An official banquet at Witte’s—not in the family circle, no nieces and grandnieces, but only his sister as ersatz lady of the house; instead, a senator for culture with his wife and a university professor (also wifed up), whom Rönnekamp—acting even more queeny than usual (one has the impression he would sizzle if you touched him)—identifies as an important art historian. A. has the audacity to remark that unless you’re a Worringer, art history as a field combines exceptional learning with the convenience of never needing to have an idea of your own. He hasn’t reckoned with the man in question being able to hear him—which he does—and A. gets a correspondingly poisonous look. For the rest of the evening he remains monosyllabic as usual—and here, it’s obviously advisable—until Christa, who always gets unexpectedly lively when she’s had some wine (Witte, encouragingly: “Drink up, my child, it’s an extraordinarily good vintage”), during a conversation about the problem of form which almost everyone is taking part in, prompts him—A.—to describe an idea he’d monologued into her patient ear at home. A., whose thoughts have in the meantime strayed far afield, at first has a hard time getting oriented. At once, the art historian stridently challenges him to come out with whatever it is he has to say on the topic of “form.” A. protests that Christa seems to be referring to something else. He’s never talked about the problem of form in art, which he knows nothing about (interjection of the professor: “Oh really? But I thought . . .”), Christa was probably thinking of what he once said in reference to the condition of German society after 1945. “And that would be?” That would be a few things about the astonishing persistence of traditional social forms, levels, and groupings even after their supposedly complete destruction.

He’s asked to elaborate. Wasn’t it remarkable, he said, that in the Germany of today, 1950, despite all the social leveling already brought about by the First World War—to say nothing of the Second and the lean years until 1948—one finds the same stratification of classes and social prestige as around 1914, namely, an upper nobility still deeply revered despite its stratospheric distance from everyday life, an also admired but less lofty aristocracy, a compromised and disoriented middle class guiltily conscious of its status, and then the mass of all the more self-confident petits bourgeoises. (Here Christa, already fairly sloshed, interjects a mocking “My husband is especially familiar with the highest circles; that’s where he grew up,” which Witte gallantly seconds “. . . and also married into. Prost, dear lady. In vino veritas!”)

Rönnekamp remarks suavely that however anachronistic they may be, the miraculous reconstruction of German social classes is explained by the national talent for competition—especially in exaggerated imitation.

Lacking an ear for Rönne’s irony, the art historian demands an explanation of that too and Rönnekamp points out how rapidly the Americanization of the country is progressing, while at the same time there’s a tendency to manufacture traditions at any cost. “Nowadays when you enter a house of the nouveau riche, you’ll find a lot of family portraits on the walls, supposedly great-grandparents from the nineteenth century if possible. Regrettably, however, the Anschluss is missing: no grandparents or parents. They remain obscure.” (Witte’s sister clears her throat.)