Insofar as we have taken into consideration everything that must be taken into consideration we have to say that the art of building is a philosophical art in the highest degree, but the building professionals or the so-called building professionals have never understood, they shy away from this realization and refuse to enter into the problematics of it, and so we almost never get an art of building, all we see is the vulgarity of building. We must know the person and have seen through the person, or at least know the person up to the crucial point, and be familiar with him to the crucial, necessary degree, before we can build for him, for even after we have passed our tests on this score it remains questionable whether our edifice truly suits the person for whom we have built it, we assume that it suits him, just as I only assume that it suits my sister one hundred percent, because I must make this assumption, had to make this assumption all the time I was building, otherwise I’d have gone crazy and could never have finished the Cone at all, the completion of the Cone would have remained a utopian dream. Our buildings, no matter which, those intended as habitations as well as the non-habitations, would look rather different if those who built them had been in the least concerned about the people for whom they were building them, all of these buildings were built without asking those who would be affected, not to mention studying them. Just as we investigate the causes of disease nowadays, knowing they must be investigated, as the doctors can no longer evade this necessity of investigation, those who build should investigate those for whom they are building, they must investigate them, the investigation of the man for whom a building is being put up should be the duty of the man who is doing the building, the builder should be forbidden to build for someone he has not thoroughly investigated or at least understood to the necessary or the minimal necessary degree. The builders build without having concerned themselves with the nature of those for whom they are building, though the builders of course deny this when confronted with it. With nothing in their heads but their fees and their careers, those professional builders or whatever they may choose to call themselves put up their buildings without any idea of the people for whom they have built them, thereby committing one of the greatest crimes,
“greatest crimes” underlined. After all it took me six years to build the Cone, a long time when subtracted from my life, and yet a short time when I consider that first I solidly prepared for it and then did a solid job of building.
And I actually worked with a clear head the whole time, no building sickness, no building psychosis, so Roithamer. Then, after I had thoroughly studied my sister, above all her mental and emotional condition, it was clear that the edifice to build for her was the Cone. No other form. And I knew that no cone had ever been built before by any man, not even a Frenchman, not even a Russian, my Cone will be the first cone ever built to be lived in, I told myself, and I decided to build the Cone. When we set out to do something we’re constantly being sidetracked, we’re thought to be crazy, our refusal to yield and to compromise makes many enemies for us (enemies we’ve always had), but that’s just what impels us onward, those constantly mounting accusations against us, slanders against us, ruthlessness against us which is far greater than our own ruthlessness, all of it ultimately makes it possible for us to make our way through this human filth to which we’re continually exposed, through the filth of their slander, their false accusations. The world around us is constantly balking and hindering us and it is precisely by this constant inhibiting and hindering action that it enables us to approach our aim and finally even reach it. We’re told and we’re made to feel that we have neither the right nor the nerve nor the brutality to achieve our aim, but we do have the right and the nerve and the brutality and because we are what we are, our nerve and our brutality and our right keeps increasing. We’re constantly badgered with insinuations by those who don’t want us to accomplish our aim because they begrudge us our achievement, so we’re constantly subjected to their meanness, their spying presence which only fills us with disgust, they never cease their vulgar spying. Most of the time we have to deal with human filth, so Roithamer, we’re forced to wade through it, and when we’ve made our way through one heap of filth we must get through the next, on and on, each time faster, more radically than the last, because we’ve caught on that there’s nothing but this human filth, which we have to get through. To reach our aim we must traverse this human filth, human filth in the form of common filth in the head, the sole purpose of which is to do us in. Whoever says otherwise commits the violent crime of hypocrisy, “violent crime of hypocrisy” underlined, the words human filth always first underlined, then crossed out, then stetted. At first we hope for support from the person closest to us, but to cling to our “neighbor” would mean, as we soon find out, the suicide of the (of our) spirit, suicide of our being, our soul, “soul” underlined. Then we think that we must turn to the professionals (of the mind, the soul, the world of things), because we’re constantly looking for help, but there we keep meeting only with deepest disappointment, “deepest” underlined, we encounter only disappointments.
