For some days Keuschnig had been working on a report for the Foreign Ministry, entitled “The Image of Austria in French Television,” and subtitled “Austria, a Studio Film.” Some television films based on stories by Arthur Schnitzler had given him the idea. The characters in these films had appeared only in bare interiors; the closest thing to the outside world was the inside of a hansom cab. Keuschnig started his article by saying that the image of Austria put forward by these films was expressed in their sets. By this, he didn’t mean that typically Austrian objects figured in the sets; no, he meant that their very bareness seemed to express a view of Austria, that the characters moved in a setting that could have been anywhere. Austria was represented as a historyless no man’s land peopled by historyless Everymans, and to judge by these films, just that was specifically Austrian. When a character entered in a state of excitement, his exciting experience hadn’t occurred in any particular country but in the vestibule. Keuschnig now set out to prove that because the country never played a part and because the action was never inflected by so much as a passing glance at the landscape the characters seemed to RECITE their experiences (possibly after memorizing them in the vestibule) — MEMO-RIZ E D embraces, the MEMORIZED expressions of two lovers looking into each other’s eyes; MEMORIZED kisses — and that the films themselves … (now what exactly did he want to say?), that because the characters in these films.. (was it possible that he too wrote memorized sentences?) … were not really alive (what did that mean?), but … had only MEMORIZED WAYS OF SIMULATING LIFE … because, wrote Keuschnig, nothing can be experienced in or through a country whose only special characteristic is that it consists of a bare set … that consequently these films picture Austria as a country in which the only stories people could possibly tell were SERIALS, which they represented as the story of their own lives! (but in what country or under what system did people not tell each other mere serial stories as though relating their own experiences?) — and that therefore these films …
Suddenly Keuschnig forgot what he had wanted to prove, and was glad of it. He tore up the paper. Then he looked around for more papers to tear up. For a while it cheered him to crumple them, tear them up, and throw them away. It seemed like some sort of vengeance. He ransacked the office for things to throw away, lined them up in front of him, and threw them one by one, after an elaborate windup even if they were only light envelopes, into a wastepaper basket. He tore up the picture postcards sent him by vacationing colleagues, and threw them away too. — Actually I could prove the opposite by these same films, he thought. Only yesterday he would have tried to prove not only some point but also himself with a demonstration developing logically from sentence to sentence — now he preferred to go on reading the newspapers and treat himself to a painless afternoon. He even read the horoscopes, and felt himself growing more and more inconspicuous. Cozily irreproachable, he sat alone in the room, at most allowing himself an occasional glance through the window at the chestnut tree, among whose dark-green leaves the much-lighter-colored prickly nut husks were already in evidence. How right the newspapers were today — how he esteemed the commentators today for having opinions! Those people don’t think about themselves, he thought — why couldn’t he be like that? He was in the mood to underscore every line. In reading a story about “the sad lot of …” he felt that he ought to follow the example of this reporter, who had selflessly risen above his own lot, which, Keuschnig felt sure, was just as sad as that of … He was especially moved by the jokes. What courage one needed to think up a joke! How free from vanity one must be to look for the comical aspect of everything that happened to one — because there HAD TO be a joke in everything! “Have you heard this one: somebody dreams that he’s become a murderer?” “Yes, but where’s the joke?” Was humor the solution? — In any event, as Keuschnig read the evening papers in cozy inconspicuousness, he envied people in general their contempt for death.
Then he noticed that he had stopped reading some time ago and was only looking at the desk in front of him: the typewriter, the neatly lined-up pencils, the fountain pen POISED in his hand. How sanctimoniously I have arranged these things! he thought. In doing so, I talk myself into a sense of security that doesn’t exist. I pretend that everything will take its usual course and that nothing more will happen to me, provided I get my tools ready. — What self-deception to set up things as INSTRUMENTS and entrench himself behind them, as though he were their representative and nothing else! Did the short-wave receiving set secure his future because he used it? Or was the OUT basket beside the door a guarantee that the office boy would actually find the reports and letters expected of Keuschnig ready at the right time? — A car braked on the square outside with such a screech that Keuschnig heard the howl of a dog on whose paw he had once stepped. Once again, from one second to the next, everything hung in the balance. He would finally have to start thinking about himself. But how would he go about it? He was born into … My father was … My mother had … Even as a child I sometimes felt … Was that the only way of thinking about oneself? If I die now, Keuschnig thought, I shall leave nothing but disorder behind me! — and picking up his fountain pen, he began to draw up his will, writing every word, even the figures, in full, so as to prolong the act of writing, which made him feel safe, as much as possible. — As long as his pen was scratching, death seemed far away. He put the will in an envelope, on which he wrote: “To be opened only after my demise”—deliberately avoiding the word “death.”
He looked out at the Esplanade des Invalides: nothing characteristic, nothing for him. He forced himself to look at something to stop the pain in his heart: the construction shacks, for example, for the workers engaged in joining two Métro lines. They were so small that the workers came out backwards and stooped. So that’s it, he thought. A good many of the leaves of the shade trees on the big square were already yellow and gnawed: Well well. Or the pale moon in the eastern sky? Why not? A windowpane in the Air France bus terminal across the square was flashing sunlight into his office — as usual, but a little earlier than the day before. No harm in that, thought Keuschnig. Aloud he listed everything that was to be seen — that was his only way of perceiving.
Then he noticed that on the same story as himself, a few rooms farther on, behind the flagpole, someone was standing at the window: a girl he hardly knew, a file clerk, who had been taken on as a holiday replacement a few days before. Paying no special attention to him, she was pouring water out of a small coffee cup on a pot of geraniums. A moment later she disappeared, then came back with her refilled cup. He noticed how high over the flowers she held the cup and how carefully she regulated the stream of water. Her lips were parted, her face strangely old. All at once it seemed to him that he was watching her doing something forbidden. He felt hot and dizzy, but it was too late for him to look at something else. — When she left the window, he hoped she would come back. She reappeared sooner than he had expected; this time she positively came running, she seemed excited. She gave him a quick sidelong glance, then poured more cautiously than ever; it took her a long time to tip her cup, as though there were some resistance to overcome. Suddenly, without changing her expression, she turned back to him, and this time her glance was long and sustained — old, evil, ravaged with lust. His member went stiff, he gave a start and stepped back. — Then he forgot everything and went quickly down the corridor to her room. Inside she came to meet him. He paused to lock the door. Two, three movements and they were into each other on the floor; after two or three more she opened her eyes wide and he closed them. — A moment later they were both laughing uproariously.