"After Burru had been in power for some time he wanted to gain power for a second time, so to speak." "He wished to receive what he already possessed once again as a gift -- to be elected by the vanquished." "The wish was anything but absurd." "He speculated that he, once elected, unanimously elected, would gain a certain democratic veneer at home and abroad." ""One does not vote who one loves,"" "he justified this popular election among his staff," ""but one loves who one has voted."" "Some members of his camarilla disagreed." ""The reasons behind this election," they argued" ""the compulsion will never be forgotten." "Even far in the future every voter will remember the pressure under which he voted."" "Burru wasn't the slightest bit irritated." ""The how and why," he said, "is invisible, but the result of the election will be visible." "Only the visible will be remembered." "And I'll make sure it will be very visible."" "Burru's authority concerning the technique of seduction was undoubted, and even we have to admire him full of disgust." ""And between what shall they choose?" they asked." " BETWEEN is out of the question." " But the election must have an OR, after all." ""MUST ?" asked Burru." ""Does Burru know a MUST?"" "They fell quiet in shame." "He explained:" ""The OR will be replaced by the AND, because AND is the strongest word." "Synthesis is the best ally of terror."" "The next day election announcements appeared on all walls and fences of the city." "On all of them was printed largest and boldest the AND." "Four ads dominated:" "For Burru AND for peace." "For Burru AND for Molussia." "For Burru AND for the pariah." "For Burru AND for freedom." "This way Burru integrated the alternative into the electoral object itself." "If you voted against Burru, you would vote against peace." "If you spoke out against Burru, you would speak against freedom." "If you voted against Burru, you would vote against Molussia." "If you voted against Burru, you would vote against the pariah." "But if you voted for the pariah, for Molussia, for freedom, and for peace, you included in your vote, if you wanted or not, Burru." "That the number of votes for Burru exceeded the number of enfranchised Molussian citizens was no surprise." ""One day," Olo said," ""the silver workers sent a representative to Prem to inform him of their intention to strike."" "Prem was annoyed." ""You are nothing to me!"" "he shouted at the spokesperson." ""You saboteurs, you negative elements!"" ""The positive," the representative quietly responded," ""The positive is invisible." "You don't feel the air that you breathe." "Only if it is taken away from you, you realize its value." "Only if you lack it, you recognise its necessity." "And we are air for you."" ""That the positive is supposed to be invisible," Yegussa grumbled after a moment" ""confuses me again and again." "We are materialists, after all:" "What is there is visible and what isn't there is invisible."" "In response Olo asked:" ""What does your health feel like?"" "Yegussa examined his body and realised to his surprise that he had not felt his body before." "His body had been forgotten." ""Like nothing at all," he slowly responded." " But the negative :" "sickness ?" " It is perceptible." " Peace?" " It is imperceptible." " But war is obvious." "Work:" "invisible." "But the strike ?" " Makes us visible." " Visible for whose eyes?" " For the eyes of the others." " And even for our own." "Concerning materialism, this is it." "When we show ourselves, we show ourselves as the material prerequisite of the others." "Yegussa was astonished." ""Besides many other things," concluded Olo" ""materialism is a theory of the invisible, and is about those who have a material interest in the invisible above them and the invisible below them." "The former enjoys considerable appreciation among them, but the latter is incomparably more important to them."" ""I see," said Yegussa." "And the darkness around him was illumined." ""Shortly before the Burrusian revolution,"" "Olo explained" ""the impoverished young bourgeois of Molussia and the most miserable of the pariah, who hadn't had a job in years, took off because they had Burru's explicit authorisation to find his enemies, beat them, and kill them." "But while they felt a general hatred, none of them would have been able to explain why this or that particular man should be their enemy." "But when they started beating people their hatred became more definite." "No one can beat someone without screaming." "While they were beating them up they called their victims the most terrible names." "They called them murderers, thieves, usurers, whatever came to their minds." "As soon as the names passed their lips they started to believe them." "They continued the beatings because it were murderers, thieves, and usurers which they brutalized." "But their hatred became even more definite when the victims fought back." "Because when two parties fight each other enmity is beyond all doubt." "After Burru had allowed his people ten bloody days there was no need for a revolution anymore." "Because his enemies now were theirs." "'In combat,' one of Burru's secret edicts reads, 'one recognises enmity, enmity comes in killing.'" "Learn that."" ""As what am I supposed to learn it?" asked Yegussa." ""As the most profound wisdom of wickedness,"" "answered Olo." ""When Mee was still young," Olo began," ""he was one of our best theorists." "His name quickly spread beyond the pariah quarter and soon he was famous in the cafés of Molussia for his exact and brilliant thought." "People claimed he could prove anything and called him the prover." "Apart from that, they whispered, he had successfully organised strikes here and there." "That gave him, at the tables of the sons of the wealthy, of the officers and law students, a certain air." "Because they never before had had a strike leader at their table." "And since he was alone, unthreatening, because they couldn't imagine the mass of pariahs behind him, they invited him to take a seat." "First he had