Correction

by Thomas Bernhard

  “writing job” underlined, in retreat, “retreat” underlined, to clarify everything that has happened these last six years, since I did need six years to construct and to build the Cone, for one thing the time factor, a short time relative to myself, my origins, relative to Altensam, but basically much too long a time which very often and repeatedly drove me to the edge of madness. The idea and the realization of the idea, the achievement of the realization of the idea of the Cone as the tackling and the realization and the achievement of an aim that has totally dominated me these last years, the problem of making my intention, which has always been described as only a crazy and totally hopeless scheme, clearly understandable not only to myself but to everyone else who was involved with the realization and completion of the Cone. Taking under consideration the fact that I was on the one hand committed to England, to Cambridge, while on the other hand my energies were after all totally committed to my intention to build the Cone in the Kobernausser forest, I was duty-bound to this scene of the site of the Cone, the problem of being always here, in Cambridge, or in the Kobernausser forest, at the right moment, of not neglecting the one for the other, the lowest limit of my responsibility. Actually I should have spent years in Cambridge so as not to neglect Cambridge, while at the same time staying in the Kobernausser forest, meaning in Hoeller’s garret, specifically, so as not to neglect the building of the Cone, now that the Cone is finished and now that I haven’t lost Cambridge, I can see that it was possible for me to muster the necessary energy to build the Cone without neglecting Cambridge, that is, neither my teaching nor my own research, because it was possible for me to do the one under the stimulus of the other, not to neglect Cambridge by means of energies generated by my work on the Cone, not to neglect the Cone by means of energies generated at Cambridge, and to do both always in the highest state of concentration upon each objective as required. The assurance I acquired in the course of changing my scene of operations, staying now in Cambridge for a time, then again in Hoeller’s garret, in England on the one hand, in Austria on the other, always shifting from one to the other at the proper moment, without being aware of this fact, always doing the right thing as a gift, a form of talent, without consciousness, the change of locale, leaving Cambridge for the Kobernausser forest and vice versa, but also moving from one to the other in thought without any transition, for how often I was in Cambridge (in my thoughts) while being in reality in the Kobernausser forest, and how often, conversely, in the Kobernausser forest (in my thoughts) though in reality I was in Cambridge.

  That I told myself from time to time, even though I was in Cambridge just now, I’m in the Kobernausser forest now of necessity, conversely, of necessity now in Cambridge, although in reality I’d been in the Kobernausser forest. I could always switch my head from one place to the other, instantly, even as a child I could switch instantly from one thing to another. And the very fact that I could be most effective especially in Cambridge for the Kobernausser forest, most effective in the Kobernausser forest for Cambridge, the fact that my intensity is greater for the one when I’m in the other place, and vice versa, and I could exercise this ability because I had complete control of this mechanism from earliest childhood on, so Roithamer.

  To build the Cone without teaching and studying in Cambridge, studying as I teach, studying by teaching, and conversely, to have intensified my achievement in Cambridge as I did without the actual building of the Cone is unimaginable. We very often make headway rapidly and with the greatest assurance in some (most strenuous) work or occupation or passion andsoforth, so Roithamer, because we’ve started or become involved or planned another, similar work or occupation or passion and never abandoned it, so Roithamer. The one work or occupation or passion which very often takes us to the very edge of despair, often solely because we are in fact involved in another such strenuous effort simultaneously. I alone could have conceived such an idea, the idea of building such a cone, planning it and actually building it, everybody said so and they’re right. The need to understand what led to this idea, most likely everything led to this idea.

  What led to this idea and the realization of the idea as the effect of its original cause, so Roithamer, a matter of consistency, just as the realization of the idea led to perfecting the idea andsoforth. To build is the most wonderful thing in the world, it’s the supreme gratification, “supreme gratification” underlined. It’s what everyone longs to do, building, but not everyone gets the chance to build, and everyone who does build gets this gratification out of it. Especially in building something no one has ever built before. It’s the supreme gratification, “supreme gratification” underlined, to complete a work of art one has planned and built oneself. To complete a philosophical work, or a literary work, even if it’s the most epoch-making and most important work of its kind, can never give us this supreme gratification, nothing like the gratification that comes with actually accomplishing the erection of an edifice, especially an edifice such as no one ever has erected before. With this one has achieved all that is humanly possible. Even if going all the way in perfecting this work is sure to cost one all he has and has, in fact, destroyed him. The price for such an edifice as a work of art of one’s own, the only one of its kind in the world, cannot be less than everything,

