The moment was deeply cathartic for nearly everyone listening, who, according to several accounts, stood up at the end of Walser’s speech to give the author sustained applause. He had articulated the forbidden desires and feelings of a nation, and in doing so relieved an immense amount of internal dissonance for his audience, most of whom had been immersed in a culture in which speech had been tightly patrolled and monitored for even the slightest signs of deviation from the received wisdom, the national consensus.
