Thomas Bernhard - Correction

We children naturally showed no consideration whatever toward our mother, “no” and “whatever” underlined, we, my sister and I, so Roithamer, we Altensamers in contrast to the Eferdingers, our brothers. In the early days when I returned from England, for instance, the Eferding woman had often said she’d like to walk down to Stocket with me, because she knew that I always liked walking down to Stocket, but once she’d walked down to Stocket with me, it was soon obvious to me that she’d really had no desire whatever to walk down to Stocket with me, because basically she hated this walking-down-to-Stocket with me and hated Stocket and hated the people down in Stocket. Or else she affected to be interested in a scientific article because she knew that I was interested in this article, but it was all pretense, “pretense” underlined, so Roithamer. On such occasions I always countered with some malevolent remark that exposed her utter impudence, and our mutual hatred was reestablished. But it’s not true that we didn’t want to be in agreement. But if I happened to say, I hold so-and-so in contempt, for such-and-such a reason, she always instantly agreed with my verdict and so with my remark, without thinking, and this was bound to repel me. If I happened to show a liking for a certain play and praised this play, she felt obliged to praise the play though she hadn’t seen it, not for my sake, as I know, but for her own sake, even though she didn’t know the play, she nevertheless thought she could praise it too, and I was repelled by that. For instance I’d always said, time and time again, that I loved Goethe’s novel, Elective Affinities, but I knew that she hated Elective Affinities, basically there was no book in the world she hated as intensely as she hated Elective Affinities, yet she claimed that she shared my love for Elective Affinities, this was simply bound to repel me, so Roithamer. Then she claimed to have read Novalis, though she had never read as much as a line by Novalis, but every time it wasn’t really an effort to come closer to me, to try and bring about a real accord between her and me, between us, but rather an attempt to set a trap, but I never went into this trap, at least not in later years, for at first, in my childhood and youth, I did indeed and very often walk into her traps, the Eferding woman had always set traps in Altensam and all of us had always walked into her traps. Elective Affinities as a trap set for me, so Roithamer.

She had often given me to understand that she was intellectually engaged upon the same subject at the same time I was, but I’d soon found out that it was nothing more than one of her pretenses, that again she’d set me a trap that I was supposed to walk into. All these notes to be utilized one day for a description of my mother, in comparison with my sister and in contrast with my father and brothers, so Roithamer. We must always utilize, work up, everything. When we’re occupied with a so-called intellectual subject, and this subject is so great that we’re totally fascinated by it, we must be absolutely alone in our room (Hoeller’s garret) or wherever we happen to be, even if we’re not (in reality) in Hoeller’s garret, nevertheless in Hoeller’s garret, the place where we happen to find ourselves occupied with such a subject must become Hoeller’s garret for us, we mustn’t tolerate the slightest distraction, even if it came from the person closest to us (sister), we must forestall everything that interferes or could interfere with our concentration on that subject, and therefore could destroy, annihilate, extinguish this subject, which fascinates us, for such a subject is too easily destroyed and annihilated and extinguished and it always is the only subject for us, “only” underlined. This intellectual subject matter must be held fast, until we have mastered it, so Roithamer, “mastered” underlined. Attempts to comprehend Altensam, to understand it, and little by little to comprehend and understand everything connected with Altensam, especially everything relating to my father, to keep on trying to find the causes and from these causes arrive at the effects of these causes, nothing can be fully grasped and explained by means of mental and emotional acuity on the one hand, nor by mental and emotional hypocrisy on the other hand, I have to keep reminding myself that it’s all from my point of view, not from the others’ point of view, always only from my point of view, from the others’ point of view it’s something entirely different, probably the opposite. But the opposite is not my task. I’m getting closer to Altensam, but I’m not getting closer to Altensam in order to solve its mystery; for others to explain it to myself is why I am getting closer to Altensam, to my Altensam, the one that I see. While she lived I never asked my mother, never asked her all these unanswered questions, never once asked her a single crucial question, because I never could formulate such a question, I was afraid I might put such a question wrong somehow, and so I never posed it, and so I got no answer. Now the Eferding woman is dead, I can’t ask her, she can’t answer. But would it be any different now, if I could ask her, and she could answer? We don’t ask those we love, just as we don’t ask those we hate, so Roithamer. Actually I’m shocked by everything I’ve just written, what if it was all quite different, I wonder, but I will not correct now what I’ve written, I’ll correct it all when the time for such correction has come and then I’ll correct the corrections and correct again the resulting corrections andsoforth, so Roithamer. We’re constantly correcting, and correcting ourselves, most rigorously, because we recognize at every moment that we did it all wrong (wrote it, thought it, made it all wrong), acted all wrong, how we acted all wrong, that everything to this point in time is a falsification, so we correct this falsification, and then we again correct the correction of this falsification and we correct the result of