Thomas Bernhard - Extinction

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 My brother-in-law, having withdrawn to the kitchen, was joking with the kitchen maids, who were busy preparing a buffet that my sisters had ordered that morning.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 womanish. These were the disparaging words he used about the Parisian silver toilet set— It’s too womanish for me. He never used it. It had now been taken out of the drawer and placed on the table for Spadolini. Mother had had my father’s initials engraved on it, I recall, but he dismissed this as a silly affectation. My mother had not succeeded in driving out his basic good taste, I thought. Sitting in the chair, I thought of how I had always admired Spadolini and the extraordinary life he led, which began in a North Italian town near Lake Como. The son of a lawyer, he was destined for the Church from an early age. He was one of five children, all of whom went to college and made something of themselves, as they say, but he was undoubtedly the most gifted. The young priest soon went to Florence and then, at the age of twenty-five, to Rome, where he carved out a career for himself. Admired for his good looks and his conversation, he at once raised the tone of any gathering he attended. At thirty he was adviser to the papal nuncio in Vienna, and at thirty-eight he was entrusted with an important financial office in the Vatican. At forty he became a papal nuncio, first in the Far East and then in South America. He speaks Spanish and Portuguese without an accent, as well as English and French. One can talk to him about any subject, and he never has the least difficulty in responding. It was at a reception at the Belgian Embassy in Vienna that he first met my mother. Spadolini always described her to me as a child of nature, and perhaps that is how he always saw her. Now the child of nature is dead, I thought, the much loved child of nature is lying in state in the Orangery, leaving him all alone. But Spadolini has never been alone, I thought; he has always been among people, all over the world, and this is immediately obvious from his bearing. As soon as he appears on the scene, no matter where or in what company, he dominates it. Everywhere people jostle to be near him. The best entertainment is always to be had at the table where he is placed. Mother used to invite him to Wolfsegg at least twice a year, and not only to Wolfsegg but to various Mediterranean resorts, for periods of several days or several weeks, and as far as I know, Spadolini never declined a single invitation. The prince of the Church would fly first class to wherever Mother was waiting for him, naturally at the best hotels in the most delectable settings. Sometimes my father knew, sometimes he did not, and eventually he ceased to care when and where my mother met Spadolini. At times all three traveled together, to Badgastein or Taormina, for instance, or to Sils Maria in Switzerland, where they checked in at the Waldhaus, the hotel with the finest location. Spadolini would put on his cross-country skis or take a boat out on the lake and elegantly row in the direction of the Maloja Pass, toward the painting, as it were, that made Segantini famous. It must be said that the archbishop, who had three passports — a Vatican passport, an Italian passport, and a diplomatic passport — and used whichever suited his needs, was always happiest in my mother’s company. He often told me this, and I believed him. How simpleminded our Austrian bishops are by comparison, I thought as I sat in the chair, even our cardinal in Vienna! Spadolini could be called a born prince of the Church. One has only to hear how he speaks, to see how he eats, I thought. And how he dresses. He is not one of those churchmen of humble stock who haul themselves naively up the ecclesiastical ladder but, as I have said, a born prince of the Church, and as I sat in the chair, I repeated these words several times, half aloud: a born prince of the Church. His influence in the Vatican is immense, though his relations with the popes have been somewhat distant, too distant, as he himself has said more than once, and this has so far cost him his cardinal’s hat. Spadolini, the man of the world! I thought. It may be, I told myself, that Mother’s death will give me a chance to renew my friendship with him, even to consolidate it and establish a permanent claim to it. My move to Rome was due in no small measure to Spadolini. He introduced me to Zacchi, who found me the apartment in the Piazza Minerva. It was Spadolini who acquainted me with Rome, introduced me into Roman society, and first decoded the city for me, as it were. For at first I had no one in Rome but Spadolini and was entirely reliant on him. Uncle Georg too had a high opinion of Spadolini, although he knew that he consorted with my mother in what Uncle Georg called a somewhat curious fashion. Spadolini often visited Cannes, and he and Uncle Georg once spent several weeks together in Senegal, mounting an exhibition of southern French painters and at the same time conducting what Uncle Georg called philosophical conversations. Spadolini is also an artist, I thought as I sat in the chair, a highly artistic person, even if he doesn’t paint or play an instrument. I often went for walks with him in Rome, where he rescued me from black moods of despair, especially during my early days in Rome, when I did not know what to do with myself and fell prey to brooding, insomnia, and thoughts of suicide — until Spadolini made me rouse myself and engage in intellectual activity. And finally it was Spadolini who put me in contact with Gambetti, whose family he had known for decades. Spadolini often took me for walks on the Pincio for the sole purpose of wrenching me out of my despair through what he called intellectual exercises. He reminded me of my abilities, my intellectual capital, as it were, which I had forgotten. For my intellectual passions had atrophied and almost died. It was Spadolini who revived them, Spadolini and no other. We did intellectual exercises together and had many a good meal in Trastevere, I thought. Good eating on the one hand, good thinking on the other —this is a phrase that Spadolini often used, a principle that he dinned into me. And it was undoubtedly my salvation. He often took the trouble to drive out into the country with me, along the Appian Way and into the infinite, simply and solely to save me, and I must say that Spadolini is the only person who has ever acknowledged me. He tried to explain to my mother what kind of person I was, what cast of mind I had, so to speak, but on this topic she never listened to him. The child of nature let him talk but didn’t listen, I thought, sitting in the chair and contemplating the Parisian toilet set. How could Spadolini be so taken with my mother as to be more or less in love with her, how could he so obviously understand her and understand me, when she did not understand me at all? She never wanted to understand me, I told myself as I sat in the chair. Spadolini understood me, and he understood my mother, I thought, but my mother was always against me, even though Spadolini was for me. Spadolini could not persuade her to take any interest in me. He once said to me, She can’t relate to you; you’re completely alien to her. But considering that my mother was so much influenced by Spadolini, it is incomprehensible that she was not influenced by what he told her about me. She did not hear it because she did not want to hear it. I like you and I like your mother, but your mother doesn’t understand you, Spadolini said. In fact she hates you, but conversely you don’t like your mother either — you hate her. Spadolini has never shied away from stating the facts and telling the truth. This license he can allow himself as a prince of the Church, and he has his own view of the Church too, I thought. The Spadolinis are all independent spirits, I thought. And Spadolini the prince of the Church is no exception. The Spadolinian element, like the monarchic element, can assert itself in its own way within the Catholic Church, I thought. Even today. The smell of my father still lingered in his room. I got up and opened the closet. I counted twelve suits, all made by Knize, his Viennese tailor. As my father’s much smaller — or rather was much smaller — than I am, I won’t be able to wear these suits, I thought, and I wondered whom to give them to. To give them to the gardeners would be stupid, and I won’t give them to the huntsmen or any of my relatives, I thought, shutting the closet. My father always had about thirty pairs of shoes in his shoe cupboard. I opened the cupboard. Size forty-two won’t fit anyone here, I thought, and closed the shoe cupboard. But I’ll keep the better-quality shirts. They’re well cut and will fit me. They’ve cleared one closet for Spadolini, I thought. My father had photographs of his family on his table, one of each of us, on which we all make the same bland, harmless impression. The photographs were reassuring, not alarming, and the only question they raised was how all these likenesses could possibly be so bland. Father used to get up at five o’clock, and at half past five he sat down to work at his desk, running the estate, as he put it. At about half past seven he had breakfast with Mother in what she called the large sitting room, formerly known as the green drawing room. If the weather was fine the balcony windows would be wide open. Over breakfast they would plan the day’s events, and this led to the first quarrels and misunderstandings. In recent years breakfast was usually taken in silence, broken only by the clink of china and cutlery. Father was a man of few words, but Mother was extremely loquacious and loved talking, though in recent years she had ceased to be loquacious and talkative, at any rate with Father. Father was sick, and she expected him to die soon. She had expected it for years and believed she could read it in his face. If he was subjected to any unpleasantness she would say, Leave him alone. He’s a sick man and hasn’t long to live. She became so used to saying this that she even said it in his presence. She repeatedly said, Leave your father alone, he’s a sick man, though she refrained from adding and hasn’t long to live. Yet although she did not say it, the thought was always present. When he was away or working late she would say, Leave your father alone. He’s a sick man and hasn’t long to live. When he was present she said, Leave your father alone, he’s a sick man. Whenever she could she went to meet Spadolini, the illustrious Spadolini, as my father once called him. Not a bad description, I now reflected. Every few weeks her sick, dying, lusterless husband became too much for her and she would take up with her illustrious admirer, but when the illustrious admirer no longer had time for her she would return to the sick, dying, lusterless