Extinction (40 page)

pro forma
, as it were. I claim my fee as a matter of principle, and it is paid to me as a matter of principle, if for no other reason than to maintain the necessary distance in our teacher-pupil relationship. I could forgo my fee, but that would be extremely foolish, the first step toward destroying
this relationship, I thought, observing my brother-in-law even more closely. I could do this quite unimpeded, for he took no notice of me whatever and sat there as though I had long since gotten up and left the kitchen. If I
had
gotten up and left the kitchen, I thought, he wouldn’t even have noticed. Our terrible misfortune has long since lost its sensational aspect, I told myself, and the living proof of this is sitting opposite me. My brother-in-law comes from a family whose peasant ancestors moved to a small town, prompted by an ambition to better themselves, whatever that means. They staked everything on shaking off first their peasant origins for small-town respectability, then their small-town respectability for something higher, the nature of which I cannot define. My brother-in-law is the end product of this strenuous process, as it were, which is naturally doomed to failure. For such people stake virtually everything on getting away from their real selves, but they never succeed, because they lack the intellectual energy, because they have not discovered the intellect—the intellect around them or the intellect within them—and have therefore not taken even the first step, which is the precondition for taking the second. They suddenly find themselves stranded, like my brother-in-law, no longer knowing what to make of the world around them, or of themselves, and end up getting on everyone’s nerves. Wolfsegg has simply acquired a new comic figure, I told myself as I observed my brother-in-law, but this hasn’t made the comedy any more bearable or any more interesting. This new comic figure is not amusing, only tiresome—not a wag, but a drag. For a moment I wished I had brought Gambetti with me, but Gambetti would certainly not have wished to act as my intellectual shield against all the distasteful conditions at Wolfsegg. He might even have been a liability, I thought. Even as a protective shield he would only have given me trouble, and I’ve enough of that already. At Wolfsegg our relations would have been quite different from those we enjoy in Rome. I would not have been able to devote the same attention to him as I do in Rome. Everything that makes his company such a pleasure would have been impossible. Wolfsegg air is not Roman air, the Wolfsegg atmosphere is certainly not the Roman atmosphere: Wolfsegg, in short, is not Rome. It would have been a grave error to bring Gambetti to Wolfsegg. The proper garment for the funeral, in view of the climate, would undoubtedly be my loden,
I thought, but I won’t wear it. I’ll wear one of the Roman coats I have hanging in the closet, if only to distinguish myself from the others. Princes of the Church are always afraid of catching a chill and wear lodens over their vestments when officiating out of doors. And everybody else is bound to be wearing a loden. If I wear one of my Roman coats I’ll be able to distinguish myself from them, I thought, and thereby document the fact that I’m no longer a Wolfsegger but a Roman. I’ll present myself as a Roman, which is what they’ve nicknamed me for years. I’ll make my entrance like a Roman. The coat I had in mind was one that I had bought in Padua the previous year. Tomorrow I must come across as a metropolitan, I thought. I’ll wear Roman shoes and a Roman scarf. In this way I’ll distinguish myself outwardly from the loden-clad masses, whom I’ve always detested. The loden-clad masses will do everything they can to overpower me, I thought, but I’ll know how to defend myself. Tomorrow’s Roman won’t let himself be worsted by the loden-clad masses. I was still sitting in the kitchen with my brother-in-law when I heard the first mourners arrive, not just local people who had come to offer their condolences, as I thought at first, but guests who would be
staying the night at Wolfsegg
. I stood up, and so did my brother-in-law, who until now had been buried in the newspapers. There was a knock on the door. Only now did it occur to me to wonder where the kitchen maids and the cook were and what had become of my sisters. The first guests had made their way to the end of the entrance hall without being received by anyone and now knocked on the kitchen door, causing me instant embarrassment. I later took my sisters to task, asking them how it was possible that the first guests had not been received at the door and had been able to get to the end of the entrance hall without being greeted. My sisters had undertaken to receive all the guests, not only those who merely came to offer condolences but those who would be staying overnight, and had placed a guest list on one of the hall tables, stating precisely where each of the guests was to spend the night, or in some cases more than one night. Some were to be put up in the village, but close relatives and close friends like Spadolini were to stay in the main house, the Huntsmen’s Lodge, or the Gardeners’ House, where rooms were said to have been prepared for them. Spadolini was to be put up in the main house, I discovered, on looking through the list.
