Thomas Bernhard: Woodcutters

Burg , as it is affectionately called, to turn it into a thoroughly brainless institution dedicated to ranting and the murder of the classics. The Burgtheater has been artistically bankrupt for so long, I thought, sitting in the wing chair, that it is impossible to say precisely when it went into liquidation, and the actors who make their nightly appearances there are the bankrupts. Nevertheless, to invite one of these barnstormers to supper, to a so-called artistic dinner , I thought, sitting in the wing chair and observing the Auersbergers and their guests, is still regarded by people like the Auersbergers who own apartments in the Gentzgasse as something out of this world. It’s a peculiarly Austrian perversion, I thought, sitting in the wing chair, and I realized just what a special occasion this must be for the Auersbergers, when supper was delayed for over an hour after it was due to be served, in other words until half past twelve, when the doorbell would finally ring and the actor would make his appearance at the Auersbergers’ apartment in the Gentzgasse, signaling his entrance with the ostentatious clearing of the throat that Burgtheater actors affect. Secretly I have always detested actors, and those who perform at the Burgtheater have always earned my special detestation — except of course for the very greatest, like Wessely and Gold, for whom I have always had the profoundest affection — and the one whom the Auersbergers had invited to the Gentzgasse that evening was unquestionably one of the most objectionable specimens I have met. Born in the Tyrol and having, in the course of three decades, acted his way into the hearts of the Viennese by his performances in Grillparzer (as I once saw it expressed), he is for me the personification of the anti-artist, I thought, sitting in the wing chair; he’s the archetypal mindless ham, who’s always been popular at the Burgtheater and in Austria generally, utterly devoid of imagination and hence of wit, one of those unspeakable emotionalists who tread the boards of the Burgtheater every evening in droves, wringing their hands in their unnatural provincial fashion, falling upon whatever work is being performed, and clubbing it to death with the sheer brute force of their histrionics. For decades, I thought as I sat in the wing chair, these people have annihilated everything with their mimic muscle-power. It’s not only the gentle Raimund and the sensitive Kleist who get beaten to a pulp at the Burgtheater, which fancies it’s taken a perpetual lease on the theatrical art: even the great Shakespeare falls victim to the butchers of the Burgtheater. But in this country, I thought, sitting in the wing chair, the Burgtheater actor is regarded as a superior being, and to have so much as a nodding acquaintance with an actor from the Burgtheater, to say nothing of having one to supper in one’s apartment, is regarded by the Austrians, and above all by the Viennese, as an unparalleled honor. Yet to me, I thought as I sat in the wing chair, this has always made the Austrians, and above all the Viennese, appear ridiculous, whether they lay claim to a slight personal acquaintance with an actor from the Burgtheater or tell you that they have even had one to supper. These actors are petit bourgeois nonentities who know nothing whatever about the art of the theater and have long since turned the Burgtheater into a hospice for their terminal dilettantism. It was not for nothing, I thought, that back in the fifties I chose this particular wing chair, which still stands in the same place, though the Auersbergers have since had it re-covered. Sitting here, I can see and hear everything — nothing escapes me. I was wearing my so-called funeral suit , which I bought twenty-three years ago in Graz, on my way to Trieste, and which is now far too tight for me. I had worn it to Joana’s funeral at Kilb, which did not end until late in the afternoon. As I sat there I reflected that once more, contrary to my better judgment, I was making myself cheap and contemptible, having accepted the Auersbergers’ supper invitation instead of declining it. That day in the Graben I had momentarily become soft and weak and so acted contrary to my nature, and tonight I was standing not only my character, but my whole nature, on its head. Only Joana’s suicide could have prompted such an irrational reaction. Had I not been so devastated by her suicide, I would naturally have declined the invitation, I now thought, sitting in the wing chair, when the Auersbergers issued it in that abrupt, direct manner of theirs, employing their customary surprise tactics, which I’ve always found so distasteful. Almost all the supper guests were still in their funeral attire, I noted, sitting in the wing chair; only one or two had changed for the party, and so nearly everybody was dressed in black, looking just as exhausted as I was from the strain of what we had been through at Kilb, where it had actually rained heavily during the ceremony. And naturally their sole topic of conversation, of which I caught only snatches, was Joana’s funeral and the