Thomas Bernhard - Walking - A Novella

mortal doubt and, finally, of mortal despair . Just as we may not think about what is going on around us and what has gone on and what will go on, if we do not have the strength to break off our thinking about what happens around us and what has happened and what will happen, that is about the past, the present and the future at precisely the moment when this thinking becomes fatal for us. The art of thinking about things consists in the art, says Oehler, of stopping thinking before the fatal moment. However, we can, quite consciously, drag out this fatal moment, says Oehler, for a longer or a shorter time, according to circumstances. But the important thing is for us to know when the fatal moment is. But no one knows when the fatal moment is, says Oehler, the question is, is it possible that the fatal moment has not yet come and will always not yet come? But we cannot rely on this. We may never think, says Oehler, how and why we are doing what we are doing, for then we would be condemned, even if not instantaneously, but instantaneously to whatever degree of awareness we have reached regarding that question, to total inactivity and to complete immobility. For the clearest thought, that which is the deepest and, at the same time, the most transparent, is the most complete inactivity and the most complete immobility, says Oehler. We may not think about why we are walking, says Oehler, for then it would soon be impossible for us to walk, and then, to take things to their logical conclusion. Everything soon becomes impossible, just as when we are thinking why we may not think, why we are walking and so on, just as we may not think how we are walking, how we are not walking, that is standing still, just as we may not think how we, when we are not walking and standing still, are thinking and so on. We may not ask ourselves: why are we walking? as others who may (and can) ask themselves at will why they are walking. The others, says Oehler, may (and can) ask themselves anything, we may not ask ourselves anything. In the same way, if it is a question of objects, we may also not ask ourselves, just as if it is not a question of objects (the opposite of objects). What we see we think, and, as a result, do not see it, says Oehler, whereas others have no problem in seeing what they are seeing because they do not think what they see. What we call perception is really stasis, immobility, as far as we are concerned, nothing. Nothing. What has happened is thought, not seen, says Oehler. Thus quite naturally when we see, we see nothing, we think everything at the same time. Suddenly Oehler says, if we visited Karrer in Steinhof, we would be just as shocked as we were eight years ago, but now Karrer’s madness is not only much worse than his madness of eight years ago, now it is final and if we think how shocked we were eight years ago during our visit to Karrer it would be senseless to think for a moment of visiting Karrer now that Karrer’s condition is a dreadful one. Karrer is probably not allowed to receive visitors, says Oehler. Karrer is in Pavilion VII, in the one that is most dreaded. What horrible prisons these the most pitiable of all creatures are locked up in, says Oehler. Nothing but filth and stench. Everything rusted and decayed. We hear the most unbelievable things, we see the most unbelievable things. Oehler says: Karrer’s world is his own to the same extent that it is ours. I could just as well be walking here with Karrer along Klosterneuburgerstrasse and be talking with Karrer about you , if you and not Karrer were in Steinhof at the moment, or if it were the case that they had sent me to Steinhof and confined me there and you were out walking with Karrer through Klosterneuburgerstrasse and talking about me. We are not certain whether we ourselves will not, the very next moment, be in the same situation as the person we are talking about and who is the object of our thought. I could just as well have gone mad in Rustenschacher’s store, says Oehler, if I had gone into Rustenschacher’s store that day in the same condition as Karrer to engage in the argument with Rustenschacher in which Karrer had been engaged and if I, like Karrer, had not accepted the consequences that followed from the argument in Rustenschacher’s store and was now in Steinhof. But in fact it is impossible that I would have acted like Karrer, says Oehler, because I am not Karrer, I would have acted like myself , just as you would have acted like yourself and not like Karrer, and even if I had entered Rustenschacher’s store, like Karrer, to begin an argument with Rustenschacher and his nephew, I would have carried on the argument in a quite different manner and of course everything would have turned out differently from what it did between Karrer and Rustenschacher and Rustenschacher’s nephew. The argument would have been a different argument, it simply wouldn’t have come to an argument, for if I had been in Karrer’s position, I would have carried on the argument quite differently and probably not carried it on at all, says Oehler. A set of several fatal circumstances, which are of themselves not fatal at all and only become fatal when they coincide, leads to a misfortune like the one that befell Karrer in Rustenschacher’s store, says Oehler. Then we are standing there because we had witnessed it all and react as though we had been insulted. It is unthinkable to me that, if I had been Karrer, I would have gone into Rustenschacher’s store that afternoon, but Karrer’s intensity that afternoon was a