On a romantic tour or a dream holiday one can get to know one's dream partner, but what to do if one already knows him? Then one simply never makes the trip again to all the romantic places. Perhaps this man feels a need to forget being alone, perhaps it's no effort for him to go to bed with her, perhaps he would have quite liked her if he had got to know her. No, the future tells me: well, not that! Don't worry so much about it, worry about something else, you must have your own souvenirs, and take good care of your savings bank books. The woman has for a long time behaved with excessive reserve, and now the opposite is the case, she can't stop herself busily and tirelessly looking for the man everywhere. But probably the interest on her side will be much greater, yes, that's the way it is. She will fall passionately in love with him, she will become a climbing plant, will smother with kisses, until the man will have to fear for his limbs, and that's exactly how it turned out. But no, the man is afraid of nothing. He drives for miles around in order to be afraid, but is never afraid. She would go on for years, lying in wait for him everywhere, offering him her chambers, in which he will never want to live, unless they had previously been abandoned by her, the woman, for his sake. She knows that very well. She wouldn't be able to stop herself. She would always be shooting out of a place of ambush like an adder and shoving her tongue in his ear, because he'd liked that a single time, but not a second time, at least not from her, but perhaps he secretly wants it after all, who knows. She knows that he doesn't want it. No, he's quick and rather bright, and he would already know now if he ever wanted it again. He knows what he wants and what he doesn't. She would, if possible, press herself so firmly against him, till he would feel the hard walls of the house right through her. Brick, concrete, plaster. He would like that better. The woman could furthermore make it very clear that she is ready to repeat something like that at any time. Yet she is herself a repeat of this wonderful model in this photograph, only she looks quite different. Where on earth is the architect's plan of the house, yesterday it was still in the drawer. The man makes the communication and signs it with his dear name, which is not yet worth anything, but will soon be worth something when he has her house and her off his back: I would like, of course, I would certainly like to marry you. Believe me, if it was up to me, immediately. If I only could, not now, but perhaps somewhat later it'll perhaps work out that we become a couple. But I would rather be one with you, how shall I put it? Couple is too little, we have to fuse with one another and become entirely one. What, that's impossible? It is possible. In this house it can be realized. This house is clean, spacious and comfortable, why should I, of all people, not want to live here. I have calculated that's the fastest way of coming by a house, which then later my grandson, Patrick, is to get, then everybody in the family has one, because the old dear will soon take her d.t.'s away with her to hospital and then out to the cemetery. Her house, however, she will have to leave here with Ernst, who has been waiting a long time for it. Nobody digs a grave so huge that a house will fit in, for that we would need a company of the Yugoslav Federal Army, they're used to that. Best of all I would like to enter the house and then sew it up behind me, like a living body from the upper middle class, such a treasure, whoever could raise it would have hit the jackpot, even if under very special conditions. Am I still talking about the house or about a human body now? My mommy always mixed it up, too, and peed everywhere, in every corner, that's why I don't know so much about it. I only know one thing: bricks last better and longer than flesh, high-grade steel lasts even longer, so why stick with people, even if they are good for us and good to us? Even this paint on the kitchen cabinet will last longer than I will. A fir grows green, who knows where, in the wood. A rose bush in which garden? They are chosen, sure, remember, oh soul, to grow and blossom by your grave or something like it, I am not so choice that I know it all by heart.
I bring everything together once again but, as usual, can't hold it and let it drop at the last moment, boing: The woman wants to feel sheltered and yet at the same time nevertheless feel free. She wants to feel a great deal else besides, I'm sorry, it's not possible. She's the type who wants to be led, as her dear parents led her, I'm sorry, it's not possible. So now the situation is as follows: In return for his friendliness the man demands her property, which is her house. The woman would in future never be able to forget the exceptional harmony of this relationship, so it's better that there's no future anymore, for the woman knows: I could never forget it, this great happiness. The woman is not deceived by her feelings but certainly by the matter itself. Should one bleed to death like a beast freshly slaughtered, while the sun plays around the still untouched real estate? Should one wither like a plaster cast, while the real concerns that one has all go under, one after the other? It's much too cold for that. Should one sit down at all in a car, when it hardly feels the small burden that one represents? Should one wave to someone from the window, who doesn't even look, because the eyes of the house are shut and don't sense that the heavens lie heavy upon them, do you see the little clouds there on the window pane? There are none. These are streaks, which the cleaning material has left behind, although in front of millions of witnesses it promised never to do such a thing. It is not heaven which appears on this glass, one must be fair, no one promised it to us either. If someone lies once, he's not believed a second time, even when he's telling the truth, I say to this slimming drink, which, yes, that one, too!, didn't keep its word to me and my girlfriend, and now it's my turn to get a word in, I hold it fast like a dear close family member, which I don't have. So it's my turn to speak, but I didn't notice in time and now I'm talking nonsense. I beg your pardon. But for you too there is bound to be a program on which you can present your concerns. If companies and politicians lie in public, then you don't have to stick to the truth in this talk show either. What? You have your own truth? But you are certainly not the only one, that is also something you'll come to understand in the course of this program, which we can now finally dispatch. You should take that in. We shall also need a new dress and so we'll buy it at Furnkranz on Karntnerstrasse, that's a very exclusive shop. The woman wouldn't normally shop here anymore, it's not worth it for the country. The dress is of brightly colored flowered silk and rather expensive, but it was worth it to me. It is the crowning, but not of Jacob's Monarch coffee, it is the crowning of a woman, who for once in her life would like to be queen or at least a Snow White, who doesn't care whether she sleeps or wakes, because Snow White wouldn't know which was which. So sleep my child, but first we have to drive back home, where the bed is, the midday traffic isn't so bad, and once we're on the highway, then we'll get ahead somehow, the crash barriers will tell us how.