husband, usually at night, by stealth, so that the servants would not notice, though they always noticed, as I know — servants notice everything. People think servants notice nothing, but they notice everything, even the most trivial things, things one would not expect them to notice. They know everything. We always imagine that the servants are not in the picture, that we have hoodwinked them, pulled the wool over their eyes, when in fact they have noticed everything. The illustrious Spadolini was the perpetual object of Mother’s longing, I thought. In the end Father paid no attention to this longing and no longer asked her where she had been when she came home in the middle of the night, for she would only reply mockingly, With Spadolini. But in the end it was the lusterless farmer, not the illustrious prince of the Church, who was her strength and stay. Mother would sometimes lean on Father and say she was aware of what she had in him and grateful to him for forgiving her everything. Father just let her talk. He had already left the stage on which Spadolini was performed, this ludicrous comedy, as he called it. It had long been a piece for only two players. I have retained my preference for darkened rooms to this day, I thought, but there was also a practical reason for not switching on the light at this time of year; this had to do with the mosquitoes, which are attracted by light and immediately turn every room at Wolfsegg into a hell. After breakfast Father would go across to the Farm and look around, then usually get on a tractor and disappear into the woods. Nobody knows why he went there, probably just to find peace and quiet, away from his wife and family, I thought. In the late morning the tractor would be seen somewhere unattended, while he walked for miles across his land. This was what he loved best. He only ever wanted to be a farmer. He never entertained what are called higher ambitions. When the question of the succession became acute and he needed an heir, he married the small-town girl, the daughter of a vegetable wholesaler who jarred and canned the whole countryside around Wels, as it were, and sold the jars and cans in Vienna. After marrying my mother he still preferred the pigsty to the green drawing room, which she rechristened the large sitting room. His favorite company was to be found mainly at the Farm and the Huntsmen’s Lodge, I thought. But of course this farmer always had the bearing of a gentleman. The first child, Johannes, was the offspring he desired, who would in due course inherit the estate. As I have said, he took cognizance of me as the reserve heir. He could have done without my sisters; they were latecomers and never had a chance with him, and so naturally they were immediately tied to their mother’s apron strings. Both Caecilia and Amalia were what are called beautiful children, who subsequently became uglier and uglier; this is popularly supposed to be the destiny of beautiful children. Unprepossessing. At least in my view. But of all the children, I was always in the most difficult position, I now reflected. I had no place in my parents’ hearts, and in time I gave up trying to force myself into them, as it became clear that there was no room for me. But from the beginning I was closer to my father than to my mother, of whom I was afraid even as a very small child, whereas I trusted my father, first as a child, then as a teenager, and finally as an adult, right to the last. All my life I acknowledged his paternal authority, whatever that is, but I could not help regarding my mother as harmful to me. All my life I felt I was there only to be used as a last resort. They were not wrong, as the accident has shown, I thought, sitting in the chair, but they didn’t reckon with their own deaths. If Johannes had been alone in the car, I told myself, they could have used me as the fallback, and their foresight would have been justified. But they themselves died along with the heir apparent and so did not benefit from the existence of a second heir. I am the second heir, I thought to myself as I sat in the chair, the sole surviving heir. This was how I now saw myself. In my capacity as the second heir I sensed my big chance. But how was I to exploit it? I was glad that Spadolini was coming. Spadolini’s a person I can talk to about everything, I thought. Spadolini has a clear head, clearer than mine, which has been confused by the present calamity. In the next few days, possibly in the next few hours, I’ll be able to talk to Spadolini. He owes it to me to show me the way out that I’m unable to see for myself. I had some ideas about the immediate future but did not know how to weld them in a meaningful plan. Spadolini is the one person I can trust to tell me what I should do, I thought. On the other hand, I don’t know what kind of Spadolini is coming; I don’t know whether it’s a useful or a harmful Spadolini that’s about to arrive at Wolfsegg, for there was no doubt that Spadolini could now be harmful to me, and the possibility scared me. But if that’s the case I must be completely mistaken about him, I thought. It may be, I thought, sitting in the chair, that while he’s been on his way here, Spadolini’s thoughts have been running in the opposite direction, that he’s having his own thoughts about the future of Wolfsegg and how it can get over the present calamity. But do I need Spadolini? I asked myself. Haven’t I a mind of my own? I don’t need Spadolini at all, I told myself. Getting up, I went to the window and looked down at the company in the park; the party of funeral guests had thinned out, as most had gone to find their lodgings. I could see that it was breaking up. Spadolini’s still not here, I thought. He’s making a point of arriving late so that he won’t have to meet all these people, so that he can avoid all the embarrassment, or most of it. In the midst of the guests, who thought nothing of trampling the lawn, stood the wine cork manufacturer, holding a tray. All by himself. Caecilia called out his name, probably from the doorway, and he went across. Here, at this window, Father had often stood for half the night when he was unable to sleep. All his life he suffered from insomnia, which Mother never did. To tire himself he would stand by the window, but even when tired, after standing here for two or three hours, he still could not sleep. And so he took to going out at three o’clock in the morning, especially in March and April, and walking in the woods. I’m a woodsman, he often said. I’d rather be in the woods than anywhere else. I recalled that he had once said, I’d like to die in the woods, but this wish was not to be fulfilled: he died an everyday death, quite the opposite of the one he had hoped for, like millions of others who die on the roads today after a momentary lapse of concentration. Spadolini made me aware of Gambetti’s character; he explained Gambetti to me, as it were, telling me how to approach him and win his trust, for according to Spadolini it was extremely hard to get along with Gambetti. Gambetti had expressed a wish to have an Austrian to instruct him in German literature, not a German. I had arrived in Rome at just the right moment, said Spadolini. I was the ideal person. Gambetti regarded Spadolini as his mentor and concurred with him in everything. Their fathers were lifelong friends, I thought, again sitting in the chair but now with my eyes closed, enjoying the quiet of my father’s room. From the sounds coming in through the open window I gathered that most of the guests had dispersed, leaving only a few in conversation with my sisters. I could not follow the conversation, as I heard only isolated words. I clearly remember hearing the words breeze, angina pectoris, anarchy, disgusting, and wet weather. Their audibility depended on the wind conditions; some were clear and distinct, others indistinct and barely comprehensible, but they were all spoken in restrained tones. From the start Spadolini was destined for a very high position, as he once said. His father had entertained ambitions for his son and sent him to college, so that he could get on rapidly in the Vatican and rise in the hierarchy, whereas his mother is said to have had no interest in this single-minded pursuit of a Vatican career. According to my mother, Spadolini immediately rose in the hierarchy and went on rising — a brilliant career such as had seldom been witnessed, especially in the history of the Church, she said. Gambetti had first assessed me, not I him, Spadolini told me, to see whether I was fit to be his teacher. He had devised a very precise method for assessing me and my teaching abilities. Spadolini quoted Gambetti as saying that I had passed the test to his entire satisfaction, I now recalled as I sat in the chair. We think we are our pupil’s teacher from the beginning, but for months we are actually being assessed by him, I thought. At the very start of our relationship Gambetti asked me many odd questions, unusual questions, it seemed to me at the time, and I did not know why. At first Spadolini, Gambetti, and I often met for dinner near the Piazza Minerva, at an establishment where one is served exclusively by nuns, who naturally made a great fuss over Spadolini, somewhat to his embarrassment. Maria went there once with me, but never again, as she found it so distasteful. On the evening in question numerous clerics were present, and the nuns were so assiduous in their attentions that Maria must have found it unbearable. We had met to discuss her poems, especially her Bohemian poem, which has since become world famous and is certainly one of the finest and most beautiful poems in the German language. I said to her, You’ve now written the finest and most beautiful poem ever written by a woman in our language. It was not just a compliment: I was telling the truth, which has meanwhile been acknowledged by the rest of the world. I have always loved Maria’s poems: they are so Austrian, yet at the same time universal, uniquely imbued with the mood of the world around us, and written by the most intelligent woman poet ever. Maria’s poems are entirely antisentimental, I thought, quite unlike those written by others, which for all their wildness and waywardness are informed by nothing but Austrian sentimentality. Maria’s poems are antisentimental and clear and deserve to be rated as highly as Goethe’s, as those poems by Goethe that I value most. Maria had to go to Rome to be able to write them, I told myself, sitting in the chair and again thinking of Spadolini, whom I have to thank for Gambetti, my dearest and most valued friend in Rome. What would my life in Rome be like without Gambetti, I thought, who confronts me daily with new ideas and new questions, who daily refreshes me by bringing me face-to-face with the real problems of our world? Gambetti, who is forever questioning and never lets up, who never gives me a moment’s peace, who comes to my