Correction: A Novel (13 page)

My mind keeps coming back to that schoolway, I said to Hoeller, and then: One day we came to school in winter, I said, and we had to face the fact that the teacher had hanged himself in our schoolroom during the night. Because he had been accused by a schoolmate of ours, we both knew his name, of having molested him, the pupil, down by the Aurach under a rock ledge. This accusation, though never proven to this day, I said, led to the suicide of the teacher, whose name I have forgotten, Hoeller also had forgotten his name. I can see us now, the first to arrive as always, opening the classroom door and putting down the pieces of wood we had brought beside the tile stove, intending to start the fire with them, for as he, Hoeller, knew, we had never waited for the school janitor, whose job it was, to do it, but had always started the fire ourselves right away, it was no trouble because there were still glowing embers in the stove, so we’d never needed any kindling, all we had to do was put the fresh logs inside and the schoolroom was soon warm enough for us, I can see myself bending down to put a log on the fire, I said, and it was then I noticed that the teacher had hanged himself above the tile stove, from the hook where usually only the saw hung which the teacher took down spring and fall to trim the apple and pear trees in the schoolhouse garden. There was no need to remind Hoeller of this incident which had probably influenced Hoeller all his life as it had influenced me all my life as a primal experience, and yet it was in order suddenly to bring up the teacher’s suicide again, and the slandering of him by our schoolmate, whose name we had now forgotten, which led to the teacher’s suicide by hanging, I was impressed by how calmly I could now speak of the teacher’s suicide and of how I had discovered his hanged body, it was the first time after so many years, after two decades in fact, that I was able to speak calmly about this experience, Hoeller was also impressed by my calm in speaking of all this, anyway I could have made these remarks about the teacher’s suicide only in this calm way, because I had been moved to make these remarks by the two death notices opposite me, which is why I had begun to speak, by way of preparation, of our walking to school together and all the circumstances of our walking to school together that have remained as present to our minds as they were in the earliest school days of our childhood, circumstances which are different today, and so I had brought up our schoolway and perceptions related to our schoolway then as perceptions of today, in preparation, so to speak, for what I basically wanted to say, all that description of our way to school, my own recollection of it, as well as Hoeller’s recollection of it by way of first testing my own memory and then Hoeller’s memory, all used in order to arrive at the fact that our teacher hanged himself because of a vulgar slander against him by a schoolmate of ours. Probably there is some connection between our teacher’s suicide such a long time ago and Roithamer’s suicide, naturally, I said to Hoeller, there’s a connection, Roithamer’s suicide and the teacher’s suicide so many years ago, since, as I know, Roithamer’s life too had been crucially affected by the teacher’s suicide. Anyway, like all children in such so-called remote places, we were no strangers to suicide quite early in our lives, such country places always have their share of chronically unhappy people and the resulting general unhappiness leads to dozens of suicides annually within the smallest circumference, with the help of the oppressive weather conditions in these foothills, here everybody is
always
inclined to suicide, everyone feels he is suffocating because he can’t change his situation in any way, in this landscape they all have a keen sense of being handicapped by their birth, nor was it any use, evidently, for one of the most vulnerable, like Roithamer, a man whose actions were determined by his head and not, as with all the others, by his feelings, to leave the country, as Roithamer quite simply left it, because he had the opportunity to leave, but everywhere he went, no matter where he sought refuge, he could not escape this handicap of his birthplace, the landscape of his birth and the depressive constitutional tendencies so characteristic of his fellow countrymen, and of course, I said to Hoeller, Roithamer finally did kill himself anyway, he’d tried to escape his fate by running off to England, hoping to get away, he’d soon settled in England because he had the (financial) means to do so, but it was no use, he was doomed just like the others who have no chance of leaving the country, I said. Even a man like him, who seems to have every chance of escaping, I said, can’t overcome the fact of having been born into a chronically depressed state of mind and body, it is precisely that kind of a man in whom the general unhappiness reaches its most tragically concentrated form, yet it would be wrong to regard a man like Roithamer as someone who is always unhappy, no man is always unhappy, especially not a man like Roithamer, so