Under the Bed

Mr. Vogel is a civil servant. This is no conventional calling, he insists, but the noble art of bringing order to a notoriously degenerate and chaotic world. For the civil servant does not "fight for order for reasons of personal despair", as many lesser mortals do, but is conscious of a higher responsibility. Yet there are unpredictable events even in Mr. Vogel's carefully regulated life: an affair with a Russian delegate, friendship with a colleague, a business trip to Japan, a most mysterious and disturbing country. Exhausted by his incessant war upon the unpredictable nature of reality, Mr. Vogel frequently seeks refuge under his bed: "Under the bed! Where all voices cease, and only the eternal speaks. No inside – no outside – only listening, only silence."