apartment and questions me all night long, until the cold light of dawn comes up, whom I cannot escape. Gambetti, who wants to know everything, through the medium of German literature, which he uses merely as a device for learning about everything else, Gambetti the anarchist, who under my guidance has become a true anarchist, whom I have possibly trained in anarchism, turning him against his parents, his surroundings, and himself, I thought, yet who is also the driving force behind my own anarchism and set it in motion again in Rome. Gambetti, who throws the CorrieredellaSera on my desk — and as it were in my face — and questions me about everything. Gambetti, the young man whom Maria loves more than me; Gambetti, the greatest doubter I have ever known, who far outdoes me in his doubting, who has made doubting a principle of life, and who once told me that with his doubting he had started to dismantle the whole world in order to study it properly; Gambetti, who would dearly love to blow the world sky-high but at the same time spends hours walking around Rome in a red sweater, carrying books by Jean Paul and Kleist and Wittgenstein under his arm, while dreaming of dismantling the world and blowing it sky-high. Gambetti, who, on the other hand, dines with his parents at the Hotel de la Ville and does not disturb them in their outdated attitudes, who shops only in the Via Condotti and whose room not merely is tastefully furnished but evinces the most exquisite culture. Gambetti, whom I cling to as much as he clings to me. Gambetti, I thought, sitting in my father’s chair, the quintessence of intellectual curiosity and cold calculation — Gambetti, the youthful bewitcher of all around him. I looked over to the Orangery, now illuminated from within, a picture I had not seen before. There was now only a handful of guests in the park, and I could not recognize them. I had a duty to present myself to them, I thought, to go down and shake hands with them, but I was not up to it and had unloaded this formality on my sisters, who were in any case better qualified to perform it. After all, they’re the daughters and know how to deal with their own kind, whereas I’ve long since forgotten how to deal with their kind, I told myself, gazing in fascination at the Orangery, which was illuminated solely by the feeble candlelight from within. The prelude is drawing to a close, I thought. Spadolini still hasn’t arrived, and the others don’t really matter. I’ve nothing whatever in common with them, I thought; they don’t concern me. All these people are just tiresome. I despise them and they despise me. Suddenly I thought I saw my cousin Alexander enter the park, without his wife, and it occurred to me that my sisters would naturally have sent a telegram to him in Brussels. I had not thought of him until now. It really was Alexander approaching the Orangery. I watched him shake hands with several of the people standing in front of it, in that characteristic way of his that again struck me as so attractive, both elegant and entirely natural. I recalled that Alexander, my dreamer, was exactly my age. We had parted thirty years before, when he left the boarding school and went to Belgium with his parents, but we had never severed our contact. His marriage, which I must admit I at first regarded with misgiving, actually deepened our friendship, which had nothing to do with our being related to each other, a fact that neither of us considered important. I have often visited Brussels. I stayed there during my first journey to London, and since then I have always gone over to Brussels whenever I was staying in Paris. When I stayed with him and his wife they took me out into the country near Brussels to visit their Belgian friends, and also to Ostend. They introduced me to the art of Ensor and Delvaux, and the fine country houses near Brussels. But chiefly I remember spending whole nights with Alexander, sitting with him in his study while he set the world to rights, as they say. During these nocturnal sessions, Alexander the philosopher would paint his philosophical picture in my head, and for weeks afterward I would be obsessed by it. I went for walks with him in Brussels and visited his friends, who all lived in reduced circumstances, virtually destitute, and came from various countries, chiefly Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Romania — East Europeans who had fled from their national regimes into Alexander’s arms, as it were. His first contact with these political refugees was at an office next to the Gare Luxembourg at Ixelles, where he offered to protect them against arrest and imprisonment, to which they were liable as illegal immigrants. In other words, he set himself the task of helping these political refugees, and was well qualified to perform it. No sooner had they realized that he genuinely wished to help them, prompted solely by his excellent character, than he was snowed under, as they say. They pestered him day and night, but that was what he wanted, I thought, observing him from the window of my father’s room. Although he had just arrived from Brussels, he looked as if he had merely taken a walk behind the Farm or the Children’s Villa. He wore the simplest of clothes, with no trace of pretension or ostentation. The people he associated with often called him a fool, finding him too natural, unable to take their formalities seriously, though he did not hate them, as I did. They called him a fool only because they had bad consciences and did not understand his cast of mind, I thought. Alexander’s cast of mind is admittedly very hard to understand, above most people’s heads, and calls for ruthless intellectual probity. I was never equal to such ruthless intellectual probity, I thought, and was invariably worsted. My visits to Brussels, agreeable though they were, always resulted in spiritual discomfiture. Alexander would hold forth, but I would fail to understand him. For a minute or two I watched Alexander, who would of course be staying in the main house, I assumed, then I ran down to the entrance hall and out into the park to greet him. He had meanwhile entered the Orangery. I had not seen him for years. He never came to Austria, which he found intolerable, for the same political reasons as I did, and I did not go to Belgium because of the climate, though earlier, over two decades, I had regularly spent weeks, even months, in Brussels. During these enjoyable and rewarding visits I stayed on the fifth floor of a house in the Rue de la Croix, on which my cousin had a lease. Up on the fifth floor I wrote something about Pascal, who was then my favorite author, and about some poems by Maria, whom I had not yet met. I also wrote a short essay on Bohuslav Martinu, of whom I was very fond, but immediately threw it away. Alexander introduced me to Brussels society and took me for long walks in the glorious woods near Brussels. It was at that time that he suffered the first attacks of his later chronic disease, which he tried to combat not only with cortisone but with strenuous exercise. The exercise actually overtaxed his strength; twice a week he would go for a two-hour run on the beach at Ostend, and I often ran with him. But jogging on the beach in the salt sea air, though supposedly beneficial, did not have the therapeutic effect he had hoped for, encouraged by one of those Belgian doctors who are well known as the world’s worst. Belgian doctors are notorious as the most stupid in Europe, as I learned later. For twenty years my cousin was kept alive by cortisone and nothing else, he maintained. Before I went to Rome, my cousin Alexander was my philosophy teacher, along with Uncle Georg, though he was my age. Just as I was about to follow him into the Orangery he came out, having stayed inside no more than half a minute. He pressed my hand in his, and we walked up and down outside the Orangery, ignoring the others standing there, who probably knew him, though we paid no attention to them; they did not interest us. Alexander said he had left Brussels immediately and come alone as his wife was ill. He was glad to be able to walk up and down with me in front of the Orangery, as he intended to retire at once to the inn in the village that we had allocated to him, so that he could finish some work he had brought with him, a petition, he said, that I have to send to the Belgian government and the king about my refugees, whom the Belgian government treats like animals. The dreamer asked after my sisters and made a remark about the people standing next to us that amused me but was of course inaudible to them; had they heard it, they would have been deeply hurt, I thought. He did not mention our misfortune or the dead lying in state in the Orangery. Then he left, saying that he could find his own way and would be at the funeral the next day, but he would be returning to Brussels immediately, on the evening train. I did not have the chance to tell him that I had naturally wanted him to stay at the house, so that he could be near us. It was always his way to make an unceremonious exit, but on this occasion he set a new record. He hasn’t changed, I thought, he’s still my beloved dreamer. I now saw that the people who had been standing next to us were two families from Wiener Neustadt, relatives on my mother’s side. I naturally greeted them and even asked if they had had a pleasant journey, addressing them in a tone that seemed far too cordial and immediately displeased me, as they were so unlikable. They stood there as though expecting that I would now devote myself to them, as though they were the only people present whom I had to attend to. I’ll get away from these people as fast as possible, I thought, and apologized, again too profusely, for having to leave them, as there was something I had to attend to urgently. I quite simply abandoned the party from Wiener Neustadt and went over to the Farm, then to the Huntsmen’s Lodge, without knowing what I was looking for. I went into my father’s office, which houses all the documents relating to Wolfsegg, all the estate accounts. This office has always been a nightmare to me, like everything that remotely resembles an office. It had the typical office smell, which after a very short time inevitably makes me feel I shall suffocate if I do not leave immediately. But this time I actually sat down in the office— something I had never done before. I sat down at the desk, on which the previous day’s mail was lying, addressed to my father. Bills, business letters, brochures advertising agricultural machinery. I hate brochures. I hate business mail. I pushed the pile of mail far enough away to be able to place a sheet of paper on the desk. On it I wrote in capital letters ALEXANDER, MY DREAMER, exactly in the middle of the sheet, without knowing why I wrote the word ALEXANDER at all. For no reason, it seemed to me. I was in an extreme state of nerves, as they say. Sitting in