A Translation of Elisabeth II by Thomas Bernhard

Elizabeth II No Comedy God save the Queen HERRENSTEIN, an industrial magnate RICHARD, his servant DOCTOR GUGGENHEIM, a neighbor FRULEIN ZALLINGER, the housekeeper VIKTOR, Herrenstein's nephew COUNT NEUTZ COUNTESS GUDENUS THE LADY IN THE RED HAT THE ONE LADY THE OTHER LADY HERR HOLZINGER, a manager at Herrenstein's firm Several servant girls At least twenty ladies and gentlemen, all of them, including Doctor Guggenheim and Countess Gudenus, dressed in black A high-class drawing-room dating from the turn of the century Sparsely furnished Upstage and center, a pair of double doors leading to a balcony stage left and right a window In the left side-scene two doors In the right side-scene a window A grandfather clock A music-box The Opernring, third floor Muted crowd noise coming from the street Scene I 8:30 AM. Richard is pushing Herrenstein, dressed in a black suit and sitting in a wheelchair, towards the rightmost window HERRENSTEIN, with prosthetic legs, after a fairly long pause I've forgotten my teeth Richard walks upstage and fetches the teeth HERRENSTEIN I can't see a thing After trying to turn round These horrible people [That I have been unable to do without] Richard returns with a tray on which Herrenstein's dentures lie Herrenstein picks up the dentures and places them in his mouth Richard hands him a black cane with a silver handle HERRENSTEIN I see less and less every day Richard pushes Herrenstein closer to the window HERRENSTEIN stretches forward and falls back exhausted

I can hardly breathe Everything causes me pain and moreover everything is odious to me Did you say that Doctor Friedlander was definitely coming today tomorrow we shan't any longer exist How many people are coming to this occasion of horror anyway RICHARD Twenty or thirty according to your nephew HERRENSTEIN What a revolting individual At bottom I have always hated Viktor We wake up and see nothing but beastliness Beastliness and feebleness RICHARD Frulein Zallinger is already back from the city HERRENSTEIN You read to me too loudly Richard Louder I always say but that doesn't mean loud In Badgastein you also read too loudly to me To be sure this climate is lethal But you remonstrated with me Doctor Friedlander also remonstrated me For you Badgastein is lethal you said lethal you said verbatim but for that very reason I was fascinated because you said lethal Doctor Friedlnder also remonstrated with me but precisely because you and Doctor Friedlnder remonstrated with me I was possessed by the idea of traveling there It would have well-nigh been the death of me People with defective hearts catch their death in Badgastein but also in Bad Hall it is even worse for the likes of me indicates to Richard that he would like to be even closer to the window Richard pushes Herrenstein even closer to the window No sooner are we born than we flee from death the whole of humanity is merely running away from death nauseating the masses are nauseating [but woe betide us if we deny them] they trample us underfoot Do you really believe that the Altausse does me good I have always hated the Altaussee those old houses those old people everything musty and moldered everything dank when we climb into bed it is a dank bed we climb into

I have always felt as though I were being strangled at Altaussee I have never understood at all why there are people who voluntarily settle at Altaussee Writers composers actors The lot of this riffraff have been buying property there since before the turn of the century No sooner do people have money than they buy themselves those abominable old houses and demean themselves in the company of butchers and lumberjacks In the mountains I get no air What are we doing in Altaussee we enjoy no variety whatsoever there No I shall not go to Altaussee merely because your aunt lives there tries to look out the window It's all overcast It's overcast anyhow today RICHARD It's a sunny day HERRENSTEIN I can hardly see anything I can hardly hear anything and I can hardly see anything but I have got used to this condition I shall never see these people Exit Richard HERRENSTEIN and once again they are all coming here an appalling thought but I cannot refuse to receive them then again it is an opportunity to shake hands with them and have done with them for years But they have never done anything but form designs on my life's work even the oldest of them speculate on it incessantly I have unequivocally told you that I shall bequeath nothing to these people Enter Richard with some newspapers, which he sets down next to Herrenstein My relatives have always repelled me ever more with each passing year indicates that he would like to be away from the window It has become apparent that all these people are worthless we follow them and observe them and discern their worthlessness Richard pushes Herrenstein into the middle of the room I cannot say that I could have ever loved a single one of my relatives I have never been able to summon up even the faintest trace of sympathy for any of my relatives that is the truth When we take away their hypocrisy