greater intensity and I followed Karrer into Rustenschacher’s store. But to ask why I followed Karrer into Rustenschacher’s store that afternoon is senseless. Then let’s say that what we have here is a tragedy , says Oehler. We judge an unexpected happening, like the occurrence in Rustenschacher’s store, as irrevocable and calculated where there is no justification for the concepts irrevocable and calculated. For nothing is irrevocable and nothing is calculated, but a lot, and often what is the most dreadful, simply happens. I can now say that I am astonished at my passivity in Rustenschacher’s store, my unbelievable silence, the fact that I stood by and fundamentally reacted to nothing , that I did fear something without knowing (or suspecting) what I feared, but that in the face of such a fear and thus in the face of Karrer’s condition, I did nothing. We say that circumstances bring about a certain condition in people. If that is true, then circumstances brought about a condition in Karrer in which he suddenly went finally mad in Rustenschacher’s store. I must say, says Oehler, that it was a question of fear of ceasing to be senselessly patient. We observe a person in a desperate situation, the concept of a desperate situation is clear to us, but we do nothing about the desperate condition of the person, because we can do nothing about the desperate condition of the person, because in the truest sense of the word we are powerless in the face of a person’s desperate condition, although we do not have to be powerless in the face of such a person and his desperate condition, and this is something we have to admit, says Oehler. We are suddenly conscious of the hopelessness of a desperate nature, but by then it is too late. It is not Rustenschacher and his nephew who are guilty, says Oehler. Those two behaved as they had to behave, obviously so as not to be sacrificed to Karrer. The circumstance did not, however, arise in a very short space of time, says Oehler, these circumstances always, and in every case, arise as the result of a process that has lasted a long time. The circumstances that led to Karrer’s madness in Rustenschacher’s store and to Karrer’s argument with Rustenschacher and his nephew did not arise on that day nor on that afternoon and not just in the preceding twenty-four or forty-eight hours. We always look for everything in the immediate proximity, that is a mistake. If only we did not always look for everything in the immediate proximity, says Oehler, looking in the immediate proximity reveals nothing but incompetence. One should, in every case, go back over everything , says Oehler, even if it is in the depths of the past and scarcely ascertainable and discernible any longer. Of course the most nonsensical thing, says Oehler, is to ask oneself why one went into Rustenschacher’s store with Karrer, to say nothing of reproaching oneself for doing so. He was obliged, he says, to repeat that in this case everything, and at the same time nothing, indicated that Karrer would suddenly go mad. If we may not ask ourselves the simplest of questions, then we may not ask ourselves a question like the question why Karrer went into Rustenschacher’s store in the first place, for there was absolutely no need to do so if you disregard the fact that, possibly, Karrer’s sudden fatigue after our walk to Albersbachstrasse and back again was actually a reason, nor may we ask why I followed Karrer into Rustenschacher’s store. But as we do not ask, we may not, by the same token, say that everything was a foregone conclusion, was self-evident. Suddenly, at this moment, what had until then, been possible, would now be impossible, says Oehler. On the other hand what is, is self-evident. What he sees while we are walking, he sees through, and for this reason he does not observe at all, for anything that can be seen through (completely) cannot be observed. Karrer also made this same observation, says Oehler. If we see through something, we have to say that we do not see that thing. On the other hand no one else sees the thing, for anyone who does not see through a thing does not see the thing either. Karrer was of the same opinion. The question, why do I get up in the morning? can (must) be absolutely fatal if it is asked in such a way as to be really asked and if it is taken to a conclusion or has to be taken to a conclusion. Like the question, why do I go to bed at night? Like the question, why do I eat? Why do I dress? Why does everything (or a great deal or a very little) connect me to some people and nothing at all to others? If the question is taken to a logical conclusion, which means that the person who asks a question, which he takes to its logical conclusion because he takes it to a conclusion or because he has to take it to a conclusion, also takes it to a conclusion, then the question is answered once and for all, and then the person who asked the question does not exist any longer. If we say that this person is dead from the moment when he answers his own question, we make things too simple, says Oehler. On the other hand, we can find no better way of expressing it than by saying that the person who asked the question is dead. Since we cannot name everything and so cannot think absolutely , we exist and there is an existence outside of ourselves, says Oehler. If we have come as far as we have come (in thought), says Oehler, we must take the consequences and we must abandon these (or the) thoughts that have (or has) made it possible for us to come this far. Karrer exercised this faculty with a virtuosity