CHORUS :
If he keeps his secrets in,
glasses will see through his skin.
DISCUSSION LEADER : And so for the third time I ask Walter Matern: Are you willing, in this cast-iron temple, which only a short time ago housed Johannes Gutenberg, inventor of the printing press, to make yourself available as a topic of discussion, that is, to answer our questions? In a word: Do you welcome discussion?
MATERN : Hm… (pause) Damn it!… I… (pause) In the name of Satan and the Blessed Virgin… welcome discussion!
(Walli S. writes on the blackboard: He welcomes discussion.)
CHORUS :
He says: I’m game,
he’ll play our game.
MATERN :
As in the Last Judgment,
where everyone speaks,
I have, I was,
I touched a hair,
I shot at the mirror, twice, struck home.
I wakened the mirror from purblind sleep.
TWO BOYS :
He flailed at butter with a spindle,
till water gushed and cried: A swindle.
MATERN :
I dashed the pigeon from the tower steep,
I buried the worm in the earth down deep.
TWO BOYS :
Once when he’d stabbed an oven dead,
he saw an oven, he saw red.
TWO BOYS :
He choked his towel, he was fit to be tied.
His towel was always a thorn in his side.
MATERN :
I smothered the stone. I sweetened the salt,
I cut a goat’s bleat out of her throat.
CHORUS :
He wrote with chalk on thekitty’s house:
Death in disgrace to Mister Mouse.
MATERN :
And now I’m a topic of discussion;
being dragged to a foregone conclusion.
(The younger generation clap and stamp. The discussion leader rises and motions for silence.)
DISCUSSION LEADER : With great pleasure and interest we have just heard that Walter Matern is willing to unburden himself. But before question and answer, beginning as a rivulet but soon swelling into a broad-beamed torrent, carry him and us away, let us pray: (The younger generation and the assistant rise with clasped hands.) O great Creator of dynamic and everlasting world discussion, Thou who hast created question and answer, who givest and takest away the floor, sustain us this day as we proceed to discuss the discussion-welcoming topic of discussion, Walter Matern. O Lord of all discussions…
CHORUS : … give us this day the maturity indispensable to all discussion.
DISCUSSION LEADER : O wise and omniscient Creator of language, Thou who commandest the stars to discuss in the universe…
CHORUS : … loosen our tongues.
DISCUSSION LEADER : O Thou Creator of great sublime topics of discussion, Thyself the most sublime of all topics of discussion, loosen the tongue of the discussion-welcoming Walter Matern…
CHORUS : … loosen his tongue.
DISCUSSION LEADER : And let us in Thy name embark upon this discussion which honoreth Thee and Thee alone…
CHORUS : Amen.
(All sit down. Repressed murmurs. Matern wishes to speak. The discussion leader shakes his head.)
DISCUSSION LEADER : The first question is the prerogative of the discussion club and not of the topic under discussion. But before we proceed to the usual exploratory questions, I wish to introduce Walli S., assistant to the chair, and to thank the firm of Brauxel & Co., which has supplied us, for purposes of the present discussion, with a pair of knowledge glasses, an article that has become extremely rare since it was taken off the market. (Applause from the younger generation.) But we intend to make use of this device only in case of necessity and on a motion supported by a majority of those present. Perhaps this will prove unnecessary since the topic under discussion has professed his readiness for discussion and since control by means of the Brauxel knowledge glasses is in order only if a state of compulsory discussion is declared. Nevertheless, by way of highlighting the efficient and every-ready presence of the glasses, the chair requests Walli S. to explain, for the benefit of our topic and of the new members of our discussion club, what these knowledge glasses are and how Walli S. first found occasion to put them to dynamic use.
WALLI S. : Approximately from the autumn of last year until shortly before Easter of the current year, the firm of Brauxel & Co. manufactured roughly one million four hundred forty thousand pairs of glasses, which were put on the market during this period under the name of miracle glasses and chalked up sensational sales. These miracle glasses, which are now known as knowledge glasses, cost fifty pfennigs a pair and enabled the purchaser, provided he was not under seven or over twenty-one years of age, to know all adults over thirty.
DISCUSSION LEADER : Walli, would you mind telling us more specifically what became known when you, for example, put the glasses on?
WALLI S. : Last year, on the third Sunday of Advent, my uncle Walter, who is the topic under discussion today, and to whom, because I know so much about him, I owe the honor of serving as assistant to the chair in spite of my tender years—my uncle Walter took me to the Düsseldorf Christmas fair. There were lots of colored electric signs and booths where you could buy everything under the sun: Christmas cookies and marchpane, antitank guns and Christmas buns, hand grenades, household articles, aerial bombs, cognac snifters, and suicide teams, leitmotives and murder motives, Christmas tree stands and close combat badges, dolls with washable hair, dollhouses, dolls’ cradles, dolls’ coffins, doll replacement parts, doll accessories, dolls’ radar…
CHORUS : To the point! To the point!
