intact character. When he considered what things were like in the police, then he was glad the police had not accepted him. He also mentioned that at one time he had had an idea of entering a monastery, because there too a person's clothes were provided, and the monasteries were nowadays looking for replacements as never before; however, as a
lay brother in a monastery he would
only have been exploited by those in superior positions, as he expressed himself,
by the priests who made a rather pleasant life for themselves in the monasteries at the expense of the lay brothers who were totally subject to them. All he would have done there, he said, was
chop wood and feed the pigs and in summer thin out the cabbages and in winter shovel the monastery paths clear of snow. The lay brothers in the monasteries are poor worms, Irrsigler once said, he did not wish to be a poor worm. Although his parents would have been pleased to see him enter a monastery;
I could have entered at once, he said, he had actually been on the point of entering one in the Tyrol. To be a lay brother was even worse than being a convict in a penal institution, Irrsigler said.
The monks in holy orders had it made for them, he said,
but the lay brothers were
nothing but slaves. In the monasteries, he said, medieval slavery still existed as far as the lay brothers were concerned, it was no joke being a lay brother and at mealtimes all they got were the left-overs. He had had no wish to be a servant to pot-bellied theologians, to what Reger called
abusers of God, who enjoyed a life of plenty in the monasteries, he had said
no at the right moment. On one occasion Reger had gone to the Prater with the Irrsigler family, Reger's wife by then had been very ill. Contact with children always bothered him, Reger said, he had always only been able to stand children for a very short time, he had not to be in the middle of a
work process when meeting children, it had been an adventure inviting the Irrsigler family to a visit to the Prater but he, Reger, had for some time felt that he owed something to Irrsigler,
because in actual fact I make use at the Kunsthistorisches Museum of something I am not entitled to, I sit for hours on the settee in the Bordone Room, Reger said,
in order to think, in order to reflect and even in order to read books and essays, I sit on the Bordone Room settee which is provided there for normal visitors to the museum, not for me, and quite certainly not for me over a period of thirty years, Reger said. I expect Irrsigler to let me sit on the Bordone Room settee every other day without being entitled to expect this, after all quite often other people in the Bordone Room would like to sit down on the Bordone Room settee but cannot do so because I am sitting on the Bordone Room settee, Reger said. By now the Bordone Room settee has more or less become a prerequisite of my thinking, Reger again said to me yesterday, the Bordone Room settee suits me much better than the Ambassador, where I also have an ideal seat for thinking, on the Bordone Room settee I think with a much greater intensity than I do at the Ambassador, where I also think since I never discontinue my thinking, Reger said, as you know
I think all the time, indeed I also think in my sleep, but on the Bordone Room settee I think the way I have to think, therefore I sit on the Bordone Room settee for thinking. Every other day I sit on the Bordone Room settee, Reger said, naturally not every day, for that really would be destructive, I mean if I sat on the Bordone Room settee every day, that would destroy everything within me that I value, and nothing of course is more valuable to me than thinking, I think therefore I live, I live therefore I think, Reger said, I therefore sit on the Bordone Room settee every other day and remain sitting there on the Bordone Room settee for at least three or four hours, which of course means no less then than that I occupy the Bordone Room settee for those three or four, sometimes five, hours for my exclusive use and no one else can sit on the Bordone Room settee. For the exhausted visitors to the museum, who enter the Bordone Room totally exhausted and would like to sit down on the Bordone Room settee, it is of course unfortunate that I am sitting on the Bordone Room settee but I cannot do otherwise, even as I wake up at home I already think about sitting on the Bordone Room settee as soon as possible in order not to fall prey to despair; if ever I were unable to sit on the Bordone Room settee I should be in the depths of despair, Reger said. Throughout these more than thirty years Irrsigler has always kept the Bordone Room settee for me, Reger said, only once did I come to the Bordone Room and found the Bordone Room settee occupied, an Englishman in plus-fours had sat down on the Bordone Room settee and was not to be induced to get up from the Bordone Room settee, not even in response to Irrsigler's insistent pleas, not even in response to my pleas, it was all no use, the Englishman remained seated on the Bordone Room settee, Reger said, and took no notice either of me or of Irrsigler. He had come specially from England, or more correctly from Wales, to the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna in order to look at the
White-Bearded Man, the Englishman from Wales said, according to Reger, and he could see no reason why he should get up from the settee which was surely intended for visitors to the museum who were particularly interested in Tintoretto's
White-Bearded Man. I had argued with the Englishman for some time, but the Englishman eventually no longer listened, he was therefore no longer interested in what I was saying in order to make him understand how important sitting on the Bordone Room settee was for me, what significance the Bordone Room settee had for me. Irrsigler had told the Englishman, who incidentally was wearing a high-quality Scottish jacket, Reger said, that the settee on which he was sitting was reserved for me, which of ourse was totally contrary to regulations since not a single settee in the Kunsthistorisches Museum can ever be a reserved settee, by this remark Irrsigler had placed himself in the wrong, Reger said, but he actually said the settee was reserve.; the Englishman, however, had taken no notice either of who t Irrsigler had said to him nor of what I had said to him with regard to the Bordone Room settee, he had calmly let us speak while making notes on a little notepad, presumably, as I assumed, relating to the
White-Bearded Man. The Englishman from Wales might
possibly be an interesting person , I thought, Reger said, and I thought that rather than engaging on m feet in a by then pointless and useless argument about the Bo done Room settee, whose importance to me I should have never been able to make him understand, I would simply sit down.n the settee next to the Englishman from Wales, and so, nee. less to say, in all politeness I quite simply sat down on the settee next to him. The Englishman from Wales moved a few centimetres over to the right so that I could sit down on the left. I had never before sat on the Bordone Room settee
à deux, as it were, this was the first time. Irrsigler was obviously relieved that by sitting down on the Bordone Room settee I had defused the situation and he presently disappeared in response to a brief signal from me, Reger said, while I, just as the Englishman from Wales, once more inspected the
White-Bearded Man. Are you really interested in the
White-Bearded Man? I asked the Englishman and received, as a kind of delayed response, a short nod of his English head. My question had been nonsensical and I instantly regretted having put it; I thought, Reger said, I have just asked one of the stupidest questions that could be asked, and I decided to say no more and to wait in complete silence for the Englishman to get up and leave. But the Englishman had no intention of getting up and leaving, on the contrary he took out of his jacket pocket a thicker book, bound in black leather and read something in it; he alternately read his book and looked up at the
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