the office chair, I suddenly became aware that I was sitting in my office, not my father’s. Suddenly overcome by fatigue, I gazed at the walls of the office and was sickened by them. By the hundreds of three-ring binder files on the shelves, marked only with the word Wolfsegg and, underneath it, the relevant year. I looked at them until I thought I would go mad. Father was a pedant, I thought. I was always repelled by his neat handwriting and the primitive way in which he expressed himself. He taught himself to write a fair hand, and he retained this hand, which is typical of an insufferably pedantic person, I thought. And all his life he tried to turn Johannes into an insufferably pedantic person. He never ceased working on his successor, trying to form him in his own image. He succeeded in forming Johannes in his own image, I told myself. But such formed images are repellent. My father’s fair hand was set down on paper by an atrophied brain, I thought. By the atrophied person my father became. Sometimes he wanted to break out of his atrophy, but he did not succeed: it was too far advanced. Father’s hand was of the type favored by schoolteachers, the neat, workmanlike hand used by small-town schoolteachers, bespeaking an anxious, suppressed character. Father was a suppressed character, I thought, relentlessly suppressed by Wolfsegg and by my mother. Nothing’s left of my father but his school-teacherly hand, I thought. These reflections were prompted by the discovery of an unfinished letter on his desk. It was addressed to a firm that produced artificial fertilizers at Lustenau in Vorarlberg, in response to an offer. But this is how a commercial assistant writes, I thought, not the master of Wolfsegg. I read my father’s unfinished letter several times; it did not get any less primitive. My father was no letter writer, but nobody should write like this, I thought. And the way he’s left the writing materials on the desk is depressing, I thought. This is how a schoolteacher or a commercial assistant leaves his writing materials, not a man of stature. Was my father a man of stature? I asked myself. My fatigue prompted a few more pointless questions about my father. What is stature after all? I asked myself. The sight of the three-ring binder files, going back to the early years of the century, profoundly depressed me. You escaped from this world, I thought, and now you’ve been pitched headlong into it again by a stroke of fate. The words stroke of fate, so emetic and dishonest, were all I needed. I got up and walked to the window. From the window one looked straight across at the wall of the Farm, to which was attached a picture of the Madonna and Child, painted in oils on galvanized metal. The Madonna’s neck is longer than I have seen it in any other painting, and the Christ Child is positively hydrocephalic. The picture had always amused me, and it amused me now. I could not help laughing out loud, not caring whether anyone heard me. Caecilia had appeared in the door. She had come to fetch me for an early supper — just for us, she said — separate from the buffet for the guests. I at once took her to task for putting up Alexander in the village, saying that he, of all people, should have stayed with us at the house. I asked her where she had booked him. If Spadolini stays with us, it’s obvious that Alexander should stay with us too, I told her as we left the Huntsmen’s Lodge. It was grotesque, I said, to have the wine cork manufacturer in the house, but not Alexander. She could not tell me where she had booked Alexander — she really did not know, she said. As we walked across to the house, I continued to reproach her about Alexander. I also said that the people she had put up at the house were the very people I found insufferable, and I listed the names of a few people I had already seen at the house, who would presumably be spending the night there. These revoltingspecimens, I said, from Mother’s sideof the family —you know how they get on my nerves, and yet you put up Alexander in the village! That’s just beastly. I was instantly sorry I had used the word beastly. I didn’t intend to hurt you, I said, but this whole funeral was getting on my nerves. I was close to losing control altogether. I may have laughed out loud over the picture of the Madonna, but it was nervous, hysterical laughter, I said, as if trying to excuse myself for using the word beastly. It had slipped out inadvertently and been quite out of place, as it was not only my nerves that were on edge but my sisters’ too, and when we reached the door, where a number of new arrivals were standing in the entrance hall, I told her that I was sorry I had hurt her, that I had not wanted to hurt her, but that in my present state of extreme tension I could no longer behave as people were bound to expect me to behave. We went into the hall and had to shake hands with the latest guests and utter the by now well-practiced phrases before escaping to the second floor for our early supper. It’s a pity, I said to my sisters, that Alexander isn’t having supper with us; he would certainly have made it much more entertaining. How can we possibly leave him to his own devices at one of the village inns? I asked. But my sisters had acted deliberately. They wished to have supper alone with me and wanted to sound me out. But they could elicit nothing from me. From below came the sound of the guests crowding into the kitchen, where the buffet awaited them, while the three of us ate more or less the same food upstairs. At my request Caecilia had locked the door to the second floor, so that the gargoyles can’t get in, I said. She had obediently gone to the door and locked it. I can’t stand these people, I said, and reverted to the subject of Alexander, though I was actually waiting for Spadolini, who was bound to arrive at any moment. After my last visit to Wolfsegg, I told my sisters, I never wanted to come back. I said never, though I meant not for a long time, but the word never made a greater impression, and so I repeated it several times. My home is in Rome, not here, I told them, and again I said that Alexander should have been put up at the house. Instead of sending all these revolting people from Wiener Neustadt and Wels and Munich down to the village, we’ve sent Alexander. This was a piece of unpardonable meanness— Alexander of all people, I said several times. I began to wonder whether I ought not to go down to the village and fetch him back, but my sisters did not know where he was staying. It’s monstrous that we’re having a decent meal here while exposing Alexander to the garbage they dish up in the village, I said. Especially as I was always treated so well in Brussels, where he entertained and accommodated me so generously. I accused my sisters of having deliberately put Alexander up in the village because they disapproved of my relationship with him and wanted to spite me. This was certainly an exaggeration, and my suspicion was probably unfounded. To send an admirable person like Alexander down to the village, I said, while putting up these utterly bogus, brainless people from Wiener Neustadt and Wels here, cheek by jowl with us, as it were — it just didn’t bear thinking about. As I repeatedly upbraided my sisters for their treatment of Alexander, none of us much enjoyed our intimate supper behind closed doors. My sisters remained silent and let me go on. They knew what they were doing: they watched me putting myself more and more in the wrong, then tried to exploit the situation by asking me several questions about the immediate future and finally inundated me with questions about what was going to happen to Wolfsegg. I did not answer a single one of their questions, because I honestly did not know any of the answers; I knew as little about the future of Wolfsegg as they did. Of course we all knew what was in the will, which was deposited not only in the safe at Wolfsegg but also with our attorney at Wels. There was never any secret about the will, and so there were no problems. On the death of my parents and my brother, Wolfsegg devolved wholly upon me, though of course I was under an obligation to accord my sisters their proper place at Wolfsegg, the share that was due them, or else pay them off, and right from the beginning I was more inclined to pay them off than to share the estate with them. They wanted to hear about my immediate plans for Wolfsegg, but I told them nothing. I left them completely in the dark. The decision is mine, not theirs, I thought. I have to admit that as soon as I heard of my parents’ death I decided on a payoff, not a share-out. I was still holding the telegram in my hand, I recalled, when I decided in favor of paying my sisters off. Hardly had I read the telegram than I went to the window of my Roman apartment, looked down at the Piazza Minerva, then across to the windows of Zacchi’s apartment and the dome of the Pantheon, and said to myself, Of course I’m for paying them off, not for sharing the estate with them. Paying my sisters off was the very first thought that entered my head on receiving the telegram. My sisters wanted to know what was to become of them, but I did not tell them. They did not ask in so many words, but their concern was obvious from their whole demeanor during supper. They did not say a word but let me do all the talking, as I have said. For a long time it did not strike me that my brother-in-law was absent, until I suddenly noticed that a place had been set for him. I asked where he was. Caecilia said he had gone down to the village, probably to one of the inns. In the week since the wedding he had made a habit of going down to the village instead of having supper with the family. That’s typical of people like him, I said: they don’t even honor a simple obligation like having supper with the family if it suits them to go and booze at an inn. Caecilia remained silent, and so did Amalia. It’s intolerable, I said, that this man should do just as he pleases. Why did they not stop him from going down to the village and mixing with the locals, especially on a day like this? They did not reply. He’ll get us a bad name in the village, I said. It’s just not right. It’s outrageous, I said, though I immediately added that I could understand it, as I could not stick it out with such sisters and such a family either — which in any case no longer exists. No longer exists, I repeated, whereupon my sisters looked daggers at me. My brother-in-law sits around in the inns and makes us look ridiculous, I said. I’ll give him a piece of my mind as soon as he gets back. Amalia said that her brother-in-law never got back until after midnight, when the inns closed. Caecilia said nothing. I drew my own conclusions. I could understand my brother-in-law, I said, but to behave like this today was intolerable. I asked whether he had gone down to the village in the evenings to tank up when our parents were still alive. Caecilia