WALLI S. : And the so-called miracle glasses were also on sale. My uncle Walter—there he is!—bought me a pair. I put the glasses on right away, because I always have to try things right away. I looked at him through the glasses and I saw him very plainly as he used to be: it was simply awful. Of course I began to scream and ran away. (She lets out a short scream.) But he—my uncle Walter—ran after me and caught me near Rating Gate. He had his dog with him. But since he didn’t take the glasses off me, I kept seeing him and the dog too and their past. He looked like a terrible monster and I couldn’t stop screaming. (She screams again.) After that my nerves were affected and I had to go to St. Mary’s Hospital for four weeks. I had a nice time, though the food didn’t amount to much. Because the nurses, one of them was called Sister Walburga like me, and another one was called Sister Dorothea, and the night nurse was called…
CHORUS : Please come to the point!
A BOY : No hospital stories!
A BOY : Such digressions are quite superfluous.
WALLI S. : Well, that is my experience with the miracle glasses, now known as knowledge glasses, which I shall put on today if the topic under discussion makes statements such as would inhibit discussion. Brauxel’s knowledge glasses should be present at every public discussion. If speech should fail…
CHORUS : Brauxel’s knowledge glasses never fail!
WALLI S. : Anyone who like my uncle is a topic under discussion…
CHORUS : … should never forget that Brauxel’s knowledge glasses are always ready.
WALLI S. : Many thought the past was dead and buried…
CHORUS : … but Brauxel’s knowledge glasses can make the past present.
WALLI S. : If, for instance, I were to put the glasses on now to look at my uncle Walter, I’d have to start screaming something awful like last year, on the third Sunday of Advent.—Want me to?
(Matern and dog grow restless. Matern pats the dog’s neck. The discussion leader motions Walli S. to be seated.)
DISCUSSION LEADER (amiably): Forgive us, Heir Matern, the members of our discussion club relapse occasionally into their usual childlike to adolescent state. Then what should be treated as work threatens to become a game; but for your peace of mind and our own, the chair will find means to prevent gruesome jokes from ge
tting out of hand.—The discussion ban on members fourteen to twenty-two is lifted. We shall now open our discussion with exploratory questions which should be kept simple and as direct as possible! Questions, please!
(Several members raise their hands. The discussion leader calls on them successively.)
A BOY : First series of exploratory questions, addressed to the topic under discussion: How many stations?
MATERN : Thirty-two.
A BOY : And counting backwards?
MATERN : Thirty-two.
A BOY : And how many have you forgotten?
MATERN : Thirty-two.
A BOY : Then you remember exactly…
MATERN : …thirty-two in all.
A BOY : What is your favorite dish?
MATERN : Thirty-stew.
A BOY : Your lucky number?
MATERN : Thirty-two times thirty-two.
A BOY : And your unlucky number?
MATERN : Ditto!
A BOY : Do you know your multiplication tables?
MATERN : Eight—sixteen—twenty-four—thirty-two.
A BOY : Thank you. The first series of exploratory questions is concluded.
DISCUSSION LEADER : Second series, please.
A BOY : Can you form simple sentences beginning with the indefinite pronoun “every”?
MATERN (quickly): Every tooth counts. Every witch burns better. Every knee hurts. Every station says bad things about the next. Every Vistula flows in retrospect wider than every Rhine. Every livingroom is always too rectangular. Every train pulls out. Every music begins. Every event casts its shadow. Every angel lisps. Every freedom dwells in mountains that are too high. Every miracle can be explained. Every athlete refurbishes his past. Every cloud has rained several times. Every word may be the last. Every candy is too sweet. Every hat fits. Every dog stands central. Every secret is ticklish…
DISCUSSION LEADER : That will do, thank you. And now, if you please, the third and last series of exploratory questions. Go ahead.
A BOY : Do you believe in God?
MATERN : I object; the question of God cannot be called an exploratory question.
DISCUSSION LEADER : The question of God is perfectly ad missible as an exploratory question provided it is formulated without such modifiers as “triune” and “only true.”
A BOY : Very well. Do you believe?
MATERN : In God?
A BOY : That’s right. Do you believe in God?
MATERN : You mean… in God?
A BOY : Exactly: in God.
MATERN : In God up there?
A BOY : Not just up there. Everywhere, in general.
MATERN : You mean in something up there and elsewhere…
A BOY : We don’t mean something, we mean God, neither more nor less. Out with it! Do you or don’t you… ?
CHORUS :
Scissors or stone,
yes or no!
MATERN : Every man, whether he likes it or not, every man, regardless of his upbringing and the color of his skin, regardless of the idea he lives by, every man who thinks, feels, eats, breathes, acts, in other words, lives…
DISCUSSION LEADER : Herr Matern, the question addressed by the members of the discussion group to the topic under discussion is: Do you believe in God?
MATERN : I believe in the Nothing. Because sometimes I have to ask myself in earnest: Why are there essents rather than nothing?
A BOY : That’s a quotation from Heidegger. We’re thoroughly familiar with it.
MATERN : So perhaps pure Being and pure Nothing are the same.
A BOY : Heidegger again!
MATERN : The Nothing never ceases to nihilate.
A BOY : Heidegger!
MATERN : The Nothing is the source of negation. The Nothing is more fundamental than the not and negation. The Nothing is acknowledged.
