Rainer says: Anni, we've got to do something about that old bastard. But Anna says no what can we do anyway, let the old folk alone, let's worry about ourselves. But he's going to kill her. Let him, it'll be one less, and the other will be gone too, in gaol, where he'll die like a dog, all alone. We'd be free at last. But he's got the pistol. So what. He's far too much of a coward.
So Mother, having enjoyed no protection from her children, hurries bruised and worm-ridden into the kitchen to prepare the lavish Sunday breakfast. Anni wants to put in a lot of piano practice today and then go for a walk with Hans, Rainer on the other hand is to drive Father to Zwettl because Father wants to go there and work things out of his system physically. He'll try to be unfaithful to his wife but won't succeed, still, no harm in investing a clean shirt in the enterprise, just in case. He's always dressed up to the nines, is Papa. He will try to pick up women who are even younger than Mama, who is much younger than he is. He's adopted an elegant German accent for the purpose, to arouse interest. Come on, come on, let's be off, if we don't get started now we'll never get anywhere and I want to be off into the woods. You can be the chauffeur, son, because you're my boy, all I have apart from you is a daughter. Also you can play chess with Papa in the evenings, which Anna can't because she doesn't think logically. Unfortunately philosophic books by Kant, Hegel and Sartre have to be left behind when Papa wants to go out to the woods, no power on earth can do anything about this. If I come back and find you in bed with that businessman again, I'll murder you. I'm not yelling the way I usually do when I make the threat, Gretl, you've disregarded me often enough already, no, today I'm telling you coolly but incisively that I shall kill you with my Steyr-Kipplauf pistol, I am one hundred percent in the right. But Otti, no, for Christ's sake no, the businessman's happily married and the only contact I've had with him has been out shopping, but I always hurry and don't pause for any private talk. But you do pause to change your panties first, I've caught you there, haven't I? Only to be clean, and smell clean, when I go out, Otti. I don't have anyone but you and the children, I'm seeing to it that they get a good education at school because I come from a well-thought-of teacher's family.
Revolted, Anna goes to the piano, in quest of oblivion through sound, and she finds it too because music requires concentration. Father says it sounds horrible. But she is her mother's darling. Mother has a woman's feelings, as she does too… Mother pats Anna in passing, which makes her livid.
Thus Father and Son, one on this side and the other on that, one bored and the other labouring and heavy laden, clamber into the automobile, which can seat four (though today there are only two), and drive off on a north-bound freeway, into Nature, where there is a popular cafe for outings where you can make the acquaintance of ladies who are on their own at first but often leave accompanied. And already they are amidst gentle wooded slopes and meadows, and reservoirs burrow into the ground, a typical feature of this landscape, which borders closely on Czechoslovakia and where you can already sniff the harsh air of neighbouring Communism. The air is harsher because you're further north. Spring hasn't progressed as far here either. There is a smell of pine needles, like the spray you can buy, the houses are fewer and further between, the economy is depressed, as is proper in an economically depressed area. The voices of birds are uplifted in warning, watch out, don't have an accident, and deer appear on the horizon, only to disappear again promptly in their beloved natural heritage, revolted by the car exhaust fumes, which promise to become a problem if the cars increase in numbers. Nowadays, not everybody has one yet. It's a pity you have to put up with cars, seeing that Nature itself is so pure and uncontaminated, says Father. Cheerfully. As if he hadn't been threatening murder (just now).
Right now he is a poor thing and in the hands of his chauffeur son. You're my very own boy, she couldn't manage a second, couldn't Gretl. These men are always taking pornographic pictures of your mother, I'll show them to you some time, they're the filthiest things you've ever seen. If it weren't for the fact that strange men took the dirty stuff, I'd say the photos weren't altogether without artistic merit, but these other men are simply lecherous and that renders the effect null and void. Ugh.
The son grinds his jaws and says nothing, defending Mummy is pointless because Pop will only attack her all the more violently. He'll calm down. Rainer's knuckles stand out white on the wheel as if they were going to split through the skin. The only thing that helps is thinking of Sophie, whom he can't see today because of Papa and his wanderlust. One hopes she won't be giving any other young man the eye. They wanted to have a long talk about Camus, about his book on absurdity and obsession, but now they can't talk at all because the woods are beckoning seductively and asking: Where are you from? The city? Then this is the place you want, this is the place for country matters.
His son's silence turns Father nasty and he accuses him of incest, have you screwed your Mama too, when I was out slogging my guts out for all of you?
Stray villages make their appearance by the road and then fall behind again, with regrets because they haven't been chosen for lunch, because a different village has been chosen. In terms of quality, Zwettl is not much better, though it is bigger and situated by a reservoir. At last it appears and makes a good impression, one it frequently practises. It even has a monastery to offer, called Stift Zwettl, which they don't take a look round because you can't expect it of a war invalid. On Sundays the town is resting and jolliness is rampant. Father and son eat a good schnitzel with a cucumber side-salad and a beer each. They are shrouded in the rural earthiness of a real ethnic pub. Father is already flirting with a strapping dark-haired can't-be-more-than-mid-twenties at the next table, all on her own, he buys her a wedge of Sachercake with a particularly large dollop of cream and a glass of wine to go with it. A coffee to follow. The girl gives a high-pitched giggle. Eh, schones Fraulein, how about it, you and me (better than all alone!), even if I'm disabled, I can still stand on my own two feet, or one as the case may be, I'm still a man. Giggle giggle cackle. She comes over to Papa's table, Papa pays for a couple of liqueurs, a kiss with love, advocaat with raspberries and cream. They are expensive and taste terrible. Papa has already bought her that much. The son will be throwing up any moment. Father ruins the fat woman's bee-hive hair-do, grabbing the bird's nest, may I, hoho. You may, sir, heeheehee. The girl scrutinises the son, who looks the student type. The son fixedly scrutinises the synthetic curtains at the window with their enormous pattern. The invalid scrutinises what has been waiting for him and him alone beneath the dirndl skirt all these years. His hand shoves up to dark heights. Meanwhile his son is in those loftier altitudes where he composes poetry: Here you pitch and toss, pale scraps in the depths. I am the great relief, crying out for itself. My dwelling place is all the images of the day after tomorrow.