Correction

by Thomas Bernhard

  About this clearing, where we had often met and always stopped at once to talk about the coincidence of our meeting and all sorts of things besides, Roithamer had once written a short essay, which he in fact later published in a local periodical, he was moved to write it by his interest in Adalbert Stifter, the writer, and especially in the local limestone, about which Stifter had written, both only in relation to the clearing which had meant a great deal in our lives and still means much in my life, this piece of prose had been a good example of Roithamer’s logical cast of mind, everything he later became, all he came to be, was already prefigured in this short piece, a description, in measured, clearly articulated terms, of a segment of nature familiar to us in the smallest detail. I’d have been glad to reread this piece about the clearing between our village and Altensam, but I’m afraid that this piece of prose, superscribed with the title The Clearing, is lost, though it ought to be easy to determine in which number of the local periodical it appeared originally, it would be most important to know this now, after Roithamer’s suicide in the clearing. A description of the road from Altensam to us in Stocket and a description of the road from Stocket to Altensam, naturally two entirely different descriptions, was once done by Roithamer in England, during his first stay in London, he was deep in his studies of Purcell and Handel at the time, but these descriptions too, I believe, are lost. He used to go in for writing short prose pieces from time to time, descriptions of nature, as an aid to perfecting his scientific method of thinking, to dwell constantly in thought on nature, its inner workings and outer appearances, and to capture these thoughts by writing them down now and then, had become a lifelong exercise of his, his last exercise of the kind had been a description of Hoeller’s garret, which I suspected I might find in the desk here and which I actually did find in this desk in Hoeller’s garret. The very first lines of this effort, when I reread it, gave me the idea of editing a book-length collection of Roithamer’s short descriptive pieces, in a time such as ours when everything but what is noteworthy, everything but what is truly original as well as most brilliantly scientific is edited and published, when every year hundreds and thousands of tons of imbecility-on-paper are tossed on the market, all the decrepit garbage of this totally decrepit European civilization, or rather, to hold nothing back, this totally decrepit modern world of ours, this era that keeps grinding out nothing but intellectual muck and all this stinking constipating clogging intellectual vomit is constantly being hawked in the most’ repulsive way as our intellectual products though it is in fact nothing but intellectual waste products, at such a time it is simply one’s duty to bring out a work of art as unassuming and unadorned as the art of Roithamer’s prose, to publish it, even though it would not be likely to make any kind of a stir, I think, but just to make sure that it would never be lost again, once it is printed and preserved forever, because these prose pieces of Roithamer’s are indubitably precious gems and the greatest of rarities anywhere, including our country.

  As to the difficulties of bringing out especially such exquisite prose, I am aware of them, just as I am fully aware of the difficulties involved in publishing Roithamer’s posthumous papers, especially his longer study on Altensam, which he began at the instigation of a publisher friend of his, in Cambridge, he’d tackled and finished it in a great burst of energy just after his sister’s fatal illness had manifested itself, but soon afterward, when he was already on his way to his sister’s funeral, crossing the Channel from Dover to the Continent, he destroyed it again by starting to make corrections in it and correcting it over and over again until in the end he destroyed it entirely by his incessant corrections during his stay in Hoeller’s garret after his sister’s death, he felt he had corrected it to death and so destroyed it, but as I know now, as I have ascertained in the shortest possible time of my stay here in Hoeller’s garret, he did not really destroy it by his utterly ruthless, hence utterly perfect corrections, but turned it into an entirely new work, because the destruction of his work by his own hand, by his keen mind which dealt most ruthlessly with his work was, after all, merely synonymous with the creation of an entirely new piece of work, he had gone on correcting his work until his work was not, as he thought, destroyed but rather a wholly new piece of work had been created. This work of his, seen as a description and accordingly a justification of everything in Altensam and everything connected with Altensam meant to him, with special attention to the planning and execution and completion of the Cone for his sister, was not destroyed by him but perfected by him, as I now see clearly, especially by his corrections, he, Roithamer believed that he had destroyed, by totally correcting, this work which I have brought with me and temporarily stowed away in this desk drawer, this work about Altensam and everything connected with Altensam, with special attention to the planning and execution and completion of the Cone for his sister, and it is certain that he intended to burn this work after correcting it out of existence, because I have a note of his stating that he would burn the essay after he had destroyed it by totally correcting it into the exact opposite of what he had started out to say. But he never got around to