nothing is left of these people but their loathsomeness it makes no difference to me that I am hated hatred of people has become second nature to me In Badgastgein I did not sleep a single night In Badgastein my hearing is worse and my vision is worse but that is entirely my fault Frulein Zallinger enters and sets the breakfast table for Herrenstein and Richard HERRENSTEIN We come to grips only with what goes in people and are subsequently disillusioned But they assuredly sleep well They are healthy They still have life to look forward to They are encumbered by nothing But let them just wait till they turn sixty and no longer have any painless nights looks at the floor, traces circles on it with his cane Their life is passably well-balanced Their future is not at all mysterious I see only filth Everything is filthy But the floor was polished just yesterday shouting isn't that so Frulein Zallinger the floor was polished just yesterday FRULEIN ZALLINGER Yes of course Herr Herrenstein HERRENSTEIN I see only filth looks along the wall I can look wherever and as deep as I wish to I see only filth Unbearable to think that all these people are coming here today of all days a shamelessly inquisitive race the Viennese How many are coming anyway Frulein Zallinger FRULEIN ZALLINGER Thirty or forty HERRENSTEIN An appalling thought and this a day before our departure Thirty or forty Because I told two or three people they could come here and see Elizabeth the Second

And the occasion is this ridiculous But I cannot waste my time completely with these people I must talk myself into believing that I shall enjoy it I never thought any of these people would ever come back into my house looks around Everything is getting dirty Isn't it revolting today of all days when we have to go to Heldwein's funeral the day before we have to go to Semmering I am still not entirely sure that I shall go to Semmering Even when the luggage is all packed I shall not be sure that I am not going to some other place perhaps I shall go to the Carpathians to see my niece What do you think Richard Wouldn't that be a good idea RICHARD I have thought about the Carpathians Herr Herrenstein Indeed I have even recommended the Carpathians to you HERRENSTEIN Recommended the Carpathians When did you recommend the Carpathians to me you actually mentioned the Carpathians to me I am forgetting more and more things Richard is about to read aloud from the newspaper, Herrenstein stops him HERRENSTEIN When we have forgotten everything we have nothing left then we are dead we truly exist only because we have not forgotten everything Do you know that I have received an invitation to Toronto I have never gotten one of those An invitation to Toronto These people are unaware that I am incapable of walking otherwise they would not have invited me to Toronto unless they invited me precisely because they knew that I could not walk Herrenstein the industrial magnate with prosthetic feet Most likely one of those vulgar conglomerates is behind this invitation I have not yet taken my Lopyrin Exit Richard to fetch the pill

HERRENSTEIN looking at the floor I was a wax dummy always alone finally I leapt into the fireplace What terrible dreams we have most of them we forget a wax dummy that leapt into the fireplace into the fireplace of a poor family Reenter Richard with the pill on a tray and a glass of water Herrenstein takes the pill and drinks a sip of water Richard takes the glass and hands it to Frulein Zallinger HERRENSTEIN I dreamt I was a wax dummy that suddenly leapt into a blazing fireplace into a poor family's fireplace is it not ridiculous the things we confront ourselves with Do you ever have such terrible dreams RICHARD I can't say as I do Herr Herrenstein HERRENSTEIN So you have good dreams RICHARD Not terrible ones not good ones but not terrible ones either Herrenstein indicates that he wishes to be pushed back to the window Richard pushes him to the window HERRENSTEIN The solution is quite simply to be constantly turning round again all of a sudden and to walk farther I say that here of all places In Rome I thought I could stand up on my own I thought I did not need you I tried to stand up and promptly fell out of bed it was no accident it was an act of vengeance against my resolution Richard is about to read aloud from the newspaper and Herrenstein indicates that he must not HERRENSTEIN There was a time when I was trying to be independent of you but my attempt miscarried You know of course that I am laid up for days on end with these horrible back pains It is not right for a completely immobile cripple