tragedy of her life ,which had been brought on by her husband’s walking out on her seventeen or eighteen years earlier and going off to Mexico. One or two tapestries hung on the Auersbergers’ walls — the work of this self-same husband who, they all said, had Joana’s suicide on his conscience —and as they hung there, accusing their creator, they darkened the scene, which was in any case only dimly lit by a number of Empire-style lamps. The tapestry artist had bolted to Mexico with, of all people, his wife’s best friend, as I heard people recall more than once in the semidarkness of the Gentzgasse, leaving the unhappy Joana all alone. To Mexico of all places, and at the very moment when it was bound to be a mortal blow to her. Left alone at forty, in the studio in the Sebastiansplatz, with no financial support, with virtually nothing. More than once I heard somebody say that it was surprising Joana had not hanged herself in the studio in the Sebastiansplatz, rather than at her parents’ home in Kilb — that she had chosen to do it in the country and not in the city. Several times I heard somebody remark that it was homesickness that had driven her to Kilb, away from Vienna, away from the urban quagmire to the rural idyll . I actually heard somebody use the phrases urban quagmire and rural idyll , not without a malignant undertone; I think it was Auersberger who kept on repeating them as I sat in the wing chair observing his wife, who was constantly bursting into hysterical laughter, trying to keep everybody’s spirits up until the actor made his entrance. The apartment, on the third floor of the house, consists of seven or eight rooms filled with Josephine and Biedermeier furniture. It formerly belonged to Auersberger’s parents-in-law. His wife’s father, a rather feeble-minded physician from Graz, had his consulting room here in the Gentzgasse, though he never made a career as a doctor. Her mother, an unshapely, chubby-cheeked creature from the rural gentry of Styria, permanently lost her hair at the age of forty after being treated for influenza by her husband, and prematurely withdrew from society. She and her husband were able to live in the Gentzgasse thanks to her mother’s fortune, which derived from the family estates in Styria and then devolved upon her. She provided for everything, since her husband earned nothing as a doctor. He was a socialite, what is known as a beau, who went to all the big Viennese balls during the carnival season and throughout his life was able to conceal his stupidity behind a pleasingly slim exterior. Throughout her life Auersberger’s mother-in-law had a raw deal from her husband, but was content to accept her modest social station, not that of a member of the nobility, but one that was thoroughly petit bourgeois. Her son-in-law, as I suddenly recalled, sitting in the wing chair, made a point of hiding her wig from time to time — whenever the mood took him — both in the Gentzgasse and at Maria Zaal in Styria, so that the poor woman was unable to leave the house. It used to amuse him, after he had hidden her wig, to drive his mother-in-law up the wall, as they say. Even when he was going on forty he used to hide her wigs — by that time she had provided herself with several — which was a symptom of his sickness and infantility. I often witnessed this game of hide-and-seek at Maria Zaal and in the Gentzgasse, and I honestly have to say that I was amused by it and did not feel in the least ashamed of myself. His mother-in-law would be forced to stay at home because her son-in-law had hidden her wigs, and this was especially likely to happen on public holidays. In the end he would throw her wigs in her face. He needed his mother-in-law’s humiliation, I reflected, sitting in the wing chair and observing him in the background of the music room, just as he needed the triumph that this diabolical behavior of his brought him. I was revolted to see Auersberger practicing a simple finger exercise on the piano, raising his pale face, which was already glassy and vacant as a result of the alcohol he had consumed, and sticking the tip of his tongue out of his tiny mouth, which by now had a bluish tinge. He’s chosen Giovanni Gabrieli for this sick little scene, I thought. And I recalled that at the time when my friendship with the Auersbergers was at its most intense, I would often stand by the Steinway and sing Italian, German and English arias — grossly overrating my talent, as I now realize. I had completed my studies at the Mozarteum, the so-called academy of music and performing arts in Salzburg, though I never took advantage of my musical training; I had left the Mozarteum as a deep bass-baritone, with no prospect, and indeed no intention, of becoming a performing artist. But at Maria Zaal the afternoons were long, and in the Gentzgasse the afternoons and nights were equally long; and so virtually every day Auersberger would sit down at his grand piano, with me standing beside him, and in the course of several weeks, as I now recalled, sitting in the wing chair, we would work our way through the whole classical repertoire of arias and Читать дальше