  “everything” underlined. At first we shy away from even conceiving such an idea, we’re terrified that it may in time take possession of us utterly and end by crushing us altogether, so Roithamer, while on the one hand we rise up against ourselves for the sake of the idea, on the other hand we resist the idea in self-defense, yet in the end it turns out to have been a revolt against ourselves and for the idea. The idea demands fulfillment, it demands realization and never stops demanding to be realized. One always wants to give it up, but one ends by not giving it up because one is by nature disinclined to give it up and in fact one sets about realizing the idea. Suddenly one’s head is full of nothing else, one has become the incarnation of one’s idea. And now one begins to reap the benefit of all one’s suffering, of one’s origins and everything connected with one’s origins, in my case everything connected with Altensam, everything being primarily and to begin with the story of one’s origins, even if it all consists of nothing but martyrdom. It all turns out to be useful, and the worst of the horrors are most useful of all.

  There’s a chance of realizing one’s idea, because it is precisely the torments of one’s family history and the torments of the present, which is as much of a torment as one’s history has been, torment and nothing else, it is precisely these past and familial torments, if they are bad enough, the worst possible, which enable one to realize one’s idea to a high and even the highest degree.

  The greater the idea and the higher our aim by way of that idea, the greater our historical and our familial torments are required to have been. Suddenly I realized what an enormous capital my idea could draw upon, in the accumulated capital of torments I had suffered from my family origins and my personal history and all the history connected with me in any way, and I was able to put all these resources to work, in full possession of my faculties, once I had them suddenly at my disposal. For what was Altensam to me other than family as a torment, history as a torment, the present as a torment, leaving out of account the few bright spots such as the quite extraordinary natural conditions here, the extraordinary rock formations, animals, plants andsoforth, as the only chance of retreat andsoforth, so Roithamer. Human, natural, and art history as torment, as the possibility of reaching my aim, so Roithamer. At the terminal point of the conditions that have always prevailed here. The basis, Altensam, “basis” underlined, on which I have been able to realize my idea, finish the Cone, hence Altensam and everything connected with Altensam was absolutely necessary, because each thing always derives from all the others, so Roithamer. The Cone, as it is, is unthinkable without Altensam, just as everything is unthinkable without everything else andsoforth, so Roithamer. The terrifying idea, so Roithamer, which, the more terrify
ing it is, the closer to realization it is. And so everything at the terminal point of my observations made in my childhood and youth in Altensam has been necessary toward the realization and completion of the Cone, everything about (and in) the Cone, everything else andsoforth, so Roithamer. By studying Altensam and my sister and trying to think Altensam and my sister through and by continuing to extend these efforts on and on until they could be extended no further, I enabled myself to build the Cone and realize and complete it. Because I let myself in for the sheer terror of this undertaking to build the Cone, let myself in for the monstrousness, “the monstrousness” underlined, of my life, so Roithamer. As if I had lived, existed, all along, all those years of development, which were nothing else than my development in the direction of the Cone, the direction of this monstrousness. One is called upon to approach and realize and complete the monstrousness, and everyone has some such enormity in his life, or else to be destroyed by this monstrousness even before one has entered into it. In this way people always tend to waver at a certain point in their lives, and always at the particular crucial point in their lives when they must decide whether to tackle the monstrousness of their life or let themselves be destroyed by it before they have tackled it. Most people prefer to let themselves be destroyed by this monstrousness rather than to tackle it, because they aren’t equipped by nature to tackle and realize and fulfill their monstrousness, they’re rather inclined, by nature, to let themselves be destroyed by their monstrousness before they have tackled it. The matured idea is enough in itself to destroy most people, so Roithamer. And such an enormity as a work of art, a lifework of art—regardless of what this monstrousness is, everyone has such a possibility in him, because his nature is in itself such a possibility—can only be tackled and realized and fulfilled with the whole of one’s being. In so tackling such a monstrousness we have entered into pure defenselessness, into being alone with ourselves within ourselves, alone with our idea as an enormity, and everything is against us.

