Mummy says that the Latin for what she just said, that you don't learn for school but for Life, is on the tip of her tongue, she'll have it in a moment. She has a reservoir of proverbs and sayings. He will not understand, he will be devastated, and in future he will leave her daughter alone. Her family has a tradition of education, it is by no means a matter of your own initiative, it is too valuable a thing for that. Indeed, the abilities and knowledge you have are the most valuable thing of all. What you yourself have is always a risk factor, it's best to keep it aside. And incidentally, she'd prefer it if the two of them did not go to Anna's room unchaperoned. She fixed that room up herself. Flower-pattern curtains. Hardly Anna's style. Women have no business in a girl's room, it's a room for a girl, as the expression implies. Really Anna is still a child. Hans is about to comply, automatically, because Annamother inspires respect, but Anna says she can kiss their asses. And they go anyway, of course. To make up for Anna's uncouthness, Hans says he will even bring some flowers next time, a big bunch, Annamother promptly adds that that can be very revealing. At least the prole is polite. There is a language of flowers, a language Mother has learned. Roses stand for love, always supposing they are red, and carnations stand for the socialist party, again supposing they are red. And then there are flowers that can stand for constancy, devotion, trust and other similar nonsense, you have to be careful not to get them mixed up by mistake, it could be disastrous if it's someone you care for. In general, Nature has its own language, which you can only hear if you are perfectly silent. It is either within a person or it isn't, and he can only hear it if it is. This is every bit as important as book learning, though that is also necessary. You should take note of roots that are a strange shape, stones, and forked branches when you pass them along the wayside, perhaps collect them, and not deliberately ignore them. I'll pay more attention to the language of Nature in future, Frau Witkowski.
Anna: Are you coming, or are you planning to put down strangely-shaped roots? No? So come on. This way.
Mother wields the threat of Father. Which merely provokes a mirthless laugh from Anna. She says: Papa would love to do it to me himself but he daren't.
Mother calms down by telling herself that the two of them are only listening to records and smoking in secret and having secret discussions about art. How is anyone expected to talk to that fellow about art!
Hans has a queasy feeling because being alone with a girl for the first time is very taxing, it's harder to get by than being with his pack of mates.
Anna eyes her face in the mirror, it is on the harsh side, she reflects that now things are becoming serious she would rather be sweet and blonde like Sophie, being harsh is more of an effort, it is difficult to keep it up. Better to snuggle up, all softness, but you must never do that or else they promptly think they can get away with anything. Her line is being hard, like Jean Seberg, that's all there is to it. She has the hots for Hans and imagines what he looks like or to be exact what he will look like in a moment. She has already seen him wearing shorts at the WAT and playing football. He must be even better with nothing on at all. He is like a wild animal, you can't win him over with talk about literature, and this appeals to her. Educated as she is, at present she is nothing but a body and must descend to the level of other bodies where she is one among many and not the best, everywhere else she is better because she has a mind. But that doesn't count now. Anna senses a certain tragedy in this, you're very naked without your head, and her head is what a woman in this situation has to lose. Anna stows her head in the bookcase and inspects Hans, who looks as if he thought he was a wild, beautifully-built animal, say a wolf. He is grinding his jaws vigorously (that old trick of his), which is meant to suggest passion, arousal, and at the same time loneliness, which John Wayne and Brian Keith and Richard Widmark and Henry Fonda are forever suggesting, over and over again. Using the selfsame methods, though better, of course. The enamel on Hans's teeth squeaks in protest at this rough treatment, the demands that are made on it are always too great. The muscles are supposed to look white from the outside, it's always worked in front of the mirror and has never failed to have its effect on a girl. Girls are impressed. However, you often don't have enough confidence, and usually the girl has even less confidence. Anna knows exactly which film that's out of. She sees the prairie before her, the horses, the log cabins, the cacti, and the lonesome men with their guns. But although she knows all about it, she still wants it, wants it. Funny. You see right through something, but you still want to check if there isn't something else behind there, something you've missed. And even if it's solely sinews, muscles and skin, that'll do fine. No stupid prattle. She herself has the brain, but now she's going to let it alone and be only a body for Hans, who has never been anything but a body.
Anna has found her passage in Bataille and is translating: Simone's mother suddenly enters the sickroom. He pulls down his trousers, because his mother is bringing the soft-boiled eggs. That's what the book says. She can't manage entirely without books. When he exposes himself (in the book), he does so because he wants his mother to leave, and because he takes pleasure in going too far. Fortunately Anna's mother is not present here in her room. And that's exactly how it is with us, Anna continues. In a minute we're going to go too far, it feels good, it says so in the book. Simply for the sake of doing it. Without any purpose. It's wrong to be wanting to achieve some aim.
Hans does not want to achieve any particular aim, all he wants is to get round Anna. Anna has a sensation of unlimited possibilities that starts in her head, it is a feeling that has often been described and Anna is emulating it so as to experience it precisely the way it is described. Without her head, Anna could not now know that she is only a body and nothing but. Anna unbuttons Hans's shirt, making brief, trembling movements because you always hear that you're supposed to tremble. Hans is trembling too, but only because what he's wearing underneath is not as clean as it ought to be, but in all the excitement this goes unnoticed. But don't think this means I love you, he says hastily. I don't love you either, at all, because you don't need love for this, declares Anna. That's news to me (Hans). Love makes a slave of you because you're always wondering where your partner is now or why he's not there. It robs you of your autonomy, it's terrible. Hans considers how best to do it and then does it. Like the aforementioned wolf, the greedy predator, he leaps on Anna's mouth and kisses it. His teeth dig around inside in premeditated fashion, the tongue ditto. It is not very skilfully done, but at least it is savage and becomes a man. Anna gropes, paws and claws at him, using her teeth and fingernails. The latter are not very long because they have to be kept short for playing the piano, a minus point. But by way of compensation things go twice as fast What you leave out in the way of pain you can make up for with speed. It's supposed to hurt because what's good is perversion, not what everybody does. What she's doing does hurt Hans and he pulls a pained face, immediately recalling as he does so that Gary Cooper also often has a pained expression on his face, suggestive of inner torment, when he is playing a love scene. You have to look as if you were doing it against your will, and then you have to screw the bint anyway because the feeling is too powerful for you. It has to engulf you, and sure enough he is promptly engulfed, the red wave, the white heat, the blackness, call it what you will, of oblivion.