"After a thorough examination of our conscience, we've decided to eat you because of your disobedience." "Wife, you and I are allies." "You, mother-father, I, father-mother." "Tenderness and harshness surround our son from all sides." "My God, the Germany of today's Bonn, is nothing like Hitler's Germany." "They make wool, cheese, beer and buttons." "Cannons are only made for export." "It's true, we know Hitler was a little female, but we all know he was a female killer." "So our tradition has definitely improved." "So, she, the killer-mother had obedient, blue-eyed children full of great desperate love." "Whereas I..." "I, an affectionate mother, have a son who is neither obedient nor disobedient." "PIGSTY" "Julian, we are two rich bourgeois." "The destiny which brought us together is not two-faced." "It has smiled on us with great naturalness, and we're here to analyse ourselves because it's our privilege." "I won't talk about it." "It's painful to talk about myself." "How is it painful?" "It's pain you can't even imagine!" "Sure, today is the first day of spring." "It's your birthday and the day we have some explaining to do." "What a bore." "I feel like making a kite and going to the beautiful fields of Godesberg." "You make me laugh!" "You always find excuses to get out of things." "Julian's lucky." "He always has an overpowering and childish desire for fulfillment." "His reserves of happiness and freedom are always at hand." "His purpose is always obscure." "My 17 years are 47, the age your mother won't admit to." "I know what these brilliant ideas are for." "But today I won't continue being confused and tremulous and admire the dumbfounding prospect of you running to Cologne with a kite." "No, I'll keep you here to talk about the two of us." "If you were to die, my pretty, I wouldn't even be curious where you were buried." "But you kissed me once, did you or did you not?" "I'm scratching my head." "His sex is male and his name is Julian." "You don't know who you are." "Don't you want to know yourself?" " No, I don't want to." " Why not?" "I like the way I am now." "It's the prerogative of my gender." "In your grandfather's Italianised temple, as big as a world of a thousand souls, and where, instead, an emperor lived alone amid monochrome frescoes, coloured like snow and yellow Indian ink, you once were a child." " What happened to you?" " What happened to you?" "What has kept you here, stunned and unable to leave?" "In this immense Italianised villa, just little things, of course." "A wandering leaf, a creaky door, a distant grunt." "Why do you always kid around, you, who are never the comic?" "Because if you could see me for just one instant as I really am, you'd run off terrified to get a doctor, if not an ambulance!" "Hooray!" "Leave them alone, Father." " Don't worry, we have no secrets." " Well, are you engaged or not?" "Not on your life!" " That's a good one." " Really, Ida, not yet?" "We've decided to take a trip to Sicily instead." "Taormina, an enchanting village." " Have you been there, Mr Klotz?" " Yes, little Ida, during the war." "It's too bad you haven't made up your minds." "Julian needs a kind, sweet woman, one who truly loves him." " Who says I'm in love with him?" " Well, it would be a good marriage." "If we combined our wealth, I'd own half of West Germany for sure." "Wool, cheese, beer and buttons, not to mention cannons." " Hooray!" " I can see you two get along anyway, a wonderful complicity." " Coward!" " My best quality is remaining inalienable." "Since you're inalienable, you won't change." "Why don't you come with us to Berlin to join in the first and maybe only German march for peace?" "Because today is a day in August of '67 and I don't have opinions." "I tried to have them, and so I did my duty." "I discovered that even as a revolutionary I was a conformist." "But conformity leads to other worries, for example, taking care of your father's business." "Yes, but in return it protects me from being afraid." " You know exactly what you want." " So do you." "The time has come." "For the first time the youth of Berlin are doing something." "Ten thousand of them are going to piss on the Wall in protest." "The Communists on the other side will watch them." " You're missing that thing." " I'm a girl-boy and I'll piss as well." "I've got something else to do." " What?" " I'm not telling you." " Please tell me." " No." " Tell