Thomas Bernhard: Concrete

Where she gets this talent from I don’t know, since our father had no interest whatever in society, and our mother disliked all the social to-do, as she called it. My sister’s business sense, which is her most distinctive trait, though no one would suspect it without knowing her as well as I do, comes from our paternal grandfather. It was he who made the family fortune, in the most curious circumstances, but at all events, however he did it, he made so much money that my sister and I, the third generation, still have enough for our existence, and all in all neither of us leads the most modest existence. For even though I live alone in Peiskam, I spend more money each month than other people who have large families. Who, for instance, heats more than nine rooms — not small rooms either — all through the winter just for himself? In fact, even though I am the most incompetent person in all so-called money matters, I could live for another twenty years without having to earn a penny, and then I could still sell off one parcel of land after another without seriously impairing the estate and thus lowering its value, but that won’t be necessary, and it’s absurd to contemplate it in view of the fact that I have only a very short time left to live, thanks to the incessant and inexorable progress of my.illness. I give myself one or two years at the most, by which time my need for life or existence or anything else this world has to offer will probably be exhausted. If I wished, I might describe myself as affluent, unlike my sister, who is really rich, for what one sees of her wealth is far from being the whole. In one point, however, which I have already mentioned, I differ markedly from her: she donates millions to the church and other such dubious institutions for the good of her soul and for her own private amusement, whereas I donate nothing and would never dream of donating anything in a world which is choking on its billions, yet prates about charity at the drop of a hat. I haven’t the least desire to amuse myself for weeks on end by giving to charity, nor have I the capacity to derive pleasure from newspaper accounts of my generosity and love of my neighbour, because I believe neither in generosity nor in love of one’s neighbour. The world of do-gooders is steeped in hypocrisy, and anyone who proclaims the contrary, or even asserts it, is either a subtle exploiter of humanity or an unpardonable idiot. Ninety per cent of the time today we are up against subtle exploiters, ten per cent of the time against unpardonable idiots. Neither can be helped. The church — since this suits my argument — exploits both, no matter what church it is, and the Catholic Church I know far too well to leave it a thing. It is the subtlest of them all, taking advantage wherever it can and getting most of its money from the poorest of the poor. But the poorest of the poor can’t be helped. The idea that they can is the most widespread of lies, propagated above all by the politicians. Poverty can’t be eradicated, and anyone who thinks of eradicating it is set on nothing short of the eradication of the human race itself, and hence of nature itself. The greater the sums my sister gives to charity, the louder and more devilishly she laughs about them. No one who has heard her laughing about one of her donations can be in any doubt about what makes the world go around. I’ve heard this laughter so often that I never want to hear it again. People are always talking about it being their duty to find their way to their fellow men — to their neighbour, as they are forever saying with all the baseness of false sentiment — when in fact it is purely and simply a question of finding their way to themselves. Let each first find his way to himself! And since hardly anyone has yet found his way to himself, it is inconceivable that any of these unfortunate millions has ever found his way to another human being — or to his neighbour, as they say, dripping with self-deception. The world is so rich that in fact it can afford anything, but this is prevented by the politicians who rule it. They cry out for aid, yet daily squander billions on arms alone. No, I positively refuse to give this world a single penny, for, unlike my sister, I don’t suffer from this devious craving for gratitude. Those people who are everlastingly saying that they are prepared for any sacrifice, that they would sacrifice everything non-stop, ultimately their lives, and so forth, those saints who are as greedy for sacrifice as pigs for the trough and who are to be found in every country and every continent under every possible and impossible name, I find utterly revolting. Such people have no other aim in mind than to be inundated with praise and showered with honours. These dangerous people, who are more self-seeking and self-satisfied than any others, whose numbers run into millions from St. Francis of Assisi onwards and who disport themselves day in day out in countless religious and political organisations the world over merely to satisfy their craving for fame, I find utterly abhorrent. The so-called social element, which has been talked about ad nauseam for centuries, is nothing but the basest of lies. I refuse to have any part in it, even at the risk of being misunderstood, though to be honest that is a risk to which I have always been indifferent. My sister, together with a number of so-called ladies from the so-called higher