FRAU ZITTEL:

Suddenly one day you discover your own children

are non-humans he said

we think we're raising human beings

and then they're just carnivorous cretins

hysterics megalomaniacs chaotics

 

PROFESSOR ROBERT:

I never contemplated suicide

your father toyed with the idea of it even as a child

I didn't even know what suicide was

when he was already thinking about it

 

the world today is all destroyed

and altogether unbearably ugly

go anywhere you like

the world today is just ugly

and meaninglessness through and through

everything ruined wherever you look

everything gone to the dogs wherever you look

one would rather not wake up any more

in the last fifty years the people in government

have destroyed everything

and it can never be put right

the architects have destroyed everything

with their stupidity

the intellectuals have destroyed everything

with their stupidity

the masses have destroyed everything 

with their stupidity

political parties the church

have destroyed everything with their stupidity

which has always been base stupidity

this Austrian stupidity is utterly repulsive

Industry and the church are to blame

for Austria's misfortune

the church and industry have always been to blame

for Austria's misfortune

governments are nothing but puppets

of industry and the church

it's always been like that

and in Austria it's always been the worst

people have always run after stupidity 

and trampled intelligence underfoot

Industry and clergy are behind

the Austrian sickness

Really I can understand your father very well

I'm surprised the entire Austrian people didn't commit suicide long ago

 

The Austrians were condemned to death long ago

they just don't know it yet

they haven't yet noticed

the judgement was passed long ago

the execution is just a matter of time

if you ask me it's imminent

 

The tragedy is not

that my brother is dead

but that we are left behind that's what's terrible

from Thomas Bernhard Heldenplatz