"As his mother's womb still held the growing Baal, the sky above was so vast and still and pale." "young and bare and immensely wonderous, just how Baal loved it - when Baal came." "In all lust and pain the sky stayed there, even when Baal slumbered blissfully unaware, at night a violet sky, a drunken Baal," "Baal's dawn holy, the sky apricot pale." "In the sorrowful tumult of sinners," "Baal lay naked and wallowed unconcerned." "Just the sky, oh never-ending sky majestically covered his nakedness." "To the bloated vultures Baal squints up." "as they circle high above a corpse called Baal, sometimes Baal plays dead, vultures land to eat," "Baal dines in silence on vulture meat." "Beneath dim stars in the valley of woe" "Baal grazes broad fields, smacks his lip," "Once they're bare Baal skips down with a song into the eternal woods for some kip." "And when the dark womb drags Baal inside, what is World to Baal now?" "Baal is sated." "Baal has so much sky in his eye;" "that when he dies he'Il still have enough." "When the dark ea_hy womb held the rotting Baal, the sky above was yet so vast and still and pale." "young and bare and utterly sublime, just how Baal loved it - in Baal's time." "You must publish your poetry." "Herr Mech pays like a patron." "You'Il escape your garret." "I have forests of cinnamon trees _oating down Brazil's rivers." "But I'll publish your poetry." "You live in a garret?" " 64 Sewer Street." "I'm not fat enough for poetry." "I'm doing a piece on you." "Do you have manuscripts?" "The paper's after me." "Ladies and gentlemen, I admit I am shocked to find such a man living in such modest circumstances." "I discovered this maestro as an employee in my omice." "I'm not scared to say it's a scandal for our town, to have such luminaries working for a daily wage." "Congratulations, Herr Mech." "Your salon will be dubbed the cradle of this genius' fame." "Your health, Herr Baal." "How do you achieve that naivety, maestro?" "It's Homeric." "I think Homer was one or more literate clerks who took pleasure in the naivety of folk epics." "Some more eel please." " But your asset is great immodesty." "Baal's going to sing his lyrics for the truckers." "In a bar by the river." "More champagne." "You're the precursor of the European poetry messiah, who we can certainly expect to arrive soon." "Dear maestro, ladies and gentlemen, permit me to read a poem from the journal "Revolution"" "which will certainly also interest you." ""The poet shuns radiant chords." "He jostles with brass, Iashes the drum shrilly." "He arouses the people with chopped sentences." "The new world, eradicating the world of torment." "An isle of blissful humanity, speeches manifestos, songs from the rostrum." "The new, the holy state shall be preached, inoculated in the blood of the people, blood of their blood." "Paradise sets in." "Let us propagate the explosive atmosphere." "Learn, prepare, cultivate yourselves."" "Brilliant." " It comes closest to the Baalian world." "You must travel." "The Abyssinian highlands would suit you." "Then they should come to me, those highlands." "A person like you needs no reality, with your sense of life." "Your poems influenced me greatly." "The truckers pay for things when they like them." "I'll publish your poetry, or let my trees float o_, or both." "You shouldn't drink so much." "I have no shi_s." "I could use some white shirts." "You're not interested in publication?" "They must be so_." "Ladies' blouses perhaps." "You write wonde_ul poems, Herr Baal." "You're so tender in them." "Don't drink too much." "Herr Baal." "Herr floating cinnamon trees Mech, chopped down forests, eh?" "You can drink as much as you like." " You seem not to want publication." "You also trade in animals, Mech." " Are you against that?" "What are my poems to you?" " l wanted to do you a favour." "Won't you peel an apple for me." "Emilie?" "He's scared of being sucked dry." "How might I serve you?" "Do you always wear wide sleeves, Emilie?" "You must stop drinking wine." "Won't you take a bath?" "Shall I make up a bed?" "Have you forgotten anything?" " Go easy on the alcohol." "The shirts are going, Baal, the poetry's already gone." "Why the monopolies?" "Go to bed, Mech." "I like all God's creatures, but you can't do business with animals." "Come, Emilie." "Come, eveybody." "There's a limit, even for genius." "Your poetry has a nasty touch." "What's the gent's name?" "Piller!" "Send me some old paper." "You're nothing to me." "For literature you're nothing." "Do you want anything else of him, Frau Mech?" "I don't know." "Someone should look after him." "You should be ashamed!" " You should be ashamed." "I can't help it if you ply me with wine." "Must I swallow your nonsense so I can fill my belly?" "When you lie sprawled in the grass at night, you feel in your bones that the Ea_h is round and we're flying." "There are animals on the star that devour its plants." "It's one of the smaller stars." "Do you know about astronomy?" " No." "I have a lover, the most innocent woman." "But once in my dream she was serviced by a juniper tree." "Her pale body was stretched out on the juniper," "Gnarled branches embraced her." "I can't sleep since then." "Have you seen her pale body?" " No, she's pure." "Even her knees." "There are