Thomas Bernhard - The Lime Works

and ridiculous, if the truth-teller could not be made to appear culpable he was ridiculed, if he could not be ridiculed he was penalized, a man who told the truth in this country was either ridiculous or a criminal. But inasmuch as hardly anyone wanted to make himself ridiculous or legally punishable, people were terrified of being penalized, to pay high fines or go to jail or prison simply did not come naturally to people, so they all lied or kept silent. Unfortunately there were characters like himself who could not keep silent, who had in the course of time come to their senses and gotten to the bottom of the truth and therefore could not keep silent, who had to express themselves, so that they exposed themselves to criminal prosecution and ridicule over and over again, then became more and more exposed to criminal prosecution under the ruling criminal code, more and more exposed to ridicule under the ruling social code. He would have to change his character from the ground up, but no one could change his character, one’s character could not be changed. So he had locked himself in, here at the lime works, to avoid yet another summons; for twenty-two days now he was completely locked up inside the lime works and had let no one enter the lime works, either. This was the first time in twenty-two days that he had set foot outside the lime works, for a walk in the timber forest, because he was in fact a restless man who needed to see people. For all those twenty-two days he had desperately needed to get out of the lime works, but he had not set foot outside the lime works, not even as far as the tavern, not even to the sawmill. He kept reassuring himself that Hoeller would certainly never inform on him, but he did not go even to the annex. People did of course continue to come to the lime works, but I never let them in, Konrad said, if I open the door, the law will get me. But then all of a sudden the works inspector arrives, and the mayor arrives, and I have to open the door, they are town officials after all, I have to open the door to the municipal council, to the district superintendent, to the section chief of the flood control unit. They all come here on official business, or else they pretend to come on official business, and if I don’t let them in they resort to official authority, forcing me to let them in, and I am terrified of getting into trouble with the law as it is, because of the things I say. However, with these so-called officials he naturally had only practical necessities to talk about, so there was no danger of getting into legal trouble on account of the things he said. And so, while he no longer set foot outside the lime works in order to avoid being charged and convicted and locked up — now that he had a criminal record, even a conviction for libel would mean imprisonment — he did speak to the so-called officials, including of course the forestry commissioner and the works inspector, but only with the greatest circumspection. To Fro, two years ago: at breakfast he would be silent while she did the talking. He was silent because he had made a habit of being silent, she talked because she had made a habit of talking (at the breakfast table). She talked incessantly at the breakfast table because she had no other opportunity to talk incessantly. He would wake up thinking about his work, but soon dropped the idea of writing and decided to start right after breakfast on the hearing exercises. Standing in the east corner of her room, he would plan to call out to her words with the u sound: Urals, uremia, Uranus, usual, union, Uruguay, usury, Utopia , etc. etc. This would be followed by words with o: Oklahoma, odious, ore, oil, open , etc. Then words with k: Caste, card, Khartoum, carefree, catastrophe, catafalque, Cabbala, Kabul, catharsis, cataracts , etc. Then words with es: Esther, Estragon, escudos, España, Eskimo , etc. Then words with al: Albania, Alba Alarcon, Alhambra, algebra, alkaloid, Almira, alms , etc. Then words with is: Istria, Ismail, Istanbul, Islam , etc. Getting out of bed he would be thinking that he could start the exercises during breakfast, so as to include the conversation (or the silence) at breakfast in the exercises. He would talk about the difference between listening and hearing, starting with an explanation of listening, then of hearing, giving ear, hearkening, pricking up one’s ears, auscultation, overhearing, jointly hearing, etc. Listening in, mishearing, lending an ear. Then suddenly he would say to her: Trying not to hear. Listening hard, he would say. He had prepared their breakfast the previous evening, so that he merely needed to carry their tray into her room in the morning, they had always breakfasted together in this way since the first day they were living together. While carrying the tray up to her room he usually had the most brilliant ideas for his book, on the use of the Urbanchich method. Holding the tray in his hands he slowly felt his way up the stairs in the dark of the vestibule, to the first floor, then the second floor, then to her room which he said he entered without knocking. Set the tray on the table, he thought, so he put the tray on the table, thinking that she was watching him doing it. At the same time he thought of her bungled efforts to dress herself, wash herself, comb herself, to stretch out, all of which, all the misery of it, he could see clearly in her face. He then tried to wash her, dress her, comb her hair, help her to stretch out. Her hair certainly needed a washing, he thought while washing her; an impression that naturally grew stronger as he combed her hair. But he had not washed