We’re up to something, as we know, it’s invariably something stupendous, even our most insignificant, unimpressive brainchild is always the most stupendous thing, and we feel we must speak of it, go into it, and we’re disappointed, either we’re not understood, no matter how clearly and force-fully we put our case, or else we don’t want to be understood. We’re always left without an answer, and of course in a more debilitated state than before, because no one, no expert or person, whichever, wants to help us. And so we naturally have to depend entirely on ourselves all our lives and we go our way alone, depending on ourselves only, working to earn everything ourselves, with no outside help. And so we’re always full up and never come to rest, so Roithamer, “never come to rest” underlined. We’re surrounded by malice, so Roithamer. First twenty-one chambers in the Cone, then eighteen, then seventeen chambers. A single chamber under the Cone’s tip, with a view in every direction, but in every direction the same vista into the forest, nothing else. Three-storied, because a threestoried edifice accords with my sister’s character, “my sister’s character” underlined. Of the seventeen chambers, nine are without a view, among them the meditation chamber on the second floor, beneath the chamber in the tip. The meditation chamber is so constructed as to make it possible to meditate there for several days in a row, and it’s intended for no other use but meditation, it’s totally devoid of any objects, there’s not to be a single object in the meditation chamber, nor any light either. A red dot in the center of the meditation chamber indicates the actual center of the meditation chamber, which is also the true center of the Cone. The radius from this center in every direction is fourteen meters long. Spring water on tap in the meditation chamber. Underneath the meditation chamber, areas for diversions. Above the meditation chamber, the circular chamber inside the tip of the Cone, affording views in all directions, but in every direction nothing but forest is to be seen, the Kobernausser forest, under this rotunda the meditation chamber, under the meditation chamber the diversions areas and under the diversions areas what I call the antechambers into which whoever enters the Cone, enters to prepare himself for the Cone, on the ground floor, in fact. On the ground floor there are five chambers, all without any designation in particular. These chambers must be left without the specific designation, like all the chambers in the Cone, always, without designation, except for the meditation chamber.
If the person domiciled in the Cone, my sister, in fact, should be tempted to assign specific functions to the individual chambers, for she is sure to be suddenly inclined and then impelled to designate the individual chambers as, say, a bedroom here and a workroom there and thirdly a kitchen andsoforth, she must remind herself, if necessary tell herself aloud, that the individual chambers in the Cone are not to be specifically designated, it must be possible to live in a building in which the individual chambers are undesignated, though it is only natural for the chamber constructed a
s a meditation chamber to be designated as a meditation chamber. The chambers are all whitewashed. No windows but look-outs that are neither to be opened nor shut, natural airing of the inner-spaces always without having to open or shut the look-outs. Solar energy for heating. Stone, bricks, glass, iron, nothing else. The Cone is whitewashed outside as well as inside. The Cone’s height is the same as the height of the forest so that it’s impossible to see the Cone unless one is standing directly in front of it, the road leading to the Cone! doesn’t lead directly to it through the Kobernausser forest but winds toward it six times in a northeasterly and six times in a northwesterly direction, so that the Cone can be seen only at the moment when the new arrival finds himself directly in front of it. Eight thousand loads of coarse gravel, two thousand loads of a finer grade, so Roithamer. At first I was going to let my sister in on my plans from the beginning, but I dropped the idea when she showed her aversion to my plan, I’ll build about a third of the Cone first, I thought, then I’ll show her the Cone, a third of it already done, but I dropped that idea too, because I suddenly realized that I must finish the Cone before I show it to my sister, there’s the risk in showing my sister the Cone before it’s finished, that I may (owing to her reaction) lose the strength to finish the Cone, the Cone must be finished, perfect, when I show it to her, it was built to be perfection for her. If anything happens to my sister during my lifetime, I’ll let nature take its course with the Cone, so Roithamer, after my sister no one is to set foot in the Cone, this stipulation to be included in my will to be drawn up eventually, so Roithamer, this will musn’t be put off too long. (Roithamer did in fact stipulate in his will, viz. the slip of paper he had on him when Hoeller found his body, that no one should be allowed to set foot inside the Cone now, after his sister’s death and after his own death, and that the Cone must be entirely abandoned to nature.
There’s no telling how far Roithamer’s heirs will go along with that stipulation.) Once she sees the Cone, she’s bound to be happy, “bound to be happy” underlined. A perfect construction is bound to make the person for whom it was constructed happy, “must make her happy” again underlined.
The idea was to make my sister perfectly happy by means of a construction perfectly adapted to her person, so Roithamer. Perfect to the degree to which perfection is possible, anyway, let’s say nearly perfect, “nearly” as with anything else. To materialize the idea to the point of securing my sister’s perfect happiness. But what if she doesn’t understand any of it? I ask myself.