said he had. But she had saddled herself with the wine cork manufacturer, I said. This brought me to our aunt from Titisee. I asked whether she had arrived. I was told that she had arrived a long time ago and gone to bed. Naturally she was staying in Mother’s room. Yes, I said, in Mother’s room, naturally. But it’s grotesque, I thought, that our aunt from Titisee should spend the night in Mother’s room, of all places. I had not seen her. I haven’t seen her, I said. An impudent woman, I added. Whereupon my sisters rounded on me and accused me of not bothering about the guests, of loading them on them. It went without saying that I should have received them, all of them, without exception, Caecilia said, and Amalia seconded this. All of them had asked after me as soon as they arrived, even before going to the Orangery to pay their last respects to my parents and my brother. I had avoided all these people, I had lain low in the most craven fashion. They had looked all over for me and had other people look for me, but I had evaded these naturally tiresome proceedings, playing an artful game of hide-and-seek. That had always been my way. So should I have stood at the door all the time, shaking hands with them and repeating the same words over and over again? I asked. That was what they had demanded of me, I said — that I should stand at the door with them, wearing a fittingly solemn mien, and receive the guests as they arrived. I didn’t do you this favor, I told them, because I wasn’t up to it. Even before leaving Rome I decided not to stand at the door. Before I left Rome I knew what this funeral would be like. Dreadful, I said, with every possible attendant horror. But it’ll soon be over, I said, and all the horrors will be over. This is neither the time nor the place for hypocrisy. The whole thing has nothing to do with mourning — it’s all theater, I said. Our parents no longer exist. There’s nothing lying in the Orangery but three bodies consigned to decay, I said, which no longer have anything to do with the human beings they once were. What’s left is pure theater. And I have neither the desire nor the ambition to be gaped at as the principal actor. We naturally all spoke softly, so as not to be overheard, so that no one would understand what we were saying, supposing that someone was eavesdropping, which I thought quite possible. From time to time people knocked on the locked door but then stopped, although they certainly did not know what we were doing inside. Our private supper was after all only a device for being alone and undisturbed, my sisters must have thought, but that was not how it worked out, as the repeated knocking gave us hardly any peace. We were all highly agitated, as may be imagined. My sisters told me that about eighty people had already arrived and would be staying the night. I remarked that most of them would be attending the funeral just so that they could have a break in this beautiful part of the world and for no other reason. It’s the right time of year, I said, and they’ll all get it more or less for free. After all, we’re paying their bills — they’ll all be paid out of the Wolfsegg coffers. I’d gladly pay for all these people to have a break somewhere else, so that I wouldn’t have to see them. But now I have them in the house. I did not say, Now we have them in the house — I said, Now I have them in the house, speaking as the sole proprietor. We mustn’t deceive ourselves, I said— funerals are never anything but theater. No sooner had I said this than I realized that I had gone too far and wished I had held back. I wished I had not said a word, but I had said so many words, so many senseless words, all of which showed me in an impossible light. Hearing me talk, people must think I’m the worst character in the world, I thought, but there are undoubtedly much worse characters. To divert attention from my outbursts of fury, especially against the funeral guests who had been accommodated at the house, I told my sisters that Rome meant everything to me, that I could no longer live anywhere else. Suddenly they woke up and did not understand me. Really, I said, I have only to think of Rome and I can’t wait to be back there — and I’ve been here only a few hours. I find it quite bizarre that this morning I was still in Rome, I said. Then I asked whether Spadolini had called. Yes, I was told, he had called from Rome to say that he would naturally be coming, this evening; he did not know how he would be traveling, but he would be arriving today. So we all waited for the archbishop, Mother’s lover, the illustrious Spadolini. Gambetti always reproaches me with being unable to control myself, I told my sisters, but I’ve always been uncontrolled and unpredictable, and I’ve always relied on people’s making allowances for my lack of control. My lack of control, and the lack of consideration that goes with it. But of course that’s expecting too much. In Rome I’m quite different, I said. There I don’t get so excited, so out of control, and I’m not so unpredictable. Rome calms me down — Wolfsegg works me up. Rome has a soothing effect on the nerves, even though it’s the most exciting city in the world, but at Wolfsegg I’m always agitated, even though it’s so peaceful here. I’m a victim of this paradox, I said. In Rome I express myself quite differently, I talk to everyone quite differently. Gambetti once told me, I said, that whenever I returned from Wolfsegg I talked in a very agitated manner, but only when I’d been to Wolfsegg. On that occasion I had told Gambetti that my family was to blame. He said that my thinking got out of phase with its normal rhythm, what might be called its Roman rhythm. Gambetti had often said that he hardly knew me when I had been to Wolfsegg and could never have made friends with the kind of person I was at such times, since I had an entirely different persona, quite the opposite of what might be called my Roman persona. He could not stand my Wolfsegg persona; he liked only my Roman persona. He said that when I returned from Wolfsegg it took me several days to revert to my Roman persona and become once more the kind of person who was useful to him as a teacher, the kind of person to whom he could be a friend, a pupil, and a conversational partner. He could be none of these when I was in my Wolfsegg mood. Gambetti maintains that Wolfsegg’s bad for me, I told my sisters, that two or three days at Wolfsegg are enough to throw me off balance for several weeks. I’ve never understood what it is that throws me off balance at Wolfsegg. I don’t know whether it’s the landscape, the people, or the air, though the air here is the best I know — the air at Wolfsegg is superb. Is it more to do with the buildings or more to do with the people? I don’t know. It’s Wolfsegg as a whole, I said. It was ridiculous to entertain such thoughts, and not only to entertain them but to express them, given that I had become heir to Wolfsegg overnight and had taken it over, as my sisters were bound to believe. It was not that I was going to take it over — I had already done so, I thought. They were forced to take the question of the succession seriously. They could not imagine that I would not comply — in every detail and with all the consequences that compliance entailed. Despite the fact that they had not heard most of what I had been thinking and therefore did not know the drift of my thoughts, I suddenly said to them, I’m not a farmer, the sort of man who gets on a tractor, as Father did. I’m not a tractor man, and I’ve no wish to haggle with warehouse managers over a bag of artificial fertilizer because it’s only half full and I’ve paid for a full bag. I’mnot Johannes, I said. My parents overlooked the fact that I’m not Johannes. I had intended to elaborate on this last remark, but there was such a persistent knocking at the door that Caecilia went to unlock it. The wine cork manufacturer wanted to be let in. Without saying a word, he went and sat at the table where a place was set for him. You were wrong, I thought, he hasn’t been down to the village to drink. My brother-in-law was in fact sober. His wife put a piece of meat on his plate and poured him a glass of wine. He had been in the Gardeners’ House all the time, he said by way of excuse. Out of sheer exhaustion he had retired to the Gardeners’ House and fallen asleep there. He had been up at three that morning, or so he said, because my sisters wanted him to go to the village and see various craftsmen and shopkeepers in connection with the funeral. And he had suddenly had a headache. It had been pleasantly cool in the Gardeners’ House. Was everything coming along all right? he asked. He immediately started to eat, as if he was famished, though I recalled that he had eaten only two or two and a half hours earlier, when he was in the kitchen with me. Unable to stand the sight of my brother-in-law eating, I got up and went out. If I get away from my brother-in-law and my sisters, I thought, I’ll avoid giving offense, and so I went down to the entrance hall, paying no attention to the people standing around, who at once turned and looked at me. I put on a suffering look, as they say, and went into the chapel, where I sat down in one of the middle pews. The chapel was agreeably cool. It’s quite obvious why it’s used for storing food, I thought. Without thinking, I knelt down, but when I realized what I had done I got up and sat in the pew. Suddenly I sensed the presence of our aunt from Titisee. I turned around. I was not mistaken. She had her constant companion with her, a niece of twelve or thirteen. The old lady was veiled and garbed almost wholly in black, in honor of her dead brother. Sensing that she was observing me malevolently, I got up and left the chapel, but not without kissing her hand, which she stretched out from her black attire. I went through the hall, out into the park, and across to the Orangery, where two of the huntsmen stood guard. The smell of decomposition seemed to have become more pungent. I lifted the black sheets to check the blocks of ice under the coffins. They had obviously been renewed. I allowed myself only a quick glance at the faces of the dead, as I could not bear to look at them for longer. The two huntsmen had assumed a soldierly bearing, as they say, when I entered the Orangery. I found this repugnant. When I came out it seemed even more ludicrous, but there was nothing I could do to alter this whole distasteful ceremonial, which had been meticulously worked out by my sisters, more especially Caecilia, in accordance with the rules. They would not have dreamed of deviating from the funeral plan in the slightest detail. On the other hand, I thought, the ceremonial is in keeping with Wolfsegg, and it would be foolish to destroy it. Everything here is done properly, I thought, even if one finds it displeasing. But the huntsmen on either side of the catafalque were undoubtedly comic figures, like tin