Extinction (51 page)

of it, and in this moment of fear I have already failed and can no longer begin. We say grandly that what we have in mind is something unique and tremendous. We do not shrink from such an assertion, yet at the same time we lower our heads, take a pill, and go to bed, instead of starting on this unique and tremendous project. That’s how we are, I once told Gambetti. We pretend we’re capable of everything, of the very highest achievement, but can’t even pick up a pen and write down a single word of the unique and tremendous work that we’ve just announced. We all succumb to megalomania, I told Gambetti, in order to avoid having to pay the price for our constant ineffectuality.
Extinction
, I thought, but to be honest I still had only a vague notion of the form the work should take, though I had thought about it for years. What I have in mind isn’t something unique or tremendous, I told Gambetti, but it’s rather more than a sketch, rather more than an existential sketch. What I have in mind is something worthwhile that I needn’t be ashamed of, I said. I consider myself competent and able to write something that I consider worthwhile because it’s important to me and will give me pleasure. I’m not really a writer, I told Gambetti, only a literary broker dealing in German literature, a kind of literary realtor, as it were, a dealer in literary real estate. It’s true, of course, that anyone who writes so much as a postcard nowadays calls himself a writer, but I don’t, notwithstanding the hundreds of works I’ve tried to write or have actually written. In any case I detest the majority of writers, I said. There are very few that I love, but these few I love dearly. I’ve always shunned writers, especially German writers, and have never shared a table with one. I can’t imagine anything worse than meeting a writer and sharing a table with him. I’m prepared to accept his works, but not their producer. Most of them are bad characters, if not positively repulsive, no matter who they are, and if you meet them they ruin their work for you—they simply extinguish it. People jostle to meet some writer whom they love or admire—or even hate—and this completely ruins his work for them. The best way to liberate yourself from the work of some author that obsesses you for one reason or another—either because you hold it in high esteem or because you detest it—is to meet the author himself. We go and meet the author of a literary work and are instantly rid of it, I told Gambetti. Writers are on the whole the most repulsive people, I told Gambetti. I have to admit that as a young student I actually sought them out, forced my way into
their presence, waylaid them, took them by surprise. I even insinuated myself into the company of a number of authors in order to spy on them. But having sought them out, I hated them all without exception and could no longer read their works. All these writers I sought out and spied on, I told Gambetti, now seem to me low, vulgar, stupid individuals who have attained a degree of literary fame but whose company I can do without because they have nothing to offer me but their mediocrity. Everything about them is mediocre, I told Gambetti. Everything about them is redolent of common malice and a base philistinism that battens on megalomania. They are all basically simpleminded, like the books they write and put on the market, I once remarked to Maria. It’s as though for the last hundred years German literature had been misappropriated by provincials. All we have today is provincial literature, I told her, nothing else. I remembered saying this as I walked toward the Farm. Only your writings, I had told her, are great and unique and will endure—we won’t have to be ashamed of them in a hundred years’ time. No, I told Gambetti, I never wanted to be a writer. It never occurred to me, but I always had a desire to write something down, just for myself, and the fact that some of my things have been published here and there is a matter for regret. I’m not
really
a writer, I said, not at all. Passing the half-open windows of the Farm buildings, I could hear the cows breathing. It occurs to me that we can often recall details, so-called trivialities, if we take the trouble to observe them carefully and pay attention to them, looking first
at
them and then
through
them. On the way from the Children’s Villa to the office, for instance, I observed precisely how the clouds behind the villa had taken on the shape of a dragon with a wide-open mouth. Even in memory such a triviality can remain clear, so that we can sometimes picture precisely the movement of the cloud formations even weeks, months, or years later. We do not have the slightest difficulty in calling it to mind, in reliving it, as it were. The same is true of the motions of a face we once saw years ago. We have no difficulty in recalling them. I, for instance, have no difficulty in recalling the faces of my family as they stood in front of the coffins. I can picture them exactly as they appeared to me then, with all their facial movements, for even a supposedly motionless face is in motion, since it is not dead, and even a dead face is not really dead—and so forth. What we witnessed years ago
can still be seen and heard precisely, if we can master the mechanism that makes this possible. The same applies to the sense of smell, as we know. Walking along a street in Paris, we may be reminded of something that happened twenty or thirty years ago, or even more. We can visualize the object or event or encounter in question in every detail, even though the original experience lies twenty or thirty years back. I believe I have developed this natural mechanism into an art, which I practice every day and intend to perfect. Hearing the cows breathing, I suddenly felt utterly exhausted. I went up to my room and drew the curtains. It was half past one. Naturally I could not sleep. Lying awake, I could think only of what was to become of everything—of Wolfsegg and everything connected with Wolfsegg. For over two hours the question that preoccupied me was not
What’s going to happen to Wolfsegg?
