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Peter Bichsel (1935 - )
The Milkman (1964)
The milkman wrote on a slip of paper: “No more butter today, unfortunately.”
Mrs. Blum read the paper and did some adding,
shook her head and added one more time.
Then she wrote: “Two liters, 100 grams of butter.
You didn’t have any butter yesterday but charged me for it anyway.”
The next day the milkman wrote: “Sorry.”
The milkman comes at four in the morning.
Mrs. Blum doesn’t know him. You should know him, she often thinks.
You should get up some time at four in order to get to know him.
Mrs. Blum is afraid the milkman might be mad at her,
the milkman might think badly of her. Her milk jug is dented.
The milkman knows the dented milk jug. It is the one that belongs to Mrs. Blum.
She mostly gets 2 liters and 100 grams of butter.
The milkman knows Mrs. Blum. If one asked him about her, he would say:
“She gets 2 liters and 100 grams, she has a dented milk jug and very nice handwriting.”
The milkman doesn’t worry; Mrs. Blum doesn’t owe anything.
And if it happens—it can always happen—
that the Rappen* lying there are 10 short, * Rappen = Swiss cents
then he writes on a slip of paper: “10 Rappen short.”
The next day he gets the 10 Rappen without any trouble, and the paper reads: “Sorry.”
Then the milkman thinks, ‘Don’t mention it’ or ‘Nothing to be sorry about,’ and he would write it on the paper.
Then that would be a correspondence.
He does not write it.
The milkman is not interested in what floor Mrs. Blum lives on. The jug is at the bottom of the stairs.
He does not worry when it is not there.
The milkman knew a Blum who played on the soccer team, and he had ears that stuck out.
Maybe Mrs. Blum has ears that stick out.
Milkmen have uninviting clean hands—rosy, pudgy and washed-out.
Mrs. Blum thinks about that when she sees the paper. Hopefully he found the 10 Rappen.
Mrs. Blum would not like the milkman to think badly of her.
Also, she would not like him to get into a conversation with the woman next door.
But nobody knows the milkman, nobody in our quarter. He comes by us at four in the morning.
The milkman is one of those people who do their duty.
The person who brings the milk at four in the morning is doing his duty—daily, on Sundays and workdays.
Milkmen are probably not paid well and are probably often short some money when the accounts are settled.
The milkmen are not to blame for the price of milk going up.
And really Mrs. Blum would like to get to know the milkman.
The milkman knows Mrs. Blum. She gets 2 liters and 100 grams and has a dented milk jug.
Read by Trevor Helminski
English translation by Trevor Helminski
Music by Hans Werner Henze,
performed by Ensemble Dissonanzen
Peter Bichsel
The Milkman