Back to the country policeman Kurt Janisch: In the course of these days, as if there were a negative agreement in this respect, no more money is lent to him. Yet the sum of compliments, which women bestow on him, whom he stops, pulls over to the roadside, and leaves standing again, in ever more rapid succession (he hardly takes the time anymore to find out what significance each acquaintanceship could have for him, stares at driver's licences, at gold necklaces, fur collars, rings, watches, which grow towards him like tough, self-confident creepers, which know that not even the machete of someone running amok could destroy them. He hears excuses, which are delivered in a never-changing singsong, but he doesn't listen to these half-truths and excuses, he at last knows his own off by heart and doesn't need those of strangers, he prefers to note where the supposedly, presumably lowered eyes of the women are wandering, from the country policeman's penetratingly blue iris straight down to his fly, direct connection, these greedy, grasping eyes of women, and yet why are they so carelessly screened, with nothing but a protective coating of mascara, which probably only lends these glances weight and is intended to store them in a little fairy-tale forest, which one immediately wants to enter. But there one will probably have to pay admission, instead of taking something away and carrying it home, so we'd better just leave it), these extensive acquaintanceships add up, they mount like the snow up in the Alpine sphere, just as cold and just as pointless. Well, some get pleasure out of plunging in and down, strapped to my undercarriage, downwards, ever downwards, that already makes up half the profit. The country policeman, however, would need the whole profit for himself alone. For the athletes it has to be downhill. Or uphill, depending on the sport. But we can also certainly go up in the ski lift or the chair lift. Conversations develop, the women like the look of the country policeman, but they seem instinctively to scent his increasing desperation, at the moment that's too much for them for a nice date, you know, it's a bit too complicated just now, I've lived my life, it wasn't easy, and if I try again, then it shouldn't be such a strain this time. I have my job. And from time to time I just want to lie quietly in front of the TV and cry and laugh, one's never lonely with the TV anyway. That these women are supposed to invest something in this man is something they evidently suspect, previously they only rarely suspected it, and they recoil, these women of the country road, some humbly, some good-naturedly, few boldly. Yet they are supposed to risk their whole fortune to save the country policeman. It's not a good start, because it doesn't start at all. I'm telling you for the umpteenth time, this man is a somber figure, his uniform has already signalled that to me before a couple of times. Is he trying to get off with me, the women ask themselves, at whom he shoots his bright blue glances with the catapult of his strong, thick blond hair and eyelashes, glances which are supposed to be self-explanatory, but which can only write out fines, glances after which, with gestures which by now already begin irresolutely, he hooks into the warm flesh of breasts, to pull the blouse away a little and look into the cleavage, inside the cuddly soft sleeveless woollen pullover. How much wood does this one have outside her hut and how much gravel on her drive? Where is the old certainty of appraisal gone? The country policeman never used to be wrong before. Mr. Janisch, do you receive me, over and out? Everything has to go ever faster now, one thing virtually follows on the heels of the other, yet at the same time one must not forget the hottest iron in the fire, this one particular lady, not just for special moments, but at all events, that might turn up, and to whom it would be best he came as supplicant, she would like that, it would signal to her that he has been reduced in price and that she can at last afford him. It often happens to those with ambitions. They often appear so small to us in comparison to their desires and goals, which they spread out before us, dressed up as important concerns, so that we pay them due attention. And so we, too, slowly take less and less interest in them, these concerns of strangers. The woman, who loves, knows, and herself performs music, on a leash, always close beside him, the country policeman would like that, he wouldn't have to bother about her anymore, and if the music wants to sniff a little longer at one corner or another (isn't this sonata movement a little faster, and this finale a little slower, so that each note can be heard separately?), she's immediately roughly pulled back by the collar. I can't really grasp it yet, but this woman has perhaps, now of all times, at the wrong moment, discovered something like her dignity, that's what she calls it at least, and this discovery makes her so happy, like everything that's new. It won't last long. Sit! Basket! Music will do that for her, and wherever one tells it to, as long as it's the right person saying it; and it's always well behaved and comes straight back, when the CD player is set at start again, it only comes to her, the music to the woman, who alone understands music and it's all she understands.