We’ll see. The idea was to prove that such a construction, bound to bring perfect happiness, is possible, so Roithamer. Then, when my sister has moved into the Cone, so Roithamer, when she has entered the Kobernausser forest, I shall have no more fears for my sister. For the time has come when my sister also must leave Altensam behind, must above all leave my brothers, who are as alien to us (my sister and me) as we (my sister and I) are alien to them. Once a year, at most twice a year, I shall visit my sister and shall observe and study her and the Cone and both of them together in their mutual relationship, so Roithamer. And then I’ll retreat to Hoeller’s garret to work up my notes. I shall personally bury all the cost accounts regarding the Cone on the ground floor, so Roithamer, the day the Cone was finished. The Cone was meant to be a surprise, it is no longer a surprise because my sister knows of my plan and also knows how far I have progressed in my plan. Nevertheless she will be surprised when she actually sees the Cone, when she sees how it expresses her one hundred percent, or let’s say nearly one hundred percent, because a one hundred percent expression is impossible. Then everything within me will be resolved, as it will be resolved in my sister, at the moment when I show her the Cone. We have to go along with a crazy idea, our own, even when we don’t remember how we got it, we must go along with this crazy idea all the way, bring it to realization in the teeth of all the doubts and all the rules and all the recriminations, despite everything. We bring this idea to realization in order to bring ourselves to realization for a loved person, “loved person” underlined. It was always obvious that no help was to be expected from anywhere at all, and under no circumstances from Altensam. To finish the Cone means to destroy Altensam, once the Cone is finished, Altensam is destroyed. It’s all directed against my brothers, everything I’ve ever done in my life perhaps.
Everything always for my sister, but against my brothers. These proceedings, against my brothers, for my sister, I have made into a personal art.
Instinctively I have always acted against my brothers and for my sister. And now, by realizing my idea of building the Cone, I am proceeding most radically against my brothers and for my sister. The Cone, my proof, “my proof” underlined. I kept telling them I can do what I like with my money.
And because the time has come. The Cone is the logical consequence of (my) nature. But I won’t satisfy the curiosity of the professionals or those who call themselves professionals though they’re not. None of them shall get near my Cone. So far I’ve managed to keep the site fenced off. By deploying my lookouts everywhere, who report anyone they see approaching the site, people are turned away, pushed back, before they have had even a glimpse of the Cone. But there’s no preventing people from coming one day, at a certain point when I have lost all influence over this situation, and from taking possession (mentally) of the Cone, or from thinking they have taken (mental) possession of it, and from exploiting my idea. “Exploiters of ideas”
underlined. At first I kept my idea of building the Cone under scrutiny for a long time, while engaged in my scientific pursuits, I kept mulling over this one idea, scrutinizing it, then I tested it, and then I proceeded to work on its realization. I never asked anybody, one never should ask anybody, when one has this kind of an idea, whether it’s a good idea and whether the idea should be put into practice or not, because the reply is sure to be deadly. I turned to no one, no other head, and started to put my idea into practice without knowing what the realization of my idea means. The question of the meaning of the realization of this idea arises only after the Cone is finished.