and highest reaches of society, once arranged a bazaar at which the Christ Child was made to croak nonstop through some dreadful loudspeaker, and my sister contributed five hundred thousand schillings to the proceeds. She then had the gall to explain to me that she cared about the poorest of the poor, but she soon realised, even though — or perhaps precisely because — I said nothing about this hypocritical enterprise of hers, that I had seen through her. In return for it she had the pleasure of being gallantly kissed on the hand by the Monsignor, the president of one of our biggest charities, who is nothing but a wily old socialite. I should be horrified at having my hand shaken by this particular gentleman. Fifteen or sixteen years ago, when I had some connection with him, admittedly only slight, he asked my sister whether, in return for eight hundred thousand schillings in cash, she would furnish an apartment for him. My sister agreed and furnished the Monsignor’s apartment exclusively with renaissance furniture from Florence and late eighteenth century Austrian pieces from two Marchfeld castles that had come her way. When the commission was completed she threw a party for him which was attended by fifty hand-picked guests, the lowliest among them being an Irish earl. He had been chosen as a guest for the evening by the Monsignor and her just because he owned a cotton mill on the border between Lower Austria and the Burgenland which she wanted to acquire at all costs. In this I know she was successful; my sister is always successful in such matters. For eight hundred thousand schillings, no doubt from church funds, she furnished the Monsignor’s apartment, and I actually told her to her face that she had done it with church funds — at a cost of eight hundred thousand schillings, which in present-day terms is more like six or seven million. Just imagine: the Monsignor furnishes an apartment for himself at a cost of eight hundred thousand schillings and at the same time goes on the air to beg on behalf of his charity in a whining appeal addressed to the poorest of the poor, and couched in terms that are mendacious in every detail. I asked my sister whether she didn’t feel ashamed, but she didn’t: she was too intelligent for that, as she herself would put it, and simply said, Four hundred thousand came from me — the Monsignor only paid four hundred thousand. Such goings-on revolt me. But they are typical of the so-called upper crust, to which it has been my sister’s life-long endeavour to belong. A mere count had to have great charm and infinite wealth for my sister to converse with him for any length of time; her normal behaviour she reserved for nothing less than princes. I don’t know where she gets this dreadful madness from. I’ve often wondered whether there’s anything the least bit natural about a person like her. On the other hand there are times when suddenly, from one moment to the next, my attitude to her becomes one of admiration. The little brother is powerless in the face of such a radiant person, which is what she often calls herself. Every room is transformed when she enters it; wherever and whenever she appears, everything changes and becomes subordinated to her alone. And yet she’s not really beautiful. I’ve often asked myself whether she’s beautiful or not, but I can’t say. She is and she isn’t. She’s different from all the others and has the ability, if not to extinguish everybody around her, at least to relegate them to the background, to put them in the shade. This makes her the exact opposite of myself: all my life I have been inconspicuous, not modest — that would be quite the wrong word — but inconspicuous and essentially retiring. The result of my being so inconspicuous and retiring has been that in the course of time I have liquidated myself, as I might say — as I do say, since it’s the truth. Your tragedy, my little brother, is that you always stay in the background, she often says. Her tragedy, however, she once said, was that she must always be in the foreground, whether she wanted to or not, that she was always forced into the foreground wherever she was and whatever the situation. What she says is never stupid, because it’s always cleverer than what other people say, but much of what she says is wrong. At times — not just at times, in fact, but all the time — I could scream at the nonsense which evidently earns her the highest admiration in all quarters. Naturally she goes to the opera, and she never misses a Wagner opera, with one exception: she never goes to see The Flying Dutchman , because — in her own words — The Flying Dutchman is not a Wagner opera. And she thinks she’s right, as so many do. The clothes she wears on such occasions are of the simplest, much simpler even than the simplest, and yet this simplicity is what attracts the greatest attention. You know, the opera is supremely important for my business, she always says. People are quite crazy about music, which they don’t understand, and take my remaindered goods off my hands. By remaindered goods she means plots of not less than a thousand acres, or what she calls city centre lots, which bring in the highest returns in the shortest time. And it’s really a delight to watch her at table. The way she takes her soup or eats her salad, and so on, makes everyone around her appear, if not positively common, then at least of an inferior stamp. The only possible match for her would be an ancient dowager