which, according to Karrer, could only be called mental agility, says Oehler. If we suppose that I, and not Karrer, were in Steinhof now, says Oehler, and you were talking to me here, the thought is nonsensical, says Oehler. The chemist Hollensteiner’s suicide had a catastrophic effect upon Karrer, says Oehler, it had to have the effect upon Karrer that it did, rendering chaotic, in the most devastating manner, Karrer’s completely unprotected mental state in the most fatal manner. Hollensteiner, who had been a friend of Karrer’s in his youth, had, as will be recalled, committed suicide just at the moment when the so-called Ministry of Education withdrew funds vital to his Institute of Chemistry. The state withdraws vital funds from the most extraordinary minds, says Oehler, and it is precisely because of this that the extraordinary and the most extraordinary minds commit suicide, and Hollensteiner was one of these most extraordinary minds. I, says Oehler, could not begin to list the number of extraordinary and most extraordinary minds — all of them young and brilliant minds — who have committed suicide because the state, in whatever form, had withdrawn vital funds from them, and there is no doubt, in my mind, that in Hollensteiner’s case we are talking about a genius. At the very moment that was most vital to Hollensteiner’s institute, and so to Hollensteiner himself, the state withdrew the funds from him (and thus from his institute). Hollensteiner, who had, in his own day, made a great name for himself in chemistry, which is today such an important area of expertise, at a time when no one in this, his own country, had heard of him, even today, if you ask, no one knows the name Hollensteiner, says Oehler, we mention a completely extraordinary man’s name, says Oehler, and we discover that no one knows the name, especially not those who ought to know the name: this is always our experience, the people who ought to know the name of their most extraordinary scientist do not know the name or else they do not want to know the name. In this case, the chemists do not even know Hollensteiner’s name, or else they do not want to know the name Hollensteiner, and so Hollensteiner was driven to suicide, just like all extraordinary minds in this country. Whereas in Germany the name Hollensteiner was one of the most respected among chemists and still is today, here in Austria Hollensteiner has been completely blotted out, in this country, says Oehler, the extraordinary has always, and in all ages, been blotted out, blotted out until it committed suicide. If an Austrian mind is extraordinary, says Oehler, we do not need to wait for him to commit suicide, it is only a question of time and the state counts on it. Hollensteiner had so many offers, says Oehler, none of which he accepted, however. In Basel they would have welcomed Hollensteiner with open arms, in Warsaw, in Copenhagen, in Oxford, in America. But Hollensteiner didn’t even go to Göttingen, where they would have given Hollensteiner all the funds he wanted, because he couldn’t go to Göttingen, a person like Hollensteiner is incapable of going to Göttingen, of going to Germany at all; before a person like that would go to Germany he would rather commit suicide first. And at the very moment when he depends, in the most distressing manner, on the help of the state, he kills himself, which means that the state kills him. Genius is abandoned and driven to suicide. A scientist, says Oehler, is in a sad state in Austria and sooner or later, but especially at the moment when it appears to be most senseless, he has to perish because of the stupidity of the world around him and that means because of the stupidity of the state. We have an extraordinary scientist and ignore him, no one is attacked more basely than the extraordinary man, and genius goes to the dogs because in this state it has to go to the dogs. If only an eminent authority like Hollensteiner had the strength and, to as great an extent, the tendency toward self-denial so as to give up Austria, and that means Vienna, and go to Marburg or Göttingen, to give only two examples that apply to Hollensteiner, and could there, in Marburg or in Göttingen, continue the scientific work that it has become impossible for him to continue in Vienna, says Oehler, but a man like Hollensteiner was not in a position to go to Marburg or to Göttingen, Hollensteiner was precisely the sort of person who was unable to go to Germany. But it was also impossible for Hollensteiner to go to America, as we see, for then Hollensteiner, who was unable to go to Germany because the country made him feel uncomfortable and was intensely repugnant to him, would indeed have gone to America. Very, very few people have the strength to abandon their dislike of the country that is fundamentally ready to accept them with open arms and unparalleled goodwill and to go to that country. They would rather commit suicide in their own country because ultimately their love of their own country, or rather their love of their own, the Austrian, landscape, is greater than the strengths to endure their own science in another country. As far as Hollensteiner is concerned, says Oehler, we have an example of how the state treats an unusually clear and important mind. For years Hollensteiner begged for the funds that he needed for his own research, says Oehler, for years Hollensteiner demeaned himself in the face of a bureaucracy that is the most repugnant in the whole world, in order to get his funds, for years Hollensteiner tried what hundreds of extraordinary