It’s because I got away from Altensam so early in life, and went to Cambridge, because I got away from the actual scene of my thoughts, which has always been, and still is Altensam and its environs, whatever I’m thinking about, having to think about, that I had the opportunity to concern myself with problems and ideas which, had I remained in Altensam and its environs, let’s say within a radius of two or three hundred kilometers, I never could have concerned myself with, I could not have thought the thoughts I could think in Cambridge, I’d never have had the ideas I’ve had in Cambridge. To do one’s thinking on a scene, though actually far away from the actual scene, one’s best thinking by virtue of being at the farthest possible remove from the scene of everything relating to that scene. Everything about Altensam, for instance, is always best considered at the farthest remove from Altensam, not in Altensam itself, everything concerning the Cone, for instance, is best considered in Cambridge. It was not on the Kobernausser forest site itself that I supervised the building of the Cone, but from Hoeller’s garret. We must be removed as far as possible from the scene of our thoughts if we’re to think properly, with the greatest intensity, the greatest clarity, always only at the greatest distance from the scene of our thoughts, in Cambridge my thoughts about Altensam became the clearest possible thoughts about Altensam, conversely in Altensam the clearest possible thoughts about Cambridge. Always the problem of how to get to the farthest point away from the subject I must consider or think through, in order to consider or think through this subject the best possible way. Approaching the subject makes it increasingly impossible to think through the subject we are approaching. We become absorbed in the subject and can no longer think it through, we can’t even grasp it. And so I, wanting basically only to think about, to think thoroughly about my native scene, Altensam, Austria, etcetera, had to go to Cambridge. In that sense my scientific pursuits in Cambridge were always nothing but an opportu
nity to think hard, in Cambridge, about the scene of greatest interest to me, Altensam and everything connected with Altensam, to go over it in my head. To think a subject through, one has to assume a position at the farthest possible remove from this subject. First, approach the subject as an idea, then, take the most distant position possible from this subject which at first we’d approached as an idea, to enable us to evaluate it and think it through, a process leading logically to its resolution. A thorough, logical analysis of a subject, whichever subject, means the resolution of the subject, an analysis of Altensam, for instance, means the resolution, dissolution, of Altensam andsoforth. But we don’t, we never think with the utmost analytical rigor, because if we did we’d solve, dissolve, everything. In that case I’d never have been able to get the Cone ready, as Hoeller puts it, so Roithamer, “get ready” underlined. Hoeller has made no changes in the garret since I last stayed in it, so Roithamer, and none of the Hoellers was allowed to set foot in the garret, because I asked Hoeller to let no one, not even his own wife and his own children, into the garret in my absence; now that I’ve entered Hoeller’s garret I have the proof that Hoeller hasn’t changed a thing in the garret in my absence, that I’d only imagined that Hoeller had changed something in the garret, so Roithamer, but now I have proof that he changed nothing in the garret, everything in the garret is in the same place where it was when I left the garret, he, Hoeller, enters the garret once or twice a week only to air it, so that there’s absolutely no musty smell in Hoeller’s garret, my thoughtchamber at the Aurach gorge, so Roithamer, “thoughtchamber at the Aurach gorge” underlined. At the very instant I entered Hoeller’s garret for the first time together with Hoeller who wanted to show me his garret because he thought it might be a suitable place for me to think especially about building the Cone, it had always occurred to him, every time he stepped into the garret, to wonder whether his garret wasn’t the most suitable place for me and my purposes, I’d known at that earliest instant that Hoeller’s garret could enable me, as no other retreat so far had enabled me, to get on with my thinking, especially in regard to the Cone, and so I told him immediately, while we still stood in the doorway to the garret, that this was the most suitable place for my purposes and that I wished to rent it, rent is what I said to Hoeller, but Hoeller said that I could move into the garret as often and whenever I wanted, stay there whenever and for however long I wanted, he wouldn’t rent it to me, he was of course putting it at my disposal gratis, this offer I immediately accepted and I moved into Hoeller’s garret that same day and was confirmed in my assumption that I could advance in my thinking in Hoeller’s garret, from that point where I had gotten stuck in Cambridge. Here in Hoeller’s garret I’d been able to make my most important calculations, those referring to the statics of the Cone, in a short time. If I’d become blocked in thinking about the Cone at Cambridge, I enjoyed a fresh start in Hoeller’s garret. I lost my fear of having to give up the idea of building the Cone, of realizing it, perfecting it. When it comes to finishing the Cone, I owe everything to Hoeller’s garret, so Roithamer. Suddenly it was possible to “go on living, go on working,” underlined. The problem of everything coming at once, so Roithamer, beginning with early childhood (three years old, four years?) having to cope with myself, with those around me, with the past on the one hand and with future prospects, so Roithamer, and with a constantly rising degree of responsibility, irresponsibility. Because we were born into Altensam, without preparation, as we’re all born unprepared into some environment unknown to us, a world that does its utmost to destroy the newborn, born into it, just as Altensam has always tried to destroy me, the concept Altensam, destruction of my person, of a being at its mercy, defenseless, totally unprotected. Suddenly facing Altensam without knowing what it is, and everything beyond and around Altensam, without knowing what that is. Our parents were not the right teachers for us, our rightful educators as it’s called, but they