burning it, probably the essay had suddenly ceased to matter all that much to him, since it is not likely that he had, in the end, forgotten the essay altogether, when he killed himself, because in the end nothing matters all that much, as he also wrote on another slip, and on his last slip he’d written, it’s all the same. His essay on Altensam and everything connected with Altensam, on what Altensam had meant to him, with special attention to the planning and execution and completion of the Cone for his sister, he had completed by totally correcting it, these are his own words, until it meant the opposite of its original meaning. The essay actually became a completed essay only after Roithamer had turned it around to mean the exact opposite, by a monstrous process of total correction, but more of that later. Slowly adjusting to the mood prevailing in Hoeller’s garret, at first the mood of the late afternoon, later the mood of the evening, I had intended to get to work on the Roithamer papers starting early in the morning, the earliest possible time in the morning if I could, not even to go near them before that, but only to get used to Hoeller’s garret, to get everything in readiness for the morning, for the earliest morning, the twilight before dawn, I thought, when I would get going on my task, but first I had to create the right conditions for such an undertaking, far from easy to get going, and so I had to begin with my preparations at once, though moving slowly, considering the nature of my undertaking, and because after my illness I was in just the right condition for working on Roithamer’s literary remains, I had to begin by thoroughly preparing myself for this task, which meant straightening out my place of work, the desk unquestionably in front of the window, I had to find a way to control, if possible to change the light to suit my needs, whether to draw the curtains or not to draw them? I kept wondering, as I stood at the door considering the desk, should I draw the curtains or should I not draw the curtains, and I went to the window and drew them closed and moved back again to consider and stepped forward to open them again, I opened them several times and closed them again several times and so on. First of all I must have everything in order for beginning work tomorrow, everything must be ready, I thought, before I can start to work. But before I did anything at all, I had to let the character of the Hoeller garret, as it was and without changing anything in it, I had to let its ambience have its full effect on me. Time was no problem. This must be done systematically and most resolutely, yet slowly, too, I thought, standing near the door, nothing, absolutely nothing, must be done in haste, I had plenty of time, besides I was not quite over my illness, it was still manifest in every breath I took, the air along the Aurach river was the best, this was the most richly wooded region anywhere and the air here was the best medicine for bronchi affected like mine, considering that I might have spent several more weeks in the hospital if I had listened to the doctors and stayed, but I suddenly stopped paying any attention to the doctors, often enough in my
life I suddenly stopped paying any attention to the doctors and this was my salvation every time, I probably wouldn’t be alive this minute had I not always stopped, from one minute to the next, listening to the doctors, at the right moment, the doctors may count at the beginning, when it turns out that medical help is essential right away, when only the application of medical skill can save you, when it happens, as it did in my case, suddenly and to my absolute horror, when I was right in the middle of an unfinished piece of work, a dangerous disease broke out, a really deadly, threatening, so-called fatal disease, since a severe pneumonia is still considered a deadly disease even today, suddenly waking up at night with a high fever and lying there alone, unconscious, for days, could easily lead to a quick death, but they found me and took me to the hospital and the doctors got the fever under control in record time, but even so it was a painful business for weeks, with no cure in sight, at first, all they could do was relieve the pain, help me to endure this dangerous illness, not cure me, there was at first the relief of finding myself safe in such an excellent hospital, then suddenly the need to get out of there, while I was still pinned down and leaving the hospital was out of the question, the disease had been checked but it was not even under control, as yet, it took five or six weeks to get it under control, with infusions, injections, every conceivable natural and chemical antidote applied against the disease, every possible self-applied medication against it, then, while I was still sick, I decided out of the blue to leave the hospital, on my own responsibility because the doctors would accept no responsibility, I decided to defy the doctors, simply to clear out, and I remembered Hoeller’s invitation to me and left the hospital as quickly as possible though actually still a sick man, I went to the Aurach valley, into Hoeller’s house, into Hoeller’s garret, my mind set on putting Roithamer’s literary remains in order, now, as a form of convalescence, to do again what I had always done when in the grip of a fatal illness, to leave the hospital against doctors’

  orders and repossess my life by taking up my occupation, and I thought, standing beside the door, that my decision to leave had been equally correct in the case of this pneumonia. It had always been the right moment to leave the hospital against doctors’ orders and cope with such a fatal illness myself.