variously gifted and certainly capable of always keeping himself in trim mentally and physically, there’s no limit to such a man’s possibilities, the utmost unhappiness, for one, but of course also the utmost happiness, naturally a constant intense alternation of happiness and unhappiness will eventually make an end of any man’s life, it will lead to a death according to his nature, whether he comes to a quiet end or to a troubled end, it is always an end consistent with his nature, clearly a man like Roithamer, with his capabilities, always straining toward some ultimate experience, or achievement, could not endure life as long as lesser men might. In our country suicide is commonplace, nothing unusual at all, I said, quite a natural subject of conversation. Anyone who pays attention can see for himself that everyone in our region and in fact all Austrians everywhere talk about suicide all the time, quite openly, even habitually, they would all have to admit that the thought of suicide is never far from their minds, at the very least, though of course they don’t all kill themselves, but the idea of killing oneself, of doing away with oneself in the quickest possible way, of obliterating oneself as best one can, is an idea shared by all of them, no matter what anyone thinks, it’s actually their only idea. Basically we have here a people given to constant discussion of its own suicide, while at the same time constantly having to prevent itself from committing suicide, this is as true of each individual as of the population as a whole, they’re always at it, singly and collectively, and what it actually amounts to is a state of incessant suffering made bearable, however, by the high intelligence applied to it by each individual and therefore by the people as a whole. It’s a folk art of sorts, I said to Hoeller, always longing to kill oneself but being kept by one’s watchful intelligence from killing oneself, so that the condition is stabilized in the form of lifelong controlled suffering, it’s an art possessed only by this people and those belonging to it. We’re a nation of suicides, I said, but only a small percentage actually kill themselves, even though ours is the highest percentage of suicides in the world, even though we in this country hold the world’s record for suicide, I said. What mainly goes on in this country and among these people is thinking about suicide, everywhere, in the big cities, in the towns, in the country, a basic trait of this country’s population is the constant thought of suicide, they might be said to take pleasure in thinking constantly, steadily, without allowing anything to distract them, about how to do away with themselves at any time. It is their way of keeping their balance, I said, to think constantly about killing themselves without actually killing themselves. But of course the rest of the world doesn’t understand, and so whatever they think about us and regardless of what they say about us and of how they always and invariably treat us, every single one of us, they are all wrong. It’s a simple fact, I said, that our country is misunderstood, no matter how well intentioned the rest of the world may appear, what it sees when it looks at Austria and its people is total madness as a stable state of mind, a constant. I’m going to start, I said to Hoeller, by putting all of Roithamer’s books and papers in order, even though I’ve no idea how to do it, since the chances are that the disorder among Roithamer’s books and papers
is
their order, no matter, I would try first of all to get myself
acclimated
to the garret up there, to make myself at home first, and only then organize myself with respect to my work on Roithamer’s literary legacy. That he, Hoeller, had put the garret at my disposal for this purpose, was the greatest help to me, just as my recent sickness, from which I have just recovered, even though not quite recovered, is an equally opportune circumstance for my work on Roithamer’s legacy. A stay of four or five days, I said, would give me time to look everything over, and I’d need another four or five days for a more intensive study. More I could not say as yet. Hoeller then gave me his account of finding Roithamer in the clearing and how he had cut him down from the tree, the big linden tree out there. Suddenly there was no problem about getting him to talk, he told me everything, in his own orderly fashion showing signs of Roithamer’s influence, he restricted himself to what was important and necessary, told in proper sequence. His account took a quarter of an hour and as I listened to him I felt that everything was exactly as he said, Hoeller was a so-called truth fanatic, his voice and its rhythms were familiar to me. There was no further sound coming from the kitchen, the children had gone to bed, their mother was still at her sewing machine, audible on the floor above, though it was already nine-thirty, a late hour for the Hoeller house. The rattle of the sewing machine above and the roar of the Aurach below combined in a quite definite musical rhythm. It would be a pleasure for me to take my meals together with the family, I said to Hoeller, then I got up, said