and brilliant people have tried. To realize an important, and not only for Austria but, without a shadow of doubt, for the whole of mankind, undertaking of a scientific nature with the aid of state funds. But he had to admit that in Austria no one can realize anything with the help of state funds, least of all something extraordinary, significant, epoch-making. The state, to whom a nature like Hollensteiner’s turns in the depths of despair, has no time for a nature like Hollensteiner’s. Thus a nature like Hollensteiner’s must recognize that it lives in a state, and we must say this about the state without hesitation and with the greatest ruthlessness, that hates the extraordinary and hates nothing more than the extraordinary. For it is clear that, in this state, only what is stupid, impoverished, and dilettante is protected and constantly promoted and that, in this state, funds are only invested in what is incompetent and superfluous. We see hundreds of examples of this every day. And this state claims to be a civilized state and demands that it be described as such on every occasion. Let’s not fool ourselves, says Oehler, this state has nothing to do with a civilized state and we shall never tire of saying so continually and without cease and on every occasion even if we are faced with the greatest difficulties because of our ceaseless observation, as a repetition of the same thing over and over again, that this is a state where lack of feeling and sense is boundless. It was Hollensteiner’s misfortune to be tied by all his senses to this country, not to this state, you understand, but to this country. And we know what it means, says Oehler, to love a country like ours with all of one’s senses in contrast to a state that does everything it can to destroy you instead of coming to your aid. Hollensteiner’s suicide is one suicide among many, every year we are made aware of the fact that many people whom we value and who have had talent and genius and who were extraordinary or most extraordinary have committed suicide, for we are constantly going to cemeteries, says Oehler, to the funerals of people who, despairing of the state, have committed suicide, who, if we stop to think, have thrown themselves out of windows or hanged themselves or shot themselves because they felt that they had been abandoned by our state. The only reason we go to cemeteries, says Oehler, is to inter a genius who has been ruined by the state and driven to his death, that is the truth. If we strike a balance between the beauty of the country and the baseness of the state, says Oehler, we arrive at suicide. As far as Hollensteiner was concerned, it became clear that his suicide was bound to distress Karrer, after all, the two had had an unbelievable relationship as friends. Only I always thought that Hollensteiner had the strength to go to Germany, to Göttingen, where he would have had everything at his disposal, says Oehler: the fact that he did not have this strength was the cause of his death. It would also have been of no use to have tried even more intensely to persuade him to go to Göttingen at any price, Karrer said, says Oehler. A nature that was not quite as sensitive as Hollensteiner’s would of course have had the strength to go to Göttingen, to go anywhere at all, simply to go where all the necessary funds for his scientific purposes would be at his disposal, says Oehler. But for a nature like Hollensteiner’s it is, of course, utterly impossible to settle down in an environment, especially for scientific purposes and in any scientific discipline, that is unbearable to that nature. And it would be senseless, says Oehler, to leave a country that you love but in which you are bound, as we can see, gradually to perish in a morass of indifference and stupidity, and go to a country where you will never get over the depression that that country breeds in you, never get out of a state of mind that must be equally destructive: then it would be better to commit suicide in the country you love, if only out of force of habit, says Oehler, rather than in the country that, not to mince words, you hate. People like Hollensteiner are admittedly the most difficult, says Oehler, and it is not easy to keep in contact with them because these people are constantly giving offense — a characteristic of extraordinary people, their most outstanding characteristic, giving offense — but on the other hand there is no greater pleasure than being in contact with such extremely difficult people. We must leave no stone unturned, says Oehler, and we must always, quite consciously, set the highest value on keeping in contact with these extremely difficult people, with the extraordinary and the most extraordinary, because this is the only contact that has any real value. All other contacts are worthless, says Oehler, they are necessary but worthless. It is a shame, says Oehler, that I didn’t meet Hollensteiner a lot earlier, but a remarkable caution toward this person, whom I always admired, did not permit me to make closer contact with Hollensteiner for at least twenty years after I had first set eyes on Hollensteiner, and even then our contact was not the intense contact that I would have wished for. People like Hollensteiner, says Oehler, do not allow you to approach them, they attract you and then at the crucial moment reject you. We think we have a close relationship with these people whereas in reality we can never establish a close relationship with people like Hollensteiner. In fact, we are captivated by such people as Hollensteiner without exactly