Wittgenstein's Nephew (4 page)

loved
. I must say that I have
admired
Karajan ever since I was a child, and that this admiration is based on experience; I have respected him at least as
much as have all the musicians with whom Karajan has ever worked. Paul had a fervent hatred of Karajan, whom he habitually described as a mere charlatan, but I regarded him, from decades of observation, quite simply as the greatest musician in the world. The more famous he became, the better he became, but my friend, like the rest of the musical world, refused to see it. Ever since my childhood I have seen Karajan's genius develop and come closer and closer to perfection; I have attended almost all his rehearsals of concerts and operas in Salzburg and Vienna. The very first concerts and operas I heard were conducted by Karajan. And so I am bound to say that I had a good foundation for my musical development right from the start. The name Karajan was guaranteed to produce a fierce quarrel between Paul and me, and for as long as he lived we repeatedly quarreled about him. But my arguments could never convince Paul that Karajan was a genius, nor could his convince me that he was a charlatan. For Paul—and this in no way vitiated his philosophical system—opera was the greatest thing in the world until the day he died, while for me it was a very early passion, which by that time had been pushed rather into the background; it is an art form that I still love, but for years I have been able to live without it. When he still had the time and the means, Paul spent years traveling round the world from one opera house to another, only to announce in the end that the Vienna Opera was the greatest of them all.
The Met's no good, Covent Garden's no good, La Scala's no good
. None of them was any good compared with Vienna.
But of course
, he said,
the Vienna Opera is really good only once a year
. Only once a year—
but all the same! He could afford to visit all the famous opera houses of the world in the course of a
crazy
three-year trip, getting to know all the moderately great, really great, and positively outstanding conductors and the singers whom they courted or chastised. His head was full of opera, and as his life became progressively more dreadful—with increasing rapidity during his latter years—it too became an opera, a grand opera of course, which naturally had a tragic ending. At this moment the scene had shifted back to Steinhof and the Ludwig Pavilion, which was one of the most neglected pavilions in the whole hospital, as I was soon to discover. The
Herr Baron
, as my friend was styled by everyone, was no longer wearing his white tailcoat, tailored by Knize, as he often did at night, especially at the Eden Bar—behind my back, so to speak—even in his last years. He had once more exchanged it for a straitjacket, and instead of dining at the Sacher or the Imperial, where he was still occasionally invited by the many well-off or positively rich friends he still had—some of them aristocrats, though not all—he was once more eating from a tin bowl on the marble table in the Ludwig Pavilion. Once more he had exchanged his elegant English socks and the shoes by Magli or Rossetti or Janko for the coarse white woolen stockings and thick felt slippers that were standard issue in the Ludwig Pavilion. And he had already undergone a course of electroconvulsive therapy, which, after being discharged from Steinhof, he would describe to me in all its atrocious and inhuman detail, though not without a touch of irony and sarcasm. He was always admitted to Steinhof when the safety of those around him could no longer be ensured, when he suddenly started
threatening to kill people and announcing his intention of shooting or strangling his own brothers. He would be released when he had been utterly destroyed by the megalomaniac doctors, when hardly anything stirred in him any longer and he could barely raise his head, let alone his voice. He would then retire to the Traunsee, where the family still owns a number of properties dotted about between the woods, by wonderful inlets, at the heads of glorious valleys, or on the tops of mountains—villas and farms, outbuildings and shooting lodges, where the Wittgensteins still take time off from the somewhat disagreeable routine dictated by their wealth. The Ludwig Pavilion was now Paul's
residence
. And I suddenly hesitated, wondering whether it was really wise to establish a link between the Ludwig Pavilion and the Hermann Pavilion, whether it might not do both of us more harm than good. For who knows, I thought, what state he's really in? Perhaps he's in a state that can only be harmful to me, in which case it's better not to visit him for the time being. I won't establish a link between the Hermann Pavilion and the Ludwig Pavilion. And if I did make an appearance in the Ludwig Pavilion, I thought, especially a surprise appearance, it might have a devastating effect on my friend too. I was suddenly scared of seeing him, and I thought of letting our friend Irina decide whether or not it was advisable to make contact between the Hermann Pavilion and the Ludwig Pavilion. But I immediately abandoned the idea, not wishing to involve Irina in any difficulties that might arise from whatever she decided. But at present I don't have the strength to walk across to the Ludwig Pavilion, I thought. So I abandoned the idea, since it
