Das zweite Schwert

Having returned to the region southwest of Paris after years of travel, the hero is already urged to set out again three days later. In contrast to previous explorations of the world, this time he pursues an irrevocable goal: "'So this is the face of an avenger!' I said to myself as I looked at myself in the mirror on the conscious morning before I set out." Revenge why? For the mother who had been denounced in a newspaper article for cheering her country's annexation to Germany. Revenge against whom? A journalist, the originator of these untruthful claims, who lived within day's distance in the hills around Paris. However, the experiences of all those travelers whom Peter Handke has set out from home are confirmed here as well: "I had not concocted any plan. It had to happen. On the other hand: there was, the one plan. But this plan is not my own." And so the campaign of revenge leads to a celebration, a conscious decision on the part of the narrator Peter Handke: only what endures in real history is allowed into the written story. And vice versa: history only becomes real if it is worth telling.