to take up lodging in this place of all places simply because he is used to it always once again living in the Hassler in the final analysis the Hassler is quite simply a loathsome hotel I haven't the faintest idea why I am always once again saying the Hassler is lovely I hate the sight of the Spanish stairs more than anything else Rome is no longer an option Lisbon today is like Rome thirty years ago we shall visit it as soon as possible I love that town Has it never struck you that in no other place in the world are there so many cripples roaming around as in Lisbon on every street corner a face overgrown with cancer withered noses corroded ears in Lisbon diseases reign supreme it fascinates me in all likelihood Do you call it perversity Richard I am attracted to corporeal deformities simultaneously to this city's beauty and to its mass of corporeal deformities but naturally there are just as many beautiful people in Lisbon proportionately you see more of them there than in other large European cities Way back when I was a very young man about fifteen years ago before my unfortunate accident I took two rooms in the Avenida Palace to have some peace and quiet an empty room as a buffer so to speak against the vulgarity of the rest of the world From wall to wall I will have nothing to do with the company of strange people the older I get the less I will have to do with them FRULEIN ZALLINGER who meanwhile has set the breakfast table Can I bring in the tea now HERRENSTEN Yes of course bring in the tea Exit Frulein Zallinger HERRENSTEIN It makes no sense that I no longer desire anything of the world I said that more or less without thinking yesterday I desire so many things so strongly of it Richard traces circles on the floor with his cane There are two countries I still wish to visit I wish to go to England and I wish to go to Portugal and naturally to Poland my absolutely favorite country I was never happier than in Poland no one understands that People shake their heads even if they are not shaking their heads they shake them interminably whenever I rave about Poland

but of course I was in Poland not long ago When were we last in Poland anyway RICHARD Two years ago HERRENSTEIN Two years ago it seems like an eternity to me Frulein Zallinger brings in the tea, Herrenstein is conveyed by Richard to the breakfast table HERRENSTEIN Always again a higher stage of life my father always said what ever did he mean by that probably as near as I can tell he meant that man's sole and general misfortune was that he had been born to begin with we always pose the most inane questions we ourselves are also inane consummately inane crippled and inane everyone is crippled and inane corporeally and spiritually crippled and inane without exception Richard sits down opposite Herrenstein, they breakfast, Frulein Zallinger remains stationed at the door HERRENSTEIN It is inane thoughts alone that are ever uttered They are never anything other than the utterances of a cripple be a thought ever so well thought it is nonetheless a crippled thought be an utterance ever so well worded it is nonetheless a crippled utterance ties a napkin around his neck the entire world is riddled with inanity the entire world is crippled but naturally there are skillful cripples skillful cripples continuing to eat his breakfast with Richard Have you never given any thought to an artist's existence I once wanted to be an actor but I foundered miserably I am incapable of memorizing two lines in succession quite apart from the fact that my father would never have allowed his son to be a practicing mimic To be a mimic was the nadir of contemptibility from then onwards he used the word mimic whenever he wished to speak of something with the utmost contempt Have you never been tempted To become an artist everyone throngs to the stage everyone wants to be behind the podium simply because it is a podium

