Correction: A Novel (3 page)

He made no changes at all in the garret, Hoeller said, never again touched anything in it. The garret is still exactly as it was when he left it. Nor have I changed anything in the garret, Hoeller said. Then Roithamer went away and they never heard from him again. The news of Roithamer’s death came as no surprise, so Hoeller said, everything about Roithamer on that last evening and that last night had pointed to his death, Hoeller could see clearly during that night, during all of that last encounter with Roithamer that he, Roithamer, didn’t have much longer to live. I no longer exist, was the last thing Roithamer is supposed to have said to Hoeller. I personally saw Roithamer one last time in London, after he’d sent me a telegram and I’d gone to meet him at Victoria Station and had accompanied him to his apartment, where he told me about his sister’s funeral, in those brief sentences of his that brooked no contradiction. Now in the garret Roithamer was present to my mind’s eye, because he had in fact been present here, I saw him distinctly and I heard what he said when I saw him, even though he was not present in reality, so conscious was I of his presence as I gazed at his things, breathed the air he had breathed those last years in the garret, thought the thoughts he had always thought here, sensed the Hoeller atmosphere which had become second nature to him in the years when he’d been disengaging himself from Altensam and had, gradually at first and then altogether, given himself up to his project, the Cone, for Roithamer had often told me that the Hoeller atmosphere and the circumstances of the Hoeller atmosphere, the line of thought directly bound up with the Hoeller atmosphere and the circumstances bound up with the Hoeller atmosphere had become his one necessity, the only compelling necessity of his life, no matter where he happened to be in those final years, whether in England, where he had to teach at the university in Cambridge, or in the Kobernausser forest, where he had decided to build the Cone, wherever he had stayed in those final years, whether in England or in Austria, whether in the English place, which called for great decisiveness and presence of mind, or in the Austrian place, with great attachment and love, though also with equally great contempt and dislike, with a mixture of distrust and disappointment felt so keenly as to border on hatred for his homeland, a borderline he was often sharply aware of crossing, in fact, because he realized that while on the one hand he loved Austria as the land of his origin, he also hated it because it had rudely affronted him all his life long, it had always repulsed him when he needed it, it had never let a man like Roithamer come close, basically men, people, characters like Roithamer have no business in a country like his homeland and mine, where they have
no chance
of developing and are continually aware of their inability to develop, such a country needs people who are not angered to the point of rebellion against the insolence of such a country, against the irresponsibility of such a country and such a state, such a totally decrepit, public menace of a state, as Roithamer said again and again, a state in which only chaotic conditions, if not the most chaotic conditions, prevailed; this state has countless men like Roithamer on its conscience, it has a most sordid and shabby history on its conscience, it is no better than a
permanent condition of perversity and prostitution in the form
of a state,
as Roithamer said again and again, quite impassively, with his innate firmness of judgment based on solid experience, indeed Roithamer had never accepted any criterion other than that of experience, as he said again and again, when his limit of tolerance toward this country and this state had been reached, and he said that he could not give a full account of this state’s sordidness and shabbiness and dangerousness in just a few quick words, nor could he take the time for a full analysis in a scholarly work on the subject, intent as he was on his professional duties and on his building of the Cone, nor did he have the head for exhausting himself in political argument, he had never been able to pour himself out in political—the common kind of political argument—he had to leave this sort of thing to
other kinds of heads, foreheads, occiputs, more suited to it than his own
