Hopeful Monsters Read Online Free

sideboard. She said 'It might make more sense to talk about the practical difficulties of getting the materials for this soup.'
    The young man said 'Indeed.'
    The girl said 'I'm sorry.'
    My mother said 'It is not your fault.'
    My father raised his eyebrows; he seemed to be hoping he might take off, as if he were a rocket.
    My mother sat down at the other end of the table. Helga handed round the soup. After a time my mother said 'Some people do not seem to realise that even at this moment there are people being killed in the streets.'
    My father picked up his napkin, put it down, looked at the girl, looked at the young man, looked at me. I thought - Well, you did not put your arms around me: what am I supposed to do alone in our airship?
    Then my father said to my mother 'But haven't you been looking forward to the time when people would be killed in the streets? Haven't you said that the revolution could not come until there were people being killed in the streets?'
    My mother said 'That is an insult!' She banged her knife and fork down on the table.
    I thought I might now join in by saying - But didn't you want

    my father to protect this young man and the girl by saying that they were two of his students at the university?
    My mother went out of the room. We could hear her talking, or crying, with Magda in the kitchen.
    The girl said to my father 'Don't you care?'
    My father raised his eyebrows; gazed at a corner of the ceiling.
    The young man said 'In my opinion, the scientific reality is that there is this repression of the masses.'
    My father said 'I see.'
    After a time the girl said 'Excuse me, I will go and see if your wife is all right.' She left the room.
    We sat at the table and drank our soup - my father, the young man with pince-nez and myself. I thought - Oh yes, our various visions, like arrows, are going out and coming crashing round on to the backs of our own heads.
    Then - But it is true that my mother must have had difficulty in getting the materials for the soup?
    After a time the young man said 'But the masses have the real power according to the iron laws of history.'
    My father said 'Then for God's sake join them.'
    The young man stood up and bowed, and went out - presumably to join my mother and the girl and Helga and Magda in the kitchen.
    I thought - So now, yes, my father and I are alone in our airship.
    My father sat staring at a corner of the ceiling. I thought - But it is all right, it is all right, even if there are things one does not understand and cannot say: is not this what you have taught me?
    Eventually a bed was made for the young man in the drawing-room; the girl was to sleep on the floor of my room.
    Sometime during the night people did in fact come knocking at the door of our apartment; I heard my father going to answer the door; he was calm, authoritative; after a time the people who had knocked went away. What my father had said was that there was no one in the apartment except his family and servants; he could give his assurance on this point on the authority of his position at the university. I was in my bed with the girl beside me on a mattress on the floor. I was thinking - Well what does one understand? What is truth? What is authority? What is caring for others, in this lonely business of our airship?
    It was a day or two after this, I think, that the revolution of the left-wing extremists that had been simmering came to the boil in Berlin:

    this was the second week in January 1919. The eruption of the left wing brought out the right-wing extremists; there were gangs in caps and thick dark suits running through the streets; gangs in makeshift uniforms clanking about in lorries. I saw comparatively little of this; for a week I was not allowed out of the apartment. I would stand at the window and look down. What I understood vaguely at the time and in more detail later was that the left-wing extremists, or Spartacists as they were called, had emerged with rifles and machine-guns;