CHORUS :
Heidegger hid, Heidegger hod!
The question is: Do you believe in God?
MATERN : But sometimes I can’t even believe in the Nothing; then again I think I could believe in God if I…
A BOY : Our question has been stated. There’s no need to repeat it. Yes or no?
MATERN : Well… (pause)… In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost: No.
DISCUSSION LEADER : The third and last exploratory question may be considered answered. We sum up: The lucky and unlucky number of the topic under discussion is: thirty-two. The topic under discussion can form any number of sentences beginning with the indefinite pronoun “every.” He does not believe in God. This constellation—thirty-two, every, God—justifies an additional question. Let’s have it.
(Walli S. notes the answers to the exploratory questions on the black board.)
MATERN (indignant): Who sets up these rules? Who’s running this discussion, who’s pulling the strings? Who?
DISCUSSION LEADER : Our discussion, carried on by a discussion-loving group, has come to a point where it seems advisable to steer it in a direction that will lend it the necessary dynamic gradient, that will give promise of a catastrophe in the traditional classical sense. I therefore request a supplementary question, based on the conclusions drawn from our exploratory questions: Thirty-two, every, God.
A GIRL : Do you love animals?
MATERN : That’s absurd! Can’t you see I’ve got a dog?
A GIRL : That doesn’t answer my supplementary question.
MATERN : The dog is well treated. Correctly and when the occasion arises firmly.
A GIRL : It seems hardly necessary to repeat, but I’ll do it just the same: Do you love animals?
MATERN : Take a look, young lady. What do you see? An elderly, half-blind dog, hard to feed, because his scissors bite is, to say the least, incomplete, and yet…
A GIRL : Do you love animals?
MATERN : This dog…
DISCUSSION LEADER : Ruling from the chair. In view of the topic’s obvious and deliberate evasiveness, appropriate subquestions will be permitted within the framework of the supplementary question. Questions, please!
A BOY : Did you ever kill an animal with your bare hands?
MATERN : Admitted: a canary with this hand, because the bird’s owner—that was in Bielefeld—was an old-time Nazi and I as an antifascist…
A BOY : Did you ever shoot an animal?
MATERN : In the Army: rabbits and crows, but during the war everybody shot at animals, and those crows…
A BOY : Did you ever kill any animals with a knife?
MATERN : Like every boy who lays his hands on a pocket-knife: rats and moles. A friend gave me the knife and with that knife we both of us…
A BOY : Did you ever poison an animal?
MATERN (pause): Yes.
A BOY : What kind of animal?
MATERN : A dog.
CHORUS :
Was he white, blue, or purple?
Red, green, yellow, or purple?
MATERN : It was a black dog.
CHORUS :
Was it a spitz, dachshund, or pekinese?
A St. Bernard, boxer, or pekinese?
MATERN : It was a black-haired German shepherd answering to the name of Harras.
DISCUSSION LEADER : The supplementary question, supported by appropriate subquestions, has shown that Walter Matern, the topic under discussion, has killed a canary, several rabbits, a number of crows, moles, rats, and a dog; I therefore repeat the supplementary question based on thirty-two, every, and God: Do you love animals?
MATERN : Believe it or not: yes.
DISCUSSION LEADER (motions to Walli, the assistant. She writes “loves animals” on the blackboard): We note that on the one hand the topic under discussion has poisoned a black shepherd, and that on the other hand he takes excellent care of a black shepherd. Since he professes to love animals, dogs—as such and in this case a black shepherd—seem to become the fixed point of discussion in reference to the topic under discussion. For safety’s sake may I request exploratory questions calculated to check the unquest
ionably dynamic result of our exposition, namely, a black-haired German shepherd, possibly the fixed point of this whole discussion.
(Walli S. writes “black-haired German shepherd” on the blackboard.)
A BOY : For example: Are you afraid of death?
MATERN : I’m a bounceback man.
A BOY : Then perhaps you’d like to live a thousand years?
MATERN : A hundred thousand, because I’m a bounceback man.
A BOY : In case you should die notwithstanding, would you prefer to die in your room, in the open, in the kitchen, in the bathroom, or in the cellar?
MATERN : A bounceback man couldn’t care less.
A BOY : What would you prefer: illness or traffic accident? Or do you favor battle, the duel as a form of existence, war as casualty, revolution as potentiality, or a good honest free-for-all?
MATERN (good-humoredly): My good friend, for a bounceback man like me, all those are mere opportunities of showing what a bounceback man can do. You can discuss me to death with knives and firearms; you can hurl me from television towers; and even if you bury me fathoms deep and weigh me down with arguments as hard as granite—tomorrow I’ll be standing on my lead soles again. Bounceback man, bounce!
CHORUS :
Buried below and gladly we
will take the bet: what’s buried below
comes out no more to the light, the sparkle,
and stirs no more nor spoons;
MATERN :
for the spoon too lay in the cellar
melted down, but when outside
Aurora with policeman’s whistle
blew back the darkness, Matern
CHORUS :
stood on molded leaden soles
with heart spleen kidneys, was hungry