, he merely felt driven now and then to bring his judgment to bear on the country of his origin, the country where he belonged, Austria, this most misunderstood country in the world, this country more problematical than any other in all world history, so from time to time he had to risk expressing himself on the subject of Austria and the Austrians, this state that was economically more decrepit than any other, which had nothing left, apart from its congenital imbecility, but its hypocrisy, hypocrisy in every conceivable area of administration and policy, this country, once the very center of Europe, was, according to Roithamer, no longer anything more than a rummage sale of intellectual and cultural history, an unsold remainder of government merchandise, on which the citizen is granted only a second or a third or a fourth but in any case only the last bid, only the leftovers, Roithamer had known from the beginning, as I did too, how impossible it was to grow up and develop in this country, under this government, no matter what the auspices, as Roithamer said, this country and this government do not favor the development of a man of intellect, here every sign of intellectual energy becomes immediately transformed into a sign of intellectual weakness, every effort to get ahead, to move up, to move on, is made in vain, wherever you turn your eyes, your mind, your efforts, you see nothing but the failure of all efforts to make one’s way, to rise, to get on, to develop, every Austrian is born to failure and has to realize that he must give up the struggle if he is to remain in this country and in this state, under whatever auspices, he has to decide whether to stay and go under, to grow old in misery and without ever achieving anything in his own country and his own state, watching his own mind and body die a horrible slow death, whether to accept this lifelong process of decline while remaining in this country, under this government, or else whether to get up and out as soon as possible, and by so doing save himself, save his mind, save his personality, his nature, because if he doesn’t get out, Roithamer’s words, then he is sure to be destroyed in this country, if he isn’t yet contemptible, he is sure to become contemptible in this country, and under this system, and if he’s not a vicious or an infamous type, he’s sure to become a vicious or an infamous character, and a vicious and infamous creature in this country and under this system, so a man has to save himself from the first, from the very first moments he begins to think, by escaping from this country and this system and the sooner a man of intellect turns his back on this country and this system the better, he has to make up his mind to leave behind everything that constitutes this state and this country, to go no matter where, to the ends of the earth if necessary, but not to stay where there is nothing for him, or else if there is something, it’s sure to be only the most miserable, the most mind-destroying, the most head-wrecking kind of thing, sure to drive him to every kind of pettiness and meanness, here everything exists only to crush him, to vilify and disown him at all times, he must realize that here in his Austrian homeland he is chronically exposed to vulgar misunderstanding and vulgar vilification, sure to drive him to his destruction and to his death and to the annihilation of his existence. Surely it is clear that Roithamer had no alternative but to leave his homeland, which doesn’t even deserve that honorable title, since it still is an honorable title, because his so-called homeland is actually, for him as for so many others, nothing but a horrible lifelong punishment for existing, for the blameless act of having been born in the first place, a man like Roithamer never ceases to feel punished by his homeland for what is not his fault, because no man can be blamed for his birth, but Roithamer had to understand very early in his life, in his earliest childhood, in fact, which he spent with his three siblings in Altensam, that he would have to get away, as fast as possible and without any ifs or buts, if he was not to go under, as his siblings have gone under, in the last analysis, because there is not the slightest doubt that Austria has been the ruin of his siblings, his older brother certainly went downhill in Altensam, because of the circumstances characteristic of Altensam, the conditions that prevail in Altensam and always did prevail in Altensam, Roithamer’s older brother never once made any attempt to leave Altensam, his development took the course characteristic for Altensam, from the first he had given himself up without a murmur to that process of dying a slow death in Altensam, the place is nothing but a process of slow death, he never tried to break away from Altensam, to give up Altensam, he simply could not muster the minimum of necessary energy, qualities such as courage, decisiveness, adding up to a spiritual power of decision, were altogether lacking in this elder brother, whom I knew from early childhood, as I knew Roithamer’s younger brother, he simply accepted this order-in-the-guise-of-disorder which always prevailed in Altensam, quietly put up with the inexorable processes of the dying-off of a huge country estate, because this was what his parents expected of him, and he grew up in Altensam as they all grew up in Altensam, and what became of him is what became of them all, a typical Altensamer is what he became, a man who basically knows nothing else and also accepts nothing else than Altensam, who has awakened with Altensam and who, having lived through Altensam, is going to die with Altensam. And Roithamer’s younger brother was always the older brother’s willing slave, he was even weaker and feebler than the older brother and both of them together actually formed a lifelong death club in Altensam, nothing else, even though they did outlive Roithamer, their middle brother, and their sister too, who died in the Cone, of course, they did out-exist, out-vegetate their sister and their middle brother, Roithamer; if I were to go to Altensam, which I have no desire to do, I could see for myself how they keep on vegetating there, I could see them, the two remaining Altensamers, being exactly what they have always been and nothing else, being Altensam through-and-through, and it was precisely this