his own hair for weeks, he thought, while combing her hair. The dishes must be moved from the tray to the table, he would be thinking as he speeded up the combing of her hair. First he put the water on to boil, then he hastily buttered the bread — actually, he was using margarine instead, these days. She would ask him: Did you sleep well? and he asked her: Did you sleep well? and then they answered each other; she would say: Of course not, and he: Of course not. Then he saw that the water had come to a boil and he poured the boiling water into the teapot, saying, as he told Fro: Two minutes more, and then they would ask each other, wordlessly, whether they should begin at once with the exercises. He might, for instance, decide about beginning the exercises (expanded Urbanchich method) while he was pouring the tea. Words with diphthongs, he said to himself, and it seemed to him that she realized he had begun the exercises already, at breakfast, because she was not oblivious to the expectancy with which he watched her reactions, controlled her reactions to everything he said or didn’t say (to her), how impatiently he awaited her reaction to the least trifle, or controlled her ability to react. Yesterday we indulged ourselves, he would say to her, in the most flagrantly undisciplined conduct, when we broke off our exercises two hours short of what our schedule calls for, so we cannot indulge ourselves in slacking off today, not to mention the fact that we were continually interrupting the exercises, even though we have no right to permit such interruptions. She listens to me, says nothing, eats with much appetite, Konrad said to Fro. Shortly after starting breakfast I tell her enough time has now been spent on having breakfast; I prefer short breakfasts, while she prefers to stretch breakfast time as long as possible. So he drained his cup, saying one cup is enough, and cleared away first his and then her breakfast dishes. Dawdling over breakfast is bad for creativity, he is supposed to have said, the cups go on the shelf, the bread into the breadbag, the first exercise on diphthongs begins. He would then experiment on her till eleven or half past, by which time she had been for hours impatiently awaiting lunch, to be brought either by Hoeller from the tavern or by Konrad from the kitchen; her constant waiting for him to feed her irritated him, it distracted him to the point of making him lose his temper with her, he ordered her to concentrate, why don’t you concentrate, he is supposed to have said to her time and again, hundreds of thousands of times, here I am concentrating to the very limits of my capacity while you are not concentrating at all, all you ever think about is food, or about Hoeller’s being supposed to bring the food, about meat and cauliflower and pastries, and meanwhile my mind is totally intent on applying the Urbanchich method, one would think it was only fair to expect her to concentrate one hundred percent on the Urbanchich method too, but she was so quickly exhausted, her responses lagged behind, her alertness visibly diminished from sentence to sentence, word by word, sometimes she heard nothing at all, then again not enough, whether he screamed into her left ear, her right ear, she heard nothing. The exercise ended miserably, like most of them in the last six months, a wretched performance, absolutely wretched, disgusting, he said; he would get up, pace the floor, until he suddenly caught himself listening intently for Hoeller’s step, bringing the food. But lunch never came until half past one, no telling why, unless it was a wedding breakfast at the tavern that was holding things up, he said to Fro, in which case they’d forget all about Mrs. Konrad, because the innkeeper and his staff could think of nothing but their wedding party. The moment he heard Hoeller knocking downstairs Konrad instantly left his wife’s room, says Fro, and as he was descending to the vestibule he planned to call Hoeller to account for bringing the food so late, but then he thought, better not call him to account, just ask him, but I will call him to account, and so on, but by the time Konrad opened the door he had forgotten his intention to call Hoeller to account. When he hears the knock on the front door, Konrad says to his wife, lunch is here, that’s Hoeller downstairs, and suddenly she looks completely relaxed, he instantly sees what a great relief it is to her, and goes down. Going down the stairs to the vestibule he is thinking that the food will be cold because Hoeller has been loitering too long on his way through the icy cold of the woods or along the water’s edge, but as he opens the door he sees the steaming food hamper, it seems that the food is actually still hot, so we’re getting a hot lunch today, I won’t have to heat any of it in the kitchen, I can take it right upstairs to my wife, it won’t take more than a minute to set the table and serve it, she’s always amazed at how fast I serve a meal, this time they’re both amazed when they discover that the food hamper contains baked liver, with a fresh lettuce salad, and last but not least, a semolina soufflé, their favorite dish. Right after lunch, he thought, we will go on with the exercises, all the more energetically for having just had our favorite dish. At first she refused to go back to the exercises right after lunch, Konrad is supposed to have told Fro, you think that just because we’ve had our favorite dish you are entitled to go back instantly to the exercises, she is supposed to have said, as Konrad told Fro, but he did start the exercises at once and she gave in, he stood at the corner near the window and called out the wordЧитать дальше