Thespianizing concertizing intellectualizing they all throng to such activities I imagine you would make a great actor You are a veritable director's goldmine a director could work wonders with you You could play a king or a coalminer You have all the makings of a great actor now of course it is too late A thespian career must be embarked on at a fairly early point in life not as in ballet when one is four or five years old but at any rate at the age of sixteen or seventeen And yet I have always been revolted by the acting mtier whenever a heap of blockheads come running towards each other on the stage Your very voice is an actor's voice Have you really never given any thought to joining the circus RICHARD Never HERRENSTEIN As a veritable tot I got the idea of joining the circus like my mother who ran off all the way to Hungary with a gipsy circus she was four years old at the time A district attorney from Budapest brought her back to Vienna for three months everybody had assumed she was dead But everybody has a hankering to be on stage a hankering for depravity RICHARD I have never felt such a hankering HERRENSTEIN You are a reflective individual Richard controlled disciplined that sets you apart you are dependability personified You are completely un-Austrian on the other hand you have nothing German about you if you had you wouldn't be here either you are a singular individual your greatest asset is that you have nothing about you of the contrarian Fifty-two years in the service of the Herrensteins I personally shudder at the very thought of it but it doesn't depress you You are consistently good-humored averting your gaze from [countless] trivial risible occasions [for being depressed] To be sure you also have a kind of father to rely on in me You are the only person I can put up with I cannot say why [but] it is [a] fact my dear Richard to Frulein Zallinger

Be honest Frulein Zallinger where would you like to travel to to Semmering or to Altaussee FRULEIN ZALLINGER To Altaussee Herr Herrenstein HERRENSTEIN You are all alike wanting to go to that perverse artists' hole where death lies in ambush or at least deathly boredom In any case I have not yet made up my mind in the end it is all the same where I travel to the main thing is to get away from Vienna this city is getting more and more unbearable I hate Vienna and I hate the Viennese What is playing at the opera today anyway RICHARD Andrea Chnier HERRENSTEIN That loathsome Giordano whom I am related to by the way in three respects in any case any niece of Giordano's is also my niece I find it all too complicated I no longer go to the opera as readily as I used to but I would sooner go there than to the Burgtheater they say there is a new director there but he is a charlatan just like the rest of them the Germans come here like a breath of fresh air and before you know it it's the gaping void all over again the boring gaping void How many directors of the Burgtheater have I already outlived and at bottom nothing has changed these perverse play-annihilating machines the new faces in no time flat become the old faces and the new spirit becomes the spirit of the day before yesterday that house has been termite-eaten from time immemorial crying out It is in that this very thing that the allure of the Burgtheater consists the fact that it has been termite-eaten from time immemorial and will remain termite-eaten until the end of time Every attempt to clear the Burgtheater of deadwood leads simply to an orgy of dry-rot I am sick of actors I would much rather listen to the bone-headed vocalists in a Mozart opera When will they next be putting on Cos fan tutte anyway FRULEIN ZALLINGER Shall I find out

HERRENSTEIN Yes please find out Frulein Zallinger the only thing about the opera I ever really liked Exit Frulein Zallinger HERRENSTEIN was Cos fan tutte I don't care who is conducting that is music you simply cannot ruin everything else is simply and invariably atrocious The nice thing is that it is only a couple of steps from here to the opera it would really be too much for me to have to travel any great distance just to see an opera I would never be able to stand that Basically Richard just pushes me across the street more or less right across the street to Mozart and Wagner But I cannot go see Cos fan tutte every week Reenter Frulein Zallinger with the Press HERRENSTEIN When is Cos fan tutte? FRULEIN ZALLINGER Today it's Un ballo in maschera HERRENSTEIN Awful I don't care for Verdi earwise these Italian tearjerkers are good for nothing but besmirching one's auditory canal I go only to Mozart operas which also bore me but at the highest level and to Wagner When is Cos fan tutte going to be on next FRULEIN ZALLINGER It is not even mentioned in the listings HERRENSTEIN That is just what you would expect of these morons not putting on Cos fan tutte the only opera in history worth anything at all Andrea Chnier that piece of sentimental heroic kitsch to Richard But you too are no devotee of Giordano and Company who positively ooze mendacity Do you like Giordano or not RICHARD