  Because we believe that we can’t do otherwise we keep wanting to give up, because we can’t know that we are by nature quite well equipped for such a monstrousness, which we begin to see only after we’ve realized and completed this monstrousness as an idea, just as I hadn’t known whether I was capable of building the Cone before the Cone was completed. But once we’ve reached our aim, we no longer know anything about the way to our aim and we keep finding it impossible to believe, for the rest of our lives our doubt keeps increasing and we can’t believe that we have reached our aim, the realization and completion of our idea as, for example, a Cone, so Roithamer. At the end, when we have reached our aim, no matter what aim, even if this aim is the building of a so-called work of art, we find ourselves frightened by it. Attempt at a description of Hoeller, of Hoeller’s wife and Hoeller’s garret: before I tackled the study of statics I went to Hoeller in order to observe Hoeller, first to observe Hoeller and then I studied his house, the house he built out of his own head and with his own hands, the study of one thing always presupposes the study of something else from which the first is derived. Hoeller had most readily taken me into his house and into his family, I’d felt that it wouldn’t be enough for me to just visit briefly in Hoeller’s house, but that I needed to live in it as long as necessary, free to observe him in person and his building construction and his family, in his house and together with all of them, as long as necessary, in the way in which I thought I would have to live there in order to be able to tackle the realization of my idea of building the Cone. For the idea of building the Cone, even Hoeller hadn’t been able to imagine a cone as a building, and Hoeller also had to consider my idea of building the Cone in the center of the Kobernausser forest as a crazy idea, I’d been able to observe that in him, for the idea to build the Cone could be realized only after I clearly understood Hoeller’s house, I’d said to Hoeller, and that it was necessary for me to use Hoeller’s garret as my base of operations, for Hoeller’s garret had always, from the first moment I saw it, seemed to me to be the ideal place in which to do my thinking. To observe and explore Hoeller’s house as well as Hoeller’s person was the first thing I had to do before I could tackle the realization of my plan to erect the Cone. I tried to make my intentions clear to Hoeller and he understood me immediately. And then Hoeller informed his family of my reasons for staying in his house, he even told the children for what purpose I would be living and staying with them for weeks at a time, quite on my own, to work on my idea. That I would have to explore the Hoeller house, understand it and explore it thoroughly, in order to begin planning my own building. To this end I needed nothing but perceptiveness and the proper application of my perceptiveness to the object under observation, namely, the Hoeller house. So I had brought nothing with me except the absolutely necessary and the will to be able to understand and explore the Hoeller house, to understand and explore the Hoeller house and also Hoeller himself and his state of mind and his family and the garret, which I had entered very early one day in April, because I had left Altensam so early that day in order that no one might see me leave, because I’d wanted to leave Altensam unseen, unnoticed, and I’d succeeded in doing that; when we’re about to do something unusual, something extraordinary, something like my idea of building the Cone, so Roithamer, we must proceed with all secrecy, keep all our activities as unknown as possible. And so, having arrived in Altensam from England the previous afternoon I’d gone down to Hoeller’s house late that same evening to discuss with Hoeller whether it might be possible for me to move into his house the very next morning, Hoeller understood at once, in the downstairs family room where they have their meals, this room too had been constructed and realized by Hoeller in every detail to serve precisely and ideally for the purpose of taking meals there with the whole family, ideally functional like all the rooms in Hoeller’s house, and I asked myself where he acquired his mastery of the art of building, which can be seen in every detail of his house, or which can at least be recognized, at least felt, in every detail, anyway; in the downstairs room where they all sat together at supper, I had entered almost at the same moment I knocked on the door, surprised by the silence in the room considering that all the Hoellers were sitting there, that they hadn’t spoken a word during the entire mealtime and Hoeller had only signed to me to sit down with them, his wife had immediately risen and brought me something to eat from the kitchen, something other than what they’d been eating, I don’t remember what they gave me to eat, all I remember is, it was something else, but without a word spoken the whole time, I’d wanted to say something to the children, but the children made it impossible for me by their silence alone to say anything to them, the same with Hoeller and his wife, so I hadn’t been able to bring up the purpose of my visit at any time during supper, no one asked me anything nor did I feel any need to talk, yet I’d only just come from Altensam and this very evening, fresh from an argument with my mother, which ended up as a violent argument of everybody against everybody in Altensam, as soon as I’d arrived a quarrel had broken out over a just completed paint job on the farm building, quite unnecessary in my opinion, which I noticed the minute I arrived at Altensam and which caused me to ask why the farm building, which I’d remembered as being outwardly in rather good condition, had suddenly had to be freshly painted for no reason at all, whether that had been my mother’s idea, I avoided calling it this crazy idea, this, characteristically for my mother, crazy and senseless and in my opinion really superfluous idea, but naturally my mother had heard, because she’s always lying in wait for it, what I hadn’t even said, as she always hears everything that isn’t said but is being thought against her, and I’ve always thought against her, all my life long I’ve always thought against my mother, though these thoughts were hardly ever spoken aloud, but she always heard it even when it wasn’t said aloud, which always led to quarrels at Altensam, I’d hardly set foot in the place and already there was a quarrel, even on this afternoon, I hadn’t even taken my traveling bag up to my
