The Left-Handed Woman by Peter Handke

drinking.
    Taking over from the chauffeur, the salesgirl danced with Franziska.
    Staggering a little, the chauffeur attempted a few steps toward this one and that one; in the end he stood still, all by himself.
    Bruno versified into the air:

    â€œSuffering’s like a propeller
    Except that it doesn’t take you anywhere,
    Whereas the propeller pulls you through the air.”
    Franziska, who was still dancing, heard him and laughed.
    The actor looked around from the window at Bruno, who asked him if it wasn’t a beautiful poem.
    The publisher answered with his eyes closed, as though he had only been pretending to be asleep. “I’ll take it for our next year’s house calendar.” He looked at the chauffeur. “Hey, you’re drunk.” With a single movement he stood up and said to Franziska, “I’ll drive you home. Where do you live?”
    The chauffeur: “Oh, let’s stay a little longer. Tomorrow you won’t speak to me anyway.”
    The publisher, to Franziska: “Haven’t I met you somewhere?”
    The salesgirl joined the woman at the window and said, “In my attic I often stand under the skylight, just to look at the clouds. It makes me feel I’m still alive.”
    The salesgirl looked at her watch, and immediately the woman turned to the publisher, who was dancing slowly past with Franziska. “She has to go home to her child,” the woman said.
    The publisher faced Franziska with his hand under his heart and bowed to the salesgirl. To the woman he said very seriously, “So once again we have not seen each other by daylight.”

    The publisher and the salesgirl went to the door; jingling the car keys, the chauffeur stumbled after them. The publisher took the keys.
    When the woman shut the door behind them and came back into the room, Franziska was sitting there alone, tugging at her short blond hair. The woman looked around for Bruno and the actor, and Franziska indicated with a gesture that they were down in the cellar. The music had stopped and the sound of a Ping-Pong ball could be heard. Franziska and the woman sat facing each other; on the terrace the wind rocked the rocking chairs.
    Franziska: “The salesgirl and her baby! And you and your child! And tomorrow’s another school day! To tell you the truth, children depress me. Sometimes I can tell by looking at them that they want to kill me with their voices, with their movements. They all shout at once. They rush back and forth until I’m sick with dizziness and ready to suffocate. What use are they? What do they give us?”
    The woman hung her head as though in assent. After a while she replied, “Possibly a little more to think about.”
    Franziska was holding a visiting card in her hand. “As he was leaving, your publisher gave me his card.” She stood up. “Now even I would like to be alone.”
    The woman put her arm around her.
    Franziska: “Ah, that’s better.”
    At the open door, with her coat on, she said, “I have
my spies. They tell me you’ve been talking to yourself.”
    The woman: “I know. And I’ve come to like these little conversations so much that I exaggerate them on purpose.”
    Franziska, after a pause: “Close the door or you’ll catch cold.” She walked slowly down the street, step after step, her head bent forward; one hand hung down behind as if she were pulling a loaded supermarket cart after her.
    The woman went down to the cellar, where Bruno and the actor were. Bruno asked, “Are we the last?”
    The woman nodded.
    Bruno: “We’ll just finish this set.”
    They played very earnestly. Folding her arms against the chill in the room, the woman watched them.
    All three together, they mounted the stairs.
    At the coatrack Bruno dressed to go out. So did the actor; at first he tried to put his head through one of the armholes of his sleeveless sweater.
    The