but
What can I make of Wolfsegg
, which has come crashing down on my head with my parents’ death and is threatening to crush me? The immense mass of Wolfsegg has suddenly fallen on my head, I thought. It was insane to tell myself that I could calm myself by lying first on one side and then on the other. I was suddenly conscious of the hopelessness of my situation, and this consciousness gave me no respite. Not a single reasonable thought would come to me. I could not lie on one side even for a minute, as my heart was pounding so fiercely. And so I spent the rest of the night anxiously observing my heart, counting the heartbeats and noting the irregularities that broke up their rhythm at diminishing intervals, until in the end I was in a state of extreme anxiety. I recalled how terrified I had been when my specialist in Rome told me, with brutal insensitivity, that I had only a short time to live. Doctors wish to be confirmed in their prognoses, I thought, and would rather tell you that the end is imminent than predict that it will be delayed for some time, since they are reluctant to compromise themselves and fear nothing so much as the unforeseen death of one of their patients. They spare themselves such embarrassment, as my Roman specialist did, by telling the patient that he has only
a minimal life expectancy
. However, I have to say that Roman doctors are superior to their Austrian colleagues, whom I can describe only as completely unscrupulous and callous. My Roman specialist having predicted that I had not long to live, I lay awake wondering what I was going to do with Wolfsegg. Of course I did not know the answer, and certainly not
now, preoccupied as I was with the speed and irregularity of my heartbeat. We naturally listen to what a doctor tells us, in this case my specialist in Rome, but we give no credence to it. We hear what he has to say but refuse to believe it—we ignore it. It now strikes me that this may well be the best reaction. Naturally we surfer all the time after being told that we have not long to live, but we shield ourselves from this dire prognosis because we want to go on living. We may inveigh against life and affect to despise it, but we still cling to it and want to hang on to it forever. It occurred to me that it had been weeks since I thought about my health, but now, lying in bed unable to sleep, I was worked up
about everything
. Just now, I thought, having firmly resolved to write
Extinction
, I must do all I can to protect myself, yet here I am, letting myself get worked up to such an extent that it could prove harmful, even lethal, to me. In Rome I’ve accustomed myself to
a rhythm in keeping with my illness
, I thought, and this takes into account my duties as Gambetti’s teacher. I’ve adjusted this rhythm precisely to my illness. In Rome I’ve subordinated everything to my illness, but now, at Wolfsegg, I’m letting myself get worked up to a quite unwarrantable degree. Every time I’ve been to Wolfsegg in recent years I’ve become overexcited and put a strain on my heart, I thought. On returning from Wolfsegg I’ve seen my Roman doctor and been told that I’ve overtaxed my heart simply by going to Wolfsegg, indeed by visiting Austria at all. I’ve never spared my heart, I thought, and this accounts for its present state. No heart can put up with a nature like mine, I told myself. My heart has little capacity for resistance, having been abused since childhood. From my earliest childhood I’ve abused my heart, overtaxed it and never given it a moment’s rest. My heart’s never been given the rest it should have had, I thought, and now it’s finished. Instead of sparing my heart by sticking to a proper rhythm, I have to endanger it by coming to Wolfsegg. But only for one day, I told myself. I’ll return to Rome as soon as possible because of my heart condition. I’ll go back to Rome. Rome is my home, not Wolfsegg. I won’t make
excessive demands on my heart
. This had been my specialist’s advice, and Maria’s too. She’s always said, You demand too much of your heart—you must look after it. I always listen to Maria, I thought, but then take no notice, even though she’s right. Maria, my Roman physician, my great poet, my great doctor, I thought, who
knows all there is to know about the art of living. Whenever I’m in a state I run to Maria, I thought. Unable to stay in bed with my heart pounding, I got up and went to the bathroom to freshen up. Then, still in my dressing gown, I took down a
monograph on Descartes
from the shelf and sat down by the window. Descartes instantly distracted me from all my anxieties. No sooner had I read the first sentences by Descartes—not
about