The first arrivals were relatives of my mother’s whom I hardly knew. I had to introduce myself, as they did not remember me; I had seen them once before, in Munich, where they lived, though I had forgotten the occasion. They were dressed all in black and gazed around the entrance hall rather arrogantly, it seemed to me. They at once asked where the chapel was and whether the dead were lying in state in the chapel.
No
, I said,
in the Orangery
. They wanted to go there right away to see the dead. These people weren’t at Caecilia’s wedding, I thought; if they had been I’d have noticed them. I had no intention of escorting them to the Orangery, and my brother-in-law had disappeared into the kitchen as soon as he saw them. I looked around for my sisters, who had unaccountably deserted me, and suggested to the guests that they make their own way to the Orangery. I would have taken them across, I said, but I was urgently needed upstairs. This was an excuse, but these guests had made such a bad impression on me from the moment I set eyes on them that I did not want to devote any more time to them. One after another they had held out their hands to me and I had had to shake them. I tried to hide my distaste for these people, but I may not have succeeded. I do not always succeed, especially when the people concerned are so patently distasteful. I was repelled by their ostentation, by their expensive clothes, which they had clearly bought specially for the funeral and now flaunted, as at a dress rehearsal, with such disgusting arrogance and assurance. I told them how to find the Orangery. There were five of them in all, a couple with three children in their late teens, already utterly spoiled, I thought, superficial, stupid, and insolent. They lacked any reserve and talked in loud voices, as if they owned the place. I do not know whether they had visited us before, but they probably had, as my mother had a penchant for people of this kind, I thought, her own kind.
The Orangery is over there
, I said, leaving them to find their way. My brother-in-law, having withdrawn to the kitchen, was joking with the kitchen maids, who were busy preparing a buffet that my sisters had ordered that morning. Big trays with every possible kind of open sandwich and big dishes with every possible kind of salad were carried in from all directions. Bowls full of sauces and creams and trays piled high with sandwiches were even brought from the chapel, which is always cool and hence particularly suitable for storing food. For the guests had
to be fed. They naturally did not expect a cooked dinner, but at least they were entitled to a cold buffet, and my sisters are experts at cold buffets, even though they cannot cook. Their cold buffets have always found favor. I do not know who is the greater expert, Caecilia or Amalia; both are famous for their cold buffets. I have always been rather indifferent to cold buffets, and to food in general, but one thing I know is that Austrian food is not the world’s best and of course cannot be compared with Roman food. The smell of the cold buffet now filled the entrance hall. While my relatives from Munich made their way to the Orangery, the next arrivals were coming across from the Farm, and the stream of guests continued to flow uninterrupted from about five o’clock until late in the evening. All kinds of people arrived from every part of the country and from abroad, far more than had attended Caecilia’s wedding, and this was only the eve of the funeral. There were well over a hundred, probably a hundred twenty or a hundred thirty. I gave up counting them, and I also stopped attending to individual guests, leaving this task, which I found extremely unpleasant, indeed repugnant, to my sisters, who had taken up their position by the gate in order to receive the guests and had copies of the accommodations list. Only a few were put up in the main house, most being accommodated in the Huntsmen’s Lodge, a few in the Gardeners’ House, and a large number at various inns in the village. Most of them arrived wearing black, which made for a fine austere picture. Spadolini, of all people, did not turn up in black; he was wearing a green-and-gray all-weather coat, which I recognized as one that he had bought in Rome with my mother—in the Via Condotti, of course. But I will return to Spadolini presently. The wine cork manufacturer quickly melted into the background; Caecilia was constantly looking for him and calling out his name, rather too loudly, I felt, given the occasion, and the guests were amused to hear her repeatedly calling his name. As the weather was fine, most of the guests stood outside in the park, enjoying the opportunity to get to know one another, for many of them, as I discovered, had not met before. Others, especially the old and the elderly, stayed in the hall, where they appreciated the proximity of the kitchen and the chapel. Many of the guests, expecting the bodies to be lying in state in the chapel, went straight through the hall to the chapel and were surprised to find no