degrees of innocence, right?" "Still, when I hold her at night she shakes like a leaf." "Only at night." "I daren't do it." "She's only 1 7." "Did she enjoy love in your dream?" " Yes." "Love is like tearing an orange, and juice squi_s in your teeth." "It's like floating your arm in water with pondweed in your fingers." "Joints as soft as plants in the wind." "Its force is like flying into a gale." "Her body writhes upon you like cool shingle." "But now I'm sick ofthis aria." "So you think I should do it?" "You should beware of it." "Johannes." "Orge said to me, the dearest place he has on Ea_h is not the lawn by his parents' grave, not a confessional box, not a whore's bed, and no woman's lap, all so_, white, warm and fat." "Orge said to me the dearest place on Earth for him was always the latrine." "A place where one is content with stars above, and dung below." "A place of humility, where you realise that you're just a man who can't keep anything." "There you recognise what you are, a man who's munching on the latrine." "He created that all by himself." "You're quite something, Herr Baal!" "Oh, to have a head like that." " Don't get carried away, it comes with a behind; and the rest." "This is Johanna." "Johannes read me your poems." "How old are you then?" " 1 7 in June." "I'm jealous." "Johannes raves about you." "You're in love with your Johannes?" "It's spring. I'm waiting for Emilie." "Loving is better than enjoying." "You touch the hearts of men, but how can you have luck with women?" "It can be learned." "Here she comes." "He threw me out of his white pad;" "but his wife followed me here." "Now I'm lumbered with her." "Why did you make me come here?" "What a rabble." "is that your taste?" " Luise!" "A schnapps for the lady." "Are you mocking me?" " No." "Drink." "People are human." "But you're not human." " What do you know?" "You're damn so_ today." "Like a plum." "How vulgar you are." " Shout it out, darling." "Shouldn't we go to the river, Johannes?" "No way." "Stay here." "The sky is violet, especially when you're drunk." "Beds are white, beforehand." "Love abounds between heaven and earth." "Why are you such cowards?" "You've drunk too much, and now you're ranting." "With that wretched, wonde_ul patter he draws you to his trough." "The sky is yellow at times too." "With lots of birds of prey." "You must get drunk." "Who's kicking my shin." "Was that you, Luise?" "Ah, it was Emilie." "Doesn't matter." "Drink!" "I don't know what's got into you today." "Perhaps I shouldn't have come." " Have you just noticed?" "You may as well stay now." "You shouldn't do that, Herr Baal." "You have a good heart, Johanna." "You won't betray your man, eh?" "Do you want to come with me?" "We'll both go." "I'm ashamed now." "I understand." "It doesn't matter." "Don't look at me like that." "You're so young." "You don't know anything yet." " Comedy!" "Sisters in Hades." "He's been drinking." "He'Il be sorry tomorrow." "Cheers, Emmi." "Drink at least, if you can't do anything else." "Drink;" "I say." "That's the way." "At least now there's fire inside you." "If you only knew." "He's always like this." "And I love him." "What do you want?" "Someone's being mistreated and wants love." "Give her a kiss." "You are a brute, Herr Baal." "Are you that cold." "Emmi?" "Do you love me?" "He's shy, Emmi." "You kiss him." "If you make a fool of me, then it's over." "One;" "two..." "She deserves a spanking." "Shame on you!" "Why are your knees shaking, Johanna?" "Did you feel that?" "Did it get under your skin?" "That was circus." "You must lure the animal out." "Into the sun with the beast!" "Pay!" "To the light of day with love." "A white bum was shown here today." "Hello, Herr Circus!" "Baal, stop it." "Walk with me, brother to the streets of hard du!" "st, the air turns violet in the evening." "to the schnapps bars full of drunks." "Women fall into black rivers who you have filled." "To the cathedrals of small grey women you Say, may I breathe here?" "To the cowsheds." "where one sleeps among beasts, they're gloomy and full of the lowing of cows." "To the echoing forests, where one forgets the light of the sky;" "God has forgotten us." "Do you remember the look of the sky?" "An anchor!" "Don't let me go with him!" "Help me, children!" "Come with me, brother." "Dance and music and drinking." "Rain on the skin, sun on the skin, darkness and light." "Oh my word!" " Think ofyour art and be strong." "Shame on you." " Come, brother Baal." "The two white doves _y happily into the blue." "Rivers in the light of dawn, graveyards in the wind;" "and the scent of endless fields before they're mown." "Stay here, Herr Baal." " Don't do it, it's not worth it." "It's too early, it can be dimerent, you're not coming, brother." "Then go to the devil, you greasy-hea_ed imbecile." "Can't you postpone it?" " No." "Are you coming or not?" "This time you won, Herr Baal." "Now you can be still, Emmi." "You got through it." "What have I done?" "I am rotten." " You'd better wash then." "I still don't know how..." " It's all Johannes' fault." "He brought you then left, before he realised why your knees shook." "What if he came back?" " Here comes the literary bit." "Dawn on Mount Ararat." "Should I get up?" " After the _ood." "Stay where you are." "Won't