me." " No!" " I want to know." " You'll never find out." " Please!" " Give up." " What are you going to do?" " I don't want to tell you." " Why?" " You're not kidding around anymore?" " I never kidded around." " Do you really want to know?" " Yes, I want to know!" " Are you really going to cry?" " Yes, I'm going to cry." " You're a fool." "But I never know what you're doing, what you think, who you are." "Never, never!" "Regarding our march on Berlin, all I know is you're a disgusting individualist." "Yes, partly, I grunt like my father, in fact." "But I won't let you say it." "But I'm going to say it." "You're on your father's side." "People like you who want nothing, want power." " Your father has power, too." " I'd still love you even if you were black." "I'm scratching my head." "None of this interests me." "The 50 conformist parts of me are bored, and my 50 revolutionary parts are suspended." "Both of them want to stay here to enjoy..." " What?" " The infinite repetition of just one thing." " What?" " What I said before." "What I'll do when you and your friends are at the Berlin Wall... standing under stupid puritanical signs." "If you tell me what you're going to do while the rest of those of your generation, the best in our country, will be marching for the first time," "I'll be more heroic than my heroism, Julian." "I'll be disloyal and stay here with you." "Even if you were to betray not just those of your generation, but yourself and the truth, you'll never find out what I'm going to do." "What right do you have not to tell me?" " It's just my right, that's all." " What good will it do you?" "If anything, to make you cry and suffer." "Tra-la-la." "And without fail I'll cry and suffer." "Tra-la-la." "Just little things, a wandering leaf, a creaky door." "A grunt." "What do you mean, Julian?" "What do you mean?" "Come on, don't cry, don't be a bore." "Of course I'll go with you and piss on the Berlin Wall." "I heard that our son has plans to go to Berlin..." " with those Communist students." " No." "He didn't go after all." " Where did he get such an idea?" " Ida." " But Ida's only 17." " That's right." "And he's 25." "And she's there waiting for him." " Is he on my side or against me?" " Who knows?" "The times of Grosz and Brecht are not yet over." "I could easily have been drawn by Grosz as a sad pig and you a sad sow, at the dinner table, of course." "I with a secretary's bum on my knee and you with your hands between the driver's legs." "And Brecht could easily have us be villains in a play where the poor are the good guys." "So what's Julian waiting for to grow fat like a pig?" "Or to give gifts to the poor and dance a Tyrolean dance with them?" "Or what's he waiting for to call me a pig?" "And to call me a sow." "Did you do that thing while I was in Berlin?" "Ida, I have a proposal for you." "What a strange tone of voice you have." "It's almost like mine." "A proposal?" "Yes, tell me, Julian." "I want to kiss you." "A kiss?" "Oh, Julian, you don't know how that fills me with joy." "I could dance, sing." "I could jump for joy like a puppy and clap my hands." "It's a joy more spectacular than the sun or the stars." "Who can I tell?" "Who can I open my heart to?" "Who do I thank while I'm crying and laughing?" "Nevertheless, Julian, I won't let you kiss me." "All right." "How did it go in Berlin?" "Everything went well in Berlin." "What was written on your sign?" "Nothing in particular." ""Down with God."" " What do you care?" " But you care about it a lot." "I don't know." "So what about our kiss?" "Ida, why don't you want me to kiss you?" "Julian, my dignity!" "What dignity?" "Tra-la-la." "Not that of a woman, or a girl, but my freedom." "Tra-la-la." "But if you love me, you're free." "I'm free to not let you kiss me and suffer horribly." "Tra-la-la." " Ida, have pity on me!" " No!" "Not on any condition?" "Not on any condition?" "I'll let you kiss me if you tell me..." "The truth about what I did while you..." "Yes, what you did while I was there." "What I always do while I'm alone." "You think I fly kites over the villas in Godesberg." "What do you do, then?" "I'm 25 years old and five months." "And do you know I've never kissed a woman!" "That's a big one!" "With all my pacifism and polemics about the wealth of Germany, with all my anticlericalism, and with all my devotion to free love, with everything that unites me to the