Extinction (25 page)

my nuncio
. Such a scene must be unbearably touching, I told Gambetti. I was furious, as I always am
after speaking about the
dubious
Spadolini. It’s absurd, I told myself, that I should not only be teaching German literature but have the megalomaniac presumption to teach German philosophy, that I should pretend to a knowledge of German literature and German philosophy, or at least some acquaintance with it, when in fact I am only part of the Wolfsegg riffraff, the very thought of which makes me cringe. Having come to Rome from the provincial hell of Wolfsegg, I presume to talk to everyone about Schopenhauer and Goethe. Quite perverse, I told myself. When I take Wolfsegg and my family apart, when I dissect, annihilate, and extinguish them, I am actually taking myself apart, dissecting, annihilating, and extinguishing myself. I have to admit that this idea of self-dissection and self-extinction appeals to me, I told Gambetti. I’ll spend my life dissecting and extinguishing myself, Gambetti, and if I’m not mistaken I’ll succeed in this self-dissection and self-extinction. I actually do nothing but dissect and extinguish myself. When I wake up in the morning the first thing I think of is setting about my work of dissection and extinction with a will. Our parents led us only to the brink of the abyss but did not show it to us; they never let us look into it but pulled us back at the critical moment. They always sought to lead us just to the brink, without showing us what it was that was ruining us. Billions of parents do the same, I told Gambetti. I switched the photos around and placed the one of my brother on his sailboat above the one of my parents and below the one of my sisters. They had gone to Cannes to wheedle money out of Uncle Georg for a trip they planned to America, my parents having refused to give them a penny as they thought such a trip unnecessary. While in Cannes they tried every possible trick to relieve Uncle Georg of the money they needed, but after two weeks they gave up. He did not give them a penny, believing that any money he gave them for a trip to America was money down the drain. From then on they hated Uncle Georg even more fervently than before, though he had been very generous to them in Nice, taking them out to the most expensive bars and restaurants and buying them lots of clothes, bracelets, necklaces, and so forth. Uncle Georg had seen through them. And in any case it was not
their
idea to go to Cannes to see Uncle Georg and wheedle money out of him for their American trip, but my mother’s, as I happen to know.
She
dispatched her daughters to Cannes on this
squalid mission, but to no avail. I have to tell myself that the motive force behind everything bad has always been my mother, I told Gambetti. Anything bad that happened at Wolfsegg could be traced back to her—
she
was the source. On the other hand, I told Gambetti, it would be quite wrong to blame her, because she could do nothing about it, absurd though this may sound. Just as she was always the source of all evil, she always attracted it. It could be said that everyone who came in contact with her suddenly became a
bad
person, I told Gambetti. She even turned Spadolini into a bad person, just as she had turned me and my brother into bad people. And of course she did the same with my father, who was not originally a bad person—simple, yes, I have to admit, but not bad. A person like my mother can take a family that has never been bad and turn it into a bad family; she can take a house that has never been bad and turn it into a bad house, Gambetti. But it would be quite wrong to blame her for all the bad things she’s done. We do this only because we have no alternative, because it’s too difficult to think differently, too complicated, and therefore impossible, and so we simplify the matter and say,
Our mother is a bad person
, and all our lives we stick to this judgment. This woman made us all bad, I told Gambetti. Although the pictures I had in front of me were undoubtedly touching, this did not prevent me, even now that the people in them were dead, from accusing them and proceeding against them in the most ruthless manner. I even conceived the idea that my parents, with their usual meanness, had deliberately abandoned me. But no sooner had the idea occurred to me than I rejected it as utterly stupid. Mothers are responsible for everything, I had told Gambetti as we were walking on the Corso a few days before my departure for Wolfsegg. By that time I was totally obsessed with Wolfsegg, with what awaited me there as a consequence of my sister’s marriage to the wine cork manufacturer, and with everything about Wolfsegg that produces a sensation of strangulation even before I have left Rome. Mothers are responsible for everything but never called to account when they should be, because for thousands of years the world has held mothers in such high esteem that it cannot be eradicated. Why, I asked Gambetti, why? Mothers whelp and bring children into the world, and from then on they hold the world responsible for what has occurred and for everything that subsequently happens to
