Wonderful, Wonderful Times Read Online Free PDF

after use. Apparently the beatings began on the very day the War was lost. Up till then, Father had been beating sundry foreigners. Now only Mother and the children were at his disposal. He had chased people into the marshes, too, where they quickly passed away. He can prove it. It was just his bad luck that others who did the same are now climbing up the ranks once more, whereas he is not. That's Fate. It's an individual thing. Even in that erstwhile elite troop there were failures such as his father, destined to remain unimportant little shits forever. The elite component disappeared and all that remained was a lump of humanity. But he's an honest worker and has nothing to be ashamed of, he says. He has already tried his hand at a variety of jobs, but so far he's always failed at them. He drove to France because he wanted to handle balloon advertising for a French product, but they found someone they thought smarter and assigned the project to him. One more chance passed by. And Father is gradually shrivelling up, naturally, with age.
    Mother tells him the children's education is the most important thing. It is a duty. The grammar school affords the opportunity for that education. Father tends to say they should go and start earning, which rather alarms the educated twins. They do not believe this can be expected of them.
    From the overgrown corners of the room, the ugly mug of impending poverty (which in fact is no longer
    impending but has long since been a fact of life) gives a friendly grin and a wink. The twins' jeans, oft altered and reinforced to protect them from wear, drag furrows through the floor's protozoic ooze, Mother has to go cleaning strangers' homes, her own home is neglected. In the homes of those strange people there are strange men. For this reason Father roars like an ox being roasted alive. Mother won't be spared, there's nothing to protect her, constantly she's kicked and knocked about. Furthermore, she does not create that atmosphere of tranquil cosiness which should be the hallmark of the housewife's home. And it really is up to her to create that, since the ex-officer's task is quite different from the promotion of contentment. Wherever he comes across cosiness he destroys it.
    Among their acquaintances, who are few in number, Father is considered an oddball who utters bizarre comments and won't accept a single thing he is offered, because he'd just as soon not eat from other people's fleshpots, thank you very much (as he puts it).
    Father often thinks of the dark skeletons of people he killed. The white and immaculate snow of Poland turned bloody and maculate. But snow goes on falling, again and again, and by now it bears no trace of those who disappeared there.
    Mother, on the other hand, tries to teach her children the principles of humanity. That is the task of a mother. Still, Mother soon has to abandon the attempt because the children are out to be inhuman and do everything they can to look the part as well. Whatever you do is in vain. And revolting. Everything's revolting, but it's never disposed of. Not at all. It's all revolting: the crumpled papers, old cigarette butts on the floor, cheese rind, wurst skins, coffee stains and in particular apple cores and orange pips. They are the worst. They are not cleared away because retching is a delicious feeling. The flat is full of corners and recesses crammed with piled-up garbage. The petit bourgeois always has something
    to hide, that is what those corners are there for. Chez Witkowski you can view everything the petit bourgeois has to hide because they throw nothing away. And there he stands, the Good Citizen, amidst his corners and recesses, ready to withdraw at the drop of a hat and indulge in unseen piggery.
    The twins' unhappiness makes them superior because they have shaken off the shackles and do what they want. Rainer says: people's lives are predetermined in some way or other, but not mine, I'm superior to them on account of my Will.