Thomas Bernhard - Old Masters

White-Bearded Man, while I had noticed that he used Aqua brava, a toilet water that I find by no means unpleasant. If that Englishman uses Aqua brava, I thought, he has good taste. People who use Aqua brava all have good taste, an Englishman, moreover an Englishman from Wales, who uses Aqua brava is therefore not unlikeable to me, I thought, Reger said. Now and again Irrsigler appeared on the scene to see whether the Englishman had by then disappeared, Reger said, but the Englishman had no intention of disappearing, he would read several pages of his black leather book and then for several minutes study the White-Bearded Man and the other way about, and it looked as if he intended to remain seated on the Bordone Room settee for a very long time. Anything they tackle the English tackle thoroughly, just as the Germans, whenever art is concerned, Reger said, and in all my life I had never seen a more thorough Englishman where art was concerned. No doubt the man sitting next to me was a so-called art expert and I thought, Reger said, you have always hated art experts and now you are sitting next to such an art expert and actually find him likeable, not only because he uses Aqua brava, not only because of his high-quality Scottish clothes, but gradually likeable generally, Reger said. Anyway, Reger said, the Englishman read his black leather book for at least half an hour or more and just as long looked at Tintoretto's White-Bearded Man, in other words he sat next to me on the Bordone Room settee for a whole hour, until he abruptly got up, turned to me and' asked what I was actually doing there in the Bordone Room, surely it was most unusual for someone to sit more than an hour in a room such as the Bordone Room, on this exceedingly uncomfortable settee, staring at the White-Bearded Man. Needless to say, I was completely taken aback, Reger said, and did not know at the moment how to reply to the Englishman. Well, I said, I did not know myself what I was doing here, I said to the Englishman from Wales, I could not think of anything else to say. The Englishman looked at me with irritation, just as if he regarded me as an absolute fool, Bordone, the Englishman said, unimportant; Tintoretto, well yes, he said. The Englishman took a handkerchief from his left trouser pocket and put it in his right one. A typical gesture of embarrassment, I said to myself, and as the Englishman, whom I had suddenly begun to like, was about to leave, having long pocketed his black leather book and his notepad, I invited him to sit down again on the Bordone Room settee and keep me company for a little while, he interested me, I told him frankly, there was a certain fascination for me about him, I told him, Reger said to me. Thus for the first time I made the acquaintance of an Englishman from Wales who seemed absolutely likeable to me, Reger said, because generally speaking I do not find the English likeable, just as, incidentally, I do not the French either, nor the Poles, nor the Russians, not to mention the Scandinavians whom I have never found likeable. A likeable Englishman is a curiosity, I said to myself when I had sat down again with him, having of course stood up as the Englishman stood up. I was interested to know whether the Englishman had really come to the Kunsthistorisches Museum solely for the White-Bearded Man, Reger said, and I therefore asked him if that was really his reason, and the Englishman nodded his head. Incidentally, he was speaking English, which I found agreeable, but then suddenly also German, very broken German, that broken German which all Englishmen speak when they believe they know German, which, however, is never the case, Reger said, the Englishman probably wanted to speak German rather than English in order to improve his German, and after all why not, when abroad one prefers to speak the foreign language unless one is a blockhead, and so in his broken German he said that he had in fact come to Austria and to Vienna solely for the White-Bearded Man, not because of Tintoretto, he said, Reger said, but solely for the White-Bearded Man, he was not interested in the museum as a whole, not in the least, he was not one for museums, he hated museums and had always only visited them reluctantly, he had only come to the Vienna Kunsthistorisches Museum in order to study the White-Bearded Man because back home he had just such a White-Bearded Man hanging over his bed in his bedroom in Wales, in actual fact the same White-Bearded Man, the Englishman said, Reger said. I was told, the Englishman said, that at the Vienna Kunsthistorisches Museum there was just such a White-Bearded Man as in my bedroom in Wales and that has been worrying me and so I have come to Vienna. For two years I had been worrying in my bedroom in Wales at the thought that just such a White-Bearded Man by Tintoretto was possibly really hanging at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna as in my bedroom, and so I travelled to Vienna yesterday. Believe it or not, the Englishman said, Reger said to me, the same White-Bearded Man by Tintoretto which hangs in my bedroom in Wales also hangs here. I could not believe my eyes, the Englishman said, naturally in English, and when I assured myself that this White-Bearded Man is the same as the one in my bedroom I was at first profoundly shocked. You concealed your shock very well, I said to the Englishman, Reger said to me. But then the English have always been masters of self-control, I said to the Englishman from Wales, Reger said, even at moments of extreme excitement they preserve their calm and sang-froid, I said to the Englishman, Reger said to me. All this time I compared my White-Bearded Man by Tintoretto, the one hanging in my bedroom in Wales, with the White-Bearded Man by Tintoretto in this room, the Englishman said and, producing his black leather book from his pocket, showed me in it a reproduction of his Tintoretto. Yes, indeed, I said to the Englishman, the Tintoretto reproduced in the book is the same as the one hanging here on the wall. You see, the Englishman from Wales said, you say so too! It is the same picture down to the last detail, I said, Tintoretto's White-Bearded Man in your book is the same as the one hanging here on the wall. Right down to the last detail, as the phrase goes, you are bound to say that everything matches in the most startling manner, as if it were really one and the same picture, I said, Reger said to me. Yet the Englishman was not at all excited, Reger said, I would not have remained so cool in the face of the fact that the picture in the Bordone Room is in fact identical with the picture in my bedroom, Reger said, the Englishman looked at his black leather book in which the White-Bearded Man from his bedroom in Wales was reproduced on a whole page and, as the phrase goes, in full colour, and again at the White-Bearded Man in the Bordone Room. A nephew of mine was in Vienna two years ago and because he did not want to go to concerts every day he went to the Kunsthistorisches Museum one Tuesday, without actually being really interested, the Englishman said, Reger said, one of my numerous nephews who make a major trip every year to Europe or America or Asia, or wherever, and there, at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, he saw Tintoretto's White-Bearded Man hanging on the wall; all excited he came to see me and told me he had, in a manner of speaking, seen my Tintoretto at the Kunsthistorisches Museum. Naturally I did not believe his story and laughed at my nephew, the Englishman said, Reger said, I regarded the whole business as a silly prank, one of those silly pranks my nephews delight in playing on me all the time. My Tintoretto in Vienna at the Kunsthistorisches Museum?Читать дальше