Elfriede Jelinek - Lust

Like a heavy unhooked door, Gerti sinks back into her husband's hinges. The question is, will she hold when the tempests of time bring storms and snows? She wants the young man to take another swig of her, preferably tomorrow. Right now, though, another man, a regular, is going to be messing with her fuses till the lights go out. The Direktor knows that this woman shall rest in that place only which has been ordained her lawful wedded grave. So that he can appreciate her best sides (left and right). This creature is his, belongs to him. To serve his regular needs, like a jar to pee in. Anything imagination can dream up can indeed be done with a living, lively member that distends and then shrinks again, the only question is: whose? Love opens the woman's eyes. Like knocking at the natural landscape, you rap with your rod and wait to see if water's flowing from the rock. The work goes quickly, but are the workers happy? No.

And the boy blubs, boo hoo, because he can't get to sleep. Not if mummy doesn't tell him how to wipe his feet clean of life. Mummy mummy, comes his whine from inside, and a malicious little head appears, the fruit of her womb complete with worm. It would be better if the child were asleep now so that he wouldn't have to witness anything. His dough has been kneaded long enough, now he can rise, arise and go. And early in the morning the weary people arise and go, free of the burden of beauty. They wander like deer. Now the child is there. Tomorrow morning it will be smeared as full of jam as Mother is with Father's slime. And the Holy Ghost's. Their son dashes in. Having missed his mum. Father shuts the door in the student's face, he wants to spread his wife's thighs at his leisure and take a look if anyone's been grazing in his meadow, where his sacred cow's at pasture. Mother crosses no-man's-land to her child. Welcome! The Direktor wants his wife to be a part of him as summer is a part of the year. All that's needed is for day to waken too. The child has a title to proper care. Who doesn't long hourly for that sneak-thief. Love? And I bet you have a cuddly lamb too. Now who's been missing whom? This mountain is here for only one reason: to put an end to this vale of tears, so that production and viewing will peak again. The snow is pale. The Man sets great store by good works, works where paper is made for the well-being of us all. Let me write it down, quite unambiguously: paper could cut me open as a paper knife slits paper. I'd like to meet the person who could make a new woman of me out of the things I say.

But what more do we want than to get our wages in the pocket of our failure. That is: no doubt we do want to become something, no doubt we do want to be a little more, at least on paper. And we want our feelings too, as we sit there at home, through our own fault, through our own most grievous fault, with none to keep us company but the phone.

He's heartless, this man. Like fire he consumes the house. He drags his wife around. The child starts to shout. Outside, a solitary exhaust struggles to attract the attention of sleepers who, like animals, register the tempest as it rages but don't dare say anything. Not even during the daytime can they join in the muscular games of the beautiful, wealthy flesh. Their pleasures are burdened with oppressions, society needs the poor, q.e.d. The young man drives off. And no sooner has he quit the shunting cunting yard where they linked their couplings than the woman pounds on the door which her longing long since smashed through the wall with the axe of desire. Eyeless, she stares into nowhere, anywhere, wherever she might see him again. But men are such creatures of violence, regardless they set fire to their houses where their families lie asleep, ignorant of what the figures in the bank statements mean. Let's get undressed and look at these other figures instead, deceive someone with our genitals. Truly, men cover all the highways and byways with themselves. But you don't care, not you, that a human being is suffering wrongings and longings before your very eyeways.

Longing is a stick that this woman has fetched herself, fetch! She needs the excitement. For her house is in order and delivered too. So she quests abroad. And then she thinks continually of what she has found. And tips it like a packet soup into her turbulent bubbling boiling waters and stirs it round and stirs a stranger's heart. After all, the Catholic Congress needs its far-off Pope as well. Who journeys to join us, though when he is here in our fatherland, lo! he's suddenly just another human being like you and me, don't I know him from somewhere. For him, everyone comes last, a loser, last past the post. Not so with love. Men at least can get somewhere, they can thumb a lift, but women are always wanting a lift from their feelings, a high, and being let down. The whole human race is in a ferment of wishes, forever wondering what to buy.

Where have you been? The words batter Gerti, Father's blows strike the boy as well, his kith and kin, who claws tight hold of Mother. Let's not bother describing this Laocoon group, the three of them in each other's toils, holding tight, down they go.

The Man's rage is huge. Moil and toil and turmoil, he's coming to the boil, time to cool the heat with a jet of foam. He wants the woman to take off her clothes right away. So that she measures up to his size. He wants to conduct his lightning into her. Not that his wildfire could ever be tamed by her, and anyway he has plenty of matches. To create himself anew, as often as need be. To have the woman bake his baguette, cook his meat, pickle his gherkin, and eat. The child is put to bed with a glass of fruit juice, quiet now! Leave the woman to Father. Don't go yapping and barking at her and jumping and frisking and grabbing. Mother's back, that's enough. And Father's bird is already chirping over her furrow. The Man drags her into the bedroom to force entry into her and piss on her. Good to have her home! The cow cud have been dead, cunt she?

The Direktor stands like a glowing cigarette butt by the hay of his bed and tosses himself away. Fear flares up in a blaze: holy night, a holy roll in the Austrian hay, where tales are told of the holy animal come to eat at the haybox of social welfare. It's not long since Christmas, now it's already practically time for springtime wishes. There goes Father, from one to the other, in all the majesty of his calling and becking. The woman wishes she were gone, she knows what youth is and she knows what she has lost and that time spent here now is time lost. That's how it goes, when you've played with life and lost! Now someone else's tongue is jammed down the woman's throat, take a good hard pull to wash away the taste. From the top of his ski-jump the Man swoops down on the woman. She covers her face with shadows, and yet what is hers is torn from her, no power on earth would be equal to the Direktor's hefty sex. He only needs to believe, like the whole national skiing team! Yet for the woman it is as if he had been as completely cleared out of her life as the prominent people of today whose names will merely sound silly in ten years' time. The woman wants nothing but youth. She would shoot young beautiful bodies on fast film in the hope of getting a shot at them, fast, wait and see what develops. These visions seem heaven-sent. Meanwhile her arms are* pulled from her face and Father descends upon her, leaving her cheeks red with wining and whining. What people live on, apart from their hopes, is a mystery to me. They seem to invest everything in cameras and hi-fis. There's no room in their houses for life any more. Once the act of purchasing is accomplished, everything is really over, though in fact nothing is over, or else it wouldn't be there any more. After all, burglars want their share of the fun as well.

The Man waits till his water's come to the boil. Then he tosses his wife in after first removing her dressing-gown. His signal is up, the track's clear, here comes the express. He doesn't need any egging on from her, he has two eggs anyway down there with his sausage, quite enough for two. It is as if his prick were out of its mind with the thought that someone else might have gone grubbing in her cunt, driving his truck in and mucking her up. His anger wears the Man out before his time: too much energy is wasted on shouting, till the very vaults of heaven are echoing. Outside, everything has been overpowered by ice and snow. Nature does generally get things right, but now and then you have to lend a helping hand so she can enjoy her meal at our table in peace and quiet. The rain bursts from the Man, into the woman, the two little rugs of her dugs are given a good beating out. The two kilos of his stock and barrel hang down like rocks. Fearlessly he scatters his gravel on the woman, so he can go for a walk in her with a firm grip underfoot.