Wittgenstein's Nephew (5 page)

I
, however, did not have the feeling that he was on the way out. One night Immervoll was pushed out into the corridor in his bed: I had slept through his death. His bed was standing in the corridor, freshly made up, when I went to outpatients the next morning with my temperature chart, to have my weight checked. I myself was reduced to skin and bone, except for my moon face and my distended belly, which had become a horribly insensitive ball that looked as though
it might burst at any moment and had a number of small fistulas on it. One day the theology student had his radio on, and hearing a broadcast of a motor race from Monza, I remembered that Paul's other consuming passion, besides music, was motor racing. In his early youth he had been a racing driver himself, and among his friends were a number of world champions in this field, which I have always found repugnant, because I can think of nothing more brainless. But my friend was like that—there were countless sides to his personality. To me it was inconceivable that the person who in my opinion had the cleverest things to say about Beethoven's string quartets and was the only one to decode the Haffner Symphony for me, revealing it to be the mathematical wonder I have thought it ever since, was also a motor racing fanatic, in whose ears the noise of cars roaring murderously round the circuit was music no less sweet. The Wittgensteins were all motor racing fanatics, and still are, and for years they used to invite the best racing drivers to stay with them in summer on their estates by the Traunsee. I recall that Paul would invite me to spend the evening and half the night at his house overlooking the Traunsee, in the company of Jackie Stewart and Graham Hill, both of them jolly fellows, as well as Jochen Rindt, who had a fatal crash at Monza shortly afterward. When Paul was over sixty he told me that he naturally saw things differently now; he saw that motor racing was brainless, as I had always told him. But Formula One clearly still had such a hold over him that it was scarcely possible to be with him without his mentioning his beloved motor racing at some point. He would find a way of bringing it into
the conversation and then be unable to drop the subject, so that one instantly had to think of means of steering him away from his lifelong obsession when it suddenly took over again. He had in fact two passions, which were at the same time his two main diseases—music and motor racing. In the first half of his life it was motor racing that meant everything to him; in the second half it was music. And sailing. But how could he indulge his sporting passions now? By the time I met him they were no more than theoretical, as he had long since ceased to take any practical part in motor racing and had given up sailing. He no longer had any money of his own, and his relatives kept him on a tight budget; meanwhile, after he had for years been prone to depression, they found him a job in an insurance firm, the so-called Ringturm, where he suddenly had to earn his living, being left with no other option. As may be imagined, he did not earn much money carrying documents around and drawing up lists. But he did have a wife to support, and he had to pay for his apartment in the Stallburggasse, diagonally opposite the Spanish Riding School—and the rents in the First District are extremely high. The formerly footloose
Herr Baron
now had to turn up at the office at half-past seven in the morning, and he was spared nothing of what such an office requires. But it did not break him. Most of the time he made light of it, and when he felt inclined to describe and joke about conditions in the
city insurance company
, his imagination took flight. With these stories alone he could entertain a party all evening, saying how glad he was to be among ordinary folk at last and suddenly see what life was really like, what really went on. I think
it was only because his relatives had some influence with the director that they were able to get him a job in the insurance company, for without such a connection he would not have been taken on, as no firm hires someone like him at the age of nearly sixty. Having to earn his living and support himself was a completely new experience for him, and everyone predicted that he would be a failure. But they were wrong, for until shortly before his death, when it was quite simply impossible for him to go on working for the insurance company on the Schottenring, Paul went to work punctually and left punctually, as was proper.