had no right to educate us, they merely brought us up for their own purposes, always only for their own purposes, with the result that my brothers were always ready to serve their purposes, but I was always against their purposes. By bringing me up for their purposes my parents succeeded in setting me against their purposes, my brothers for their purposes, me against their purposes, education for a purpose, “education for a purpose” underlined. The restlessness of my parents, everything in and about my parents was unrest, but unrest against everything, not for everything, the way they’d move from one bedroom to another every week, for instance, use a different room as a dining room every week, constantly change their preferences, now they’d opt for one thing and then again for quite another, now for one set of characters and then for the opposite kind of characters, for one kind of landscape, for the opposite kind of landscape, in reality they lived in a constant state of unrest because they were incapable of deciding in favor of a definite person, a definite landscape, anything definite for the long run, because they always believed they had to think, have, reject, attract, everything at the same time, so they were basically the unhappiest people imaginable. They’d punish us constantly, thinking it was a way to draw us closer to them, but they always repelled me with their strategy of punishment, parents taking possession of their children by means of punishments, so Roithamer, “taking possession of their children” underlined. How my father always referred to the tragedy, my mother always to the drama of their shared life. Weeks of silence between them, not a word spoken, openly parading their shutting each other out, weeks at a time of never opening the one (father’s) being to the other (mother’s), and the chaotic conditions that always reigned at Altensam because of this situation between my parents. They made children together, but were basically quite unsuited to having children and never really wanted children, my father only wanted heirs, not children, not descendants, just heirs. I remember my parents only as old people, “old people” underlined, who couldn’t stand each other and who could stand their children even less, miserable to have brought into the world these basically alien, strange creatures, to have them on their conscience, to be guilty of the crime of giving life, actually more than once, though without knowing toward whom, with respect to whom, they were guilty. Misfortune comes overnight, my father always said, so Roithamer, “overnight” underlined. My mother lived in a state of chronic anxiety, with frequent fainting spells that came on the heels of my fainting spells or vice versa. We children weren’t allowed to ask questions, so that our parents wouldn’t have to find answers. We were kept, as they say, on a tight rein. If the world only knew on how tight and short a rein we were kept throughout our childhood, the stinginess and meanness with which we were kept, like cattle in a farmyard, that’s how we children were kept in Altensam. We were always forced to do things, something was always demanded of us against our will, but even if it was something we wanted to do, it was demanded of us at a time when we didn’t want to do it. We were ordered to read, for instance, what we didn’t want to read, listen to what we didn’t want to hear, visit people we didn’t want to visit, wear clothes we didn’t want to wear, eat food we didn’t want to eat. My brothers, and my sister too, always gave in but I never gave in, they had to punish me to make me give in, I never gave in of my own free will. We had to live by strict rules in Altensam, rules made long ago for other people, for all those generations who’d lived in Altensam before us, rules not made for us at all, but we never had a chance to make and live by our own rules, nor by new rules made for us, so we constantly and on every occasion and non-occasion had to obey rules never made for us, rules that were decades behind their time, as everything in Altensam has from the start been behind its time. Because I understood this early in life I found myself in a situation which was constantly life-threatening to me, because I would not submit to those outdated rules and did not submit except under duress, even though the others always submitted, my siblings have always been submissive creatures, but I balked at everything. To my parents, everything about me and inside me had been disturbi
ng, all my life, so I wanted quite early in life to live apart from my parents, and from my siblings as well, because they sided with my parents, which always made life easier for them, and it also made them turn out differently from me. I’m not a submissive man even today, rather I am more and ever more contrary, refractory, a quarrelsome character actually, in many ways more unyielding than necessary, all because of my years of desperation as a child, my long years of living in Altensam as a prison, Altensam always did feel like a childhood dungeon to me, it was never anything else, my good days at Altensam can be counted on the fingers of one hand, I had to spend my entire childhood in the Altensam dungeon like an inmate doing time for no comprehensible reason, for a crime he can’t remember committing, a judicial error probably. There I was, in solitary, in almost uninterrupted darkness, and speaking with my father was no different from being interrogated by a magistrate after an arrest. I was threatened with ever harsher punishments though my life was already enough of a harsh punishment. When I asked what I had done to be kept in this punitive fashion in solitary confinement at Altensam, I received no answer. Possibly I was kept in prison, in my parents’ dungeon, Altensam, to atone for their crime, for which I was, after all, so far doing a twelve to thirteen year stretch. The only witnesses to my innocence would of course have been my parents, but then my parents were also my prosecutors, they had conceived and born me directly into that dungeon, “conceived and born me” underlined. When, in unflagging despair, we have to regard our parents as nothing but our prison wardens in this vast, terrible dungeon, which is what I must call my parents’ house, father as the warden of his dungeon, his house, his property, my parental home, parental property, i.e., Altensam.
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