their children, whereas they ought to take the responsibility themselves. The truth is, Gambetti, that mothers shirk all responsibility for the children they bring into the world. What I’m saying is true of many mothers, indeed of most mothers. But I’m quite alone in saying it! We can think such thoughts, but we mustn’t express them, Gambetti; we must keep them to ourselves and mustn’t publish them. We must choke down such thoughts in a world that would react to them with revulsion. Were I to publish a piece entitled
Mothers
, it would result merely in my being pronounced a liar or a fool or both. The world wouldn’t tolerate such views, because it’s accustomed to falsehood and hypocrisy, not to facts. The truth is that in this world facts are ignored, while fantastic ideals are proclaimed as facts, because that’s politically more expedient and acceptable than the opposite, Gambetti. When I received the telegram I was not shattered, as they say. It naturally caused me to review the consequences that would flow from the news, but my head was still as clear as it had been when I first read the telegram. Even after a second and third reading my hands did not tremble and my body did not shake, and hours later my hands were still not trembling, my body still not shaking. Quite calmly I surveyed my apartment, which in recent years I had furnished in accordance with my taste and temperament. I had accustomed myself to its size and adapted it perfectly to my needs. For this apartment, I thought, you are indebted to Zacchi, who lives opposite in his own
palazzo
. This apartment is the central point of your world and will remain so. You won’t give it up, you’ll do everything possible to avoid ever having to give it up. Nothing will drive you from Rome and back to Wolfsegg. I stood up and walked over to the window. The Piazza Minerva was quieter than it had ever been before. Just two or three walkers, no more, which was unusual at five o’clock in the afternoon. I had drawn the blinds, so that the apartment was almost completely dark. This is how I like it: in this darkened apartment I have my best thoughts. At one moment I thought to myself, I’ll go to Wolfsegg this evening, by the night train. Then I thought, I won’t go till tomorrow morning. First I thought, I’ll go at once, by train; then, I’ll go tomorrow morning, on the first plane. I paced calmly up and down, debating how I would travel to Wolfsegg. I imagined my sisters already expecting me and decided to keep them guessing about the time of my arrival. I’ll go down and telephone,
I thought, and went to the door, but having reached the door I walked back to the window, then back again to the door. Dozens of times, possibly hundreds of times, I walked to the door and back—how many times I do not know, but more than just a few, more than just dozens. I sat down again at my desk, as I usually do at this time, but not to work, not to make notes, not to prepare my lessons—which are mainly for Gambetti—but to take another look at the photographs, which still lay there. I felt no need to get in touch with anyone—I wanted to be absolutely alone. I felt no need to communicate—I had to be alone with the knowledge of my parents’ death. Whom should I inform about it, and how? I thought of this and that person, considered this and that name, recalled this and that telephone number, but repeatedly rejected the idea of telling anyone of the news. Perhaps Gambetti, I thought, perhaps Zacchi, perhaps Maria, who lives near the Via Condotti and with whom I was due to have dinner that evening. For as long as I have been in Rome I have had regular meetings with Maria, the only woman with whom I have maintained any real contact and whom I have felt the need to see every week.
You’re going to see your clever friend
, I always tell myself,
your imaginative friend, the great writer
. For I have never doubted for a moment that everything Maria writes is great, greater than anything written by any other woman writer. I must call her and tell her why I have to cancel our date, why I have to go back to Wolfsegg, which I have always described to her as deadly and pestilential. Maria knows of no other Wolfsegg than the deadly, pestilential Wolfsegg, like Gambetti, Zacchi, and all the other people I meet in Rome. None of them has ever heard me describe Wolfsegg as anything other than a deadly, pestilential place, a provincial hell. I must call Maria, Gambetti, and Zacchi, I thought, then sat down again at my desk. Don’t take anything with you to Wolfsegg, I thought. Keep calm. Call your sisters. Tell them when you’ll be arriving. But first I must know when I’m leaving, I thought, and I don’t know yet. It was impossible to make up my mind; I could not reach a decision. If there’s a rail strike I’ll fly, I told myself. If there’s an airline strike I’ll go by rail. But if I go by rail I’ll have to leave tonight; if I go by plane I’ll have to leave at five in the morning. After returning from Wolfsegg I had thought of the place with such revulsion that I swore not to return for a long time. Now I had to go back
immediately.