the correction of a correction andsoforth, so Roithamer. But the ultimate correction is one we keep delaying, the kind others have made without ado from one minute to the next, I think, so Roithamer, the kind they could make, by the time they no longer thought about it, because they were afraid even to think about it, but then they did correct themselves, like my cousin, like his father, my uncle, like all the others whom we knew, as we thought, whom we knew so thoroughly, yet we didn’t really know all these peoples’ characters, because their self-correction took us by surprise, otherwise we wouldn’t have been surprised by their ultimate existential correction, their suicide. It’s only a thought which keeps turning up, but we don’t take steps to correct ourselves. We sit here for hours on this chair and think about it, we may even be sitting here for days on this same chair, or stand at the window (as for instance in Hoeller’s garret), we may pace the floor in our room, lie on the bed, locked up in Hoeller’s garret or in my room in Altensam, which has always seemed to me my actual correction cell, “correction cell” underlined, but I kept putting off my correction, kept delaying it, though I never gave up the idea of correcting myself, we do it suddenly, quite suddenly we walk out, go away, break off everything, one step off the road, away, gone, so Roithamer, because we’ve lost our mind, so Roithamer, or because we suddenly are everything extreme, so Roithamer. We’re in a state of extreme concentration, we don’t even permit ourselves to change a piece of clothing, we permit ourselves nothing beyond this concentration, but we still don’t do it. We’re always quite close to correcting ourselves, to correcting everything by killing ourselves, but we don’t do it. Ready to correct our entire existence as a bottomless falsification and misrepresentation of our true nature, so Roithamer, but we don’t do it. While this thought keeps sinking in deeper, we’re at its mercy and we yield to it in every respect because we have become totally concentrated on this thought, but we don’t do it. Then we forget this theme, make no corrections, go on existing, until we’re back with this thought, addicted to it, so Roithamer. But one day, from one minute to the next, we’ll do what we have to do, and then there’ll be no difference between us and those who’ve already made their correction, killed themselves. To write to someone, for instance, because we can no longer bear our loneliness, we’ve borne our solitude to the limit, but we can bear it no longer, we write in order to be no longer alone but to be two of us, to my sister for instance, that I’d be glad if she’d come to England, soon, now, we write, to the person we love, the one we know most intimately, I write and telegraph simultaneously, my most intense idea now is that my sister must come to me, from Altensam to England, as quickly as possible, to put an end to this condition of solitude into which I’ve maneuvered myself, so Roithamer, she must come if I’m to be saved, I’m thinking, though I don’t write it, but I think she must come, to save me, because I’ve exhausted all my means of distracting myself, all my tricks of distracting myself, because I can think only this one thing, that I must come to an end in my room, unless this familiar, beloved person comes, I’ve no chances left. For days I wait for an answer, then my sister suddenly sends a telegram, she can’t come, so then I somehow keep going, I don’t put an end to it. It’s back to my work again, total immersion. Suddenly I no longer have any reason to kill myself, to make that correction. The message that my sister isn’t coming because she can’t come is enough to prevent me from doing it. But would I have done it? I ask myself, so Roithamer. Instead of committing suicide, people go to work. All their lives long, as long as their existence allows for this constantly recurring process, so Roithamer. The death of my uncle, so Roithamer, surprised even Hoeller, for Hoeller, like myself, had always been of the opinion that a man like my uncle, who kept coming back to the subject of suicide in conversation, because of the very fact that he keeps coming back to it and talks of it almost constantly, will not commit suicide, but he did commit suicide, the atmosphere in Hoeller’s house at the time was totally conditioned by the surprise of my uncle’s suicide, he’d thrown himself down the cheese-factory’s air shaft in Stocket; the whole Hoeller house, even Hoeller’s garret, I think, so Roithamer, this whole simple house with its complicated conditions, or vice versa, complicated house with its simple conditions, so Roithamer, lay as if under the pall of my uncle’s suicide. The moment I set foot in Hoeller’s house, that’s to say, the moment I clapped eyes on the huge black stuffed bird hanging on the wall of the vestibule, it was clear to me that the whole Hoeller house was under the pall of my uncle’s suicide. Then I remembered my last meeting with my uncle from Stocket, so Roithamer, and I asked myself whether there was anything about the man, on that last encounter, that might have given me a hint of his subsequent suicide, observing him first at the forest’s edge, with his rubber boots, short, frayed old jacket, so Roithamer, the hazel walking stick he’d whittled himself, the black hat on his head, and probably, considering his immobility, he’d had a wooden leg for years, also in view of my sudden presence, he was preoccupied with a so-called philosophical subject, I said to myself as I walked toward him, time had fashioned him into a so-called nature man, because everything in him and about him was predisposed that way, not a comic figure such as we see very often, everything about him said: I can no longer escape from nature; as I walked toward him, probably he didn’t even notice that I was coming toward him because everything seemed to indicate that he never noticed me, he was so preoccupied with his philosophical subject, that philosophical subject which had to do with nature.