Moment of True Feeling by Peter Handke Read Free Book Online

representative and nothing else! Did the short-wave receiving set secure his future because he used it? Or was the OUT basket beside the door a guarantee that the office boy would actually find the reports and letters expected of Keuschnig ready at the right time?—A car braked on the square outside with such a screech that Keuschnig heard the howl of a dog on whose paw he had once stepped. Once again, from one second to the next, everything hung in the balance. He would finally have to start thinking about himself. But how would he go about it? He was born into … My father was … My mother had … Even as a child I sometimes felt … Was that the only way of thinking about oneself? If I die now, Keuschnig thought, I shall leave nothing but disorder behind me!—and picking up his fountain pen, he began to draw up his will, writing every word, even the figures, in full, so as to prolong the act of writing, which made him feel safe, as much as possible.—As long as his pen was scratching, death seemed far away. He put the will in an envelope, on which he wrote: “To be opened only after my demise”—deliberately avoiding the word “death.”
    He looked out at the Esplanade des Invalides: nothing characteristic, nothing for him. He forced himself to look at something to stop the pain in his heart: the construction shacks, for example, for the workers engaged in joining two Métro lines. They were so small that the workers came out backwards and stooped. So that’s it, he thought. A good many of the leaves of the shade trees on the big square were already yellow and gnawed: Well well. Or the pale moon in
the eastern sky? Why not? A windowpane in the Air France bus terminal across the square was flashing sunlight into his office—as usual, but a little earlier than the day before. No harm in that, thought Keuschnig. Aloud he listed everything that was to be seen—that was his only way of perceiving.
    Then he noticed that on the same story as himself, a few rooms farther on, behind the flagpole, someone was standing at the window: a girl he hardly knew, a file clerk, who had been taken on as a holiday replacement a few days before. Paying no special attention to him, she was pouring water out of a small coffee cup on a pot of geraniums. A moment later she disappeared, then came back with her refilled cup. He noticed how high over the flowers she held the cup and how carefully she regulated the stream of water. Her lips were parted, her face strangely old. All at once it seemed to him that he was watching her doing something forbidden. He felt hot and dizzy, but it was too late for him to look at something else.—When she left the window, he hoped she would come back. She reappeared sooner than he had expected; this time she positively came running, she seemed excited. She gave him a quick sidelong glance, then poured more cautiously than ever; it took her a long time to tip her cup, as though there were some resistance to overcome. Suddenly, without changing her expression, she turned back to him, and this time her glance was long and sustained—old, evil, ravaged with lust. His member went stiff, he gave a start and stepped back.—Then he forgot everything and went quickly down the corridor to her room. Inside she came to meet him. He paused to lock the door. Two, three movements and they were into each other on the floor; after two or three more she opened her eyes wide and
he closed them.—A moment later they were both laughing uproariously.
    Keuschnig hadn’t had the feeling of being with a unique, individual woman, and afterwards he felt free from the impersonal power that had gripped them both.—They helped each other up. They sat on two chairs, she behind the desk, he in front of it, and exchanged conspiratorial looks. She was grave, smiled only once with set lips while looking at him, and soon grew grave again. He too was able to look at her