this reason they say they had a happy childhood, because they have escaped from the hell of childhood. To have escaped from one's childhood is nothing other than to have escaped from hell, and then people say they had a happy childhood in order to spare their progenitors, their parents, who should not be spared. To say that one has had a happy childhood in order to spare one's parents is nothing but a piece of sociopolitical villainy, he said. We spare our parents instead of charging them, lifelong, with the crime of procreation of humans, he said yesterday. For thirty-five years they oppressed me with any means possible, they tortured me with their frightful methods. I have no need to give my parents the slightest consideration, he said, they do not deserve the slightest consideration. They committed two crimes against me, two most serious crimes, he said, they procreated me and they oppressed me, they committed the crime of procreation against me and the crime of oppression. And they thrust me into the black hole of childhood with the greatest possible parental ruthlessness. As you are aware, I had a sister who died young, he said, who escaped our parents only by her premature death, she had been treated by our parents with the same ruthlessness, they oppressed me and my sister by their trauma of disappointment, my sister did not endure it for long and died suddenly on an April day, totally unexpectedly, in a way that is possible only with juveniles, she was nineteen, she died of a so-called sudden heart attack, you understand, while my mother on the first floor was getting everything ready for my father's birthday party, rushing this way and that to make quite sure no birthday mistake was made, with all kinds of plates and glasses and napkins and small cakes, nearly driving me and my sister out of our minds with her birthday-party preparations which she had been obsessed with from early in the morning, immediately after my father had left the house my mother began her (to us long familiar) birthday-party frenzy with all the hysteria imaginable, and while she was chasing me and my sister up and down the stairs and into the cellar and into the various outbuildings, in and out and back again, ceaselessly anxious not to make a mistake, chasing my sister and me around the entire house, hither and thither, with her birthday-party preparations, I was thinking all the time, I remember this quite clearly, is this now our father's fiftyeighth or is it the fifty-ninth birthday? all the time I ran around the house and around all the rooms thinking: is it the fiftyeighth or is it the fifty-ninth, or is it possibly the sixtieth? which in the end it was not, it was my father's fifty-ninth birthday, Reger said. I had been instructed to open all the windows and let in the fresh air, even then, in my childhood and youth, I hated a draught, but at the command of our mother I had to open all the windows at every other moment and to let in the air, he said, I therefore always had to do something I hated and I hated nothing more than letting fresh air into the house through all the windows, I hated nothing more than the
draught rushing into the house from all sides, he said, but naturally I could not do anything against the parental commands, I aIways meticulously executed all parental commands, I would never have dared not to execute a parental command, no matter whether it was a maternal or a paternal command, I automatically executed my parental command meticulously, Reger said, because I wished to escape parental punishment and that parental punishment was always dreadful and cruel, I feared parental torture and so I naturally always executed all parental commands meticulously, he said, no matter what the command was, even when in my opinion it was the most nonsensical of commands, it was therefore a matter of course that I opened all the windows on that birthday of my father and let the draught blow into the house. Our mother celebrated all our birthdays, not a single one of our birthdays was not celebrated, I hated those birthday celebrations, as you may imagine, just as I hate any celebrations, I hate anything festive, anything solemn to this day, nothing is more distasteful to me than celebrating or being celebrated, I am a hater of festivities, he said, from childhood I have hated all feasting and celebrating and above all I have hated birthday celebrations, no matter what birthday it was, and most of all I hated a parental birthday being celebrated; how can a person celebrate a birthday, his birthday, I have always wondered, when it is a misfortune to be in this world at all; yes, I always thought if people were to observe a memorial hour on their birthday, a memorial hour
for the monstrous deed their progenitors had committed against them, that I would understand, but surely not a festivity, he said. And our father's birthdays were celebrated with all kinds of revolting pomp, all sorts of people I hated were invariably invited, and there was a lot of eating and drinking, and the most detestable thing of course were the speeches addressed to the person celebrated and the presents given to the person celebrated. Surely there is nothing more false than these birthday celebrations to which people lend themselves, nothing more distasteful than those birthday lies and those birthday hypocrisies, he said. It was in fact on our father's fifty-ninth birthday that my sister died, Reger said. I was standing in a corner on the first floor and, while trying to shield myself against the cold draught of air, was watching my mother rushing about the place with birthday-hysterical rapidity, at one moment transporting a vase from one room to another, at another switching a sugar bowl from one table to another table, one doily this way, another doily another way, a book to one place, another book to another place, a bunch of flowers over here, another over there, when suddenly, coming from downstairs, from the ground floor, I heard a dull thud, Reger said. My mother had stopped, because she too had heard the dull thud from downstairs. My mother stood still on the spot and her face had turned pale, Reger said. Something terrible had happened, that was instantly obvious to me as it was to my mother. I went down from the first floor to the vestibule and found my sister lying dead in the vestibule. Ah yes, Reger said, instant heart failure is an enviable death. If only we ourselves had such an instant heart failure one day, that would be the greatest happiness, he said. We hope for a swift painless death and yet we can drift into prolonged, year-long lingering illness, Reger said yesterday, adding that it was a consolation to him that his wife did not suffer long, not for years as sometimes happens, he said, only a few weeks. But of course there is no consolation for the loss of the one person who, all one's life, has been the closest to you. One method, he said yesterday, while I was now, that is a day later, observing him from the side, with Irrsigler behind him who had for one moment looked into the Sebastiano Room without taking any notice of me, while I was therefore still observing Reger who was still observing Tintoretto's
White-Bearded Man, one method, he said, is to turn everything into a caricature. We can only stand a great, important picture if we have turned it into a caricature, or a great man, a so-called important personality, neither can we bear a person as a great man or as an important personality, he said, we have to caricature him. When we observe a picture for any length of time, even the most serious picture, we have to turn it into a caricature in order to bear it, hence we must also turn our parents, our superiors, if we have any, into caricatures, and the whole world into a caricature, he said. Look upon one of Rembrandt's self-portraits for any length of time, no matter which of them, in time it will quite certainly turn into a caricature for you and you will turn away. Look for any length of time at your father's face and it will turn into a caricature for you and you will turn away from him. Read Kant
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