you open the window?" " l love that smell." "What about a second helping?" "What's done is done." "You can be so mean." "White and cleansed by the _ood," "Baal lets his thoughts _y like doves above the black waters." "Where's my blouse?" "Like this I can't..." " Here." "What can't you; mistress?" "Go home." "A wild bumblebee." "I sense each and every bone." "Give me a kiss." "Say something." "Do you still love me?" "Tell me." "Can't you say it?" "I'm fed up to the back teeth." "Then what was that last night?" "And just now?" "Are you washed?" "No idea of practicality." "Did you get nothing out of it?" "Om home with you." "Tell Johannes I took you home and I puke bile on him." "It rained." "Johannes... lf a woman gives all, so says Baal, let her go, for she has no more," "Men, fear not women, they are trivial." "But children frighten even Baal." "Drinking makes the evening sky vey dark, sometimes violet." "Then your body in a shirt to rip..." "You said we should pay another visit." "in a broad white bed." "We've come, Herr Baal." "Two doves at once in my lo_." "Get undressed!" "She heard us on the stairs last week." " It was stupid on the stairs." "One day you'll be a burden." " l'd rather drown." "Herr Baal." "We're both here. - l'm ashamed." " Not the _rst time." "It was never this light." " It's not the second time either." "You must undress too. - l will." " Come to me when you're ready." "Then it will get dark." "You go first today." " l went _rst last time." "No, I did." " You'Il both come together." "We're ready." "It's so bright here." " Is it warm outside?" "It's only April." " But the sun's warm." "Did you enjoy it last time?" "Someone jumped into the river." "Johanna Reiher." "In the Laach." "I wouldn't." "The current's too strong." "Jumped in?" "Anyone know why?" " There are rumours going round." "She le_ and stayed out all night." " Did she go home next day?" "No, she drowned." "They haven't found her." " Is she floating there?" "What is it; sister?" " Nothing." "Maybe it chills me." "I'm so lazy today." "You can go home." " You can't, Herr Baal." "You can't do that to us." "Someone's knocking." " It's the mother." " Don't open up." "I'm scared, sister." "Here's your blouse." "Don't open yet." "Lock the door." "Oh my God." "Well, well." "I thought so." "Two at once now?" "Aren't you ashamed, two of you lying with him at once?" "From dawn till dusk till dawn, his bed never cools down." "But now I have something to say." "My attic is no brothel." "Who nailed the tree corpses to the wall?" "The pale ivory air around the tree corpses." "Corpus Christi!" " And bells destroying the plants." "The bells lift my spirits." "Don't the trees depress you?" "Tree cadavers." " Women's bodies are no better." "What do women's bodies have to do with processions?" " They're amul!" "You don't love." "The white Corpus Christi, I love him." "I put poems to paper, now they're pinned up in the latrine." "Se_ing... my lord Jesus." "I see the white body of Jesus." "Jesus loved evil." " Like me." "Know the stoy about him and the dead dog?" "Eveyone said it stank, call the police, it's unbearable." "But He said it had beautiful white teeth." "Maybe I'Il become Catholic." "He didn't." "But nailing women's bodies to the wall, I wouldn't do that." "Nailed to the wall?" "They didn't float down the river." "They were slaughtered." "For the white body of Jesus." "You have too much religion or too much schnapps in you." "So you won't stand up for your ideals?" "Or join the procession?" "You love plants and do nothing for them." "I'm going down to the river to wash." "I never take care of corpses." "I have schnapps in my body." "I can't bear it." "I can't bear these damned dead plants." "If one had lots ofschnapps in one's body;" "then perhaps one could bear it." "For the fourth day now I scrawl this paper full of red summer." "Wild and voracious, and wrestle with the schnapps bottle." "Defeats took place here." "But the bodies are sta_ing to turn and flee back to the Egyptian darkness." "I nail them to the walls, but I mustn't drink schnapps." "White schnapps is my rod and my stam." "But now my hands are shaking." "As if the bodies were still inside them." "I am a lover without a mistress." "I'm succumbing." "I must move out." "But _rst I'Il take a woman." "Moving out alone is sad." "Someone with a face like a woman." "This is my studio." "What are you doing here?" "I just wanted..." " So you wanted to!" "There you stand, a tombstone for my departed Johanna." "Johanna's corpse from another world." "I'm throwing you out." "Get out!" "This is out of order." "It's spring anmay." "What did the young fellow do to you?" "Let me go." "Downstairs you must turn right." "They'll find me." "A man followed us when you spoke to me outside." "No one will find you here." "You said outside you're a photographer." " That's what I said out there." "Then I'm going." "I'm going to the theatre to play Judith." "You can go any time." "You accosted me on the street." " It's spring." "There must be something white... in this damned cave." "A cloud." "1 OOO people are waiting for me." "They'll kick me out if I don't go." "I'm not stopping you." "I don't know you." "What will you do to me?" " If you ask that, you can go." "I don't know why I'm still here." " l