I'm a model employee in every way
, he often said, and I never doubted this. It was in Berlin, I believe, that he met Edith, who was his second wife—presumably before, after, or during a visit to the opera. She was a niece of the composer Giordano, who wrote
Andrea Chénier
, and most of her relatives lived in Italy, where she went every year to regenerate herself, with or without Paul (who was her third husband) but usually without him. I was extremely fond of her, and I was always glad when I came across her having coffee at the Bräunerhof. I had the most agreeable conversations with her; she not only belonged to
one of the best families
, but was a woman of more than average intelligence and charm. She was also very elegant, which for Paul Wittgenstein's wife went without saying. In what were for her unquestionably the bitterest years, when her husband's sickness was rapidly worsening and his death could be foreseen, when his attacks were becoming more and more frequent and he was beginning to spend more time in Steinhof or the Wagner-Jauregg Hospital in Linz than in Vienna or by
the Traunsee, she never complained, although I know precisely under what difficult conditions she had to exist. She loved Paul, and she never deserted him, although she was separated from him most of the time, for she went on living in their little turn-of-the-century apartment in the Stallburggasse while her husband more or less vegetated in Steinhof or the Wagner-Jauregg Hospital in Linz (which had formerly been called simply the Niedernhart), wearing a straitjacket and sharing some horrible ward with others like him. His attacks did not come on suddenly, but always announced themselves weeks in advance. His hands would begin to tremble and he would be unable to finish his sentences, though he would go on talking incessantly, for hours on end, and could not be interrupted. His gait would suddenly become completely irregular: when one was walking with him he would suddenly take ten or eleven very fast steps, then three, four, or five very slow steps. He would address strangers in the street for no obvious reason, or he would order a bottle of champagne at the Sacher at ten in the morning and then leave it to become warm, without drinking it. But these are trifles. Far worse were the occasions when he ordered breakfast and then, when the waiter brought the tray to his table, seized it and hurled it against the silk-covered wall. On one occasion, as I happen to know, he got into a taxi in the Petersplatz and uttered the one word
Paris
, whereupon the driver, who knew him, actually drove him to Paris, where an aunt of Paul's who lived there had to pay the fare. Several times he took a taxi to Nathal in order to spend half an hour with me—
just to see you
, he would say—and then immediately drove back to Vienna, which
is after all a distance of one hundred and thirty miles, or two hundred and sixty round trip. When he was
ripe
again, as he put it, he could not hold a glass and would lose control and burst into tears at any moment. When one met him he was always dressed in extremely elegant clothes, either bequests from friends who had died or presents from friends who were still alive. He would be sitting in the Sacher at ten in the morning in a white suit, in the Bräunerhof at half-past eleven in a gray striped suit, in the Ambassador at half-past one in a black suit, and at half-past three in the afternoon he would be back at the Sacher, wearing a fawn suit. Wherever he was walking or standing he would intone not only whole Wagner arias but often half of
Siegfried
or
Die Walküre
in his cracked voice, oblivious of his surroundings. In the street he would ask complete strangers whether they did not agree that listening to music had become unbearable now that Klemperer was gone. Most of them had never heard of Klemperer and had not the least notion about music, but that did not worry him. When the mood took him, he would deliver a lecture on Stravinsky or
Die Frau ohne Schatten
in the middle of the street and announce that he was
shortly
going to produce
Die Frau ohne Schatten
on the Traunsee, with the world's finest musicians.
Die Frau ohne Schatten
was his favorite opera, apart from those of Wagner. Indeed he repeatedly asked the most famous singers what fees they would demand for a guest appearance in
Die Frau ohne Schatten
on the Traunsee.
I'll build a floating stage
, he often said,
and the Philharmonic will play on another floating stage under the Traunstein
. Die Frau ohne Schatten
has got to be done on the Traunsee
, he said.
It has to be performed between Traunkirchen and Traunstein.
Klemperer's death has thwarted my plans
, he said.
With Böhm conducting
, Die Frau ohne Schatten
is like the morning after the night before
. On one occasion he took it into his head to go to Knize's, the best and most expensive tailors in Vienna, and have himself measured for two white tailcoats. When they were made, he informed the firm that it was absurd to deliver two white tailcoats to him when he had not even ordered
a black one
. Did they think he was crazy? In fact he was in and out of Knize's for weeks simply to arrange for alterations to the two tailcoats he had ordered. Not just for weeks but for months, the firm of Knize had been pestered by Paul's requests for alterations, and the moment the two white tailcoats were ready he denied having ordered them.