I remembered our attorney in Wels, my father’s attorney, who has an office in Franz-Josef Square, which I have found revolting whenever I have set foot in it. I suddenly saw the attorney’s wife—equally revolting. I saw our doctor in Wels—revolting. His wife—revolting. I saw Wels itself, then all the neighboring small towns, which all appeared to me in a revolting light. Vöcklabruck—revolting. Gmunden—revolting. These awful people in their hideous winter overcoats, I thought, their tasteless hats, their clodhopping shoes. I saw the marketplace in Wels and thought, How dreadful, how repulsive! I saw the town square of Gmunden and thought, How repulsive! Talking to the people in these revolting towns makes the whole world seem revolting. But if we live there we have to mix with these revolting people all the time, I thought. We can’t escape them—they’re the norm. I can’t stand the way they speak, any more than I can stand the way they dress. I can’t stand the way they think, the way they show off about what they’ve done and intend to do. I dislike everything they say and do. I simply can’t bear their Catholic National Socialist way of life, I can’t bear their accent—not just
what
they say but
how
they say it. When I observe them, I can’t summon up the feelings they deserve—only quite unjust feelings that they don’t deserve, I told myself. Maybe I have an allergy to Wolfsegg, and this is what makes me unjust to them. Maybe this allergy determines my mental attitude and makes me grossly unjust to these people and everything connected with them. The simple fact is that I loathe them, I’m sickened by them. What good are the beautiful streets in these small towns, I asked myself, if they’re filled with such revolting people? What good are the beautiful squares if such ugly people stand around in them? For ages I haven’t been able to feel any sympathy with them. I despise and detest them, yet at the same time I know I’m being monstrously unjust. But I can’t and won’t make friends with these people, I won’t pander to them and try to ingratiate myself. I can’t go back to them and their like. I can’t go back to their ridiculous shops and visit their smelly offices. I can’t revisit their icy and meretriciously ornate churches. These doctors ruined me, these lawyers cheated me, these priests lied to me. All these people failed me and humiliated me in the most appalling fashion when I trusted them. I can’t go near them any longer, I thought. They’ve become intolerable, and nothing can make them tolerable again. All
these people hate what I love, despise what I respect, and like what I dislike. The very air they breathe makes me sick. Everywhere else I have friends, I told myself, but in the place that should be my home I have never had any, except among the simple people, the farmworkers and miners. Everywhere else I have been happy, at least for a time; in many places I have been utterly happy, contented and thankful, but never here, where I should have been. They don’t understand you, they don’t understand anything, I told myself. They don’t know how to live. They live to work, they don’t work to live. They’re base and common, but at the same time they have big ideas. They have an unnatural way of saying
Good morning
and an equally unnatural way of saying
Good evening
and
Good night
. The thought of your family makes you sick. The thought of the others makes you equally sick. Naturally anyone who thinks like this really is sick, I told myself, and I at once realized what a dangerous mood I was in. Stay calm, I told myself, keep a cool head, stay calm, quite calm. But I could not escape from this dangerous mood. I could hear them saying, He suffers from persecution mania—that’s what they always say—from a form of megalomania that’s different from ours, from
his
form of megalomania. When
they
see
me
they feel sick. He says
Good morning
, and they find it unnatural, just as when he says
Good evening
or
Good night
, I told myself. The way he dresses they find equally repellent—his clothes, his hats, his shoes—what he says, what he thinks, what he does or doesn’t do. They despise him as he despises them, they hate him as he hates them. Whose contempt, whose hatred, is the more justified? I can’t say, I told myself. I got up and went to the window, unable to go on sitting at the desk, and looked down on the Piazza Minerva. Zacchi has closed all his shutters, I told myself. He’s probably away, probably with his sister in Palermo. He often goes to see her. She has a kidney complaint and is in a hospital specializing in renal therapy, situated in one of the most beautiful regions of Sicily, below Monte Pellegrino. If all the shutters are closed he must have gone to Palermo to see his sister. All the same, I’ll try to tell him about my parents’ death. Late this evening—maybe he’ll be back by then. I went through the whole apartment, where I keep all the doors open, as wide open as possible, so that I can go back and forth unimpeded. In this way I can often avoid having to go out in the street for a break. It’s enough to walk back and