knowing the reason why. On the one hand it is not, in fact, the person, on the other it is not their science, for we do not understand either of them. It is something of which we cannot say what it is and because of that it has the greatest effect upon us. For, says Oehler, you have to have gone to elementary school, to secondary school, and to the university with a man like Hollensteiner, as Karrer did, to know what he is. A person like me doesn’t know. We comment, with really terrifying helplessness, upon a matter or a case or simply just a misfortune or just simply Hollensteiner’s misfortune. I talked to Karrer about this at precisely the place where we are now standing, a few hours after we had attended Hollensteiner’s funeral. Just in Döblingen cemetery itself, says Oehler, where we buried Hollensteiner and, in the nature of things, buried him in the simplest way. He wanted to have a very simple funeral, says Oehler, he had once indicated to Karrer, actually very early on when he was only twenty-one, he had indicated that he wanted a very simple funeral and in Döblingen cemetery. Just in Döblingen cemetery itself, says Oehler, there are so many extraordinary people buried, all of whom were destroyed by the state, who perished as a result of the brutality of the bureaucracy and the stupidity of the masses. We comment upon a thing, a case, or simply a misfortune and wonder how this misfortune could have arisen. How was this misfortune possible? We deliberately avoid talking about a so-called human tragedy . We have a single individual in front of us, and we have to tell ourselves that this individual has perished at the hands of the state and, vice versa, that the state has perished at the hands of this individual. It is not easy to say that it’s a question of a misfortune, says Oehler, of this individual’s misfortune, or the state’s misfortune. It makes no sense to tell ourselves, now, that Hollensteiner could be in Göttingen (or Marburg) now, because Hollensteiner is not in Göttingen and is not in Marburg. Hollensteiner no longer exists. We buried Hollensteiner in Döblingen cemetery. As far as Hollensteiner is concerned we are left behind with our absolute helplessness (of thought). What we do is to exhaust ourselves meditating about insoluble facts, among which we do not understand the process of thought, though we call it thought, says Oehler. We become aware once more of our unease when we occupy ourselves with Hollensteiner, with Hollensteiner’s suicide and with Karrer’s madness, which I think is directly connected to Hollensteiner’s suicide. We even misuse a subject like that of Hollensteiner in relation to Karrer, to bring ourselves satisfaction. A strange ruthlessness, which is not recognizable as ruthlessness, dominates a man like Hollensteiner, says Oehler, and we are inevitably captivated by this ruthlessness if we recognize that it is an incredibly shrewd emotional state, which we could also call a state of mind. Anyone who knew Hollensteiner had to ask himself now and again where Hollensteiner’s way of acting would lead. Today we can see quite clearly where Hollensteiner’s way of acting has led. Hollensteiner and Karrer together represent the two most unusual people I have known, says Oehler. There is no doubt that the fact that Hollensteiner hanged himself in his institute is demonstrative in character, says Oehler. The shock of Hollensteiner’s suicide was, however, like all shocks about suicides, very very short-lived. Once the suicide is buried, his suicide and he himself are forgotten. No one thinks about it any more and the shock turns out to be hypocritical. Between Hollensteiner’s suicide and Hollensteiner’s funeral a lot was said about saving the Institute of Chemistry, says Oehler, people saying that the funds that had been denied to Hollensteiner would be placed at the disposal of his successor, as if there were one! cries Oehler, the newspapers carried reports that the ministry would undertake a so-called extensive redevelopment of Hollensteiner’s institute, at the funeral, people were even talking about the state’s making good what it had until then neglected in the Institute for Chemistry, but today, a few weeks later, says Oehler, that’s all as good as forgotten. Hollensteiner demonstrates by hanging himself in his own institute the serious plight of the whole domestic scientific community, says Oehler, and the world, and thus the people around Hollensteiner, feigns shock and goes to Hollensteiner’s funeral, and the moment Hollensteiner is buried they forget everything connected with Hollensteiner. Today nobody talks about Hollensteiner any more and nobody talks about his Institute of Chemistry, and nobody thinks of changing the situation that led to Hollensteiner’s suicide. And then someone else commits suicide, says Oehler, and another, and the process is repeated. Slowly but surely all intellectual activity in this country is extinguished, says Oehler. And what we observe in Hollensteiner’s field can be seen in every field, says Oehler. Until now we have always asked ourselves whether a country, a state, can afford to allow its intellectual treasure to deteriorate in such a really shabby way, says Oehler, but nobody asks the question any longer. Karrer spoke about Hollensteiner as a perfect example of a human being who could not be helped because he was extraordinary, unusual. Karrer explained the concept of the eccentric in connection with Hollensteiner with complete clarity, says Oehler. If there had been a less fundamental, a distanced, relationship between