Of course not Herr Herrenstein of course not HERRENSTEIN It is unbearable when you are constantly saying of course not There are days when you say nothing else to Frulein Zallinger Frulein Zallinger you believe the Altaussee is good for me You have no idea how bad it is for me In and of itself the Viennese climate is just fine on the other hand my condition is getting worse with each passing day the best air is in the Semmering at Altaussee I always see the same people the old countesses who get on my nerves and their senile husbands and [Hintermnner] In the Semmering I never come into contact with that riffraff on the other hand isolation is also hell Do you even know who is actually coming here today Still I have missed the Queen of England Because I told my nephew he could come forty people are now coming people who have no excuse for being here at all looks around the bad air emitted by these people is death to me bright and early today I had a colossal craving for literature now once again it has vanished completely Where did we leave off Elective Affinities anyway FRULEIN ZALLINGER In the dining room HERRENSTEIN to Richard In the dining room how absurd things have come to such a pass that you are reading Elective Affinities to me in the dining room and also still leaving the book there absurd absurd You left them Richard Until half-past three in the morning you read me Tolstoy Richard a completely abortive attempt at diversion today would have been just the day for Elective Affinities I believe I have by now heard you read Elective Affinities a full dozen times this is of course an exercise in feeble-mindedness but for the purposes of driving away boredom an ideal style of declamation with neither an especially ingenious pronunciation nor an inane one a reading that absolutely enters both ears I have spoken only with a soporific accent until now

To Richard you to be sure do not read you lucky man Goethe has not yet spoiled the world for you gradually he has made the world loathsome to me on the whole I have made the world into a much darker place for myself through literature and yet there passes not a week in which you do not read at least one book to me and I do not bore myself to death by means of your reading but I am more at ease with this deadly boredom than without it Exit Frulein Zallinger RICHARD Am I permitted to bring it to your attention that Herr Holzinger is about to arrive HERRENSTEIN What he's coming here today RICHARD You ordered him to come here at eleven HERRENSTEIN I have no recollection of having done that RICHARD But I told you that on Saturday the Queen of England would be coming On Saturday I said the Queen of England will be coming and so you will not be able to receive a visit from Herr Holzinger HERRENSTEIN Did you say that You said it You RICHARD I said on Saturday the Queen of England is coming and so Herr Holzinger can't come HERRENSTEIN And I didn't listen to you I actually didn't listen to you this is a genuine catastrophe indicates to Richard that he wishes him to convey him away from the breakfast table and to the window at stage right, and throws his napkin on to the table I did not prick up my ears You said that And I did not prick up my ears Richard conveys Herrenstein to the window at stage right HERRENSTEIN looks out the window You say it's completely clear RICHARD A clear day

HERRENSTEIN Everything looks cloudy to me I shall never again see a clear day and from three in the afternoon onwards I am also extremely hard of hearing When is the Queen coming anyway RICHARD At about twelve according to Frulein Zallinger HERRENSTEIN At about twelve and at eleven Herr Holzinger is coming I can't tell you how much that man disgusts me the way he speaks and what he says the clothes he wears the way he moves the way he keeps saying abrupt he's constantly saying abrupt and I cannot see any reason for it an abrupt closure he says an abrupt drop in the interest rate People get into the habit of using some ghastly word and never shake it as long as they live I myself have been saying the word wonderful for years it's absurd isn't it [but of course we naturally reflect our inside according to the outside] that is it Richard breakfast is simply stagnating in my stomach it has done that for years but it would make no sense to change it the suppers behave in the same way In the end everything gets on one's nerves And one's nerves fall ill But there is nothing remotely alluring about the Queen of England or about the entire royal family they all look equally moronic but the people are fascinated by them I said to my nephew all right you can come here [to look at her] I have no interest in the Queen of England People like her have never interested me When the queen comes at around twelve we shall be completely out of time and I had wanted to write to Lucius apropos of the Filipino shipment I can also write to Lucius from the Semmering Sixty-eight thousand gun barrels absurd I shall not allow myself to be vexed by the thought of them en route to Altaussee or the Semmering to be sure it makes no difference which direction we travel How is your aunt doing does she still get those cramps in her legs