hundreds of thousands of the most progressive youth in the world," "Julian, you shock me or even make me laugh." "Laugh, that's just what you ought to do." "That's why I want to be an SS and massacre you with my secret!" "Come on, kiss me." "I can't now." "Why not?" "I give up, you see." "Tra-la-lera." "The desire to kiss you, as you can see, made me want to kill you." "Tra-la-la." "Do you think I wouldn't be up for that, too?" " You're asking me?" " I'm sure of it now." "I won't kiss you." "I won't kill you." " Because I love..." " Who?" "There's no "who"." "There is only my love." "Dear guinea pig, you're free." "The last miserable experiment is over." "There he is." "Like Christ on the cross." " Does he recognise us?" " Who knows?" "No one knows." " He's not looking at anything." " He always stares blankly up in the air." " Doesn't he move?" " No." "He never moves an inch." "He's been lying there rigidly since August." "I left Godesberg in August because he told me he was in love, but not with me." "We know, my poor Ida." " How was your trip to Italy?" " Wonderful." "We love Italy." "If we had won the war, we would've bought a villa in Syracuse." "So, Ida, who is Julian in love with?" " I don't know." "He didn't want to tell me." " Why not?" "I don't know, I don't know." "If he'd told me, this wouldn't have happened." "Everything would have gone according to plan." "All he had to do was say the name, that which he loved, and everything would have been happily or unhappily resolved." "Why do you say "that" and not "woman"?" "The only thing I know about that being is that it exists." "Who is it that's in love with my poor son?" "And above all, why won't he name them?" "Is he ashamed?" "Can't he say it?" "Ida, let me tell you this." "His father hired a detective because of this mystery, to go to Heidelberg and wherever else Julian went." " And?" " Nothing." "He hasn't had a relationship with a girl." "I mean, true and long-lasting relationships." " Did he make love to those girls?" " I think so, naturally." "Come on, don't start crying now." "Don't cry, don't cry." "Why not?" "He was proud." "Proud?" "On the contrary!" "He was quick to be vile." "Julian had no pride." "What are you saying?" "As a child he never asked anyone for forgiveness." "But I heard him ask for forgiveness thousands of times." "You're mad." "He never went back on his decisions." "He never made any!" "He wasn't very smart, but he clung strongly to his beliefs." "On the contrary, he was very smart." "I've never met a smarter boy." "He only did well in school because he studied a lot." "He never studied." "He always spent time on the playing field, in dancehalls." "What are you talking about?" "He was always a serious boy." "And always austere, like a saint." "Serious and austere?" "My God!" "He was always so light-hearted." "Julian had no sense of humour whatsoever." "He was devoted to the army and wanted to become a soldier like his grandfather, my father," " who defeated Kerensky on the Vistula." " The army left him completely indifferent." "I don't think he knew it existed, though he never joined in our anti-war protests." "He knew the flags of every country in the world." " Maybe." "I did, too, as a child." " But he never liked to travel." "That's not true!" "His heart was always with distant peoples." " The Mayans, the Dinka, the Irish." " Maybe he saw them in films." "The only film he ever went to, and by chance, was a retrospective of Murnau." "But he was crazy for spy films and Westerns." "He didn't enjoy films, but he reminded me of Charlie Chaplin." "Charlie Chaplin?" "But can't you see?" "He's a mannerist St Sebastian." "Anyway, there he is, in catalepsy, in a coma." "If he could hear and understand us, who knows what he'd say about us poor women." "Because his prestige is unchanged." "He was always there even when he was running away." "He gave himself prestige by playing a bitter game and his mysterious pain hangs over him like a silent monument." "Mr Herdhitze." "Mr Herdhitze, my mysterious rival." "How troublesome our great fathers are." "They have filled our colony with majestic industrial complexes like churches." "Smokestacks, smokestacks, smokestacks." "A cement Athens." "That's what it means to be so far ahead of others thanks to the great...of our fathers." "While your factories..." "There is no sign of them, Mr Herdhitze." "Might they be invisible?" "Have