  There had been no indication at all, when he left England, that he would never come back to England, I thought, as I brushed my jacket and hung it in the closet, of course I had expected him back shortly after his sister’s funeral for which he had gone to Altensam, I can still hear him saying, I shall stay only the shortest possible time, what is there now to keep me there, in Altensam, in Upper Austria, in Austria, beyond the necessary minimum, the shortest possible time, one or two days in his opinion, which he did not even intend to spend in Altensam but in Hoeller’s house on the Aurach, he had gone to Austria already intending to spend only the inescapable minimum of time in Altensam, to stay the night in Hoeller’s house and in Hoeller’s garret, there being now, after his sister’s death, no further reason to stay in Altensam, though there is no way to avoid talking over the problems inescapably arising from the death and the funeral of my sister, so I must go to Altensam, but again and again: only the absolute minimum of time necessary, for now, after the death of his beloved sister, there was virtually nothing left to tie him to Altensam, with the death of my sister, he said, my relationship to Altensam has come to an end. Altensam is nothing more than past history, now, in future there will be no reason for me to set foot in the place, and he was thinking of selling Altensam, an extremely valuable property because of its fertile meadow- and farmlands in particular, and because of its easy access, Altensam, isolated as it was, did have the advantage of good roads, and this combination of remoteness and privacy on the one hand, with easy access on the other hand, guaranteed a high price for it, and now after his sister’s death Roithamer was thinking of selling Altensam, he even had an idea of what he wanted to do with the money realized from the sale, an idea characteristic of him, which was to hand over the entire sum to his ex-convicts, without bothering at first to go into details, at one point he had even thought of giving them Altensam as a refuge after their release from prison, he had always wanted to help ex-convicts, those poorest of the poor, men totally excluded from society, with whom actually no one wanted to have anything to do no matter what their hypocritical pretenses, Roithamer had frequently donated sums of money for the benefit of prisoners released from penal institutions, but in the end he dropped the idea of opening Altensam to ex-convicts, it seemed a better idea to sell Altensam and assign the proceeds to the ex-convicts, though he did not quite know how to go about this, there is in fact already some talk that he made provision for the sale of Altensam and assignment of the proceeds to former prisoners of the penitentiaries at Garsten, Stein, and Stuben, entrusting the execution of this plan to his Schwanenstadt notary Süssner, the same notary who had been taking care of all the Altensam affairs for many years, in his will. But of the actual contents of Roithamer’s will I had no knowledge up to this point in time, even though Hoeller told me immediately upon my arrival at his house that Roithamer had, 1) left a will and 2) ordered Altensam sold, the proceeds to go to the ex-convicts of Garsten, Stein, and Stuben, he would not have been Hoeller had he not understood our friend’s last will and testament as I did, as characteristic of Roithamer’s whole being. It had always been the outsiders, especially those pushed to the outermost fringes of society, for whom Roithamer felt sympathies, the criminal elements, with whom no one wanted to have anything to do, were always secure in his affection, for this tendency Roithamer had always been under attack or at least regarded with suspicion, most of all these sympathies of his for the most miserable members of society, the most helpless in the world, had soon earned him the radical dislike of his family and they, his family or what was left of them, whichever, must have been horrified at the reading of his will, suddenly hearing all those provisions in favor of the poorest, the most unwanted, society’s pariahs, openly set forth, now they had suddenly to face it that he not only had what they considered these eccentric ideas about leaving his inheritance to criminals, murderers, no matter what kind of criminals, but that he had actually carried these ideas out in good earnest, this shock suffered by his family and all those involved in a widely ramified conspiracy with his family must have been an experience of primal horror, for while I know that Roithamer was always in earnest about everything in his mind, though the people around him could never quite believe it, his ideas as also his feelings were always most earnest and most serious, his ideas and feelings always had to be in full accord with his existence, otherwise it would have been simply impossible for him to go on, to keep going, they, beginning with his closest kin who, in Altensam, probably never could think or would think so, namely that he would actually carry out his ideas, yet he had carried them out in his will just as in his life, all his life had been a carrying out of his ideas in reality. The sale of Altensam, I thought, would be no easy task for the notary from Schwanenstadt, who could not sell for less than a certain minimum, while being an open target for all sorts of harassment from, first and foremost, Roithamer’s brothers. What would Roithamer’s parents, especially