Peter Handke - Moment of True Feeling

From the Boulevard Bonne Nouvelle on, there were people on the street. Children who should have been home in bed were being dragged coughing through clouds of exhaust fumes. The boulevard was so noisy that the grownups had to bend down to talk to them. Once Keuschnig heard a roaring in the crowd, and all the people seemed to break step and run away. What were they running from? Was he the only one going to the Place de l‘Opéra? Many of the old people looked disgruntled, despite their success in living so long. Seeing a woman at an open window, Keuschnig was sure she was going to jump out. A man yawned and the saliva ran out of his mouth. Keuschnig wanted to take a cab, but the driver, without even looking at him, responded by throwing a black leather bag over his sign. He noticed the swollen ankles of a woman coming toward him, and she made faces at him. Someone leaned against a car with a splintered windshield and vomited. Two men were hopping about on the sidewalk, smiling and pinching each other’s cheeks, but already their teeth were clenched, for in the next moment they would start punching each other. A man with a white handkerchief in his breast pocket was pushed by in a wheelchair. The boulevard was immersed in dark smog; the lower halves of the yellow lamps at the Métro entrances were black with soot. A woman who had been laughing shrilly grew suddenly serious and jerked her head to one side, as though the time had come for her to die. No one got out of anyone’s way; in a moment someone in this jostling crowd would pull a revolver and fire at those faces. The people coming toward Keuschnig looked like people who had been filmed a long time ago; in reality they had ceased to exist — what he saw was only the latest film with them in it. They moved and let themselves drift as if they had had enough of their functions to last them forever. How COMPLIANT they seemed, nevertheless! And meanwhile in their apartments the milk was getting sour, the orange juice was separating, and a viscous scum was forming on the water in the toilet bowls! He passed through the crowd, swaying from side to side for fear of losing his newly won balance. If anyone was in his way, Keuschnig pushed him efficiently aside — after all he had been through, he could allow himself that liberty. He found a trampled letter in the gutter and read it as he went on: “One day, four years ago, I became indifferent to everything from one minute to the next. Thus began the most harrowing period of my life …” It occurred to him that he had never had a real enemy, someone he wanted to destroy mercilessly. I’ll make as many enemies as possible! he thought, grown strangely cheerful. Looking down at the asphalt still soft with the heat of the day, he suddenly saw himself as the hero of an unknown tale … Somewhat listless, almost gloomy at the thought that he was due to make someone’s acquaintance, Keuschnig approached the Café de la Paix just as the three-headed street lamps of the Place de l’Opéra went on. On the terrace a light flashed. The cigarette girl was standing at one of the tables swaying her tray. Someone else, approaching at the same time as Keuschnig, was already being beckoned to.

On a balmy summer evening a man crossed the Place de l’Opéra in Paris. Both hands deep in the trouser pockets of his visibly new suit, he strode resolutely toward the Café de la Paix. Apart from the suit, which was light blue, the man was wearing white socks and yellow shoes; he was walking fast, and his loosely knotted necktie swung to and fro …

Written in Paris during the summer and autumn of 1974