The Piano Teacher by Elfriede Jelinek

Author:Elfriede Jelinek
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3, pdf
Publisher: Grove Press
Published: 1988-12-30T22:00:00+00:00

Erika Kohut’s one hand has been playing the keyboard of reason, the other the keyboard of passion. First, passion had its say; now, reason has its way, quickly driving Erika home through dark avenues. However, others have reaped the fruits of passion in Erika’s place. The teacher observed them and graded them on her curve. She very nearly became involved in one of these passions, and only barely escaped detection.

Erika dashes along rows of trees that are endangered by many varieties of mistletoe. Many branches have had to bid farewell to their boles, and they bite the dust. Erika scurries away from her observation post in order to settle in her nest. She betrays no outward signs of inner disturbance. But a whirlwind sweeps up in her the instant she sees young men with young bodies strolling along the edge of the Prater, for she is practically old enough to be their mother! Everything that occurred before this age is irrevocably gone and can never come again. But who knows what lies ahead? Given the lofty achievements of modern medicine, a woman can perform her female functions even when she reaches a ripe old age. Erika pulls up her panties. This isolates her from contact. Even chance contact. But in her bruised interior, the tempest rages over her succulent pastures.

She knows exactly where the taxis are; she gets into the one at the head of the line. Nothing is left of the vast Prater meadows aside from a wee bit of dampness on her shoes and between her legs. A slightly sour odor rises from under her skirt, but the cabby probably doesn’t notice, his deodorant covers everything. He doesn’t want to force his hack sweat on his fares, and he doesn’t have to perceive the grossness of his passengers. The cab is warm and dry; the heater operates silently, struggling against the cool night. Outside, the lights race past: the endless dark chunks of slums in numb, lightless sleep; the bridge across the Danube Canal; small, unfriendly, debt-ridden bars, from which drunks come tumbling, only to jump up and start punching one another; old women in kerchiefs, walking their dogs one last time for the day, hoping that just once they’ll run into a lonely old man, a widower with a dog. Erika flashes by—a rubber mouse on a string, with a gigantic cat playfully leaping after it.

A pack of mopeds. Girls in skin-tight jeans with would-be punk hairdos. However, their hair doesn’t quite manage to stand on end, it keeps falling. Grease alone won’t do the trick. The hair keeps collapsing despondently on the scalp. And the girls hop on behind the moped pilots and zoom away.

A lecture hall releases a crowd of knowledge-seekers, who throng and jostle around the lecturer. They’d like to find out more about the Milky Way even though they’ve heard everything that can be said about it. Erika recalls that she once lectured here on Franz Liszt and his misunderstood work. She spoke in loosely crocheted air stitches.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.