they levitated?" "Mr Herdhitze." "Mr Herdhitze, my mysterious rival who rose from nothing." " May I come in?" " Come in, my dear fellow, come in." " Good morning, Mr Klotz." " Good morning, dear Hans Gunther." "How is your son?" "My dear Hans Gunther." "You see, he wasn't an obedient son." "All in all, he wasn't a disobedient son either." "My dear Bertha and I have democratically discussed this at length." "If he had obeyed me, I would have taken him under my wing, and together we would have flown over the glorious smokestacks of our Cologne, the furnace of our buttons and cannons." "If he had disobeyed me, though, I would have crushed him." "But with a son who is neither consenting nor dissenting there was nothing I could do." "God took care of it." "What did God do with Julian?" "Since he wanted to do nothing, he let him die." "And because he wanted to do something, he let him live." "Idleness, strikes and exile." "I don't know." "Julian is lying there in his room like an embalmed saint, neither dead nor alive." " But let's talk about us." " Good news, Mr Klotz." "I congratulate you, my dear Hans Gunther." "Thank you, Mr Klotz." " Good news, then." " Yes." "Mr Herdhitze is none other than Mr Hirt." "Hirt." "Old Hirt." "My old school chum, first in Essen then in Heidelberg." "Did he have plastic surgery?" "Of course, Mr Klotz." "Plastic surgery in Italy is very advanced." "In Italy?" "We should start at the beginning, Mr Klotz." "Yes, let's start at the beginning, dear Hans Gunther." "Well, Mr Herdhitze, your political rival, the bugbear of your industries, the new face of West Germany, is none other than Mr Hirt, his face transformed by plastic surgery." "First of all, I imagine he's become a professor of something." "Exactly." "Of anatomy, in Strasbourg." "Good." "And then?" "All right." "That takes us to Strasbourg, precisely to February 9, 1942." "My rheumatism." "It's the date of a secret report sent to guess who?" "Mr Himmler!" "Crimes against humanity, hooray!" "I congratulate you, I congratulate you, dear Hans Gunther." "Do you know what that report was about?" "Here it is." "The collection of skulls belonging to Jewish Bolshevik commissioners for scientific research at the University of Strasbourg." "Skulls from who?" "Jewish Bolshevik commissioners?" "Forgive me if I laugh... but these three words strung together are irresistibly funny!" ""Commissioners", "Bolsheviks", and "Jews" as well." "So, the more you have, the more you add on." "That's really funny!" "It seems that Mr Hirt, now known as Herdhitze, complained that even though almost every race possesses a great number of skulls, science only had a small number of Jewish skulls available to them." "So the war in the East would give them the opportunity to make up for this serious gap." "That's where Jewish Bolshevik commissioners come in." "Let's get to the point." "Well, these prisoners, in several lots, were forced naked into gas chambers." "The salts were placed in the pipe." "The end of the pipe was closed with a plug." "This plug had a metal pipe and it forced the salt to spray out." "The prisoners were able to breathe for a half-minute more, then fell to the ground covered in their own excrement." "The corpses were still warm when they arrived at the Institute of Anatomy, their eyes wide open and shining." "They cut the left testicle off the men to send to the anatomy lab." "Dr Hirt's, now Herdhitze's, refrain to his collaborators was," ""if you don't keep your traps shut, you'll end up the same way."" "Let's get to the point." "The real point." "The war was ending and the Allied front was nearing Strasbourg." "What should Dr Hirt do with the 80 pieces in his one-of-a-kind collection?" "Well..." "They were scientifically made to disappear by meticulous cremation." "And their gold teeth were given to Dr Hirt who disappeared with them." " But then..." "There's no proof!" "No proof!" " No." "At this point an important character in our story enters the picture." " Who?" " A certain Mr Ding." " Ding?" " Yes, Ding, Mr Klotz." "Ding." "So he was a Confucian!" "No." "He was the purest of Aryans." "So what role did he play in our story?" "He was no other than Dr Hirt's, now Herdhitze's, assistant." "He, too, disappeared under the rubble as his teacher did." "There's no doubt that, along with exceptional abundance, it should be noted that Germany in those days had an unusual shortage