his father, have said of their middle son selling Altensam through a notary, I wondered, looking out the window down at the raging Aurach, and then: but the father in particular must surely have taken into account that to leave Altensam to his middle son meant the end of Altensam, for old Roithamer of course knew full well what manner of man his middle son was, and I firmly believe, I thought, that when old Roithamer left Altensam to his middle son, he knew that he had thereby legalized the end of Altensam, for old Roithamer probably knew or at least felt or must have seen or felt or known that Altensam’s time had come, that these times are no longer right for the likes of Altensam, and he may have thought, I’m leaving Altensam to my middle son, who has the least use of anybody for Altensam, and so I can be sure that he, my middle son, will make an end of Altensam and that, in w
hatever way he does it, it will be over with. On the other hand, no one can expect a man who inherits something he doesn’t want to inherit, doesn’t want to own, to preserve this inheritance he didn’t want in the first place, the logical thing is for him to get rid of this inheritance and Roithamer did get rid of his Altensam inheritance, he got rid of it in his own characteristic way, namely by ordering that the proceeds from the sale of Altensam should go to aid ex-convicts on their release from prison. Quite possibly, I suddenly thought as I stood at the attic window, he had gone to Austria and to Altensam already determined to kill himself, but there is no evidence for such an assumption, none, the fact is that he meant to go straight back to England immediately after his sister’s funeral, without any detours whatsoever, not by way of South Tyrol, nor France nor Belgium, but straight back to Cambridge, I can still hear him saying by plunging at once back into work I shall save myself from this worst of misfortunes, this is word for word what he said, I believe it was his last spoken statement to me, I’d accompanied him to the station, he traveled as always by rail and ship because he shrank from setting foot in an airplane, loathed it, in fact, for myself I’d intended to spend the brief interval, so I thought, of his absence, on correcting a paper of my own, but was distracted by a peculiar uneasiness which I could find no way of understanding, from doing this, and went instead to Reading to visit a mutual friend, a teacher, who was busy with the construction of some machine, what kind of a machine it was I don’t know to this day, even though I had been briefed on this construction by its constructor for years now, nor did Roithamer know what kind of machine this Reading machine, as we called it, was, anyway I spent two days in Reading waiting for news from Roithamer, we had agreed that he would send me word every second day, what I mainly wanted to hear was when he would be coming back, but there was no word at all for fourteen days, then suddenly there was a message, not from Altensam but from Hoeller, that Roithamer was dead, I left for Austria that same day, at home they told me all about Roithamer’s suicide, he had hanged himself in the aforementioned clearing between my father’s house and Altensam. Meanwhile Roithamer, who had wished to be buried in the village graveyard, not up in Altensam, that is, but in our village graveyard in Stocket, had been buried. My parents gave me a full account of the funeral, and later on I heard about it from Hoeller too. I made a brief visit to Altensam to see Roithamer’s brothers but there was no one in Altensam, at least I thought there was no one home since all the window shutters were closed and nothing stirred, which incidentally suited me very well, because now I would be able to say that I had been to Altensam after my friend’s death to look up his brothers, but nobody was home. Actually Roithamer’s death, his suicide so soon after the death of his and their sister, must have come as a severe shock to those left in Altensam, and I supposed that they had all left Altensam for once, for a long time, at least until things settled down and the problems arising first from the sister’s and then the brother’s death would be solved. When I got there, Altensam actually looked extinct to me, as if everything in Altensam were dead. I had also gone to the cemetery in Stocket, it was a simple grave, a few wreaths, a few flowers. Roithamer had once told me that he wanted only a simple wooden cross. Several days went by as I grew more and more depressed, with absolutely nothing to do, I wandered forlornly about the landscape that suddenly looked all empty and drained of any meaning to me. I had visited various people whom I usually visited every time I came home from England, but none of these people meant anything to me any longer. The nights I spent lying awake in bed without even any need to go back to England, what was I to do in England with Roithamer no longer there. The nights were absolutely horrible. There were times when I got up and went to the window when I came close to doing away with myself. But in the morning my head was always clear again. Toward noon I’d be depressed again, locked into my mood of growing despair. I didn’t know whether to go back to England or not, suppose I look for something to do here in Austria, perhaps a lectureship at nearby Salzburg University. Just a lot of crazy notions. Whenever I tried to read the books from my father’s library, I soon broke off reading every time.