Part One: How We Live Now
Someone screamed “verdammte scheiße” into the Nürnberg night. It was like a verbal knife slashing through the formerly peaceful evening air, but the baboon and I simply resumed our fireside contemplation of Hölderin’s Der Tod Des Empedokles with unruffled composure and concentration.
Well, to be honest, the baboon was more or less just ripping the pages out of his book and then stuffing them into his cavernous, hairy maw rather than actually reading them, but it could still be said that we were both equanimous and sophisticated, despite such an obviously unorthodox approach to Hölderin studies.
“Perhaps, Robert,” I whispered, “You might not chew with your mouth open?”
Yet so rapt with his printed repast was the baboon that he gave no indication of hearing my suggestion. I tried another tack, “How are you enjoying your Hölderin, Robert?”
Suddenly an overwhelming stench, reminiscent of a large zoo after feeding time, filled the reading room as the baboon crouched contentedly upon his armchair, slowly and satisfyingly evacuating his bowels.
"Yes." I agreed. "It is stodgy stuff indeed. Perhaps tomorrow we will consult the works of Thomas Mann instead. Meanwhile, we shall enjoy a little nacht muzik, eh, while I prepare for blissful slumber and before you must return to your well-appointed cage."
Selecting an appropriate recording, Beethoven's Schnitzel Scherzo in F Sharp, from the stack of gleaming phonographs beside my spitoon, I offered it to the baboon for his inspection and approval, but he immediately smashed the treasured disc over his head and threw the shattered fragments at me.
"Then you would prefer Mozart?" I asked. "Or Schubert, even?"
Such civilized choices are but one consolation of a liberal education.