The Prose of Alfred LichtensteinLichtenstein, Alfred
General
The Prose of Alfred Lichtenstein
Lichtenstein, Alfred
Fiction
As they were wrestling the student sang her theme-song: "I am Maria
Mondmilch, the girl, the virgin. Open your door for me. You, I
tried the surface of many men's flesh, old men and young. I tempted
them all. In all of them I sought my man. No one penetrated me
deeper than my skin... I prowled around during the days. Ran during
the nights. I slept in the same bed with musicians and aristocrats.
I was with salesmen and with pimps and with students. I ran around
with bicycle artists and with lawyers. I let no man pass without
looking him in the eye. Whether it rained. Or was winter. Or the
sun shone. No one could call me his woman. No one was my man. One
shot himself. One jumped into a swamp. I am guiltless... One went
mad. One kicked me. Most went away as though nothing bad had
happened... You, blue-eyed sorrowful face beneath me, oh, would that
you were my man, that I might bloom in you. Are you my man, in whom
I blissfully sink--"
And the actor sang to the student as they wrestled: "I am the actor
Schwertschwanz, the man, the lecher. In all the bodies in which I
have drunk, I sought you. I have become a drinker. Out of longing.
I have poisoned my blood out of love. How meaningless it would be if
I--half dead--found you now. I have looked for you too long to find
you yet."
Then Maria Mondmilch called out as she fell on him: "Little
Schwertschwanz, do you love me--" And already intoxicated: "He does
not love me."
The man fall back in utter indolence. The student spat on his collar.
Rammed the hat on the head of the spineless man. Pressed a gold
coin into his hand. Threw him out.
While the actor Schwertschwanz, trembling with desire, went about
searching for the right whore, Maria Mondlich sat over a thick
anatomy textbook. She looked at the drawing of a completely naked
man, And howled like a dog at the sea.
The suicide of the pupil Mueller
A Mr. Ludwig Lenzlich was a teacher and tutor in a mental hospital
for psychopathic children. He was always called "Mr. A.B.D." He was
beardless, like an actor, and he spoke like one. Generally he wore a
severe, sharp mask on his face.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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