of corpses." "The ambiguity of evil." "Today Ding calls himself Klauberg." "Right." "You realise, Mr Klotz, that thanks to my short legs and big dark head that among southern Europeans, especially in Italy," "I don't look like a tourist." "So?" "Can it be easy to describe my excitement when, obviously throwing caution to the wind," "I heard, right in downtown Milan, the clink of the monosyllable, "Ding"?" " Ding." " Ding!" "Ding!" "Like in a Chinese concert, like rain on roofing-tiles." "Ding." "So Mr Ding, now known as Klauberg, let the cat out of the bag." "And Mr Hirt, now known as Herdhitze, is done for!" "A man wishes to see you." " Who is it, my dear man?" " His name is Herdhitze." " Mr Herdhitze?" " Yes, sir, Herdhitze." "Mr Herdhitze is here?" "Show him in, show him in." "Mr Herdhitze!" "Mr Herdhitze!" "Marvellous, Mr Herdhitze, what a surprise!" "I was in the area, my dear Mr Klotz, coming from Cologne on my way to Bonn and I said to myself," ""Why not stop in to see my dear old school chum?"" "To tell you the truth, I never would have recognised you." "Have you had plastic surgery on your face?" "Yes." "Plastic surgery, Italian style." "We haven't seen each other for a long time, after all." "I think it was in '38." "Yes, good for you." "Spring of '38." "What a wonderful spring." "Twenty-nine others have gone by since, but the old fire never goes out!" "Always such a jolly fellow, our Herdhitze." "Isn't it true, Hans Gunther, that Herdhitze in our mother tongue means "blazing fire"?" "And what fire is blazing, may I ask?" "The fire of the great Germany, of course, Mr Klotz, where it rises from under the ashes to produce wool, cheese, beer and buttons." "You make me heave a sigh," " my dear Herdhitze." " Why, Mr Klotz?" "Because you are new, brand new, while I..." "What are you saying?" "You are..." "You're a jet plane zooming towards the future, Mr Klotz." "These exaggerated metaphors remind me of Grosz." "Are you alluding to your humanistic training, Mr Klotz?" "Yes, and I'm envious of your true scientific training, Mr Herdhitze." "You mean technical." "Yes, there's no contradiction between them any more." "Only in my head." "I feel so old." "I could be my son's grandfather." "Of course." "The good son." "The silent Julian." "We're the same age." "But I'm really an old fireplace... while you're a very modern radiator." " A glass of beer, Mr Herdhitze?" " I'll have two, Mr Klotz." "To our youth, Mr Herdhitze." "To our renewed youth, Mr Klotz." "I'm sorry if I've stirred up feelings of self-accusation and discouragement in you." "Those are only objective comments, Mr Herdhitze." "Someone like you who rose from nothing has only to reckon with the present." " How is your dear Bertha?" " Well." "I know that you're unmarried, Mr Herdhitze." "No, I have no heirs, Mr Klotz." "I'll leave my industries to the technicians." "The future doesn't lie in the hands of individuals." "No trace of humanistic culture will exist in the future." "And man will no longer have problems with his conscience." "You've had some?" "Sorry, but it all seems contradictory." "My past constructive experience tells me that contradictions are absolutely necessary." "Indeed." "Indeed, indeed." "There comes a time when my abjection of pigs, whose bellies can hold an entire social class, is purified by regret of the past." "And that's where I'm wrong." "Instead..." "Instead, instead, there comes a moment in time when your abjection of pigs, when you think about the future, becomes even more cynical." " And that's where you're right." " The ambiguity of goodness." "Regarding the Jews..." "I knew that's where you were headed." "Another glass of beer, Mr Klotz?" "Of course, Mr Herdhitze." "So, to the health of the Jews, Mr Klotz." "To the health of pigs, Mr Herdhitze." "About pigs..." " Jews or pigs?" " Pigs, pigs." "Do you have any amusing stories to tell me?" "I know all the amusing stories about pigs, thanks to Brecht and Grosz." "No, just a minute ago I remembered something about pigs when we were talking about heirs and inheritances." "Your technicians." "No." "Like before, the farmers, now technicians, are innocent." "You know they are." "Thanks to their productivity and loyalty as consumers?" "Just so." "Going back to pigs..." "Do you remember, Mr Klotz, something that happened a few years ago, let me think...in '59." "When you changed from Lambrettas to household