bodies there. It had been so long since the last funeral, my paternal grandfather’s, that few were familiar with the Wolfsegg custom of using the Orangery for lyings in state. Most of them therefore went straight through the hall to the chapel, and only then to the Orangery, where there were now so many wreaths and bouquets in front of the entrance that the gardeners had difficulty finding room for them all. From my window on the second floor, the company conversing quietly in the park presented a beautiful and elegant picture. I had retired to my room to avoid constant exposure to the guests. Finding it unendurable to have to say the same thing over and over again and hear the same replies, I had seized the first opportunity to withdraw to my room, from which I could survey more or less the whole scene. My sisters had meanwhile posted my brother-in-law at the gateway, instructing him to tell the new arrivals where they were to be put up for the night. I have always been more attracted to funerals than to weddings, and I was now enjoying everything much more than I had at the wedding a week earlier, even though, as I looked down at the park, I saw largely the same people. Except that now they were quite different, restrained by the logic of the occasion, as it were. They stood around in groups and chatted, as if at a midsummer night’s celebration, I thought, their black attire disguising their otherwise unbearable tastelessness. It’s a pity, I thought, that the occasion for such a beautiful and elegant picture should be a sad one. Every so often we should give a party like this, I thought, just for the sake of the beautiful and elegant picture it presents, which has such aesthetic appeal. But heaven forbid that we should understand what they’re all saying, I thought. Standing at the window, I imagined all the time that they were asking about me, about the son, that is to say the brother, the heir, the new master, or whatever, who was not to be seen among them and had not put in an appearance, although of course he was known to be present. I had not switched on the light in my room, wishing to remain completely unnoticed and avoid discovery as I gazed down at the company below. Spadolini had not yet arrived. I expected him at any moment, but he arrived much later, causing quite a stir, as may be imagined. The time began to drag, and so I went from my own room to my father’s and sat down at the card table he had always used as a dressing table. His dressing gown still hung on the door. I got up and slipped it on, as I suddenly felt cold. I tied the belt and stood in front of
the wall mirror. The tiredness that I had at first ignored when sitting in the kitchen with my brother-in-law had now worn off. Though no longer tired, I did not feel inclined to show myself in public, so I sat in my father’s chair and stretched out my legs. As I did so I noticed that the room had been cleaned since I last saw it. In no time everything had become neat and tidy, and on the table in front of the window stood a vase of flowers, though it was too dark to see what kind of flowers they were. It immediately occurred to me that this was the room that had been prepared for Spadolini. I recalled what I had said to Gambetti on the telephone: that it was not only likely but quite certain that Spadolini would come to the funeral and spend the night in my father’s room. I wasn’t mistaken, I thought. By the bedside were the English slippers that my mother had bought my father in Vienna. He had never worn them because he thought them
too decadent
. These very soft slippers of black kidskin, which my mother had thought so elegant and which had never been worn, were now waiting for Spadolini. So is the dressing gown I’m wearing, I thought. I got up, took off the dressing gown, and hung it on the door. The hook on the door, I thought, was put there by my father, against my mother’s wishes. She had objected to his
disfiguring
the door, as she put it, but could not prevent it. My father’s bathroom had been cleaned; there were fresh towels on the rails, and the faucets gleamed. The maids have done a good job, I thought. They’ve done a good job here, I thought, but they’ve done nothing in my room. My room was still just as I had left it a week earlier. I had left in a foul mood, furious with my parents because on my last day at Wolfsegg they had heaped reproaches on me concerning the life I led in Rome. I could still remember their words but did not wish to repeat them to myself. I now discovered the silver toilet set that my mother had brought my father from Paris. She always brought him presents, but this toilet set he had found too