from the best stable, as they say. But how dreadful to be constantly the centre of attention and never out of the limelight! I can only guess what it must be like, but it must be much more dreadful than I can possibly imagine. I’ve always had the gift of going more or less unnoticed, of keeping myself to myself, even at the largest gathering, and so I’ve always had the advantage of being able to pursue my own inclinations, my own thoughts and fancies, as I wish. Hence the way I conduct myself in company has always stood me in better stead; it’s the one best suited to me, quite the opposite of the one best suited to my sister. No matter where or when she makes her entrance and becomes the focus of all eyes, she always appears utterly natural. Absolutely everything about her is natural — everything she does, everything she says, as well as everything she doesn’t say, everything she keeps to herself. One might think there was no more natural person in the world. It’s as though she didn’t have to give a single thought to anything. But equally naturally that is mistaken. I know how much calculation goes into everything she undertakes, how carefully everything is concocted before she finally dishes it up in front of all these people. In the most natural way in the world she constantly gives them to understand — though of course it isn’t true for a moment — that she has read, if not everything, then at any rate most things, that she has seen, if not everything, then at any rate most things, that she has met and is well acquainted, if not with all, then at any rate with most of the important and famous people who matter. And all this she gives them to understand without actually saying anything of the sort. Although she knows nothing about music and hasn’t even a superficial understanding of it, everybody believes she knows a great deal about music. And the same goes for literature, even philosophy. Where others have to make a continual effort to keep up, she doesn’t need to worry about a thing: everything comes to her at will, quite automatically. Naturally she is educated, in a manner of speaking, but only superficially. Naturally she knows a lot, more than most of the people she associates with, but her knowledge is of the most superficial kind, and yet nobody notices this. Where others constantly have to convince you in order not to be defeated and collapse and make themselves ridiculous, she remains silent and invariably scores a triumph, or else she makes some perfectly timed remark, from which it follows that she is in control of the whole scene. I have never seen my sister worsted. She, on the other hand, has often seen me come to grief over some quite ludicrous point. Two more different, more contrasting characters it would be impossible to imagine. This is probably the source of the tension between us. I have money and never talk about it, she once said, you have philosophy and never talk about it. This observation demonstrates where we both stand, and possibly also, I fear, where we have come to a standstill. Everywhere in the house there are traces of my sister. Wherever my glance falls, she was there. She’s moved this, she’s left that lying around, she’s not closed this window properly, she’s left all those half-empty glasses around. And I’ve no intention of tidying up the mess she’s made. On her bed I found Proust’s Combray, as if it had been thrown down in a fit of rage. I’m sure she didn’t get very far. But I can’t say either that she reads only inferior things. In her choice of reading matter she continually reaches a remarkable standard for a woman of her age and social position, and altogether for one with her background and leanings. If anyone should ever read these notes, he’ll wonder what is the point of my going on and on about my sister in this way. It is this: my sister has dominated me ever since childhood, and whenever she leaves it takes me several days to get over her. She may have left physically, but she is still present everywhere in the clearest and for me most terrible way. Above all she was present on this last evening, as I was most painfully aware, and precisely because she had left, this continuing monstrous presence of hers made me increasingly certain that it was impossible to force her out of the house only hours after her physical departure. She can’t be forced out, she stays as long as she wishes, and on this particular evening her wish to stay was enormously intense because I wanted her out of the house, because I wanted to start work on Mendelssohn Bartholdy the following morning. Only a fool would have believed that he could actually begin work just a few hours after she’d left, just like that, and it was I who was the fool. It’s always taken me several days to free myself from my sister after her departure. On this one occasion I’d hoped for exceptional luck. But I didn’t get it. I’ve never had this sort of luck. And isn’t she right, perhaps, to say that my work on Mendelssohn Bartholdy is just a pretence to justify my absurd way of life, which is entirely without any justification unless it produces something written, something completed? I fall upon Schönberg in order to justify myself, upon Reger, upon Joachim, even upon Bach, simply to justify myself, just as I am now, for the very same reason, falling upon Mendelssohn. Basically I have no right whatever to lead the life I do, which is as unparalleled — and as terrible — as it is expensive.