; indeed, the sole common denominator of all the Scenes was their disinterest in any form of ideology. That made them appear, at first glance, completely unassailable. — If you could put them away just like that, said Feuerbach, they’d bore me to tears.
Unexpectedly W. had received an invitation from someone in the inner sphere of this milieu. . before going he didn’t even know the reason for the invitation; presumably it had to do with some poems of his that had appeared in a West German magazine. Feuerbach knew about the invitation the very next day; he came into the cafe with the friendliest face W. had ever seen on him: Well, how was it yesterday? By the way, we almost ran into each other. . — Since you know everything already anyway. . I was asked to read soon in a back courtyard downtown. I just have the funny feeling that right now I don’t have enough pieces to fill half an hour. — Yes, said Feuerbach, that’s bad. But you’ll manage all right, put off the reading for two or three weeks, then you’ll have enough. And so you’re not just left to your own devices — you can take that as an order. But I meant the time around four in the afternoon, I was sitting in the liquor joint here and you came charging past the window. I thought you’d come in, I would’ve had a tip to give you. And you weren’t heading home, either, you went down into the U-Bahn. .
(W. peered through the big glass pane, covered in a fine film of dust bonded by the greasy precipitate of the exhaust smoke, catching the sunlight that slanted down onto the window from the upper right. . now, too, it had to be between four and five in the afternoon. . it was March, but it could have been October, even November, on bright autumn days the sun on the greyed pane had the same dazzling effect. . shrinking the pedestrians outside to silhouettes. He tried to picture how the first lieutenant had seen him then: emerging blurred from the sun, heading east with long strides, towards Frankfurter Allee’s barely perceptible rise. .)
And then you went down into the U-Bahn. . you could perfectly well have walked home! Instead you got on the train to Alexanderplatz, but you only rode as far as Frankfurter. . there you went upstairs and changed to the S-Bahn. And I’ll bet you weren’t heading towards Pankow, you were heading south, is there a Scene there too already? Where is it you’re always heading off to. .?
I thought you’d come into the liquor joint and I could congratulate you. . not on your birthday, on your success in the Scene, it’s not everyone who gets invitations, after all. And it’s not everyone who can come to listen, me, for instance. And of course in your innate modesty you won’t tell me a word about your triumph. .
You’ll have to work more concertedly, with more purpose. It’s about time a few new things fluttered from your desk again, poems, for instance. Or just write down the sorts of things you hear and see in the Scene. . but poems take precedence at the moment. You shouldn’t be cruising around the city so much, though of course that’s your field. I ask myself what you’re up to the whole time on the south end of town, you’ve got to have some sort of hideout there. Do you have a dead drop, is that it? You’ve got to have some kind of crack, a slit, a chink you’re always gaping through. What kind of a world have you got your eye on?
He couldn’t remember what he’d replied: You can’t write poems every day. — Or: Do you think there’s always so much news in the Scene worth reporting? — He had to admit that Feuerbach was right, though; his thoughts barely dwelt at his desk, this desk in the downtown flat, divided into two halves — on one side of the desk, the left, lay the crazily scribbled notes for his poems, and on the other side the neat stack of typewriter paper for his reports. And he knew that the left-hand section was by far the least interesting, for readers, for experts, for himself. . and for future readers. — And likewise his brain was divided into two halves, and from the one Feuerbach’s verbiage sloshed into the other. — Yes, Feuerbach had turned talkative now that W. was hobnobbing in the Scene; he was constantly talking about changes one could see in these circles, usually concluding his views with a question: Are the people there really that callous and indifferent, or are they just acting that way? And what do they hope to achieve by acting that way? What are they trying to hide from us?
Of course W. hadn’t known the Scene as well and as long as Feuerbach; ultimately he was a newcomer there. . though he doubted that the first lieutenant had ever seen the milieu from the inside. . but the effect of Feuerbach’s perpetual theories was that he mulled these things over himself. First it occurred to him that Feuerbach had clearly been wrong about something he’d claimed, what must have been a good year ago. The issue at hand had been deconspiration—it was a really tough thing to do, it took quite a bit of staying power, a massive degree of tenacity, even! — Tenacity, he’d said; it was striking that Feuerbach once again jibed word for word with the boss from A.; they must have met at some point after all. .