good night, and went up to the garret. But I was far from ready for sleep, just like Hoeller who did not go to bed either as I soon noticed, probably because of his insomnia, but went instead to his workshop, his preservatory as Roithamer always called Hoeller’s workshop. I’d expected that if I sat still long enough on the old chair by the door, fighting off the new thoughts that kept coming after I’d forced myself to think through all the old thoughts, to cut them off if necessary or else spin them out to a conclusion if possible, I’d get sufficiently tired out for bed, but it didn’t work and I finally had to get up from the old chair to pace the floor. Suddenly I was full of doubts, had I done the right thing in moving into Hoeller’s garret, in accepting Hoeller’s offer so precipitately, without considering what it would do to me and to my immediate future and in general, all of a sudden I asked myself, what am I doing here anyway? Should I have taken on Roithamer’s papers so soon, perhaps it would be better to go up to the mountains, into a shepherd’s hut up there, far better, probably, for my still convalescent body, the doctors had in fact recommended such a stay in the mountains, for the mountain air, the absolute quiet up there, the doctors would probably have been totally against my staying down here in the damp, the cold, the darkness of the Aurach valley, especially the Aurach gorge, after my premature release from the hospital which was nobody’s idea but mine, I should have aimed to avoid stress of any kind, instead of which I’d moved into Hoeller’s garret, which would be in itself a strain on any organism and any mind, and in addition I’d taken on the burden of working on Roithamer’s legacy, I wondered whether I should not postpone this, leave tomorrow, end my stay in Hoeller’s house early tomorrow morning, I could easily make up some excuse for breaking off my stay, and go up to the mountains. Caught up in this question, whether to break off my stay in Hoeller’s house the next morning or not, always coming back to the decision to leave, then again the decision not to leave, not to start working on Roithamer’s legacy, not now in any case, then again, working on it now is sure to do me good, especially now, I kept pacing the floor in Hoeller’s garret, considering all the advantages of a stay in the mountains and all the disadvantages of staying at Hoeller’s house this time of year and in the Aurach gorge in my present condition, then again I could see only disadvantages in a stay in the mountains this time of year and in my present condition, while seeing only the advantages of staying at Hoeller’s house, swinging like a pendulum between preferring the mountains and downgrading the Hoeller house, and vice versa was rapidly driving me crazy, walking to the window I thought, for instance, that I must have the strength and the guts to pack my things in the morning and leave, no need to lie to Hoeller, I’d tell him the truth, get out of his house and up into the mountains, up to an elevation that would be better for my health than Hoeller’s house, with its atmosphere which, taken all in all, could only make my condition worse, I thought, and then again, turning back from the window toward the door, where I stopped, thinking that it was wrong to move out of the garret again tomorrow, an affront to the Hoellers, only to go up to the mountains, any mountains, which deep down I hated, I’ve simply always hated high altitude mountain landscapes with their distant views, their so-called infinite horizons, I’d be making a mistake to leave the Hoellers’ house for some furnished mountain hut or even a mountain hotel, the mere idea of having to live in such a mountain hut for even the shortest time imaginable, or in one of those horrible mountain hotels, I’d always regarded those mountain huts and mountain hotels as nothing but horrible, and soon I found myself thinking how well off I was here in the company of Hoeller and his wife, together with the Hoeller children, and after all I could stay here without working on Roithamer’s legacy, since I was under absolutely no obligation to work on it, simply to stay here in Hoeller’s garret and in the Hoeller ambience and simply let this atmosphere have its effect on me and to simply let myself go in this atmosphere would at the moment probably be the best thing for me, I thought, the chances were I’d probably be feeling much easier the very next day, it was too much to expect that easing of tension which I had hoped for, expected, on my very first day in Hoeller’s house, such relief, though in fact I needed it immediately, could not come at once, it could come only gradually, perhaps only after a few days, I could find other reading matter than these papers which had to do exclusively with Roithamer and would be constantly reminding me of Roithamer, virtually chaining me to Roithamer, after all there were plenty of other books in Hoeller’s garret, books which need not remind me of Roithamer, as I had noticed as soon as I got here, a few walks along the Aurach, maybe even longer walks out onto the plain, toward Pinsdorf, would help to calm me down, maybe it was simply