soldiers outfitted by a stagestruck costumer. As I stood by the coffins the gardeners were changing the water in the flower buckets. Again I saw clearly how the huntsmen differed from the gardeners: the huntsmen were ridiculous and artificial, the gardeners natural. I was prompted to wonder what it was that made the huntsmen so different from the gardeners, what they stood for, and it gave me great pleasure to pursue this speculation, quite untroubled by the fact that I was in the presence of the dead. There’s no outward clue to what I’m thinking, nothing to indicate that I’m thinking about the difference between the huntsmen and the gardeners, I thought, let alone that I’m thinking about the mentalities of the huntsmen and the gardeners and the relation between the two mentalities. People will suppose that I’m thinking about the funeral, I thought, but as I stood in front of the coffins, right next to the bodies, I was not thinking about the funeral at all. The gardeners are sensitive people, I thought, whereas the huntsmen represent a brutalized world. The fact that we employ both at Wolfsegg is what gives the place its charm. Wolfsegg has great charm for anyone intent upon seeing only the charm. Visitors to Wolfsegg always speak of its special charm. And it’s possible to see Wolfsegg that way, as the most charming country estate imaginable. But I can no longer see it that way. I never could, I thought. I can no longer stand it; I’ve ruined it for myself, I thought as I went out. The park was deserted. The rest of the family’s still having supper, I thought, looking up at the windows over the balcony. There are three of them too, I told myself — my brother-in-law, Caecilia, and Amalia. Maybe they’ve locked themselves in. How can I escape this inner turmoil? I asked myself. My conduct is bound to offend everyone: not just my sisters, not just my brother-in-law, but everyone. Yet I’m not at all the offensive person they’ve always called me, ever since I was a child, I thought. Then I immediately told myself that I was just such an offensive person. I had told Gambetti that I would have to discuss everything very carefully with my sisters and bring my brother-in-law in on our discussions. I’ll approach everything cautiously, I had told him. I had repeatedly told Zacchi and Maria the same — that I must proceed with caution at Wolfsegg. But I’m not proceeding with the least caution, I thought. I’ve shown no consideration for anything or anyone. No wonder they feel I am inconsiderate, even mean, since my behavior has been totally inconsiderate. But it’s been quite simply impossible to behave otherwise, I told myself, it’s been impossible for me to act differently toward them. I can’t cope with this whole situation, and I’m not responsible for it, I didn’t will it. At that moment Spadolini arrived. I took him straight up to see my sisters, and Caecilia showed him to my father’s room, where he said he would like to freshen up. Meanwhile I sat in the upper left library. It had been locked, but I had obtained the keys of all our libraries from Caecilia. I’ll open all five libraries tomorrow morning, I thought, before the funeral proceedings begin. I had seated myself in a chair by the window with a copy of Siebenkäs, but of course I was too agitated to be able to read. And I could not take my mind off Spadolini. The tremendous impression he had once more made on me was more potent than Siebenkäs, and so I put the book down. I had known that Siebenkäs was in this library, together with other books from Jean Paul’s period. At some stage one of our ancestors, no one knew which, had arranged the books in our libraries. They must have been cultured people, I thought, unlike the present lot. But what do we mean by cultured? I asked myself. If we say that someone is cultured and someone else isn’t, we’re talking nonsense, I thought — we say it unthinkingly. Spadolini was carrying only a small black traveling bag, I thought as I sat by the window. I could hear him showering, as the library was next to my father’s room. I imagined him enjoying himself under the shower. I’ve never known Spadolini not to enjoy himself, I thought. I stretched out my legs, turned off the light, and thought about my meeting with Maria, whom I had given a manuscript to look through. Like all my manuscripts, it’s sloppily written, I thought. When I’m back in Rome she’ll go through it with me and take it to pieces, and then I’ll throw it away, like everything else of mine that I’ve given her to read. I’ve thrown away more manuscripts than I’ve kept, I thought, and those that I’ve kept I can’t bear to look at; they depress me because they present my thoughts in a ludicrous form that’s not worth talking about. My manuscripts are worthless, I told myself, but I haven’t given up trying to write things down, to do violence to the intellect, as it were. Maria is ruthlessly honest and treats my manuscripts as they deserve, I thought. Having thrown away a manuscript that she’s examined, I’m invaded by a sense of relief, I thought. I embrace her and we both watch the manuscript go up in flames in her stove. With Maria that’s always a high point and induces a state of elation, I thought. Only Maria is in a position to demonstrate to me that my manuscripts are worthless and deserve to be consigned to the flames. She once accused me of doing violence to philosophy, of sinning against the spirit. She meant it as a joke, but I took it seriously. I haven’t given up, I told myself. I already have something new in mind. Maybe I’ll call it Extinction, I thought. As I write it I’ll try to extinguish everything that comes into my head. Everything I write about in this work will be extinguished, I told myself. I was pleased with the title. It exercised a great fascination over me. I could not remember where I had dreamed it up. I think it was Maria who suggested it to me: she had once called me an expert in extinction. I was her extinction expert, she said: whatever I set down on paper was automatically extinguished. When I get back to Rome I’ll set about writing this new work, but it’ll take me a year, I thought, and I don’t know whether I’ll have the strength to commit myself to it for a whole year, to concentrate on Extinction to the exclusion of everything else. I’ll write my Extinction and discuss everything relating to it with Gambetti, Spadolini, and Zacchi, and of course with Maria, I thought. I’ll discuss everything relevant to Extinction with them, but they won’t know what I have in mind. I felt an immense longing to be back in Rome. What I’d like most would be to go straight back to Rome with Spadolini, I thought. It pained me to have to deny myself this pleasure. Spadolini’s going back to Rome tomorrow and you’re staying on at Wolfsegg — that’s your life sentence, I thought. Having dinner with Maria, I thought, talking to her about her latest poems — that’s what I should be doing now. Listening to her. Confiding in her. Pouring wine for her. I picked up Siebenkäs again, opened it, and switched on the light. I wondered whether I had not been wrong, quite wrong, to give Gambetti this book. I had been right to give him The Trial, but not Siebenkäs. And instead of Esch or Anarchy I should have given him Schopenhauer Revisited. Now he’ll have started on Siebenkäs; he’ll be well into it, trying to master it. I pictured him in his study, where he could get away from his parents and devote himself to what interested him, namely German literature, and be entirely undisturbed — and all the time thinking about dismantling the world and blowing it sky-high. Perhaps I’ll suddenly hear an almighty bang, I thought, indicating that Gambetti really has blown the world sky-high, that he’s put his ideas into effect. So far he’s only dreamed of dismantling the world and blowing it sky-high. But one day, I told myself, people like Gambetti, given the chance, put their fantasies into effect. Gambetti’s not just a born fantasizer, he’s also a born realizer of his fantasies. I’m still waiting for the big bang, I thought, stretching my legs out and listening to Spadolini showering. The floor of the library was covered with thousands of dead flies that had accumulated over the years and never been swept up, because nobody had entered the library. Now that I have the keys I’ll open them all, I thought, but not today — I’m too tired. I’ll do it in the morning, before sunrise. I’ll open all five libraries forever, I thought, whereupon I got up, walked to the window, and looked across at the Orangery. Maria would find this a tremendous sight, I thought, the inspiration for more than one poem. The gardeners were still carrying fresh wreaths and bouquets from the Farm to the Orangery. They won’t finish work this evening, I thought; they’ll have to go on throughout the night. The scene was utterly theatrical. Assuming that Spadolini would need at least another half hour for his toilet, I left the library and went down into the hall. It was half past eight, and there was no longer anyone around. I entered the chapel. Our aunt from Titisee had long since retired to her room. I sat down in the very place where she had sat with her young and — I must say — beautiful companion. The crone and the maiden, I thought, the protectress and the protected, and vice versa. I knelt down, again without thinking, then got up and sat in the pew. I reflected that the princes of the Church were all involved in an evil game, treating the Church as a monstrous universal drama in which they played the main parts. All these princes of the Church thrust themselves into the foreground and put on a grand performance. No matter what they say, they know that it is the biggest, the most mendacious show ever staged. Spadolini is always center stage, close to the main actor, the Pope. But not so close as to be in danger of dying or being toppled with him. He’s outlived three popes, I thought, and he’ll outlive the present one too, who’s known to be terminally ill, and he’ll go on playing his part with his usual panache. Spadolini is completely absorbed in the ecclesiastical drama. I had at first thought I would have time to go across to the Farm and visit the cowsheds, which I did at this time of day, if at all, when the animals had settled for the night, but then it occurred to me that I must not offend Spadolini by leaving him alone. I had also intended to go down to the village and look for Alexander, but I soon gave up that idea too, as I did not want to expose myself to the gaze of the villagers — not today, not this evening. Once, in Brussels, I had introduced Spadolini and Alexander to each other, intending to get the prince of the Church and the dreamer to converse with each other until they reached agreement. But my experiment failed: I had made a bet with myself, as it were, and I lost. At one moment Spadolini got the better of Alexander, and then Alexander got the better of Spadolini; it was a delight