can tell you." "Shall I stay with you?" " You must play Judith." "I don't know, I feel so faint." " l know." "It's April." "It's getting dark, and you can smell me." "It's like that with animals." "Now you belong to the wind; white cloud." "Leave me alone." "My name is Baal." "Leave me alone." "You must comfort me." "I was weak from the winter." "But you look like a woman." "You're so ugly." "So ugly that it's startling." "But then..." "Then?" "Then it doesn't matter." "Are your knees strong?" " Do you even know my name?" "It's Sophie Barger." " Forget it." "No!" " How old are you?" "24 in June." " How many men have you had?" "So you've got that over with." "Come!" "See?" "Bodies cascading from the shelves." "But now I want a face." "At night we'll go out and lie under the plants." "You're a woman. I have become impure." "You must love me for a while." "That's how you are." "I love you." " The sky's above us and we're all alone." "You must lie still." " Like a child." "Do you have family?" " A mother." "is she old?" "She's 70." "Then she's used to evil." "If the ground swallows me?" "If I'm sent to hell, never to return?" " Never?" "The air is like milk, the river willows drip shaggy with rain." "You must have pale thighs." "They brought the lamp down again." " Only hogs ever come here." "There's a postcard for you." "Marseille." "From Ekart." "He wants me to go to the Black Forest." "Where's my schnapps?" " Not before the show, says Mjurk." "I'm sory." " Make yourself scarce, kid." "I must have my schnapps, Mjurk, or there's no poetry." "Don't drink so much, or you won't be able to sing at all." "Then what am I singing for?" "Apa_ from the stripper, you're the star of the show." "I discovered you myself." "Never was such a gentle soul stumed inside such a fat lump." "It's the fat lump that brings success; not the poetry." "Your schnapps habit is ruining me." "I'm fed up with this daily battle for my contractual schnapps." "The police are a_er me." "You're on." "Finished." "You don't go on stage half naked here." "He's only working for a lover he lives with." "He's a genius." "I am small, my heart is pure, and I must amuse you all." "That's the way." "He's showing them." "He's chucking it in their faces." "Thank God someone's finally calling a spade a spade." "They want thrills and then no one admits it." "The wind blows through the rooms, and a baby eats blue prunes." "and its white body, soft like fleece, helps it pass the time in peace." "I will have your guts." "You're obliged to sing." "Contractually." "Or I'Il call the police." "Where are you going?" "Come out." "is your attraction in the toilet?" " l forbid you to lock yourself in." "Not while I'm paying you." "I have it in writing." "The window is open." "The vulture has flown." "No schnapps, no poety." " l'm calling the police." "The rain has stopped." "The grass must still be wet." "The leaves didn't let the water through, the roots are still dy." "Why can't we sleep with plants?" "Listen." "Wind swishing through dark wet foliage." "Do you hear the raindrops on the leaves?" "I feel a drop on my neck." "Leave me alone, Baal." "Love rips om your clothes and buries you naked in leaves once you've seen the sky." "I want to hole up inside you because I'm naked, Baal." "I'm drunk and you're unsteady." "The sky's black, we swing with love in our belly, and the sky's black." "I love you." "My mother is weeping over my corpse." "She thinks I jumped in the river." "How many weeks is it now?" "It was just before May." "It's maybe three weeks now." " Maybe three weeks, said the mistress in the tree roots. 30 years on, and she was half-decayed." "It's good to lie like I'm prey." "With the sky up above." "And one is never alone." "I'll take om your shirt." "You know we're out of money?" "It was an oak." "He didn't die at once." "He sumered." "Just this morning he said the weather was getting better." "It's what he wanted." "Green with a touch of rain." "He was a good lad; was Teddy." "He had a little shop somewhere in his heyday." "Baal can't walk straight." "Leave him, the elephant's hammered." "What are you doing with Teddy, elephant?" "He has his peace and we have our agitation." "Both are good." "The sky is black;" "the trees are trembling, clouds are blowing somewhere." "That's the scene." "We can eat." "When we wake, we get up." "Not him. us." "It's doubly good." "What's the sky like?" " The sky is black." "He's weak in the head." "It always a_ects the wrong people." "Yes." "That's wonde_ul, my friend, you're right." "Can't happen to Baal." "He never goes where work is done." "Teddy, however, was a hard worker." "Teddy was generous." "Teddy was agreeable." "One thing remained:" "Teddy was." "I wonder where he is now." "There he is." " He doesn't stink yet." "Has anyone made a speech for Teddy?" "Isn't that what you do?" " l did." "Earlier." "Before you sta_ed prattling." "It sta_ed, "Teddy has his peace"." "You only notice things when they're over." " Moron." "Let's get the schnapps." " Teddy's schnapps at Teddy's wake." "Your body never was so bad, poor Teddy." "Even now it's not." "Just a bit damaged on one side." "And then your legs." "It would have been over with women." "You wouldn't put that between a woman." "I But all in all there was more life