I could write a whole book about our quest. But first we were granted a brief respite. The soldier stretched his legs; the gambler divided up his money; the woman put on makeup and smiled at someone around the corner. In the end we put our arms around one another's shoulders. And for a little while all three of us just sat there showing ourselves.
A horse of the kingdom-his qualities are complete. Now he looks anxious, now to be losing the way, now to be forgetting himself. Such a horse prances along, or pushes on, spurning the dust and now knowing where he is.
CHUANG TZU
Kaspar and Other Plays
The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick
Short Letter, Long Farewell
A Sorrow Beyond Dreams
The Ride Across Lake Constance and Other Plays
A Moment of True Feeling
The Left-Handed Woman
The Weight of the World
Slow Homecoming
Across
Repetition
The Afternoon of a Writer
Man's life between heaven and earth is like a white colt dropping into a crevasse and suddenly disappearing ⦠Suppose we try to roam about in the palace of Nowhere, where all things are one.
CHUANG TZU
Translation copyright © 1990 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Inc.
All rights reserved
Originally published in German under the title Die Abwesenheit,
© Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 1987
Published simultaneously in Canada by Harper & Collins, Toronto
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Portions of this book were previously published
in Antaeus and Fiction
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Designed by Cynthia Krupat
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eISBN 9781466807754
First eBook Edition : December 2011
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First edition, 1990
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Handke, Peter.
[Abwesenheit. English]
Absence l Peter Handke; translated by Ralph Manheim.â1st ed.
Translation of: Die Abwesenheit.
I. Title.
PT
2668.
A5A6413 1990 833'.914âdc20 89-77504