struck me as
too absurd
. After all, there's no knowing whether Paul might not turn up
here
one day without warning. It's quite possible, I thought, since our garrulous friend Irina's told him I'm here in the Hermann Pavilion. And I was actually scared that this might happen. What if he suddenly turned up here in the Hermann Pavilion, I thought, in this strictly run ward
dedicated to death
, wearing his madman's garb, his madman's slippers, and his madman's shirt, jacket, and pants? I was afraid. I did not know how I should meet him, how I should receive him and deal with him. It'd be easier for him to visit me, I thought, than for me to visit him. If he's at all mobile, he'll be the first to make a move. Whatever the circumstances, such a visit is bound to end in calamity, I thought. I tried to repress the idea and think of something else, but of course I did not succeed. The possibility of Paul's coming to visit me became a nightmare. I felt that at any moment the door might open and Paul might come in, doing his madman act. I had visions of the attendants finding him here, putting him into a straitjacket, and driving him back to Steinhof with their rubber truncheons. I became obsessed with these dreadful visions. He's reckless enough, I told myself, to make the mistake of crawling under the fence and running into the Hermann Pavilion, then flinging himself on my bed and embracing me. When he was in a so-called critical condition he would rush up to people and hug them so tightly that they thought they would suffocate, crying his heart out as he did so. I was actually afraid that he might
suddenly
rush in and embrace me and cry his heart out. I loved him, but I did not want to be embraced by him, and I hated it when he cried his
heart out to me at the age of fifty-nine or sixty. His whole body would quiver and he would stammer inarticulately, frothing at the mouth and clutching one so tightly that it became unbearable and one had to resort to violence in order to extricate oneself. I often had to fight him off, which I naturally hated doing, but there was no choice, as I would otherwise have suffocated. In his last years these hugging fits became worse, and one needed the utmost self-abnegation and almost superhuman strength to free oneself from his embrace. It had long been clear that anyone who behaved like this was dangerously sick. It was only a matter of time before he himself finally suffocated during one of his sudden attacks.
You're my only friend, the only person I have, the one and only
, he would stammer to the person he was embracing, who was at a loss to know how to calm the poor wretch, how to relieve his tension. I dreaded these embraces and feared that Paul might suddenly burst into the room. But he did not come. Every day, indeed every hour, I was afraid that he would burst in, but he did not. I learned from Irina that he was lying on his bed in the Ludwig Pavilion as if dead, refusing to eat. The methods that were used to treat him led to total debility, and when the doctors had destroyed him they left him in peace. When he was reduced to a skeleton and unable so much as to stand up unaided, they would discharge him. He would then be driven to the Traunsee, either in a car belonging to one of his brothers or alone in a taxi. Once there, he would lie low for a few days or even weeks on one of the family's estates; right up to his death he had a contractual right of domicile in a two-hundred-year-old farmhouse situated in a high valley
between Altmünster and Traunkirchen, where an elderly maid with a lifelong devotion to the Wittgensteins ran a small farm to cater to the private needs of any members of the family who were on vacation in the country. At times like this his wife, Edith, would stay behind in Vienna. She knew that he would recover only if he had
nobody
around him, not even her, though she was closer to him than anyone else and he remained in love with her until his death. When he was staying by the Traunsee he would always look me up—not in the first few days, but later, when he felt able to meet people and no longer had cause to fear the ruthless stares of sensation-seekers, when he was once more in a mood to converse and philosophize. He would then turn up at Nathal, and at first, if the weather was mild, he would sit alone in the yard with his eyes closed, listening to the records I played on the first floor, from which the sound carried perfectly through the wide-open widows.
Some Mozart, please
, he would say.
