QUITT, wearing a sweat suit, is working out on a punching bag, belaboring it with his fists, feet, and knees. HANS, his confidant, wearing tails, stands next to him with a tray and a bottle of mineral water, watching. QUITT takes a sip from the bottle, pours some on his head, and sits down on a stool.
QUITT
I feel sad today.
HANS
So?
QUITT
I saw my wife in a dressing gown and her lacquered toes and suddenly I felt lonely. It was such a no-nonsense loneliness that I have no trouble speaking about it now. It relieved me, I crumbled, melted away in it. The loneliness was objective, a quality of the world, not something of myself. Everything stood with its back to me, in gentle harmony with itself. While I was taking a shit I heard the sounds I was making as if they came from a stranger in the next cubicle. When I took the bus to the office—
HANS
So as to maintain contact with the people and to study their needs. For the purpose of R and D?
QUITT
— the sad curve which the bus described at one point at a wide traffic circle cut like a yearning dream deep into my heart.
HANS
The world’s sorrow
Cut Mr. Quitt’s feelings
To the marrow.
Hold on to your senses, Mr. Quitt. Someone as wealthy as you can’t afford these moods. A businessman who talks like that, even if he really feels like that, is only giving a campaign speech. Your feelings are a luxury and are useless. They might be useful to those who could live according to them. Mr. Quitt: for example, why don’t you make me a gift of the sorrows from your leisure time to reflect about my work. Or—
QUITT
Or?
HANS
Or become an artist. You’re already supporting violin recitals; you even condescended to collect money in public for the acquisition of a painting by the National Gallery. The wealth of feelings that is yours as of any given date this month is not only useful but is even essential for an artist. Why don’t you paint the curve, the curve of yearning which your bus described, on canvas? Why don’t you sell your experience as a painting?
QUITT
(Stands up.) Hans, you’re playing your daily role as if you knew it by rote. More realistically, please! More lovingly! Grander!
HANS
And the way Mr. Quitt just stepped out of his role — was that pure make-believe too?
QUITT
Let’s not start splitting hairs. I admit: the salesgirl in the aforementioned bus eating French fries that smelled of rancid oil ruined my feelings — well, I would have loved to have slapped her face. On the other hand: shortly afterwards I met a black on the street; he was completely absorbed in the photos he’d just picked up from the drugstore, grinning to himself, swept away in remembrance, so that I suddenly remembered along with him, I felt solidarity with him. You’re laughing. But there are moments when one’s consciousness, too, takes a great leap forward.
HANS
But brutal reality
In no time destroys
That sense of solidarity.
However, I am laughing because you told me many times how you like to remember the time when you lived for days on end in Paris on nothing but French fries and ketchup.
QUITT
I had guests when I was telling that story. And in company, I sometimes also mention “the wood anemones and the hazelnut bushes from the springtime of my youth.”
HANS
Does the addition of these artistic elements facilitate negotiations?
QUITT
Yes: by serving as an allegory for what is being left unsaid. The wood anemones beneath the hazelnut bushes then signify something altogether different. Only those who speak know that. The poetic element is for us a manifestation of the historic element, even if it is only a convention. Without poetry we would be ashamed of our deals, would feel like primordial man. By the way, just who exactly is coming today?
HANS
Harald von Wullnow
Karl-Heinz Lutz
Berthold Koerber-Kent
Paula Tax
all of them businessmen and friends of Quitt.
QUITT
I still have to change. If my wife comes, tell her to take care of the guests — then we can be sure that she’ll go “bargain hunting” instead of flushing the toilet the whole time. Incidentally, I feel genuinely sad. Almost a comfortable feeling. (Exit.)
HANS
How easily Mr. Quitt talks about himself! You have to envy him his sadness. He becomes talkative then, like someone who’s being filmed. In any event, time passes more quickly with a sad Quitt, because when he feels good he is distant, unapproachable, rubs his hands together briskly, hops up and down once, that’s his Rumpelstiltskin act. (He sits down on the stool.) And what about me? What was I allowed to feel this morning? Isn’t it true that you can tell more stories about yourself when you’ve just woken up than at any other time? Thus: the sun rose and shone into my open mouth. I hadn’t had any dreams. I even find it repulsive the way people purse their mouth when they say “dream.” When I brushed my teeth my gums bled. I would have liked to do it. But there was nothing doing. I: made a list of the meat to be ordered. Who am I, where did I come from, where am I going? Me … Yes, me, me! Always me. Why not someone else? (He reflects and shakes his head.) I have to try it when I’m with people. (He gets up. MINORITY STOCKHOLDER KILB appears in the background.) I can’t remember anything personal about myself. The last time anyone talked about me was when I had to learn the catechism. “Your humble servant” of “Your Grace.” Once I had a thought but I forgot it at once. I’m trying to remember it even now. So I never learned to think. But I have no personal needs. Still, I can indulge in a few gestures. (He raises his fist but pulls it down again at once with the other hand. Now he notices KILB.) Who are you, where did you come from, and so forth?
KILB
My name is Franz Kilb. (HANS laughs.) Don’t you like the name?
HANS
It’s something else. I was talking to myself just now — nuently almost. We don’t have anything against names here. And what are you?
KILB
A minority stockholder.
HANS
The minority stockholder, perhaps?
KILB
Yes, the minority stockholder, Franz Kilb, the terror of the boards of directors, the clown of the stockholders’ meetings, the tick in the navel of the economy with the nuisance value of 100—it’s me, perking up again. (HANS steps forward and puts one fist in front of KILB’s face while showing him out with the other hand.) Are you serious?
HANS
(Steps back and drops his arms.) I’d like to be. But I’m only serious when Mr. Quitt is serious. Nonetheless: it is my honor — scram! (KILB sits down on the stool.) So now you’re going to tell us the story of your life, is that it?
KILB
I own one share of every major corporation in the country. I travel from one stockholders’ meeting to the next and spend the nights in my sleeping bag. I go by bike — see, look at the trouser clips. I’m a bachelor in the prime of life, my reflexes function perfectly. (He strikes his kneecap and his foot hits HANS.) This is my Boy Scout knife; during the Second World War I passed my lifeguard test, I can pull you out of the water with my teeth. There are people who hold me in high esteem, but I don’t put my name on any political endorsements. I once appeared on What’s My Line? I said I was self-employed, no one guessed what I did. At stockholders’ meetings I sit with my rucksack and keep my hand up all the time. Stockholders’ meetings where the board ignores someone who asks for the floor are null and void. How quiet it is here. Can you hear how quietly I am speaking? My last mistress called me demonic, the press (He quickly proffers a few newspaper clippings.) calls me a gadfly. I am quicker than you think. (He has tripped up HANS, who has fallen on his knees.) I live from my dividends and am a free person, in every respect. My motto is: “Anyone who’s for me gets nothing from me; anyone against me will get to know me.” That’s a warning for you.