RICHARD She is receiving treatment from a doctor at Bad Ischler HERRENSTEIN From a doctor at Bad Ischler but the doctors at Bad Ischler are considered the worst doctors of all who kill all their patients on account of some trifle how old is your aunt anyway RICHARD Eighty-seven HERRENSTEIN Exactly my age but if she is active RICHARD She [climbed] Mount Katrin a year ago HERRENSTEIN You don't say I would no longer have been able to do that by the age of twenty But Bad Ischl is loathsome the people sit in their houses and freeze and whenever they leave the house they go to Zauner's confectioner's shop one of the absolutely most tasteless confectioner's shops of our time the more egregiously tasteless anything in the Salzkammergut is the more popular it is On the whole people who holiday in the Salzkammergut are the most tasteless of all holidaymakers How does your aunt support herself anyway RICHARD She has an annuity HERRENSTEIN An annuity from what RICHARD From her husband who was a tanner HERRENSTEIN Tanning tanning that is a dying trade nothing stinks more gruesomely than a tannery but without tanners we would have no lederhosen RICHARD She gets two-and-a-half thousand schillings HERRENSTEIN That's life for you that's life

it will always be thus Have you raised the curtains RICHARD Of course Herr Herrenstein HERRENSTEIN Everything looks cloudy to me And it's completely clear you say RICHARD A completely clear day Herr Herrenstein HERRENSTEIN The proper sort of day for the Queen of England I don't care for these people Burberry and Greenfell mannequins with their stupid smirks whether they turn up with heads of state or with their dogs it is always the same the whole brood is abominable But you have been to England several times Richard RICHARD Seven times HERRENSTEIN At bottom you are well-traveled possibly better-traveled than me I have not been to England seven times I have been to England only twice not counting two trips to Scotland the Hebrides are quite fascinating fascinating rugged rocks RICHARD I have also been to Ireland HERRENSTEIN Northern Ireland RICHARD Northern Ireland and Ireland and to Wales HERRENSTEIN Anyhow it is easy to see that you have been very often to England and Ireland What drew you there so frequently anyway RICHARD Friends HERRENSTEIN Friends I haven't even got any friends in England Upstage Frulein Zallinger is carrying in a table

HERRENSTEIN At first we want to see everything then suddenly we no longer want to but I have always had a hankering for travel even with these difficulties An Austrian-wheelchair fate Richard looks out the window Don't offer Herr Holzinger so much as a sip of liquor these people think they have to drain their glass they won't leave before that I want this man to clear off back to where he came from straightaway hypocritical creatures the lot of them but they are necessary to us without them everything would have come to pieces ages ago That is the system a man who holds everything together and a line of such creatures who are governed by this man become unscrupulous more or less but who is not unscrupulous to be sure we no longer give a thought to money or property it has been decades since that was a preoccupation our actions are habitual we must keep people on a short leash and greet them with supreme affability and tell them that they are indispensable and all the while menace them with the threat of being sacked having caught sight of [the reflection of] of Frulein Zallinger carrying in the table in the window, exclaims Frulein Zallinger what ever are you doing why are you carrying that table in here Richard turns the wheelchair and Herrenstein slightly HERRENSTEIN What is going on here FRULEIN ZALLINGER It's for the buffet Herr Herrenstein HERRENSTEIN What buffet FRULEIN ZALLINGER For the guests HERRENSTEIN That's just terrible the fact that we go so far as to prepare a buffet for these people I only hope it isn't from Demel FRULEIN ZALLINGER It was all done here Herr Herrenstein