him, Karrer, and Hollensteiner, Karrer told Oehler, he, Karrer, would have made Hollensteiner the subject of a paper entitled The Relationship between Persons and Characters Like Hollensteiner, as a Chemist, to the State, Which is Gradually and in the Most Consistent Manner Destroying and Killing Them . In fact, there are in existence a number of Karrer’s remarks about Hollensteiner, says Oehler, hundreds of slips of paper, just as there are about you, says Oehler to me, there are in existence hundreds of Karrer’s slips of paper just as there are about me. It is obvious that these slips of paper written by Karrer should not be allowed to disappear, but it is difficult to get at these notes of Karrer’s, if we want to secure Karrer’s writings, we have to apply to Karrer’s sister, but she doesn’t want to hear anything more about Karrer’s thoughts. He, Oehler, thinks that Karrer’s sister may already have destroyed Karrer’s writings, for as we see over and over again stupid relatives act quickly, as, for example, the sisters or wives or brothers and nephews of dead thinkers, or ones who have gone finally mad, even when it is a case of brilliant characters, as in the case of Karrer, they don’t even wait for the actual moment of death or the final madness of the hated object, says Oehler, but acting as their relatives destroy, that is burn, the writings that irritate them for the most part before the final death or the final confinement of their hated thinker. Just as Hollensteiner’s sister destroyed everything that Hollensteiner wrote, immediately after Hollensteiner’s suicide. It would be a mistake to assume that Hollensteiner’s sister would have taken Hollensteiner’s part, says Oehler, on the contrary Hollensteiner’s sister was ashamed of Hollensteiner and had taken the state’s part, the part, that is, of baseness and stupidity. When Karrer went to see her, she threw him out, says Oehler, that is to say she didn’t even let Karrer into her house. And to his question about Hollensteiner’s writings she replied that Hollensteiner’s writings no longer existed, she had burned Hollensteiner’s writings because they appeared to her to be the writings of a madman. The fact is, says Oehler, that the world lost tremendous thoughts in Hollensteiner’s writings, philosophy lost tremendous philosophical thoughts, science lost tremendous scientific thoughts. For Hollensteiner had been a continuous, thinking, scientific mind, says Oehler, who constantly put his continuous scientific thought onto paper. In fact, in Hollensteiner’s case, we were dealing not only with a scientist but also with a philosopher, in Hollensteiner the scientist and the philosopher were able to fuse into one single, clear intellect, says Oehler. Thus, when you talk of Hollensteiner, you can speak of a scientist who was basically really a philosopher, just as you can speak of a philosopher who was basically really a scientist. Hollensteiner’s science was basically philosophy, Hollensteiner’s philosophy basically science, says Oehler. Otherwise we are always forced to say, here we have a scientist but (regrettably) not a philosopher, or here we have a philosopher but (regrettably) not a scientist. This is not the case in our judgment of Hollensteiner. It is a very Austrian characteristic, as we know, says Oehler. If we get involved with Hollensteiner, says Oehler, we get involved with a philosopher and a scientist at the same time, even if it were totally false to say that Hollensteiner was a philosophizing scientist and so on. He was a totally scientific philosopher. If we are talking about a person, as we are at the moment about Hollensteiner (and if we are talking about Hollensteiner, then basically about Karrer, but very often basically about Hollensteiner and so on), we are nevertheless speaking all the time about a result. We are mathematicians, says Oehler, or at least we are always trying to be mathematicians. When we think, it is less a case of philosophy, says Oehler, more one of mathematics. Everything is a tremendous calculation, if we have set it up from the outset in an unbroken line, a very simple calculation. But we are not always in the position of keeping everything that we have calculated intact within our head, and we break off what we are thinking and are satisfied with what we see, and are not surprised for long that we rest content with what we see, with millions upon millions of images that lie on, or under, one another and constantly merge and displace each other. Again, we can say that what appears extraordinary to a person like me, what is in fact extraordinary to me, because it is extraordinary, says Oehler, means nothing to the state. For Hollensteiner meant nothing to the state because he meant nothing to the masses, but we shall not get any further with this thought, says Oehler. And whereas the state and whereas society and whereas the masses do everything to get rid of thought, we oppose this development with all the means at our disposal, although we ourselves believe most of the time in the senselessness of thinking, because we know that thinking is total senselessness, because, on the other hand, we know that without the senselessness of thinking we do not exist or are nothing. We then cling to the effortlessness with which the masses dare to exist, although they deny this effortlessness in every statement that they make, says Oehler, but, in the nature of things, we do not, of course, succeed in being really effortless in the effortlessness of the masses. We can, however, do nothing less than cling to this misconception