to be lived in that body, with greater will, my lad." "But your soul was a damned noble person." "The house was defective, and the rats abandon the sinking ship." "Ah, elephant." "You're in trouble." "Where's Teddy's brandy?" " Where were you when we helped him?" "Where were you?" " Teddy was still alive." "Nothing is proven, my dear fellows." "So where's the schnapps?" "Evaporated?" " This is a serious matter." "Up with you!" "Stand up!" "Walk four paces and prove you're not hammered." "Degenerate inside and out, you pig." "A man died in the eternal woods as a storm roared all round him." "Died like a beast in talons of roots, looked up to the treetops where over the woods the storm unabated was raging." "People stood round about him and said he was getting quieter," ""Come, we'll carry you home, comrade,"" "but he kneed them, spat, and said, "And to where?"" "for he had neither home nor land." ""How many teeth have you le_?" "And what else of you?" "Let's see." "Die at least quietly, not idly." "Just last night we ate your horse." "Why don't you want to go to hell?"" "And the woods resounded round him and them." "They saw him clinging to the tree and heard him shriek to them." "It horrified them and their clenched fists trembled, for he was a man like them." ""You're useless, repent madly, you beast." "Man, you're filth, you raggedy heap." "You steal our air in your greed," they said, and he the abscess said," ""l want to live, snume your sun, and ride in the light like you."" "Yes, an excess of poor life had him pressing his carcass in the ea_h." "At dawn he fell dead into the dark grass." "Disgusted, they buried him cold with hate in the tree's deepest undergromh." "If the winter doesn't stop soon, I'Il stop." "You still haven't chopped your wood." " l'm hungy." "Did you help the woodcutters?" " It was too cold." "They aren't people I can work with." "Then you must be calm." " But you're busy with your music." "Must you think of my music?" "Think of your woman." "She's hounding us, she's a millstone round my neck." "You sink ever deeper." " l'm too hea_." "Don't you expect to bite the dust?" " l'll fight tooth and nail." "I want to live without skin, I'll retreat into my toes." "I'll swallow death and know nought of it." "Since we've been here, you've got fat." "My shi_ has stretched." "the dirtier it has become." "A second person would fit in, but not with a fat body." "Why are you just sitting around on your lazy bones?" "I have a sort of sky in my skull." "Very green and damned high." "Thoughts blow through like wispy clouds." "In no particular direction." " That's the delirium." "You see?" "Back to haunt you." "I know by my face when the delirium comes." "You have a face with space for the wind." "Concave." "I'm getting ever more mathematical." " l never hear your stories." "Why do you never talk about yourself?" "I shall have none." "Who's that outside?" " You have good hearing." "There's something concealed inside you." " Is that you, Sophie?" "Now what do you want?" "Can I come in, Baal?" "My knees are going to give." "Why won't you stop walking?" "Because you hang round my neck like a millstone." "Must you treat her like this when she's pregnant?" "She kept it;" "now I'm stuck with her." "It's too much." "Sit down." "Let him go." "If you leave her by the road, I'll stay with her." "She won't stay with you." "But you'd leave me for her." "You're like that." "You threw me out of bed twice;" "Ie_ my lover cold, took her from me, although I loved her." " Because you loved her." "Twice I defiled corpses so you could stay inside. I need it." "I felt no lust though." "And still you love this brute." "I can't help it, Eka_." "I love his corpse. I love his fists." "I can't help it." "Don't tell me what you did while I was doing time." "We stood outside together looking up at the white prison." "You were together." " So beat me." "You dumped her on me." " You could still be stolen." "I don't have thick skin." " l love you for it." "At least keep your nose out of it while she's here." "She can piss om, she's turning into a hussy." "She washes her dirty laundy in your tears." "Don't you see yet that she's naked between us?" "I'm a lamb of patience, but I can only be myself." "Go to your mother's." "I can't." " She can't;" "Ekart." "Beat me if you want, Baal." "I don't think you should slow down, I didn't mean it." "Let me come as long as I can walk, then I'll jump in the bushes." "Don't chase me away, Baal." "Jump in the river with your fat belly." "You wanted me to spit you out." " You'Il leave me lying here?" "You can't leave me, you don't know, you're just being childish." "I'm sick to death of you." "But not tonight, Baal." "I'm scared of being alone." "I'm scared of the dark." "In your state, no one will touch you." "Tonight, can't you stay with me tonight?" "Go to the raftsmen, to Johannes, they'll be drunk." "Just 1 5 minutes." "Come on." "Eka_." "Where shall I go?" " To the theatre." "Or the sky." "With my child?" " Bury it." "I hope you never remember those words spoken under the beautiful sky you love." "I pray for that." "I'll stay with you, and take you to your mother's, if you say you don't love that brute." " She loves me." "I love him." "Are you still here, you brute?" "You're so close, can you