to hear them score points off each other, but the contest ended in a draw. Spadolini often said he would like to meet Alexander again, and Alexander would have liked to see Spadolini again. How unfortunate, I thought, that Spadolini, the prince of the Church, is staying with us at the house, while Alexander, the dreamer, has been exiled to the village. I briefly considered taking Spadolini, when he was ready, down to the village to look for Alexander, but I dropped the idea, as I could not expect Spadolini to go looking for Alexander when he had only just arrived and not had a bite to eat. Spadolini would in any case have rejected the idea out of deference to my sisters, who were now sitting in the drawing room waiting for him, His Excellency from Rome. For a moment it seemed perverse to be sitting in the chapel of all places, where I had once sat with Maria after returning from a walk in the woods. I had met her at Wolfsegg on her way from Paris to Rome, having invited her to stay here during my parents’ absence. When they returned, Maria and I were back in Rome, and my sisters told them a pack of stupid lies. Maria was naturally thrilled by Wolfsegg. The best air I’ve ever breathed, she said. I went for two long walks with her across the Hausruck, one of them as far as Haag, from where we returned by train. Johannes picked us up at Lambach. Maria thought Johannes simple but a nice person. We spent the evenings in the village, at the Brandl, where the atmosphere was always relaxing, and once we went to Ottnang, to the Gesswagner. Maria became quite talkative and immediately got into conversation with the landlord and his wife, and with all the other guests. This was unusual for her, as she normally found it difficult to relate to simple people, more so than I did, for I have never found it difficult to make contact, at least not with simple people— proletarians are another matter. It transpired that Maria’s childhood had been similar to that of the landlord’s wife, whom I have always found a goodhearted woman. While she was staying with me Maria said, I like Wolfsegg, but I don’t like your people. I can still hear her saying this. She could not be persuaded to pay a second visit. It’s not my scene, she said. She wrote nothing while she was at Wolfsegg, or for weeks afterward. Wolfsegg’s not a place for poetry, she said. Not a place for her poetry, I reflected as I got up and left the chapel. Spadolini was with my sisters. The cook had been sent to the kitchen to get him some hot soup and roast meat. My brother-in-law sat opposite him, overawed and open-mouthed, never having been in the presence of a genuine archbishop before, a real excellency, and during the whole time after I joined them he remained silent. I sat next to Caecilia and drank a glass of wine, then a second, as I listened to Spadolini, who was a past master at initiating and conducting a conversation. He said he felt as though our parents would join us at any moment. It’s as though your mother were about to enter the room. It was true that nothing had changed since my parents’ death, at least not visibly, though in fact everything within us had changed. And within Spadolini too, of course. He said he had held my father in high esteem. He was a noble character. This was a word that Spadolini, being Italian, could permit himself to use, and he looked around, savoring its effect. He had had a lifelong friendship with my father, a noble friendship, he said. From anyone else’s lips such an expression would have been insupportable, but from Spadolini’s it sounded superb. He had first met my father at a dinner in Vienna, at the Irish ambassador’s residence in the Gentzgasse, just after the war, at a time of extreme hardship, he said. Father had at once struck him as the most unusual of all the guests, a fine character, a man of perfect breeding. He was the person he had most enjoyed talking to, and Father had invited him to Wolfsegg there and then. At the time I was counselor to the nuncio, said Spadolini. Wolfsegg had fascinated him. He had never seen anything like it in his life — buildings of such Austrian elegance and grandeur, at once grandiose and natural, such friendly people and such excellent food. Mother had always treated him as a son, he said. Father and Johannes had visited him in Rome on their way to Palermo, and he had shown them around the city, but all the time he could not help thinking of Wolfsegg and its magnificence. His Italianate pronunciation and turn of phrase amused me and my sisters, not because they seemed ridiculous but because they were so charming. Spadolini has a highly musical manner of speaking, it seems to me. He described Father as a prudent man who was a blessing to his family, who never put on a show, who always acted for the good of his family and was popular wherever he went. Horses were his favorite animals, said Spadolini. Your father was happiest with the animals, in the company of his animals. And hunting, said Spadolini. He had often hunted with Father, though Mother was always scared. Huntsmen are unpredictable, he said. Father was a real prince, a true aristocrat. And a man of great intelligence. Highly educated. The father Spadolini saw was different from the one I saw, from the one my sisters saw. Everyone who describes a person sees him differently, I reflected. So many people describing the same person, each looking at him from a different viewpoint, a different angle of vision, produce as many differing views, I told myself. Spadolini’s view of Father is different from ours. It was certainly an unusual view, I thought, an extraordinary view that undoubtedly made Father seem more admirable than Spadolini really believed him to be, even as he was speaking. Father was wiser than others, he said. He had so many interests, more than almost any other man of his class. Father was the most reassuring person, he said, only to add a moment later that he was the most restless. He was a model of decency. A great gentleman. A philosopher. A modest man. A generous man. A reasonable man, a good man, both controlled and popular. Spadolini spared no encomiastic epithets in describing my father. He had once met him in Cairo, and they had crawled into the Pyramid of Cheops, he said, up and up across the wooden planks until they were exhausted. In Alexandria they had sent us a postcard that never arrived. In Rome he had always taken my father to the Via Veneto because my father loved it. Your father loved Rome, he told us. Your father was such a marvelous man to drink wine with, he said. Your father was a philosophical person, he said, and highly educated politically. Basically I thought that everything Spadolini said about Father as he sat eating his supper in our presence was wrong. Everything he says about Father is quite wrong, I thought. I would have said the exact opposite — that he was neither reasonable nor controlled nor philosophical, nor any of the other things he had just been called. Spadolini had described a father who had never existed, I thought, but whom he now felt he had to invent. Yet although everything Spadolini has said about Father is wrong, I thought, it has an air of authenticity. We often hear the most arrant nonsense spoken about someone, downright lies and falsehoods, but accept it as the unadulterated truth because it is uttered by someone whose words carry conviction. But with me Spadolini’s words carried no conviction. It was quite obvious that his picture of Father was the one he wished to see, not the real picture. Father was not at all like the person that Spadolini had just sketched, I thought. Spadolini’s sketch was an idealization, but not tasteless, I thought, as it was presented with such charm — and with an undertone of grief, which was not inappropriate, as Father had been dead for only two days — as to conceal the underlying tastelessness of the falsification. Spadolini must have been conscious of this, for he was too intelligent not to realize how false his picture of Father really was. Father was certainly decent and reassuring, as Spadolini said, and he was probably also a gentleman, but he was none of the other things Spadolini had credited him with being. Yet it was obvious from my sisters’ faces that they hung on Spadolini’s words as though they represented the pure unvarnished truth. For a long time Spadolini avoided speaking about Mother and dwelled at length on Father. I was obliged to conclude that although Father was not really interesting enough for Spadolini to speak of him at such length, he was a convenient means to divert Spadolini’s mind from Mother, who had been his mistress. Yet Spadolini must have known that as he was speaking of Father we were all waiting to hear what he would say about Mother. He and Father had once gone on a climbing expedition to the Ortler, he said, and Father had saved his life by throwing him a rope down the rock face at the last moment, at the very last moment. It did not seem to trouble him in the least that he was the only one eating while we looked on. Our only concern was that he should enjoy his supper. The kitchen had made a special effort for Spadolini. His supper had not been hastily rustled up but was carefully prepared, as I saw at once. At Sitten in Switzerland, in the Rhône Valley, he said, he and Father had once visited a little church, a Romanesque church, where they had seen a picture of Christ with a strangely distorted face, unnaturally distorted. Father had told Spadolini that this picture impressed him more than any he had ever seen. Father was a great connoisseur of art and a friend of artists. Spadolini seemed to relish the word artists and repeated it more than once, for his own delectation. He was a lover of nature, said Spadolini. And a lover of justice, he added, and he knew where he stood with his religious faith. Your father was a good Catholic, he said, with a glance at my sisters. With this he concluded his characterization of Father and, simultaneously, his supper. Nobody uses a napkin so elegantly to wipe his mouth, I thought. Caecilia poured him some wine. Leaning back, he said he had to be in Rome the following evening, as the Pope had summoned him to his presence, but with this Pope one never knew whether the person he had summoned would be received at the appointed time. The most dreadful conditions prevailed in Rome, he said. The political climate had become much worse, with both the Communists and the Fascists planning to seize power in the near future. But neither the Communists nor the Fascists will succeed, he said. When he went out he never knew whether he would get home alive. The Fascists simply picked people off, whether or not they had anything to do with their cause, just to draw attention to themselves. It was a time of unrest, a dreadful time. On the other hand, it was the most interesting time that Italy had seen. I’m so attached to Rome, he said, that I can’t imagine myself