What do I have to do now, Hans wonders inwardly, something always has to be happening, no tick-over pauses, it always has to be continuing, otherwise it's hard to bridge the gap, you lose the rhythm. Now I have to rip her clothes off, if she says no I mustn't take any notice. Anna is far from begging: Please don't, instead she takes her clothes off herself because Hans is clumsy. As she is slipping out of her panties, the thought goes through her head: is this why I read the whole of Sartre in my spare time, all about Being and about Nothingness? What use is it to me now? I might just as well be a girl who's never read anything but Bravo. You don't need any more for this. The fact that she perceives this distinguishes her from millions of other girls, but on the outside Hans, alas, only sees a girl the same as a million others. And he treats her accordingly. As skin, flesh, sinews, muscles and bones. Which all the others possess as well. The realisation that someone totally different (a prettier girl than herself) might just as well be lying there and that it's not at all uniquely her, Anna, comes as a cruel shock to Anna. Inside her, things are like this: she unfortunately sees through what others take in like syrup, and this torments her.
Oh, Hans, Hans, she says, in spite of herself. He accepts this without a moment's hesitation. That's his name. Yes sir! Here. All present and correct. Screwing about to commence.
Then she'll shut up at last, usually she talks too much, it's almost as bad as her brother. Hans thinks that all the talk is gradually beginning to get on Sophie's nerves too. Sophie would rather have Hans's silence, Hans the lone wolf, than all the twaddle of some Rainer who's forever looking for a group where he can shine. It's a compulsion with that character.
Come to me, come, come, come, whispers Anna, as if he weren't already doing everything in his power to come. But he keeps on wilting. It's the excitement of the great occasion, it's his first time, it can remain with you for a long time. She goes on stroking him and whispering words of love, which (incidentally) are pretty banal, she's done better in the past, she's completely changed, because right now she is a woman pure and simple and thus tends to be unoriginal. She says she really wants to have him, he's so handsome, he's handsome in her eyes even if others maybe don't see him that way because she sees him with the eyes of Love, which often deceive you, but so what. She has such feelings for him, he's under her skin, she can't get him out of her system. For him it would do if he could get a poke in her cunt but it's so difficult to get it in if it isn't quite hard, what a nuisance. The sweat is already flying from him and since it isn't working out as he would like it to he turns brutal, no, not to himself, of course not, but towards Anna.
He bends her back, kneads her, forces her head right back so her neck makes a cracking sound, ouch you're hurting me, yes, right, I'm hurting you because I'm so strong and I don't realise I'm hurting you. You're so strong. Ah, at last, the magic word. As if he'd been started up by a code word, he manages it at last and up it comes. But the words Anna would say at other times in similar situations (such as: At last! You ready, huh?) stick in her throat, so momentous is this occasion they call Love, this thing that falls wherever it happens to fall, on soil or on a concrete ramp where it will shrivel up. and have to be thrown away. She doesn't know herself how it happened. Heavens. She goes babbling on and on about how beautiful it was and that they'll definitely have to do it more often because she liked it so much and no doubt he liked it too, didn't he, it'll get more and more beautiful as time goes by, that was just the start and if the start was so beautiful just think what the end will be like: even more beautiful. My darling, my darling, and she squeezes Hans so tight that he can't get his breath, but the main thing is that he got his jism out and put up a reasonable show in doing so. After some initial difficulties.
There is a warm feeling in Anna, and nothing else. In Hans there is a thought of Sophie, who is going to give him his first hour's coaching tomorrow. Now he gives Anna light pecks with his kisser, which is aiming now here, now there, absently and haphazardly. Anna confuses this with post-coital tenderness, which it is not and is not intended to be. On the contrary, it is solely a way of diverting attention from the fact that Hans has no tender feelings for her whatsoever, though he is glad to have got it done good and proper for once. No doubt Sophie does not want a man who is inexperienced, it's quite enough if one of them is inexperienced: her. This kind of thing can even harm a sportsman, it can reduce his fitness, and he needs to be fit for Sophie so he can conquer her in sporting style. Anna doubtless wants to do this frequently, he'll tell her she's got it wrong. She hasn't been counting on the needs of a competitive sportsman.
Hans, Hans, Hans, says Anna softly.
That's my name, all present and correct, answers Hans, laughing at his own joke.
SO THAT NATURE gets its turn as well (and so they can look out of place) the group venture forth into the famous Vienna Woods, where there is a great deal of the aforementioned Nature. In fact there is nothing else. Except day-trippers in quest of a natural way of life, since in the present age industrialisation is proceeding apace. Off the ramblers go, likewise proceeding apace.
The last scraps of morning mist are climbing the leafy slopes, and the youngsters likewise climb to the summit, where there is a tower with a view plus a cafe and restaurant, where Nature promptly comes to a well-earned stop because you can eat gateau and you are screened off behind glass. The sun enters at an angle, leaving hunks of light you have to weave your way through. The foliage of deciduous trees and various rotten stuff constitute a rustling carpet. What distinguishes the group from other groups who are out and about dressed for a ramble is that they are not dressed for a ramble, but instead they are carrying a basket containing a sack tied shut. There's an amount of scratching and whimpering going on inside the sack. This is because there is a cat in it. They caught the cat. In Jean-Paul Sartre's The Age of Reason is a character who wants to drown his cats, and so today they are planning to drown this cat too, though this cat also has a right to live. Rainer says that he himself has an equal right to non-existence, just as this cat does, this cat which he is going to assist on its way to non-existence before it can count to three. The cat has its suspicions. Hence the brouhaha in the sack.
Sophie is wearing a casual woollen dress made by Adlmuller. Anna's between-seasons coat was run up on her mother's sewing-machine, you can tell at a glance. Sophie wafts with springy step across roots, pine cones, twigs and beechnuts. Sophie is the one who has to do the drowning, in a stream in the Vienna Woods which they are still looking for. She is the only one who hasn't yet undergone the initiation. Without which she won't belong to the gang. Because once they tackle their assaults on a serious basis it will be no good her weeping and wailing like a little girl, she'll have to react coolly, impassively. Rainer takes an especial interest in Sophie's participation, since it will be something they have in common, something that will unite them.