room yet, but while still down in the hall, I couldn’t restrain myself and I asked my mother whose idea it was to put a fresh coat of color on the farm building, I said there was no need for a new color on the farm building, that the somewhat older, but not too old color, a reddish tint I believed, had suited the farm building much better, it had suited the whole character of the farm building on its east side, against the sunrise, it’s important to consider the situation of such a building when one has to decide on its color, now I could take no pleasure at all in the sight of the farm building, I’d said to my mother, whereas I’d always taken pleasure in seeing it when it was still that old reddish color, especially in the evening, but now it gave me no pleasure at all, I said, that it could only have been her idea, my mother’s idea, to touch up the farm building with this hideous green color and at such a huge needless expense for the paint job too, I’d been accusing my mother only in thought, but she, with her uncanny ear for everything I was thinking, had heard what I was only thinking as if I’d uttered it, although I’d never have said aloud what I was thinking because I was fully aware how it would affect her, nor had I meant to start an argument with my mother the minute I arrived at Altensam, after all I didn’t come to Altensam that often from England, that I could have afforded to start an argument with my mother, always on my way to Altensam, the closer I came to Altensam, the more I determined not to argue with my mother, on any account, to do all in my power to prevent an argument with my mother, but I’d hardly set foot in Altensam when, presto, I’d be having an argument with my mother, most of the time I’d hardly sat down before I found myself already deep in some argument or other with my mother, and her reproaches, which came fast and often very loud, to draw the rest of the family, soon there was no damming them up, and all that mutual dislike and all that mutual hatred, barely held back for a moment or for only a few brief moments, have now again broken out into the open, darkening the scene. I never feared anything so much in all my life as these arguments with my mother, but these arguments inevitably broke out, and they broke out within the first few moments we met, and there was no damming them up. On that afternoon, when I’d hoped to rest up in Altensam, after so many strenuous months, a whole long six months which seemed even longer in that dreadful English climate and seemed even more strenuous and really terrible, I’d hoped to relax in Altensam for longer than usual this time, as I’d planned to spend some time in Altensam, a place after all more conducive to relaxation than any other place, though it had never yet been really at my disposal for such a purpose, but instead, because of the fact that I’d seen the new color job on the farm building, that I’d seen it at once on arrival, and seen instantly what a tasteless color job it was, what a brainless color job, which had, as I instantly suspected, cost a heap of money besides, it was after all my money too, so then and there I had this argument with my mother, we were hurling all sorts of accusations at each other’s heads while at the same time saying over and over again, now I to her, then again she to me, saying calm down, will you, why don’t you calm down, we’d keep saying this almost perverse do calm down, do calm down, tossed back and forth between us, probably resulting only in our getting deeper and deeper into our argument until, in the end, we’d argued ourselves as always into a state of exhaustion, these arguments always ended with both of us in a state of total exhaustion, it was an effort and took the utmost willpower merely to keep upright after one of those battles, then, when mother invited me, at the utmost point of exhaustion from this argument, to have a bite with her in the kitchen, there was no one in it that day, cook was having her Tuesday off, to have a cup of tea, just a snack she had prepared for us with her own hands, a welcome-home snack as it were, so I followed mother into the kitchen and silently drank a cup of tea with her, naturally I ate nothing, I was simply in no condition to eat. Then, as we sat in the kitchen after our argument, so Roithamer, it was always basically the same thing, I arrive, we have our argument, we go in to drink tea, sitting in silence, totally exhausted, simply no longer capable of hating each other, we simply let go, sitting face to face, we let it go as it comes, as it is, nothing can be changed, suddenly she demands a description of my trip, how was my journey, was the weather in London good or bad, what had I been doing, my friends, my colleagues, she touched all these bases, but even the way she pronounced Cambridge, the way she said London, instantly aroused my anger against her again, the way she said Dover, the way she said Brussels, Cologne, all the time with her eyes on me, she’d question me with these cue-words that were always the same cue-words, every time I came home from England, she wanted to know everything, every detail, but I remained closemouthed, I was silence itself, as always. She couldn’t get a word out of me. I tried a bite of bread, choking on it, with her eyes on me, taking possession of me, as she thought. As always, my siblings were in their rooms, and I thought they were waiting in their rooms for our inevitable argument to be over, for us to have calmed down, as they thought, then they’d come down, to put in an appearance for their brother, who had withdrawn from all of them by going off to England.