White tailcoats! Do they think I'm crazy? I wouldn't have two white tailcoats made, and certainly not by Knize's!
Armed with a wad of evidence, the firm demanded payment, and of course, as Paul had no money, the Wittgenstein family had to foot the bill. After this affair Paul naturally ended up in Steinhof again. His relatives preferred to have him there rather than at large, as they could not help thinking that he always grossly abused his freedom. They hated him, even though (indeed precisely because) he was, as I saw it, their most delightful product. It was grotesque that we should both suddenly find ourselves on the Wilhelminenberg, our hill of destiny, and in our appropriate departments, I in the pulmonary department and he in the mental department. He often tried to count on his fingers the number of times he had been in Steinhof or Niedernhart (that is to say, the Wagner-Jauregg Hospital), but he did not have enough fingers and never arrived at the right figure. During the first half of his life money was no
object, because, like his uncle Ludwig, he had vast quantities of it at his disposal—inexhaustible quantities, it seemed to them—but during the second half, when he had none left, it became crucially important. During this second half of his life he went on behaving for several years as he had done in the first half, and this led to fierce quarrels with his relatives, on whom he had no legal claims whatever. His money having vanished overnight, he simply took down the paintings from his walls and sold them for a song to unscrupulous dealers in Vienna and Gmunden. Most of his valuable furniture also disappeared, in various trucks belonging to smart secondhand dealers who would give him only derisory sums for his treasures. For a Josephine commode he was paid no more than the price of a bottle of champagne, which he immediately consumed with the dealer who had
bought
the piece. In the end he repeatedly expressed a wish to go to Venice at least, in order to
have a good night's sleep at the Gritti
, but it was too late for any such wish to be realized. He gave me incredible accounts of his spells at Steinhof and the Wagner-Jauregg Hospital, which would be well worth relating, though there is no space for them here.
I was on good terms with the doctors as long as I had money, but when you run out of money they treat you like a pig
, he often said. The attendants would lock up the
Herr Baron
in one of their cages, that is to say in one of the hundreds of beds that are barred not only at the sides but on top; here he would be confined until he was broken, until he was finished—after weeks of shock therapy. The day came at last. Between lunch and visiting time, when the Hermann
Pavilion was completely quiet, I woke up to feel his hand on my forehead. He was standing by my bed and asked if he could sit down. He sat on my bed and was at first seized by a paroxysm of laughter, because it suddenly struck him as so funny that he was with me on the Wilhelminenberg.
You're where you belong
, he said,
and I'm where I belong
. He stayed only a short while. We agreed to pay each other frequent visits: I was to go over to Steinhof to see him, and he was to come over from Steinhof and visit me on the Baumgartnerhöhe—I was to go from the Hermann Pavilion to the Ludwig Pavilion, and he was to come from the Ludwig Pavilion to the Hermann Pavilion. But the plan was put into effect only once. We met halfway between the Hermann Pavilion and the Ludwig Pavilion and sat on a bench just inside the chest patients' territory.
Grotesque, grotesque!
he said, and began to weep uncontrollably. For a long time his whole body was convulsed with weeping. I walked him back to the Ludwig Pavilion, where two attendants were waiting for him by the door. I returned to the Hermann Pavilion in a state of deep despondency. This meeting on the bench, with each of us wearing his appropriate uniform—I that of a lung patient, he that of a Steinhof lunatic—had the most shattering effect on me. We could have met again, but we never did, because we did not want to expose ourselves to a strain that was almost unendurable. We both felt that this meeting had made any subsequent meeting on the Wilhelminenberg impossible, and there was no need to waste a single word over the matter. When I was finally discharged from the Hermann Pavilion—without having died, contrary to all