smell me?" "I've got you." " There's more than woman's closeness." "I see stars in the bushes, Eka_." "I can't beat you." "It's getting dark." "We need accommodation." "In the wood there are hollows with no wind." "Come. I'Il tell you about the animals." "Baal!" "Through schnapps bar, cathedral and infirmary," "Baal wanders on even-tempered and lets go." "Baal may be weay, children, but Baal doesn't sink," "Baal takes his sky with him down below." "The water is warm, we lie on the sand like crabs." "With scrublands and white clouds in the sky." "Eka_!" "I love you." "I'm lying too comfortably." "Did you see the clouds earlier?" "Yes, they're shameless." "A woman passed by earlier." "I don't want another woman." "Since the sky turned green and pregnant, the July air wind, shirt untucked." "They're cha_ing my bare thighs." "My head is swollen with wind, the hair in my armpits smells of fields." "The air shimmers as if drunk on brandy." "Why flee the plum trees like an elephant?" " Get your paw om my head." "It swells with evey heartbeat and subsides like a blister." "Feel it?" " No." "You know nothing of my soul." "Shall we lie in the water?" " My soul is the sighing of cornfields as they're ruMed by the wind." "You have the gleam in your eye of two insects about to eat each other." "If only I'd eaten, you visionary." " What am I?" "A mad lad in July with immo_al guts, that's what." "A dumpling that leaves streaks of grease in his sky." "That's paper." "But it doesn't matter." "Eka_!" "Wake up. I've got it." "Got what?" "Talking in your sleep again?" " Quiet!" "When she drowned and floated down from stream to great rivers, the opal sky appeared wonderous as if to appease the corpse." "Wate_eed clung to her, so she slowly grew heavier." "Cool fish swam by her leg," "_ora and fauna hampered her final voyage." "At dusk the sky turned dark as smoke and held the night stars in suspense." "At dawn it grew light so she still had day and night." "When her pale body had decayed in the water, then God bit by bit forgot her." "First her face. then her hands and then last of all her hair." "Then she became carrion amongst other carrion." "is a ghost haunting you?" "It's not as bad as you." "But sleep is a demon, and the winds pipes through willow boughs." "What remains is once more the white breast of philosophy, darkness. wetness until our death, and just the second sight of old women." "In this wind you don't need schnapps to get drunk." "I see the world in a mild light." "It is the excrement of dear God." "God who distinguished himself once and for all byjoining urethra and sex organ?" "It's all so beautiful." "The willows are like rotten tooth stumps in the blackened mouth of the sky." "I'll start my mass soon." "is the qua_et finished?" " How can I find the time?" "There's a pale red-head." "You take her around." "She has a soft white body, and comes a_er noon to the willows." "Their twigs hang like hair, and we quiver in there like squirrels." "is she more beautiful than me?" "Eka_!" "Eka_!" "I'll simply satis_ her; the white dove." "If he comes, he'Il only find the skin." "I'm sick of his a_airs." "Be still, my sweet soul." "Where's your friend?" "Composing a mass in E flat minor." "Tell him I came." "He's so transparent he's blemished." "He's relapsing into zoology." "Have a seat." "I'd rather stand." "He's started eating lots of eggs." "I love him." " What are you to me?" "Don't touch me, you're too di_y." "Your neck." "Do you know how they kill doves?" "Or game in the bush?" "Jesus and May, leave me alone." "With your weak knees, you'll fall." "You want to be laid in the willows." "Men are men, and most are alike that way." "Please!" "Leave me alone." " You shameless quail." "Come on." "A throw of the dice by a desperate man." "Eka_!" "Drinking calls." "Do you have any money?" "No." "Look at the oak in the wind." " It's shaking." "Where's the girl you dragged round the bars." "Turn into a fish and find her." "You overeat, Baal." "You'll burst." "I'd like to hear the pop." "Do you ever look in the water when it's deep and black. with no fish?" "Beware offalling in, you're so hea_, Baal." "I'll beware of someone else." "I made a song." "Want to hear it?" "You haven't had a woman for ages." " Why?" "Just thought so." "Say no." "is this the infirmary bar?" " Yes." "There are no spare beds and I'm ill." " We have champagne with us." "Come in!" "He who knows champagne fits in here." "Mighty fine people here today." "I know where you got it." "But I won't give you away." "Come, Ekart." "Are there any glasses?" "Cups, sir." "I need a cup of my own." "Are you allowed to drink champagne?" "What illness do you have?" "Catarrh on the lungs." "It's nothing." "A little mucous." "It's not serious." "And you?" "Stomach ulcer." "Harmless." "Hopefully you have an aMiction too." " l'm insane." "Cheers." "Now we know each other." "I'm healthy." "I knew a man once who thought he was healthy." "One day he returned to his native forest to ponder something." "He found the forest quite alien." "No kinship." "One evening at dusk when he wasn't so lonesome, he walked in the still between the trees and stopped under one of them." "It was the monkey in him." "Yes, perhaps the monkey." "He leaned against it, sensed the life in it and