appliances?" " Exactly." "Your son was 16 then." " My son?" "I can understand your distress, but as a friend, a friend from a long time ago, but a friend nevertheless," "I asked myself," ""What's wrong with the son of the great Klotz?"" "My son's just sleepy." "He's extremely sleepy." "Your son wasn't asleep in '59." "I'm referring to that small forgotten episode I was telling you about." "Go ahead, tell me about it." "His great love for the countryside, for German-style gardens, full of untamed memories of Greece, misty and sun-drenched, dear to Diotima." "That great love couldn't be anything but fatal because the fault lies with those who think they're above their own past." "Let's not argue between ourselves, it's not about us now, if I'm not mistaken." "The true protagonist, your son, spent his entire life in the countryside, surrounded by gardens, an Hellenic paradise." "A farmer's house was just beyond it, with stables, manure heaps..." "Pigsties." "Germans consume great amounts of sausage." "The story I was telling you about was this:" "In '59, Julian stole a pig." " That's all it is?" " Yes, that's all it is." "We laughed so much about it around the fireplace." "Laughter that's now frozen in your throat." "Everyone has a cross to bear." "The protests of the farmers were very amusing to you, the ones who fattened up those pigs for Christmas, that first time." "A little less the second time." "Sure, Julian enjoyed stealing those pigs." "What did he do with them?" "Is that a rhetorical question?" "No." "It's one that comes from common sense, and an annoying one for someone who has common sense as well." "What did Julian do with the pigs?" "My dear sir, he probably played with them." "He probably put a leash on them, like he did with his Great Danes." "The thrill of spontaneity!" "What do you think he did with them?" "Again, I'm still your good friend even though 30 years have gone by." "I just really needed to understand something that you refused to see." "Since I understood, I wanted to demonstrate my love, since you had so much of it for me." "So tell me what you understood." "Understood?" "Alas, nothing." "I just knew about it." " What?" " After the two pig thefts, your son Julian shut himself off in a long, adolescent hermetic state." "If he rebelled, a hint of conformity would show through." "If he obeyed, the fire of dissent." "It went on like that for years." "A true enigma." "He went to school in Heidelberg, fell in love." "But I have good reason to think his heart was here, in the countryside." "It's obvious, passion is passion." "Poor Mr Klotz." "Another glass of beer?" "Later, Mr Herdhitze." "Let's continue." "You have such a thirst to know, Mr Klotz." "So all of a sudden you're so interested in your son's unhappiness?" "Haven't you ever asked yourself how much that poor boy has suffered to end up the way he has?" "Now we've come to the moment in time when no court could ever say if you're speaking out of viciousness or pity." "And if you feel real pain or not in wanting to inflict pain on me." "Yes, I couldn't answer that myself." "I'm here as your rival to destroy you, as I have to do, so you won't be able to destroy me." "So we talked about pigs instead of Jews." "But there's something else." "Perhaps it's a taste of the truth." "Who knows?" "In truth, the thought of that poor boy on the cross brings a tear to my eye, even if it would smack of the ridiculous if I told it to others." "What?" "You see, Mr Klotz, Julian's solitary walks, those normal inspections of his, had as its daily destination the pigsty." " Well, then?" " That's it." "As soon as he got to the pigsty, the measures Julian could've taken so the farmers wouldn't notice him weren't, of course, of any use against my Hans Gunther, namely, a certain Klauberg, formerly known as Ding," "omnipresent like God and his truth." "And so we get to the point where it seems... impossible for you to say it..." "and for me to listen to it." "Are you feeling better, Julian?" "Yes, thanks to a little help from my father." "Your ambiguous friend and ambiguous enemy." "Yes, his ambiguous conscience merged with my pure existence." "Your father is going through a wonderful period in his life." "I'm completely indifferent to it." "But all Germany is talking about it." "It's the main topic of discussion in all the newspapers." "And all our clean-shaven bearded friends have a new reason to