inhibitions." "But then he convinced himself that, if he told them nothing but the truth, nothing but the truth about them, he would be beyond reproach." "But again and again he experienced, again and again he couldn't understand, that they didn't want to accept the validity of his proofs." "When, on warm summer evenings, full of the truths that had accumulated within him during the day, he wandered below the lanterns of the open air cafés of Molussia," "in search for whoever, his new friends called him over, sitting bored and looking out over the lake, asking him if he didn't have something to prove." "Mee always had something, of course." "And even though they called him just like the candy salesman moving between the tables, with just as much urgency, as much disdain, he always sat with them immediately." "In the evening Mee sat in the garden café under the trees and made proofs." "This time he proved to them that the pariahs are always in the wrong because they have no rights -- including the right to be right." "His proof was so beautiful, so perfect, so surprising in its course, that they sat there slack-jawed for a few seconds, like watching fireworks." "'What does it prove that Mee, or whatever his name is, proves it?" "' a young officer finally asked." "'What do you mean?" "' Mee asked back, trying futilely to understand the question." "'A well-made proof,' another one said." ""A dialectic model, a logical trick." "But what does the proof, the model have to do with the thing itself?" "Mee talks here, the court is there, and the pariahs are somewhere down there.'" "He pointed in different directions into the darkness." "'Entirely correct,' the officer confirmed, and this time he didn't seem to joke." "'Does the thing itself notice that Mee, or whatever his name is, proves something?" "'" "'What thing?" "' Mee was bewildered." "'See,' a third one interjected, speaking as if he wanted to mediate, and his face radiated with good will." "'You prove it this way, we prove it that way, and a third one has another point of view.'" "'A point of view?" "' Mee asked despairing." "'But I proved my thesis to show it is more than a point of view.'" "'Everything is subjective, my friend.' the brown Molussian girl sitting next to the officer intervened." "'What more do you want ?" "That no one here proves as well as you, we all know.'" "Even the young officer admitted it." "'But don't be so stubborn, be a bit more tolerant." "After all, does anyone here try to force you into something?" "Do we?" "!" said he, took a honey nut and added:" "'That's how it is.'" "Mee wasn't grown-up enough to understand that they didn't understand what a proof was." "And since he didn't understand that they really ascribed the force of his argument to his skill, he was rude enough to start his proof all over again." "Meanwhile, the group started a conversation as if he wasn't at the table." "They spoke about their favorites of the stage, calling them by their first names." "Mee developed his proof." "'Really,' said the girl, tapping her foot," "'It only loses by repetition.'" "Mee continued proving, unintimidated." "The group was talking about ballet now." "Mee was proving." "'Really,' the officer said icily," "'We've heard it already.'" "He meant the proof." "Mee went silent." "'Finally!" "' someone said, and their conversation ceased, as if it had been powered by Mee's proof." "'I was finished anyway,' claimed Mee, stood up abruptly, and left, knocking against chairs and tables of the garden café." "He said to himself :" "'The pariahs believe the truth without my proof." "And to those I prove it, but they don't believe me." "Who's the proof for, anyway?" "'" "A waiter called after him." "As usual, he had not payed." "'I don't have the right to be right, either,' he said, wandering into the darkness." "'If only they had said that I'm wrong." "Instead they called the truth a 'view point'!" "What an insult!" "'" "So he talked until he arrived home, having promised to himself never to go to the café again." ""Did Mee draw any consequences?" asked Yegussa." ""Oh yes..." said Olo." ""Later."" "'He took his revenge against truth, because it payed so poorly for his services." "Since his friends didn't love the truth, but he couldn't stop proving, he switched to proving untruths." "This way he remained an intellectual, became very useful to them, and later, for Gey, even indispensable." "He was much more intelligent than most of us, we must know about him."" " And did he go back to the café?" " The next day at the same time." ""It is not unlikely,"" "Olo began in the evening, seemingly out of the blue," ""that you originally come from the plain of Penx."" "Yegussa protested." ""Around the time of the Fourth, there was an almost unsatisfiable demand for wool in Molussia." "So pastures for sheep were needed, but there were none."" "Yegussa saw no connection between his place of birth and the demand for wool and the time of the Fourth." ""Suddenly, the magnates, who formally resided in the country, but in reality lived in their villas in Penx and Molussia, invoked an old law, proving that the serfs, who had populated the plain of Penx for centuries" "and had planted corn and vegetables for the magnates, never really had the right of residence there and had only been tolerated all this time." "This law was invoked by the magnates" "(wool was more profitable than corn), and they declared the plain of Penx a pasture."" " Declared?" "How does that work ?" " They evacuated the villages." " And what did they declare the displaced ?" " They freed them from serfdom as compensation." " And were did the newly liberated go ?" " Even back then vagrancy was already outlawed." "Their travels across the plain were against the law." "Many were arrested." "But most found their way to the big cities, to Penx and to Molussia City, where they filled the pauper quarters and beat the willingness to work at any price into their heads, arousing the hostility of the established proletariat," "and ending up in the wool factories of their former masters." "After ten