Altensam through-and-through
that Roithamer always resisted, as he said, his whole life, his whole existence, his whole effort to survive had basically been nothing more than resistance to Altensam, anything but surrender to Altensam, anything but getting stuck in Altensam is what he must have been thinking always and in every way, I think that this reflection must have been part of every slightest thought, every least idea in his head: anything but becoming Altensam,
becoming Altensam through-and-through
like my brothers, because actually Roithamer would never have been capable of accomplishing his intellectually demanding work otherwise, work such as he has left us as his legacy, all these papers of his, even the least significant of them, testify to Roithamer’s lifelong concern with not getting stuck in Altensam, throughout all of his life, all of his difficult existence, there was nothing of greater urgency in his head than he need to loosen his ties to Altensam, because to disengage himself from Altensam, consciously and radically, meant the freedom to think, to be freed of Altensam to do his own thinking, because he had finally freed his thinking from Altensam even though it would not have been possible without Altensam, because actually Altensam and his coming from Altensam and the constant connection between his person and his personality and his scientific work and Altensam were necessary, to enable him to think as he had thought and worked, away from Altensam, beyond Altensam, never again back to Altensam. His brothers had been destined from the first to remain in Altensam, to accommodate themselves in Altensam to their fated decline in Altensam, no one expected anything else from them, in fact, and no one noticed that these two men, by staying in Altensam, were gradually and with increasing intensity being annihilated by Altensam, even though they still exist, they have long since been annihilated by Altensam as Roithamer was never annihilated by Altensam, although he was always debilitated by Altensam, by all but his sister, who was an exception. To her Roithamer clung with all the love of which such a man is capable and as the highest expression of this love he had envisioned and undertaken and accomplished and completed the building of the Cone. But that a person like Roithamer’s sister cannot endure so climactic a condition has proved true, in that she is no longer alive today. But more of this later. That he must get out of Altensam, Roithamer had understood even as a child, clearly understood as though he had an adult’s head on his shoulders, and he had always kept apart from the others in Altensam as if in preparation for his removal from Altensam, from earliest childhood on everything about him had pointed to his eventual departure from Altensam, to his actually leaving Altensam completely behind him, because his kind of thinking was incompatible with Altensam and impossible without a separation from Altensam. It will have to be a radical separation, he had decided quite early in his life, and when he decided subsequently to give up not only Altensam but Austria, he actually achieved the most radical separation possible from Altensam and Austria.

Because if I ever do go back again—and the temptation to go back again could not be greater—I shall be destroying everything I have achieved, he noted, it would mean yielding to a weakness, nothing less than a deadly weakness, it would mean succumbing in a moment to the imbecility which I have so far managed to escape. He had always perceived Altensam as a state of imbecility, and those who lived in Altensam, his relatives, as the imbeciles in this imbecility, and there was nothing he feared more than a return to this imbecility and to these imbeciles. Even if the torment of absence and of pursuing, of advancing one’s objective, one’s intended continuous improvement of one’s intellectual condition, is the greatest torment, and even if the hardship of taking root so far from home, in a socalled foreign country, is the greatest and most depressing of hardships, I shall not return to this state of imbecility and to the imbeciles of Altensam and Austria, he noted. Many of his notes of that period had attracted my attention during the first hours after my arrival at Hoeller’s garret, but I deliberately avoided concentrating on Roithamer’s mental state just yet. To penetrate Roithamer’s mental state prematurely was dangerous, it had to be done warily, with great care, and above all while keeping watch over my own mental state, which is, after all, also and always a precarious state of debility, as I was thinking during those first moments and hours of contact.