said," ""You're taller than me, solid, you know the depths of the earth that holds you." "I am mobile. but I can't plumb the depths and nothing holds me."" "What did the tree say?" " The wind blew." "A shudder ran through the tree, which the man felt." "He threw himself to the ground, hugged the gnarled roots, and wept." "Did he regain his health?" "No, but death came easier." "I don't understand that." "Nothing is understood." "but some things are felt." "Stories you understand were just told wrong." "Do you believe in God?" "Not even in myself, but you can become atheist." "Now I'm getting merry." "God." "Champagne, love." "Wind and rain." "Let me go, your breath stinks." " And don't you have syphilis?" "Please!" "Bit by bit I'm getting drunk." "He's prettier." "That's why he got her." "And her mental superiority, her spiritual supremacy?" "She wasn't like that, she was quite unspoiled." "And what did you do?" " l was ashamed." "Listen!" "The wind." "It's asking God for peace." "It was earlier, Ekart." "Yes, and it was beautiful." "What?" " He's forgotten." ""Earlier", what a strange word." "The most beautiful is "the void"." " It's time for Gougou's aria." "The sack of maggots shall sing." "It's like shimmering air one sunny summer evening." "But it's not shimmering." "At all." "You simply stop." "Wind blows, you don't get cold." "Rain falls. you don't get wet." "Jokes unfold, you don't laugh." "You fester." "No need to wait." "National strike." " That's hell's paradise." "Yes, it is paradise." "No wish stays unfulfilled." "There are no more." "Eveything lets itself go, even wishes." "You become free." " What happens in the end?" "Nothing." "Nothing at all." "There is no end." "Nothing lasts forever." "Come on!" "We've landed among murderers." "The worm turns. decay is upon us." "Worms are singing and applauding." "This again." "Is it just from the drinking?" "My entrails are on display." "It's a mud-bath." " Sit down." "Your aria always tickles me so." "Little Gougou." "I also have a soul." "You've soiled my soul." "You ruin evemhing." "I'll start my mass soon." "I love you." "I'm not going with you any more." "Hands om, you swine." "What's it to you?" " Be still, you pauper." " Nutter!" "You're insane." " It's a con." "He's not ill." "It's all a con." "And you have cancer." "I have cancer?" "I didn't say a thing." "Leave her alone." "Why's it crying?" " What do you want of me?" "Why are you crying?" "Because you've never seen us before, or is it always like this?" "Your poor little feet." " Stop that." "You pig!" " He's just looked under its shirt." "You hogs." "You don't know what humans are like any more." "Come Eka_, we're going to the river to wash." "This man Baal weighs upon me." "He's not light enough now." "I'm an objective person." "With a chalk and a wall, you could easily map the course of his life." "Neve_heless, I don't want to witness the fits of debility you'd expect before his demise." "I'm not a vengeful man." "There'd be something lacking if he didn't perish somehow." "His mother died yesterday." "He's coming here with the money he borrowed for the funeral." "Now we can pay for the schnapps." "The landlord is decent, he gives credit for a dead mother." "The wind fills Baal's sail no more." " You put up with him." "You can't spit in his face, he buckles." " Does that bother you?" "I tell you, it's a shame." "He's a piece ofworld histoy." "He gets ever more disgusting." " Don't say that. I won't hear of it." "I love him." "I'm never resentful, because I love him." "He only does what he must." " Because he's so lazy." "There he is." " Be careful." "is that you?" "Baal?" "What a dump this place has become." " Nothing has changed here." "But you've become smarter." "is that you." "Sophie?" " Yes, it's cosy here." "Beer!" "I have to drink a lot." "You still go to hell, admittedly." "But it's di_erent, as if your knees give way, elastically, like on springs." "I never used to have such funny ideas by the way, during my happy bourgeois life." "It's only now that I have fits of genius." "Beer." "I want to be back in the woods at dawn." "The light is lemon-coloured between the trunks." "I want to go back up to the woods." "You have such simplicity of heart." "Schnapps all round." " A schnapps." "At night now and then I dream such scabby things." "But only at night." "It's very cosy now." "The are still plenty of trees, shady and open to all, to hang yourself from up above or take a long rest down below." "Where was that?" "It was like that once." "It was when Johanna Reiher was here." "She's still swimming." "She was never found." "Sometimes I have the impression she's swimming down my gullet in the schnapps." "A tiny corpse. half decayed." "And she was already 1 7." "Now she has rats and weed in her green hair." "She doesn't look bad, a bit swollen and pale." "Stumed with stinking mud." "Jet black." "She was cleanly, so she drowned and then stank." "What is flesh?" "It disintegrates like spirit." "Gents, I'm completely drunk." "Two and two makes four." "So I'm not drunk." "But I have inklings of a higher world." "Bow down, be humble, lay down the old Adam." "I'm not entirely down here as long as I have my inklings;" "and I can still work out that two and two... makes two." "Two for a funny word." "I'm