feel they're right." "Herdhitze  Klotz or Klotz  Herdhitze." "It's been the topic of heated argument." "I think it was decided alphabetically." "And in your friends' indignation?" "Of course Herdhitze, killer of Jews and a new man, is at the top of the list." " A small failure for my father." " There must have been some bargaining." "Oh, yes." "Of course there was." "A story about pigs for a story about Jews." "Fine, Julian." "It's hard to talk to you." "I came to say goodbye to you, as they say." "Fine, Ida." "Sooner or later..." "How should I put it?" "It had to happen." " I'm getting married." " With a clean-shaven bearded fellow?" "Don't laugh, Julian." "How can you?" "Perhaps my courage comes from your happiness." " My love for a certain Pubi Jannings?" " Why not?" "If you truly love him." "No, it's not from the happiness Pubi gives me, but from your indifference to my love that became indifference toward my estrangement." "Ida the Judge." "What's this Pubi like?" "A good-looking boy." "Two years younger than you." "Just got his degree." "His reformism is as clear as his eyes, his morality as strong as his muscles." "He's on a sports team." "He's not anti-Communist." "He's tall, blond, but not blond like a German, more like a Russian." "His respect for others is never servile." "I've never seen him lose his dignity." " Does he grunt?" " Julian," "I didn't tell you about him to get back at you." "I'm completely indifferent to it all." "No, you feel hate." " Love, I'd say." " Then why won't you be a part of it?" "Why don't you ask one of your Jews or blacks?" "You're useless." "Perhaps it's because you don't exist." "You're only an apparition." "Your German is a joke and even though you're here it will always be questionable." "You already said that, and I understood completely." "Let's leave each other with love, Julian." "Leave each other?" "When were we ever together?" " Never." " That's obvious." "But now that I love someone else, unfortunately, the risk is to pity you." "Don't worry, I'll make you laugh, even if you say I have no sense of humour." "Well, goodbye, Julian." " Goodbye, Ida." " Goodbye, Julian." "How strong and odd my love is." "I can't say I love you, but that's not what's important." "The object of my amorous passion has never been so worthless, to say the least." "What counts are the sensations I feel." "The profound change it made in me." "It's not degeneration, let me be clear about that." "If it were, you'd have understood and rightly felt disgust and pity." "Nothing has gone from my life." "I say that without pride, but with wonder, or let's say with a scholarly objectivity." "Now these sensations are so wonderful, so exciting." "They're unique." "I can't rid myself of them for an instant, not even from my thoughts." "It doesn't happen just by being born or living." "No." "There's nothing natural about it." "So what do you want?" "I think about it all the time." "The sensations this love produce in me can be summarised into just one." "I was struck by a grace, something also akin to a plague." "So don't be shocked if an infinite happiness came along with it." "It's no wonder that I have horrible nightmares at night." "But they're the most genuine things in my life." "I have no other way of facing reality." "The other night I dreamt I was in a dark road, full of puddles." "I was searching along the edge of the sidewalk, the puddles full of light, like northern lights, a long Siberian sunset, for something." "What was I looking for?" "I don't remember." "Perhaps a toy." "And at the edge of one of these puddles I see a pig, a young pig." "I get closer as if to catch him, touch him, and he gleefully bites me." "He bites off four fingers of my right hand, but they remain attached." "They don't bleed." "It's like they were rubber." "I turn around with my fingers dangling, upset about the bite." "Do I have the vocation of a martyr?" "Who knows where the truth lies in dreams, besides making us anxious about it." "To our merger, my dear Herdhitze." "To our merger!" "To our merger, my dear Klotz." "You'll think I'm obsessed by it, but I have to keep saying, Grosz is not dead." "The festivities for the merger of Klotz and Herdhitze are as natural as spring returning." "Light-heartedness, my dear Herdhitze, light-heartedness." "Who says religion is dead?" "Look at that wonderful rite." "My wife is opening her painted jaws and