Some Strauss, please. Some Beethoven, please
. I knew what records to play in order to put him into the right frame of mind. We would listen to Mozart and Beethoven together for hours, without saying a word. This was something we both loved. The day would end with a light supper prepared by me, after which I would drive him home. I shall never forget those wordless musical evenings I spent with him. It would take him about two weeks to
normalize himself
, as he put it. He would stay in the country until it began to get on his nerves and he longed to return to Vienna. Once he was there, four or five months would elapse before the first symptoms of his sickness reappeared. During the early years of our friendship
he drank incessantly, and this naturally accelerated the progress of his illness. When he gave up drinking—which he did without protest—his condition at first showed an alarming deterioration and then a marked improvement. He no longer drank any alcohol. No one had enjoyed drinking as much as he had. He would drink bottles of champagne in the morning at the Sacher—but this was a mere trifle, hardly worth mentioning. At the Obenaus, a small establishment in the Weihburggasse, he would drink several liters of white wine in the course of an evening. This all took its toll. I think it was five or six years before his death when he gave up drinking. Had he not done so, he would probably have died three or four years earlier, which I think would have been an enormous pity. For it was only in the last years of his life that he developed into a real philosopher, having previously been simply a man who enjoyed the good things of life and had a bent for philosophizing, though admittedly he enjoyed life more than anyone else I have known—and this was what made him so lovable. In the Hermann Pavilion, as I lay in
fear of death
, I became clearly aware of the true value of my relationship with my friend Paul, the most valuable relationship I have ever had with another man, the only one I have been able to endure for more than the briefest period and would never have wanted to give up under any circumstances. Now, all at once, I was afraid for this man, who had suddenly become the one closest to me; I was afraid I might lose him—either
through my own death
or
through his
. During these weeks and months in the Hermann Pavilion I felt that I was close to death and that he was equally close to his in the
Ludwig Pavilion. I suddenly longed for this man, the only man I had ever been able to talk to in a way that was congenial to me, the only one with whom I could discuss and develop any topic whatever, even the most difficult. How long have I been starved of these conversations, I thought, of the chance to listen to him, to expound my own ideas and at the same time
take in other ideas
, how long is it since we talked about Webern and Schönberg and Satie, about
Tristan
and
The Magic Flute
, about
Don Giovanni
and
Il Seraglio
—how long since he sat with me in the yard at Nathal and listened to the “Rhenish” conducted by Schuricht? Only now, in the Hermann Pavilion, do I realize what I have been missing, what I have been deprived of by my renewed illness, what I have to have if I am to go on existing. I have friends, of course, the very best of friends, but none whose inventiveness and sensitivity can compare with Paul's, I thought. And from that moment I did everything I could to restore my personal contact with my unhappy friend as soon as possible. When we're both out again and
restored to health
, I told myself, I'll catch up on everything I've missed through my stay on the Baumgartnerhöhe. I had a tremendous mental need to catch up. An endless number of topics had accumulated in my mind, waiting to be discussed with him. But he was possibly still lying on his bed in a straitjacket, as our friend Irina had reported a few days earlier, staring fixedly at the ceiling, in a ward housing twenty-four similar cases, and refusing all food. I must go to him as soon as possible, I told myself. During these weeks the weather was exceedingly hot, and Immervoll in particular suffered from the heat. He had had to stop
playing blackjack, and from one day to the next he became too weak to get up. His face suddenly became sunken, his nose seemed gigantic, and his protruding cheekbones gave his face a disturbingly grotesque appearance. His skin was gray and transparent, and there was hardly any flesh left on his legs. Most of the time he lay on his bed without any covers, showing no embarrassment, in the end with his legs spread wide apart. He could no longer pick up the urine bottle, and as he was constantly having to pass water, it was left to me to give it to him, because the sisters could naturally not be in our room all the time. But by now he was so clumsy that he could not aim into the bottle. Most of the time his mouth hung open, and from it ran a greenish-yellow fluid, which by midday had discolored his pillows. And suddenly he began to exude a smell that I knew well, the smell of the dying. During these days our theology student lay facing in my direction more often than in Immervoll's. He spent most of his time reading a theological work; I had the impression that he read nothing else. When his parents came over from Grinzing they sat on his bed and spent most of their time telling him that he was all they had in the world and that he must on no account leave them.