HERRENSTEIN People will come here nevertheless and wolf the whole thing down The fact that I have invited all these people is pure insanity In fact it wasn't I who invited them You invited them Only my nephew I thought only my nephew and now forty people are coming by the end even more than forty will have come Exit Frulein Zallinger RICHARD Is there even room for forty people here HERRENSTEIN I was wondering the same thing A person who lives alone throughout the year only with you Richard more or less only with you Frulein Zallinger of course doesn't count nobody else counts and suddenly forty people show up The Viennese are so off-puttingly curious They congregate in the hundreds of thousands to see a monkey walk down the Mariahilferstrasse they are completely undiscriminating Enter Frulein Zallinger with a second table which she joins to the first And all this on the day on whose afternoon we still have to go to the funeral of Heldwein the late jeweler we submit even to such an absurdity as that Kchert Heldwein Fischmeister they are all dead now the Viennese jewelers have died out of course their sons don't count their sons are worthless It is monstrous Richard that we actually stoop to associating with jewelers At bottom on every day of this season someone whom we know has died and so we have had to keep running to the cemetery on the other hand I have ascertained that I look best in my mourning suit do you know Richard I am a mourning-suit enthusiast don't you think that it's too much in one day for me the Queen of England and all these people and on top of that Heldwein the jeweler and on top of that Herr Holzinger to be sure I could still cancel my appointment with Herr Holzinger but then I shall have to receive him tomorrow noticing Frulein Zallinger

Why ever are you dragging that table in here all by yourself you have girls to help you with that what is keeping them from here FRULEIN ZALLINGER There's no point in bothering them this is no trouble for me HERRENSTEIN All right but don't you be the one to drag it back out let the girls do some work it's what they are here for after all FRULEIN ZALLINGER Yes of course Herr Herrenstein HERRENSTEIN How many tables do you still have to carry in here anyway FRULEIN ZALLINGER We need five tables for the buffet HERRENSTEIN to Richard Don't large gatherings of people disgust you does it really not bother you so many people in one place RICHARD Of course Herr Herrenstein HERRENSTEIN It is not normal to be revolted by the masses people love to flock together they all strive constantly to be together with each other I have always wished to be away from everybody to get away from everybody that is doubtless my curse To Frulein Zallinger You are wrecking your spinal column Frulein Zallinger You will see that you are wrecking it can't we hear some music something classical Richard Frulein Zallinger would this not be a good time to listen to music Frulein Zallinger starts the music-box. Two measures of Mozart HERRENSTEIN cries out No artificial music You must play play something for us why don't you Frulein Zallinger a short little classical piece You play Chopin so beautifully Frulein Zallinger stops the music-box HERRENSTEIN But it has easily been a year since you have played anything

I don't know why you don't play the piano more often all of a sudden you gave it up it has easily been a year an etude a sonata anything will do in the Semmering we won't even have a piano Don't act like that Frulein Zallinger when you are after all a trained pianist and your father was after all a conductor one doesn't simply renounce such a high-compression talent overnight now go and play Frulein Zallinger goes into the music room and leaves the door half open HERRENSTEIN She used to play us something every day why doesn't she play anymore a horrible individual And it was always so pleasant whenever she played wasn't it Richard Chopin Schumann Frulein Zallinger begins to play a Chopin sonata HERRENSTEIN I don't care for the piano it is an instrument only for people with perverse tastes even Horowitz is unbearable but as a stimulant as a stimulant Breakfast has upset my stomach Naturally she is out of practice whatever we do not constantly practice doing breaks down on us In our parents' time the piano was played every afternoon for years we had a pianist in our employ who would show up just to play at that time of day I never played my brother played I never did Frulein Zallinger has been playing for twenty years It has easily been a year since she stopped playing in a whisper but she is playing very fumblingly don't you think Richard RICHARD Uninspiredly Herr Herrenstein HERRENSTEIN An abuse of high art Not that I consider playing the piano a form of high art an aural time-killer yes but not high art there is something truly peacock-esque about the piano calls into the music room

That's enough Frulein Zallinger that's enough Frulein Zallinger slams shut the Bsendorfer and emerges from the music room

Translation unauthorized but 2011 by Douglas Robertson