about to sing." "Sick from the sun and eroded by the rain, a stolen laurel in his dishevelled hair, throughout his youth he never forgot her dreams." "The roof was long, but never the sky up above." "This is a good song, just my kind; roma..." "Beer." "What are you doing here?" "They order a lot of beer." "Sometimes cognac too." "Most want beer." "Cognac less so." "Baal, sing on." "You. who were cast out of heaven and hell you murderers who sumered so much, why didn't you stay in your mothers' wombs;" "where it was still and you slept and were!" "there." "I can't find my glass." " The table is wobbling." "Switch the lights on!" "Can you see anything, Baal?" " No, I don't want to." "The dark is beautiful." "Are you my partner, Eka_?" "Yes, but sing on." "Roaming through hells, _ayed by paradises, still and grinning, with an ever-changing face, he dreams on occasion of a small meadow, with blue sky above." "and nothing else." "You've captivated me, I can't eat." " And there was light!" "You're blinding me." "What's wrong?" "It's nothing." "That's ridiculous." "You can't be jealous of her!" "Why shouldn't I have a woman?" "Am I not your lover?" "He has a knife!" "For God's sake, let him go." "We're completely free, We have no obligations." "We can sleep in the hay, for example, or outdoors or not at all." "We can take a stroll; we can sing." "Our dreams lie ahead." "We can relax about life, or perhaps the right expression is die." "The police!" "Murderers always look over their shoulder." "Pale wind in black trees." "They're like wet wolf hair." "The moon rises at eleven, then it'll be light enough." "That's a small wood." "I'll wander down to great woods." "I'm not creeping quietly now I'm all on my own again." "I must head north, on the ribbed side of the leaves." "I must leave this little matter behind me." "Onwards!" "Beneath grim stars in the valley of woe," "Baal grazes broad fields, smacks his lip." "Once they're bare, Baal skips down with a song, into the eternal woods for some kip." "What are you thinking about?" "I've always wanted to know what a man thinks at the moment of death?" "I think I'm listening to the rain." "What?" "You're dying and you listen to the rain?" "That's because you wouldn't look the situation in the eye." "You're on your last legs, even a child can see that." "Who takes an interest in you?" "Do you have anyone?" "You see!" "Grit your teeth!" "Do you still have teeth?" "Sometimes people die, who would have enjoyed so much more." "Billionaires." "But you don't even have any papers." "Take a higher perspective." "Think to yourself:" "a rat is dying!" "There!" "Don't protest." "You have no teeth le_." "He drank like a fish." "Something about that pale lump makes you think about yourself." "He wasn't born into this." "What time is it?" " Eleven." "Are you leaving?" "Soon." "Are the paths bad?" " It's rainy." "It's time to go." "Eveything will be soaking." " He can do nothing once again." "Are you going to bite the dust?" " Incognito?" "Die!" " Goodbye." " Good night." "You could so_ your stench out." "We work till noon, and then we want to eat." " Can't you stay for a while?" "If you just stayed for 30 minutes." " You can die on your own!" "Let's go." "You won't want to die alone either!" " old woman!" "Here's a memento." "Just 20 minutes." "The sky..." " Wipe the spit away." "Where?" " On my brow." "Why are you laughing?" " It tastes good." "You're completely finished." "Farewell." "Thank you." "Can I do anything...." "No, I must go to work." "Corpse!" " Hey!" "Come closer." "It was vey beautiful." " What, you madman?" " Eveything." "Gourmet!" "Hey you!" " Yes?" "Are you going?" " To work." " Where?" " What's it to you?" "What's the time?" " Quarter past eleven." "What a devil." "One; two, three, four... lt doesn't help." "Mama..." "A man died in the eternal woods, as a storm roared all around him." "Died like a beast in talons of roots, looked up to the treetops where over the woods, the storm unabated was raging." "People stood round about him and said he was getting quieter," ""Come, we'll carry you home, comrade"" "but he kneed them, spat, and said, "And to where?"" "for he had neither home nor land." ""How many teeth do you have left?" "And what else of you?" "Let's see." "Die at least quietly, and not idly." "Just last night we ate your horse." "Why don't you want to go to hell?"" "And the woods resounded round him and them." "They saw him clinging to the tree and heard him shriek to them." "It horrified them and their clenched fists trembled, for he was a man like them." ""You're useless, repent madly, you beast." "Man, you're filth, you raggedy heap." "You steal our air in your greed," they said, and he the abscess said," ""l want to live, snume your sun, and ride in the light like you."" "Yes, an excess of poor life had him pressing his corpse in the earth." "At dawn he fell dead into the dark grass." "Disgusted, they buried him cold with hate in the tree's deepest undergromh." "When the dark ea_hy womb held the rotting Baal, the sky above was yet so vast and still and pale." "young and bare and utterly sublime, just how Baal loved it - in Baal's time." "He's gone to the dogs." "Perished." "Gone to the dogs." "That's really something." "Going out to die like that, hats off!"