* * *
I tried to lose myself in my work so I would not have to think about the new situation I had gotten myself into. I turned my nights into days and vice versa. I divided my time between my bed and my writing desk and the many leeches and parasites who kept me company, the pseudo literati one can find in almost any coffeehouse from Vienna to Berlin. All of them are loudmouths with a little bit of influence here and there; some of them even belonged to the editorial staff of a genuine newspaper.
I enjoyed reading my name in newspapers more frequently. Every time there would be some small item mentioning that one of my plays had been performed somewhere, obviously with great success, sometimes it would say that I was working on another one, then it was because one of my books would be reprinted, or a new one was about to be released. I scoured the drawers of my desk for small items I had written now and then, gathering them into anthologies that only found a publisher because my name on it was a guarantee for advance sales.
I know that people who write, and write things that are truly worth the trouble often plague themselves for months and years and then they have to grovel before some innate people in order to get their works published. But I never gave that a thought. One has to feel the ice-cold hand of death or go bankrupt to realize these simple truths. But in those days? I was proud of the fact that a well-known newspaper tried its best to add me to its staff and I became, though very temporary, one of their editorialists. I did not learn anything worthwhile during that period. How little use did I make of my experiences! But about that I will talk in another book, if I ever get around to writing one.
There were two people I liked a little (just a little) more than all the others with whom I associated. They stood out ever so slightly among the masses of acquaintances, but at least they stood out and that had attracted them to my attention. One was a very fat fellow who could have been a very fine writer. The few scraps he showed me to read proved that to me.
He was financially well-off and belonged to the very few who did not live off my income. He gorged himself on food and drink and ate himself into an untimely death. The other was the producer-director of a neighborhood theater. I mention both because they taught me an entirely new side to my sexual life. Once I came to know them better they allowed me to join them in a few of the big fat one's entertainment nights. By God, that was really something new to me, sickeningly new.
The fat one was, as he was wont to point out frequently with a whining voice, “absolutely through.” He was impotent, as he assured me often, with moist eyes and quivering lips. But he still had some desire left for a little excitement now and then. Lord knows how he did it, but he always managed to drum up a couple of waifs; boys and girls, about once a month. He would invite them into his home and personally give them a bath (the director and I were allowed to watch through a peephole), and then they would go into the living room where the children were ordered to masturbate, or to rub their sex organs against each other. The old lecher would just sit there, with but-toned-up fly, groaning with pleasure till some of his seed would drip through a limp member.
Those were his sexual holidays. The director enjoyed a few more realistic delights. And I? I had discovered something entirely new, though I never could find any true delight. Anyhow, these events ended abruptly, because our fat friend died. One day he had found a rather curious way of sexual satisfaction. He had lowered his enormous bulk into a tub of lukewarm water which was filled just high enough to allow the head of his member to bob up and down. He pulled the wings off a horsefly and let the insect crawl around on that tip. That's when a massive stroke surprised him.
We all knew that he had been playing this particular game once in a while and the life he was leading was both fascinating and repulsive to me. I endured it for two years and then the day of reckoning arrived. Those are the days that give birth to the most enormous stupidities.
I told myself that if sex had degenerated with me into wallowing in filth, I needed extra strong excitement to whip up my passions. Were there any that I had not yet tried? Now what? And again that same desire welled up in me: the love for my own sex. And I don't know why I resisted this urge with all the energy that was left in me, just like I had done every other time. Oh, how I wish I had given in to it because I allowed this desire to be conquered by the worst form of hypocrisy that our Philistine society could have dreamed up: I decided that it was about time to get married.
I had not given thought to any person in particular, merely to the idea itself. This was because of my reasoning: of all the other forms of sex, the only one that is unknown to me is the well-protected way of the marital bed. She has to be someone entirely different from all the others you know, I told myself. Usually one gets married because of love or adoration or, at least, to bring some form of regularity into one's life. About twice a week makes over a hundred times a year and that that sounds more than sufficient, according to church regulations. The man quietly at the side of his loved one, quietly doing with those bodily parts what nature intended him to do with them, and then back to sleep.
It started to sound excitingly new and I was overcome by a longing for happiness and a desire to get married great enough to inflame my excitable imagination. Therefore, I started to look around and really, among the citizenry I found myself a girl that seemed as if she were capable of giving me this particular paradise on earth. I was not a stranger among the members of the girl's family. They knew all about me from write-ups in the newspapers, and they respected me because I was rich and famous. Moreover the daughters of the house were enthusiastic about everything that looked like literature, especially the genre which one might consider modern.
In short, I became engaged. I told myself that I had to do things differently from other engaged couples who pretend respectability and in secret learn all about the charms of their brides by pawing with their coarse and vulgar hands, ruining the nice girls' blouses and dresses. Occasionally their underground activities would ruin a pair of good stockings or pull a pubic hair.
No, I preferred to be vulgar and indecent in words only, since this is very fashionable and expected from a modern man who is also a well-known literary person. Once my bride hinted that she did not understand that a man like me, especially during the opportunities we had together, remained 30 incredibly respectable as only a true Philistine could. “No, my child,” I told her, “I am a true connoisseur, and I refuse to enjoy my delights by bits and pieces. T take my pleasure all at once, I want to exhaust it completely and, if necessary, I will be destroyed by it.”
She cast her eyes down and asked shyly, a blush covering her face, “Have you never … found pleasure?”
“I have never been married,” I answered, and added more honestly, “I am waiting for happiness.” She rested her head on my shoulder and did not say a word. I waited, because I assumed that she was going to say something, something important. But she remained silent and, after awhile, started to chatter about other things.
A few weeks later she was my wife. To betray her during the engagement period would have been vulgar, to say the least. I did not even have any desire to do so. I had achieved a certain state of expectation which really made me feel very good. I wanted to remain chaste for this special one, who was going to become the center of my life and who existed for no one else but me.