Lieder. Auersberger, whom I once called the
Novalisof sound ,had always been a first-class pianist, I thought, sitting in the wing chair, and even now, drunk though he is, he would need to sit at the Steinway for no more than two or three minutes to prove his artistry. But he’s gone to seed, I thought, sitting in the wing chair; through years of alcoholic addiction he’s allowed everything within him to degenerate, even his musical talent, which he once prized above all else. We may know for decades that someone close to us is a ridiculous person, but it’s only after a lapse of decades that we suddenly
see it, I thought, sitting in the wing chair, just as I’m suddenly seeing now, with absolute clarity, that Auersberger (the so-called successor of Webern) is a ridiculous person. And just as Auersberger, who’s continually drunk, is ridiculous in his own way, and probably always has been, I thought, sitting in the wing chair, so too his wife is ridiculous and always has been. You used to be in love with these ridiculous people, I told myself as I sat in the wing chair, head over heels in love with these ridiculous, low, vicious people, who suddenly saw you again after twenty years, in the Graben of all places, and on the very day Joana killed herself. They came up and spoke to you and invited you to attend their
artistic dinner party with the famous Burgtheateractor in the Gentzgasse. What ridiculous, vicious people they are! I thought, sitting in the wing chair. And suddenly it struck me what a low, ridiculous character I myself was, having accepted their invitation and nonchalantly taken my place in their wing chair as though nothing had happened — stretching out and crossing my legs and finishing off what must by now have been my third or fourth glass of champagne. And I told myself that I was actually far more base and vicious than the Auersbergers. They caught you out with their invitation, and you promptly accepted it, I told myself. Though they were all waiting for the actor, everybody was
obsessed with Joana’s suicide, and also with her funeral, which had taken place that afternoon and had clearly left its mark on them. As I sat in the wing chair, waiting like all the others until well after midnight for the actor to arrive, I could think of nothing but Joana’s appalling funeral, of the events that had led up to it, of the reasons for the utter despair that had driven her to take her life. Sitting in the wing chair, I was left undisturbed, since it stood behind the door through which the guests entered the apartment, and in the semidarkness of the anteroom I was able to devote myself to the thoughts and fantasies that occupied my mind. When guests arrived they did not recognize me until after they had walked past me, and then only if they happened to turn around after entering the apartment, which very few of them did: most of them went straight through the anteroom to the music room, the door of which was always kept open. For as far back as I can remember, the door between the anteroom and the music room has never been closed; I can remember that even when the Auersbergers had nobody but me staying with them they never closed the door to the music room, because with the door open the room had excellent acoustics, something to which Auersberger, being a composer, naturally attached the greatest importance. From my vantage point in the wing chair I could see the people in the music room without their seeing me. They all walked straight from the entrance to the music room. This was how it had always been, and on this evening the guests seemed positively to race through the anteroom and into the music room, where Auersberger’s wife was waiting to welcome them with arms outstretched, as though it was to
her that condolences were due for Joana’s death, as though
she was now exploiting Joana’s death for her own purposes. Since most of them had already seen one another that afternoon at Kilb, they contented themselves with a brief embrace, after which they each sat down with a glass of champagne in one of the chairs in the music room. While Auersberger’s wife went on and on about the
great actor , this
supremely great actor , this
incomparableactor , this
genius of an actor , the guests could be heard almost continually uttering the name
Joana. The name had always sounded good, but it was only her professional name. In reality she was plain
Elfriede Slukal from Kilb, and it never did her any good to call herself Joana; she did so in the hope of making a career for herself in Vienna, but she never made a career. Having gone from Kilb to Vienna, without the slightest idea of what to do next, she had been advised by a former dancer and choreographer, who had once choreographed a ballet at the State Opera, to take the name
Joana , which had an exotic ring to it — at any rate in Vienna.
Little Elfriede , as her mother used to call her, at once acted upon this advice, hoping that as Joana she could make a career for herself that would have been impossible for someone called Elfriede, let alone Elfriede Slukal. But it was a grave miscalculation, I thought, sitting in the wing chair: there was obviously no career for Elfriede Slukal, even under the name Joana, but that evening in the Gentzgasse, all the guests at the
artistic dinner uttered the name Joana as though some human miracle lay concealed behind it. To judge by what I heard from my wing chair, they all spoke of Joana’s
death , not of her
suicide , and I did not once hear the word
hanged . By now some sixteen or seventeen guests must have arrived for this
artistic dinner , I thought, sitting in the wing chair. I knew most of them, and nodded to them without getting up. Five or six of them were strangers to me, and two of these appeared to be young writers. I have a gift for behaving in such a way that people leave me alone whenever I wish, and as I sat in the wing chair I showed myself to be a past master in the art of being left alone; people recognized me in the half-light of the anteroom and tried to strike up a conversation, but I at once deterred them simply by remaining seated and pretending not to understand what they said, and then, at precisely the right moment, looking down at the ground instead of into their faces. I behaved as though I were still completely taken up with Joana’s suicide, sitting in the wing chair and affecting an absentminded air whenever there was a risk that one of the guests might take it into his head to keep me company, which was something I was determined to prevent. I was willing to risk being thought unfriendly, even ill-mannered, if not downright offensive; it is quite contrary to my nature to behave badly in company, but I have to confess that on this occasion my behavior was impolite, dismissive and hostile. Some of the guests had already heard about my notorious strangeness and oddity, what somebody once called my
dangerous eccentricity ; I had even been told that my years in London had produced in me a
quite disturbing madness. People hated me and everything I wrote, and ganged up against me in the most vicious fashion whenever they saw me. But ever since my return from London I had been on my guard against them, against all the people I had known previously, but above all against these so-called
artistic figures from the fifties , and especially those who had come to this
artistic dinner. As soon as they entered the apartment they more or less fell into my trap, behaving as though they were unobserved, while in fact I was observing them intently from my wing chair. They walked over to Auersberger’s wife, who was standing by the door of the music room, and let themselves be embraced. They were all without exception consummate performers who knew how to get the maximum mileage out of the
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