the pianist to conceive the art of the future in this conversation, the contrary rather, would like him have persisted in anticipating nothing, she would have crossed her legs and uncrossed them unthinkingly the way this girl always does. The first time she’d already crossed and uncrossed, he had noticed, not all girls do that with their legs, some do others don’t, and among those who cross and uncross many do it in a womanly manner, others in no manner at all but imitating others’ manners and more’s the pity, yet others cross and uncross in hopes of hiding more or less of one leg beneath the other, the less lovely beneath the more lovely, change their minds about which is less lovely and hide the suddenly less lovely more lovely one beneath the suddenly more lovely less lovely one, then give up when they realize that each of their legs is as lovely as the other, in other words they’re equally ugly, too short or too fat the girls generally think, even if in fact neither too this nor too that, and end up looking actually quite fat or short, they’ve obsessed so much. Crossing and uncrossing the girl would have known exactly how to react, phrase after phrase always this presence of mind, she’d have done nothing more than understand the pianist not as a mother nor as a friend nor as a sister but as if by magic, would have smiled at the pianist, would have smiled sweetly and running her hand through her hair and twisting a lock round her finger and untwisting it would have shown none of the well-meaning comprehension of a mother or brother or friend but a comprehension incomprehensible if not by magic. She’d have crossed and uncrossed her legs, would have listened to the pianist without traditional insufferable feminine decorum and he’d have been troubled, as he’d been the first time, by the non-feminine understanding of this very feminine girl and indeed, he decided now as he drove through the forests of Brandenburg, again thinking about the girl though he hadn’t meant to think of her again, this non-feminine understanding of hers is the most seductive thing about the girl, about any girl actually, an understanding kind of girl hardly ever attractive but a girl who understands like this girl understands, in that non-feminine or rather a-feminine even as it were counter-feminine way, everything that’s most disturbing, had the girl understood the pianist with that banal decorum he’d have had no wish to chance on her again here at the exhibition, no, her indecorum, that’s what he’d have liked to come across, as if by chance in front of Schoenberg’s Blue Self-Portrait, if not in the restaurant that’s where she’d have been, a surprise, she there before he was, having been round the exhibition before him and already looking on, at a table by herself but with no despondency nor that terrible negative feeling of isolation that single girls have sometimes, extinguishing all desire around them, she on the contrary a statue gazing with her living eyes at the black trees in the park. Seeing her there, yes it’s her, her espresso and tobacco, nothing else on the table, staring at the trees, rigid and pale, he thinks perhaps she hasn’t eaten, has a notion that she should eat, of taking care of the girl and taking charge of her nutrition, of strengthening the girl with a good square meal, suggesting that she lunch with him, feeding her to infuse strength and movement into her, but remembers that he isn’t alone, impossible to eat with the girl for he’s already accompanied by his faithful accompaniment, the girl will not go well with the accompaniment, once before she had come to dine with the pianist, just one evening in company and it had been a disaster, how could he forget, the way the girl hadn’t for a moment managed to adapt to the usual, the way the girl had endured the accompaniment and the way, despite his efforts, the pianist had been unable to rescue her, no, it’s not an option to torture the girl yet again with the imposed company of an accompaniment, nor is it an option for the pianist to be tortured from starter to dessert by his inability to fix the problem of the girl’s non-adaptation to the accompaniment, impossible to sit through that, the sight of a girl like her, the image of her there from first course to last, he gives up on inviting the girl, still approaches her table and stops for a moment, Hallo salut! the pianist says, how incredible to see you here, amazing! I had no idea, hadn’t a clue, dachte nicht, he’s translating simultaneously, marshals his language as best he can but his eyes already elsewhere, eyes go before speech, in a flash, ein Blitzblick, out of control he plunges, through the eyes into the mouth and the back of the throat passing right under the soft palate hurtles down the trachea as far as the stomach red and shiny as a heart, right there on the thrumming stomach will diffuse like fresh blood into the artery which winds down around the leg, starting at the top of the thigh where the legs cross he starts to feel dizzy and heaves back up to the middle, here thanks to valiant exercise of reason’s safeguard makes a determined effort to tear himself away, he has no business, he our pianist, in the girl’s insides, time to present his excuses, his eyes make out the escape route and with a few words about the exhibition and the countryside around Neuhardenberg the words follow the eyes’ example, he goes on amiably, yet driven by an unknown imperative mentions Schoenberg’s Blue Self-Portrait which has particularly struck him but as if the Blue Self-Portrait were fading out behind that expression ‘particularly struck’ such that it no longer struck at all, ends up taking polite leave of
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