from time to time, subject ourselves to the misconception, and that means all possible misconceptions, and exist in nothing but misconception. For strictly speaking, says Oehler, everything is misconceived. But we exist within this fact because there is no way that we can exist outside this fact, at least not all the time. Existence is misconception, says Oehler. This is something we have to come to terms with early enough, so that we have a basis upon which we can exist, says Oehler. Thus misconception is the only real basis. But we are not always obliged to think of this basis as a principle, we must not do that, says Oehler, we cannot do that. We can only say yes, over and over again, to what we should unconditionally say no to, do you understand, says Oehler, that is the fact. Thus Karrer’s madness was causally connected with Hollensteiner’s suicide, which of itself had nothing to do with madness. Behavior like Hollensteiner’s was bound to do damage to a nature like Karrer’s if we consider Hollensteiner’s relationship to Karrer and vice versa, in the way in which Hollensteiner’s suicide harmed Karrer’s nature, says Oehler. Karrer had on many occasions, he went on, spoken to Oehler of the possibility of Hollensteiner’s committing suicide. But he was talking about a suicide that would come from within , not of one that would be caused externally , says Oehler, if we disregard the fact that inner and outer are identical for natures like Hollensteiner and Karrer. For, and these are Karrer’s words, says Oehler, the possibility that Hollensteiner would commit suicide from an inner cause always existed, but then with the extension of Hollensteiner’s institute and with Hollensteiner’s obvious successes in his scientific work, simultaneously with the ignoring and the torpedoing of these scientific successes of Hollensteiner’s by the world around him, the possibility existed that he would commit suicide from an external cause . Whereas, however, it is characteristic and typical of Hollensteiner, says Oehler, that he did finally commit suicide, as we now know, and what we could not know up to the moment that Hollensteiner committed suicide is that it is also typical of Karrer that he did not commit suicide after Hollensteiner had committed suicide but that he, Karrer, went mad. However, what is frightful, says Oehler, is the thought that a person like Karrer, because he has gone mad and, as I believe, has actually gone finally mad, because he has gone finally mad he has fallen into the hands of people like Scherrer. On the previous Saturday, Oehler made several statements regarding Karrer to Scherrer which, according to Scherrer, says Oehler, were of importance for him, Scherrer, in connection with Karrer’s treatment, he, Oehler, did not believe that what he had told Scherrer on Saturday, especially about the incident that was crucial for Karrer’s madness, the incident in Rustenschacher’s men’s store, that the very thing that Oehler had told Scherrer about what he had noticed in Rustenschacher’s store, shortly before Karrer went mad, still made sense. For Scherrer’s scientific work it did , for Karrer it did not . For the fact that Scherrer now knows what I noticed in Rustenschacher’s store before Karrer went mad in Rustenschacher’s store makes no difference to Karrer’s madness. What happened in Rustenschacher’s store, says Oehler, was only the factor that triggered Karrer’s final madness, nothing more. For example, it would have been much more important, says Oehler, if Scherrer had concerned himself with the relationship of Karrer and Hollensteiner, but Scherrer did not want to hear anything from Oehler about this relationship, Karrer’s relationship to Hollensteiner was not of the slightest interest to Scherrer, says Oehler. I tried several times to direct Scherrer’s attention to this relationship, to make him aware of this really important relationship and of the really important events that took place within this year- and decades-long connection between Karrer and Hollensteiner, but Scherrer did not go into it, says Oehler, but, as is the way with these people, these totally unphilosophical and, for that reason, useless psychiatric doctors, he continued to nag away at the happenings in Rustenschacher’s store, which are, in my opinion, certainly revealing but not decisive, says Oehler, but he understood nothing about the importance of the Karrer/Hollensteiner relationship. Scherrer kept on asking me why we, Karrer and I, went into Rustenschacher’s store, to which I replied every time that I could not answer that question and that I simply could not understand how Scherrer could ask such a question, says Oehler. Scherrer kept on asking questions which, in my opinion, were unimportant questions, whereupon, of course, Scherrer received unimportant answers from me, says Oehler. These people keep on asking unimportant questions and for that reason keep on getting unimportant answers, but they are not aware of it. Just as they are not aware of the fact that the questions they ask are unimportant and as a result make no sense, it does not occur to them that the answers they receive to these questions are unimportant and make no sense. If I had not gone on mentioning Hollensteiner’s name, says Oehler, Scherrer would not have hit upon Hollensteiner. There is something terribly depressing about sitting opposite a person who, by his very presence, continuously asserts that he is competent and yet has absolutely no competence in the matter at hand. We observe time and again, says Oehler, that we are with people who