Sweet Days of Discipline by Fleur Jaeggy

Author:Fleur Jaeggy [Fleur Jaeggy]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9781911508199
Publisher: And Other Stories Publishing
Published: 2017-02-15T05:00:00+00:00

Frau Hofstetter’s husband, a weak character, wouldn’t have dared to caress the girl. His wife, who was the headmistress and a strong character, could take a fancy to one boarder, detest another. In his laziness Herr Hofstetter thought they were all equal, all charming; after a year they showed faint signs of getting older. He came a poor second to his wife’s little crushes, his wife’s chaste crushes. They were both chaste, if by chaste we mean a worthy indifference to sex, or a lack of appetite. Frau Hofstetter had a propensity or two, as she had shown her husband during the first months of their marriage, thirty years ago. His wife hadn’t been so big then, she’d been slim almost, much taller than him, with a ladylike gutsiness that won her respect. Her chin was prominent, her jaws wide, her eyes small and a little evil. She was always tidy and well meaning. Her bearing gave off that unmistakable aura of the teacher by profession and vocation, the iron-handed lay teacher.

They didn’t have a long engagement. She had decided to marry him and in bed she was brisk. Her husband divided mankind into two: the weak and the strong. A boarding school is a strong institution, since in a sense it is founded on blackmail. Likewise his marriage. He needed that big woman whose bosom filled out when she breathed and who showed her husband the same indulgent severity she showed to the girls. His office was a small corner room, the bursar’s office. Business was good. But sometimes he felt ill at ease in that entirely female world. He would find himself talking to the tennis, gymnastics and geography master, a dry man with precocious wrinkles and a tight mouth, as though biting into the last mouthful of youth left to him. Withered before his time.

Sometimes the two men went into the village together, the master walking with a sporty elastic step, the fake youthfulness he was cultivating, chest pushed out in a fine curve. Even his thighs gave the impression of a handsome young man from a distance, a pretty rare sight in that village inhabited by the old. From close up you could make out his skull. The two went to the café together, but they had nothing to say to each other. Maybe they felt they were damned or forgotten, or maybe they liked being there, rejects from the rest of the world. All you need is a fleeting thought flying up in the air that becomes your own; but if you don’t grasp it you feel even more alone than before. Those girls had their whole lives in front of them, and Frau Hofstetter’s husband knew they dreamed of having a good time. He had nothing in front of him now. Every year there were new girls who dreamed of all the fantastic things that life would give them, that his wife promised them. The future was theirs. He sensed this like a thorn in his side.

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