leaving it, though it’s not for me to decide whether or not I stay. I’mat the mercy of the higher powers. I wondered what was the basis of my admiration for Spadolini. He himself supplies the answer, by his very presence, I thought. It’s the way he says things, the way he presents himself as he says them, that compels my admiration, I thought, not what he says. He says everything differently from everyone else, I thought. Then suddenly, without any apparent embarrassment, he began to talk about Mother. He said it was impossible to describe her, and then proceeded to do so. She was always elegant, and it was she who first took him to the Vienna Opera, to see Der Rosenkavalier. It was through her that he had met the most famous women singers who performed at the Vienna Opera, and he still had the most cordial contacts with them. It was she who had acquainted him with Austrian music by taking him to Philharmonic concerts when she was in Vienna. Together with Father they had attended concerts at the Musikverein and elsewhere. In particular he owed it to Mother that he had heard so much Mahler in Vienna. She had drawn his attention to Mahler, whom she was very fond of at the time, and taken him to every possible Mahler concert. She was highly musical, and he had always thought it a pity that she did not play an instrument, as she would probably have been a great pianist. His chief regret at being moved from Vienna and suddenly posted overseas was that it cut him off from music. Mother had gone with him on a boat trip up the Danube to Dürnstein in the Wachau. She had taken him around Salzburg and shown him the Salzkammergut; then shortly after their first meeting she had invited him to Paris, which he had never visited before. At that time, as a mere counselor, he did not have the opportunity for travel that he later enjoyed as nuncio, and so he was fairly restricted, as he put it. Mother also invited him to Florence, where she was spending several weeks with my father in the fall. It was through her that he first got to know the city properly. He had often been to Florence, but it was Mother who taught him to love the city of the Uffizi. And he owed it to her that he knew Upper Austria so well, those beautiful lakes and mountains, he said, and all those magnificent castles, such as one finds nowhere else. And the glorious landscape of Upper Austria, he said, the most beautiful in Austria. He had always had a deep respect for Mother and could not help loving such an extraordinary person. They had had an incomparable friendship, spanning thirty years. Mother had restored his health, he said. Again and again she had supplied him with the best medicines and visited him in his darkest hours, when he lay at death’s door, in a more or less hopeless condition, having been given up by the doctors. Your mother was the best doctor I ever had. She brought these Upper Austrian herbs to me in Rome, and they cured me. Perhaps I owe my life to these Upper Austrian herbs that your mother brought me. She had spared no effort in visiting him, he said, and traveled to Rome under the most difficult circumstances in order to save him. She saved my life with her herbal remedies, Spadolini exclaimed. My mother’s medicinal herbs from Upper Austria had preserved him for humanity —these were his very words, uttered with a degree of pathos but with a charm that made them not in the least embarrassing. If necessary, he said, I’ll recommend these medicinal herbs from Upper Austria to the Pope. He paused for some minutes, and none of us dared break the silence. My brother-in-law, sitting opposite Spadolini, was utterly speechless, and my sisters respectfully observed this perfectly timed silence. Spadolini went on to say that only the previous week he had arranged to go with Mother to Calabria, but it was not to be. To the Trullis, he said. It had long been her dream to see Calabria, a dream that she had hoped to realize in early summer. But suddenly everything has changed, he said. He then talked of the Etna excursion that he once had made from Taormina with Mother and me. I think it was some five or six years ago that Mother visited me in Rome. For days I walked around Rome with her, trying to find some shoes that she had set her heart on. They had to be blue and made of a particular kind of pigskin, as thin and as soft as glove leather, and after searching for days we finally found the right ones. She bought three pairs. She dragged me to several dinners with acquaintances of hers, not relatives, just to establish an alibi for my father’s benefit, to cover up her continual meetings with Spadolini, which no one really begrudged her and everyone knew about, but which she constantly tried to conceal. She took me with her to these dreadful dinners, but she did not return home with me, because she wanted to spend the night with Spadolini — and she did. I did not begrudge my mother these nocturnal meetings with Spadolini. I felt sorry for her because she was dependent on them, as I was bound to conclude. I know that after these dinners Spadolini would be waiting for her somewhere in Trastevere, where they would repair to an apartment belonging to friends of his and stay together till morning. I was sorry not only for Mother but for Spadolini too. On the other hand, I despised them both. But on the excursion to Etna, at the end of January, they took me with them. In Taormina we naturally stayed at the Timeo. We hired a taxi and drove up to the snowline. From there we went by cable car to the Etna plateau. The main crater was shrouded in fog. There was nothing to be seen. All three of us were the happiest people imaginable. Spadolini now described our Etna excursion. We took the cable car to the top and went into the restaurant, he said. But it was so cold that we wanted to stay there only long enough for a cup of tea. Then your mother and I, he said, addressing me, decided to walk down the mountain on foot, but you refused because you said you were afraid. Do you remember? Yes, I said, I was afraid. You were afraid, said Spadolini, but we weren’t. I took your mother’s hand and we walked down the mountain. You went back by cable car. We saw you in the cable car from below, and you saw us from above, he said. Suddenly there was a snowstorm, so dense that we couldn’t see you anymore. We couldn’t see you, and you couldn’t see us. The cable car was no longer visible to us, and we were no longer visible to you as you stood in the cable car. You said later that it had swayed so much that you were afraid it would be wrenched from its moorings. You said you had looked for us in the snow under the cable car but lost sight of us. The cable car swayed so much that you thought your last hour had come, said Spadolini. We couldn’t see anything either in the snowstorm and crouched in a crevice in the ice. In minutes the snow had drifted so high that we were almost buried. As in the Alps, said Spadolini, as in the Alps. We thought we were going to perish, as people perish in the Alps. We could no longer see a thing, said Spadolini. If we don’t want to freeze to death we must keep going, I thought. I got hold of your mother and went on. But I was soon exhausted, and she got hold of me, and so on, said Spadolini. You had long since arrived at the station in the valley, and the snowstorm hadn’t stopped. You notified the police. But they didn’t go up the mountain because the storm was too fierce. We were in a lava crevice, said Spadolini, and thought we were going to fall down the mountainside. We didn’t move. But your mother kept saying, We must go on. She got hold of me and pushed me forward, farther and farther forward, said Spadolini. Finally we crouched in a lava crevice, convinced that we were going to die. I prayed, said Spadolini, silently, without your mother’s knowing. Quite silently. Then the snowstorm abated, and we were saved. You had warned us, Spadolini said. We shouldn’t have gone down the mountain on foot. Lots of people have perished that way. Etna is a deadly mountain, he said with some pathos. But your mother and I were lucky, he said. I’ll never forget our Etna excursion. Then we went back to Taormina. Exhausted and half frozen, we went to our beds. That evening we turned up in the dining room in full rig, as if nothing had happened. I should have listened to you, but my love for your mother made me quite crazy. Just imagine what would have happened if your mother hadn’t repeatedly gotten hold of me and pushed me, he said, literally pushed me down the mountain! When necessary, your mother was what they call a fearless woman. Energetic, said Spadolini, full of verve. And that evening she looked so elegant, wearing a Persian dress, a cream-colored dress, he said — you’re bound to remember it. My God, he said, how good your mother looked in that dress! Perhaps you don’t remember your mother as I do, he said. I have the most wonderful memories of her. I felt terrible when I heard the news, said Spadolini. It was the most terrible news I’d had for a long time. How often your mother saved me from death — that’s the truth — by inviting me to Wolfsegg. Here I had the peace I needed in order to survive, he said. This house and this landscape are dearer to me than any others. The high culture that is to be found everywhere here shields one from despair. When I was nuncio in Peru I constantly thought of Wolfsegg, of you and your mother. Thinking of you here enabled me to survive there. But Peru is a magnificent country, said Spadolini, magnificent, magnificent. The news was the saddest I could possibly have received, he said. He got up and said that he would now go across to the Orangery and see the dead. Before we all left the room, he came up to me and said that the death of my mother was the greatest loss he could have suffered. Don’t lose control, he said. You’re now the master of Wolfsegg. The time had come for Spadolini to visit the Orangery. The other guests had long since retired to their rooms. Noises could still be heard from the kitchen, but silence reigned everywhere else. Caecilia led the way, almost running and opening all the doors. She arrived first at the Orangery. For the last ten or twelve yards she slowed down to a walking pace. She did not go straight in but waited for Spadolini, who was following her. He had lost none of his composure. He was wearing the most elegant shoes I have ever seen. I had noticed them earlier as I walked behind him up to the second floor. It was always a delight to see him buying his shoes, only in the Via Condotti, of course, never on the Corso, where I bought mine. I looked admiringly at them in the fresh grass. They showed up particularly well in the light of the catafalque lamps, which lit up part of the park, while the rest was in darkness. Spadolini wanted me, or Amalia at least, to enter the Orangery first, but we ceded precedence to him. He took Caecilia’s arm and went in. He halted in front of