The Ride Across Lake Constance and Other Plays by Peter Handke Read Free Book Online Page A

—“Fucked?”—“Forgot the cows, John Wayne. I believe, I forgot the name of the film.”—Someone farther away: “Knocked out her teeth!”—“Who knocked her up?”-And someone even farther away: “Knocked them down with bombs.”
    Continuing at once: “Rammed a rod up his ass!”—Louder: “Ramrods have passed.”—Quite comprehensible but not too loud, recited negligently like verse: “ … rambling through the brambles of glass … / … roaring through the riptide of grass …” To his partner: “Do you still remember?” The partner lowers his or her head, smiles, and walks on: “Whether W. C. Fields slipping freely …” The first one, more softly: “Sipping.”—Even more softly: “What simpering?” The sound of someone becoming louder emanates from an altogether different spot: “ … . chalice of sorrow …” Now the first of the two partners walks on smiling. And on: “And a bit of spit on the fly which …” The lady with the fan in the background.—“Yes, the tits of my girl Friday.” One thereupon thinks one hears one of the two partners saying.—“No, a dog that bit off my clitoris(?) …”
    While stepping-slowly-forward: “ … and I tasted …” Correcting himself while approaching: “ … which tasted me …”—“ … tasted the soft inside of a … cyst …”—In front by the footlights, humming elatedly with lowered head: “ … a foretaste of heaven …”—A character who is just walking past the lady with the fan says: “Tested me to the utmost,” and one thinks one can still hear the lady with the fan’s partner say—one can’t really make out who is speaking-while the two are edging into the background: “ … cash his cut … taste buds … spit and polish … soft insides got
sick … fucked watery corpses at Easter …” while all around on the stage many other characters are walking around chatting, though more softly, and smiling.
    Then they recount: “‘Cold,‘he said, ’cold, completely cold.‘”—“‘Ice,’ as she used to say then.”—“‘Like a glance out of a ranch house in Nebraska,’ they told us.”—“‘Where the train got stuck in the snow,’ she wrote back to me.”—“‘Indescribably white!’ she exclaimed.”—“‘No!’ he screamed.”—“‘Light, nothing but light!’ she squealed like a pig on a spit.”—“He cabled: ‘In the chest-high snow where the two, who had become snowblind in the meantime, were surrounded by St. Bernards …’”—“And I replied: ‘And what are you?’”—“‘Put in cold storage,’ I still understood, then the line went dead.”—“‘A mouse?’ I couldn’t resist asking.”—“‘For New Year’s Eve in the fridge!’ he wrote in so many words though the stamp allowed room for one more.”—“The note said in Gothic script: ‘Born dead …’”—“‘The ice pick already lodged in his head,’ I read, ‘he still bit his murderer’s hand.’”—Someone then produces a poor imitation of the sound of “croaking,” a chocking noise with the gums— kch— and his female partner emits a quick light laugh.
    For a short while one hears the characters leave out one word in their sentences and sees them casting significant and conspiratorial glances at each other: “You remember how ( smirking and nodding of heads ) … used take lonely walks with his dog?”—“I don’t need to tell you that … held different opinions on the