slipping a cream puff into them." "God bless the appetite of our spouses." "Germany." "What a capacity for digestion." "Shit." "And what a capacity for defecation." "No one defecates more than us Germans... over the hearts of our puritan children." "Did you hear?" "Minister Ribbentrop has grunted." "Good morning, master!" "Hello, Maracchione!" " Good morning, master." " Good morning." "Hello, Gustava." "L." "I killed my father," "I ate human flesh, and I quiver with joy." "I killed my father," "I ate human flesh..." "I quiver with joy." "I killed my father..." "I ate human flesh..." "I quiver with joy." "I killed my father," "I ate human flesh..." "I quiver with joy." "Mr Klotz!" "Mr Klotz!" "I'm here with my colleague Klauberg, the former Ding, because of something very strange that is happening." "Speak, my dear sir, speak." "A delegation of farmers are here." "I bet they're led by Italian farm-hands with their Togliatti filling their empty heads." "Togliatti is dead." "Do they have signs?" "Are they waving flags?" "Not really, Mr Hirt." "I mean, Mr Herdhitze." "So it's not a demonstration." "They're not raising up red flags, not shaking their hoes and shovels?" "Why are they here, then?" "No one invited them to the festivities." "Why don't you let them in?" "It's because they don't want to talk to you." "Only with the toughest man in the company." "It's not very sensitive to make such a distinction on the day of the merger." "But that's how it is." "Farewell." "I feel a strong urge for a cream puff." "OK, let's go." "What are you waiting for?" "Show them in." "Don't be afraid, come on." "Step forward." "Well?" "Have you nothing to say now?" "What's the matter?" "They're embarrassed, Mr Herdhitze." "Come on, open your mouths!" "You, old Wolfgang." "I can't talk, and it's not because I'm stupid." "Is it about Julian?" "Come on, don't whine now, old Wolfgang, or Wolfram, whatever your name is." "I don't have the strength, sir." "I'll speak if I may, sir." "Are you one of the Italian immigrants?" "Yes, sir." "My German is not too good, but I can say what needs to be said." "Go on, then." " You know that the pigsty..." " The pigsty?" "Every day Mr Julian used to take a walk down there." "Filthy boy." "He went there today, too, along the same road." "Even though there were festivities at the villa." "Right." "To steal your innocence and our conscience." "How can either of us condemn him, if he only suffered by withdrawing into himself." "By closing his eyes he watched us." "Julian wasn't one of those victims who talk with their executioner, and he didn't ask for a confessor." "He didn't confuse himself with anyone else." "His vileness was graceful." "He betrayed all of us without ever promising to be faithful." "Am I wrong, or is this a funeral eulogy?" "Yes, Mr Herdhitze." "Now that I listen to old Wolfram, even though I don't understand what he's saying," "I feel like crying, too." "Julian is dead?" "He went down towards the pigsty." "That I got." "Go on." "The child Gustava was always the last to leave him." "Today she followed him longer than usual and..." "Talk, you boor!" "She came back after a little while, sobbing and screaming." "Oh, my!" "We thought she was dying." "She screamed," ""The pigs are eating Mr Julian!"" " And what did you do?" " Us?" "We said to ourselves," ""Why don't we go and see what's happening down at the pigsty?"" "So we left our work and went down to the valley." "What did you see?" "The pigs were all crowded together, and how they were shrieking!" "We could hear them at the top of the hill." "And as we were running downhill, we realised..." "You realised?" "That the little girl, Mr Herdhitze, was telling the truth." "Literally?" "The pigs were eating a man and..." "And what?" "It really was Mr Julian." "But by now..." "By now?" "By now the pigs were chewing the last shreds of Mr Julian." "One had a hand in its mouth and the others were trying to take it away and eat it themselves." "Those disgusting beasts ate all of him." "Everything?" "Not even a finger could be saved?" "A tuft of hair?" "No, nothing." "Nothing." "Those pigs made a clean sweep of him?" "Yes, sir." "If you hadn't seen them with your own eyes eating a man, you wouldn't know anything had even happened." "No sign of him was left?" "A scrap of cloth, a sole from his shoe?" "No, nothing." "A button?" "No, nothing at all!" "Then..." "...not a word to a soul."