should be competent and who also assert and claim, indeed they go on claiming, to be competent in the matter for which we have come to them, whereas they are in an irresponsible, shattering, and really repugnant manner incompetent. Almost everybody we get together with about a matter, even if it is of the highest importance, is incompetent. Scherrer, says Oehler, is, in my opinion, the most incompetent when it’s a question of Karrer, and the thought that Karrer is in Scherrer’s hands, because Karrer is confined in Scherrer’s section, is one of the most frightful thoughts. The enormous arrogance you sense, says Oehler, when you sit facing a man like Scherrer. Hardly a moment passes before you ask yourself what Karrer (the patient) really has to do with Scherrer (his doctor)? For a person like Karrer to be in the hands of a person like Scherrer is an unparalleled human monstrosity, says Oehler. But because we are familiar with his condition, it is immaterial to Karrer whether he is in Scherrer’s hands or not. After all, the moment Karrer became finally mad it became immaterial whether Karrer was in Steinhof or not, says Oehler. But it is not the fact that a man like Scherrer is totally unphilosophical that is repugnant, says Oehler, although someone in Scherrer’s position ought, first and foremost, besides having his medical knowledge, to be philosophical, it is his shameful ignorance. No matter what I say, Scherrer’s ignorance repeatedly finds expression, says Oehler. Whenever I said something, no matter what it was, to Scherrer or whenever Scherrer responded to what I had said, no matter what it was, I was constantly aware that Scherrer’s ignorance kept coming to light. But even when Scherrer says nothing, we hear nothing but ignorance from him, says Oehler, a person like Scherrer does not need to say something ignorant for us to know that we are dealing with a completely ignorant person. The observation that doctors are practicing in complete ignorance shakes us when we are with them, says Oehler. But among doctors, ignorance is a habit to which they have become accustomed over the centuries, says Oehler. Some exceptions notwithstanding, says Oehler. Scherrer’s inability to think logically and thus to ask logical questions, give logical answers, and so forth, says Oehler, it was precisely when I was in his presence that it occurred to me that people like Scherrer can never go mad. As we know, psychiatric doctors do become mentally ill after a while, but not mad. Because they are ignorant of their life’s theme these people finally become mentally ill, but never mad. As a result of incapacity, says Oehler, and basically because of their continual decades-long incompetence. And at that moment I again recognized to what degree madness is something that happens only among the highest orders of humanity. That at a given moment madness is everything . But to say something like that to Scherrer, says Oehler, would, above all else, be to overestimate Scherrer, so I quickly gave up the idea of saying anything to Scherrer such as what I have just said about the actual definition of madness, says Oehler. Scherrer is probably not the least bit interested in what took place in Rustenschacher’s store, says Oehler, he only asked me to go up to Steinhof because he didn’t know anything better to do, to ask me about what happened in Rustenschacher’s store, says Oehler. Psychiatric doctors like to make a note of what you tell them, without worrying about it, and what you tell them is a matter of complete indifference to them, that is, it is a matter of complete indifference to them, and they do not worry about it. Because a psychiatric doctor has to make inquiries, they make inquiries, says Oehler, and of all the leads the ones they follow are the least important. Of course, the incident in Rustenschacher’s store is not insignificant, says Oehler, but it is only one of hundreds of incidents that preceded the incident in Rustenschacher’s store and that have the same importance as the one in Rustenschacher’s store. Not a question about Hollensteiner, not a question about the people around Hollensteiner, not a question about Hollensteiner’s place in modern science, not a question about Hollensteiner’s philosophical circumstances, about his notes, never mind about Hollensteiner’s relationship to Karrer or Karrer’s to Hollensteiner. In the nature of things, Scherrer should have shown an interest in the time Hollensteiner and Karrer spent together at school, says Oehler, in their common route to school, their origins and so on, in their common, and their different, views and intentions and so on, says Oehler. The whole time I was there, Scherrer insisted that I only make statements about the incident in Rustenschacher’s store, and on this point with regard to the happenings in Rustenschacher’s store, says Oehler, Scherrer demanded the utmost precision from me. He kept saying leave nothing out, says Oehler, I can still hear him saying leave nothing out while I went on talking without a break about the incident in Rustenschacher’s store. This incident acted as a so-called trigger incident, I said to Scherrer, says Oehler, but there can be no doubt that it is not a fundamental one. Scherrer did not react to my observation, I made the observation several times, says Oehler, and so I had repeatedly to take up the incident in Rustenschacher’s store. That is absolutely grotesque, Scherrer said on several occasions during my description of the incident in Rustenschacher’s store. This statement was merely repugnant to me.Читать дальше