Descartes—than I was saved. Reading these sentences, I was immediately distracted—not calmed but distracted. The great philosophers are my saviors, I thought. Whatever I read of them distracts me and saves me. There is apparently no certain knowledge so long as one does not know the author of one’s existence, I read. I was at once distracted and saved. This one sentence enabled me to get through the remaining few hours at the window before I had to get up and go downstairs for the start of the funeral ritual. For some time I watched from my window as my sisters stood in front of the Orangery talking to the huntsmen, the gardeners, and various other people who had a function to perform in the funeral ritual, among them my brother-in-law. But I did not go down and join them. I had the impression that they were expecting me, but I did not go down as I did not want to interrupt my observations, which I could pursue from my window undisturbed. They all seemed very much occupied, and there must have been even more going on inside the Orangery. A vast quantity of wreaths and bouquets had been loaded on two large carts, which were pushed by the gardeners and two stable lads (we still have stable lads at Wolfsegg!) up to the wall by the gateway, leaving room for the hearse to pass. Everything I observed from the window seemed to be proceeding in accordance with the funeral plan that Mother had always spoken of. Nothing I saw seemed to go beyond the plan, let alone contravene it. It looked as though it might rain, but it was not raining and I did not think it would. Everyone was dressed in appropriate funeral attire, though not necessarily in black. A number of people from the village stood in front of the Orangery, and I saw the first members of the wind band taking up their positions. Their instruments sparkled, and the musicians wore uniforms of black and green, my favorite color combination. As I saw from the window, Caecilia was fully in charge of the imposing spectacle that was gradually unfolding. Every so often she whispered instructions to Amalia or to her
husband, the wine cork manufacturer, whereupon they went into the Orangery to carry out her instructions, though I could not know what they were. The lights in the Orangery had obviously been extinguished. The time had come to get the funeral under way, to remind people of their cues and take them once more through their roles. The important moments had arrived for the producer—not the high points, I thought, though these would not be long delayed. The musicians formed up in front of the Orangery, as if for a rehearsal, and then dispersed again. The gardeners and the huntsmen wheeled up the two carts with the wreaths and bouquets and brought them to a halt, as if this too were part of the rehearsal, and I watched Caecilia as she checked everything. Amalia and my brother-in-law remained behind her. More and more people arrived from the Farm, the Huntsmen’s Lodge, and the village. None of the notables had appeared, but there was still plenty of time. Finally Caecilia walked across to the house. I took this as a cue to leave my room and go down to meet her. On the way I ran into our aunt from Titisee. I greeted her but quickly escaped and took care to avoid her during the rest of the proceedings. Breakfast had been prepared for me in the kitchen. I ate it hastily, in the company of my brother-in-law. What a dull, stupid man! I thought as I watched him clumsily spreading butter and marmalade on his bread. But people like him can’t help it, I thought; they don’t know any better. Then I desisted from such thoughts, which suddenly seemed to me improper—not unfair but improper—and I despised myself for entertaining them. We shouldn’t watch these people and observe their every action, I told myself, because it only makes us despise ourselves. Caecilia told me I should wear a black tie. I did not argue with her but immediately went back and put one on; it seemed obvious that I should wear a black tie to the funeral, though not a black suit. I was wearing black shoes and a gray suit. I had never owned a black suit or thought of buying one, even in the last two dreadful days. Caecilia said she would be satisfied if I wore a black tie. She said this with no apparent malevolence, even with a degree of understanding. My sister suddenly appeared to treat me with understanding, and it occurred to me that this was because she was now in her element. All kinds of people whom I had not expected to see appeared in the kitchen for breakfast, but I spoke to none of them. Though I was the chief actor on the set, I did not see myself as such. They stared at me, but I avoided their gaze.