years they themselves were so established and urbanised that they were suspicious of all new arrivals." "Their diseases, needs, and customs told nothing of the country anymore." "And their children were such typical children of the city that they didn't know if their parents had come from the east or the west, or even that they had come from the country." "Penx and Molussia City were the melting pot of all displaced rurals."" "Yegussa understood now why he might originate from the plain of Penx." ""They were considered," continued Olo" ""typical city scum." "The ugliness of their language, made up from many village idioms, proved their natural vulgarity." "Their poverty proved uncleanliness, lack of grace,lowliness, lack of class and total lack of understanding for nature."" "That's what all the papers said." ""But maybe that means I come from all corners of Molussia,"" "said Yegussa, astonished." ""Most certainly." "Everybody comes from everywhere." "Is that so surprising?"" "Yegussa, who had never thought about it before, considered it not just surprising, but almost against nature." ""I've never heard it before," he said," ""that I am made of so many and come from so many places." "Where is my real home?"" ""In Molussia City," Olo responded drily." ""Where you are born." "Do you think you would have been born differently in the country?" "Maybe straight from the soil?" "As a child of nature?"" ""Not really."" "Yegussa's voice sounded timid." ""All men are mongrels." "All are bastards." "Otherwise they'd go extinct."" ""How am I supposed to start the tale?" asked Yegussa in the morning" ""Everything is connected and every beginning is already a falsification."" ""When a tile falls from the roof, all things of all times were involved in making it fall." "Should we trace back the causes?"" ""That's the problem," said Yegussa, who didn't know how far back one should go." ""It is enough," claimed Olo" ""to know the causes as far as is necessary to prevent the falling of the next tile."" ""How many causes are that?"" ""They are never the most immediate or the most remote." "The most immediate lie with this one or that one, and you are angry about his guilt;" "but anger is a waste of energy." "The most remote are so remote we can't reach them, the scholars are proud of them." "The ones in the middle are called circumstances."" "Yegussa tried to remember that." ""Our place is between the brawlers and the astronomers,"" "continued Olo." ""Some say we are thugs, others say we are stargazers." "Someone who only remembers his own history, and his personal humiliation, doesn't go back far enough." "The circumstances will crash in over his head because he is an exception and alone." "But if you trace the causes back to the day when the world-women baked the world, or even farther back to the day when the demons created the world-women, you can't turn back;" "you forget your starting point and go nowhere."" "Yegussa listened carefully." ""The circumstances," concluded Olo," ""are still close enough to change them, but you can't grab them with your hands and beat them up." "They are already so remote that, to reach them, you need the method of generalisation, and the suppression of personal anger." "But you can't investigate them quietly and meekly, like the astronomers do with planets or moon fogs." "That's where the circumstances are."" "The story of the scaffolding crash at the wharf of Molussia was completely forgotten." ""Ah!" said Olo, and woke up." ""What are you sighing about?" asked Yegussa." ""When Dil, the sailor, left his home port to travel the seas for a decade and to visit all ports of the world, he promised his old mother to send her, from even the remotest places," "a sign of life." "For two years she received a postcard every month, depending on the season he reminded her to tar the boats, to repair the chimney, to paint the fence, or to support the pear tree." "For two years she regularly received news from him." "To her it was as if he was there." "After two years Dil fell ill in a far-away port, and he realized he was going to die." "'Why does my mother need to know, he asked his captain, 'that the end is coming?" "'" "And he had a packet of postcards brought to him and used the hours left to him to write the cards his mother was supposed to receive in the next eight years." "All cards showed a different date, all a different port, and on every one he wrote how well he was, that he had received her letter, and that she should tar the boats, and support the pear tree." "When he had finished his next eight years of correspondence, he gave the cards to the captain, asked him to send one of the cards every month, and died." "For three years his mother regularly received her son's messages." "She was happy that the time of his return drew nearer, and was proud of him, living from letter to letter." "After five years of his absence she lay down and died, too." "But the captain, who didn't know that the mother of his dead sailor had died," "continued to do his duty with perfect regularity." "Every month he sent a letter from the deceased to the deceased." "So the news continued to travel, from no one to no one." "The boats had to be tarred, the pear tree had to be supported." "But nobody tarred them." "And nobody supported it." "That's what I sigh about."" "In the time of murder," "Itt, the leader of the workers, who knew too much about Burru, managed to escape from Molussia." "Burru immediately sent an agent after him to kill him." "Unrecognized, the agent boarded the same ship as Itt." "In the third night a storm developed and smashed the ship." "When the agent saw that the ship and everybody on it was lost, he broke into Itt's cabin." ""You would like that, wouldn't you,"" "he shouted over the clamor of the storm while clutching the door frame." ""To escape me like that."" ""What do you begrudge me?" Itt asked calmly." "It didn't matter to him how he died." ""That you go to the competition to die,"" "cried the agent, threw himself at Itt and beat him to death." "He himself drowned alive."