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One of the chimps now bites a Soviet corporal in the leg. The corporal screams, unslinging his Tokarev and firing from the hip, by which time the chimp has leaped for a halyard. A dozen more of the critters, many carrying vodka bottles, head en masse for the gangplank. "Don't let them get away," Ha…

That oneiric season

lit by that same nacreous wrinkling the films use to suggest rain out a window

"What's wrong with Rossini?" hollers Säure, lighting up. "Eh?"

"Ugh," screams Gustav, "ugh, ugh, Rossini," and they're at it again, "you wretched antique. Why doesn't anybody go to concerts any more? You think it's because of the war? Oh no, /'// tell you why, old man—because the halls are full …

Gustav is a composer. For months he has been carrying on a raging debate with Säure over who is better, Beethoven or Rossini. Säure is for Rossini. "I'm not so much for Beethoven qua Beethoven," Gustav argues, "but as he represents the German dialectic, the incorporation of more and more notes into…