I arose with the first light and washed the windows and floors of both my rooms. Outside, the bog appeared with its earth colors — green, brown, ocher, and black. It was blanketed in haze, purple in the dawning light. The great flank of the Staufen emerged from the western horizon, shimmering white like a strange star. “Beloved colors! It is by contemplating you that we live.”
I dressed after laying garment after garment over my arm like my own valet: blue-and-white-striped shirt, silk tie, double-breasted summer suit, black low-cut leather shoes, long, light-gray “dustcoat”; and into my breast pocket I slipped the hibiscus blossom, which had shrunk to a reddish cigar. I went to the mirror, looked for a long while into my eyes, and for once found myself beautiful. I filed my nails to a perfect roundness. With a single unbroken movement, I put my hat on. I leafed through my paper money, rolled it up, and thrust it into my trouser pocket. I left my apartment without locking the door.
On the street, an old crone, her face and neck a network of wrinkles forming innumerable tiny hexagons, approached and said: “Here comes Mr. Springtime.” The cracks in the asphalt at the edge of the street also formed a hexagonal pattern. A young man in uniform, wearing pointed shoes and carrying a suitcase, crossed the canal bridge. As the sun rose, a dog ran down a path through the meadow, swaying from side to side against the light like a covered wagon in the Wild West. And I did indeed bear westward, though from time to time I veered off to the north and south; or just stood there for a while. Now and then, I walked backward and then I had the eastern sun in my face. The sun didn’t disperse the ground haze but gave it a bright color. Later, it took on a lasting lilac hue, against which the branches of the trees looked intensely black.
On the Untersberg, there was snow only above the tree line; the plateau at the top was mottled with it. The whole mountain was sharply outlined; every gully and every crag stood out distinctly; only the hollow below the summit seemed a caldron of clouds, sending out spiral after spiral of mist. One of these took the shape of a giant eagle and went flying over the plain, hunting with talons outstretched and an eye of azure blue.
In crossing the thinly settled area, I met no one. Only once I saw someone on another path, and we greeted each other with upraised hats. On my way, I stopped into the Moos church, where services were in progress. Only a few people were there, at a certain point in the Mass, they gave one another their hands. Each of those present was expected to make a holiday wish. A woman with a polka-dotted head scarf said: “May Austria never die.” A young man said aloud: “May we become holy.” Two children looked at each other and grinned.
I left right after the blessing and went my way. The bog was rather bumpy in spots where peat had formerly been dug and which were now overgrown with grass. Here and there a patch of fallow land had been fenced off to form a community garden; from a gate that put one in mind of a ranch, a long, wide gravel path led to wooden cottages in the background.
The airport control tower, the tallest building on the whole plain, looked like an armless robot in the distance. I started toward it on a railroad track that came from the loading platform of a brewery. The warehouse was a long, yellow building with only blind windows in front. The sun shone on the great empty triangle and was reflected back. Momentarily overlapping, the shadows of two butterflies moved about on one of the blind windows as on a dance floor; the empty triangular space around them was a shimmering symbol of freedom. The railroad tracks in the meadow grass gave off a dazzling light. The ties forced me to take short steps like an old man; afterward, on the road, away from the tracks, I continued to move in their rhythm. A lone locomotive had once traversed this meadow, covered from roof to running board with homeward-bound workers.
The road enters a long tunnel which passes under the airport. Just before the tunnel, there is an athletic field, screened from view by a dense crowd, over which for a moment a white ball appeared. On a recurrent billboard, a blond woman posing in violet lingerie informed all comers: “These curves are for loving.” The highway was heavily traveled. Cars emerged from the tunnel with their headlights on; some turned them off at once, some a little later, some not at all. (“That’s the way we are.”) One car still had skis on top; the next, flowers; the third was already carrying a boat. A woman, perceptible only as a tapering hand on the wheel, held a long, skin-colored cigarette between her fingers and left behind her the image of a praying mantis. Utterly soundless in comparison to the crashing and honking on the ground, an enormous flying object, a commercial plane coming in for a landing, entered the air space above the endless column of vehicles. For a moment, it seemed motionless; only when it put down on the runway did it fill the countryside with its howling.
In the tunnel, the noise of the cars swelled to a roar and a blast, which passed through the portholes in the concrete wall and spread to the parallel foot and bicycle paths. A chain of fluorescent lights made the tunnel into a seemingly endless sequence of light and dark chambers, where pedestrians were by turns luminescent and invisible. The walls were covered with graffiti. The firstcomers had spread out freely, the rest had to squeeze in: Young man seeks young woman, view to sexual intercourse; Zion, devil’s-bread tree; Mother, your son is still walking under the sky; Kondwiramur. Two soldiers in caps and laced shoes saluted me in passing and called out: “Morning, Colonel. At your service.” Then came an unshaven man on a bicycle, who just said: “Hey, you.” (I, in turn, said to a woman who was running: “What’s the hurry?”) There was a cool, fresh smell in the tunnel. At the other end, it opened out to the west wind. The asphalt, pockmarked from stiletto heels and hobnails, looked, if you kept your eyes on it, like a dusty country road, spotted with raindrops.
Leaves blown in from outside showed that the tunnel was nearing its end. The section of landscape which came into view at the exit seemed suffused with a sort of transcontinental light. Here the Staufen is seen from a new angle; the accustomed pyramidal top breaks down into three broad humps, which draw the eye into the distance, and the gas stations, the warehouses, and the hangar begin to look like some sort of overseas settlement — in Tierra del Fuego or Montana.