Correction

by Thomas Bernhard

  Without a word, “without a word” underlined, I’d got up and left my mother alone in the kitchen, and I went away from Altensam, down to the Aurach, into Hoeller’s house. Away from the argument with my mother, into the silence of the Hoellers. Sitting at the table in Hoeller’s family room, having supper with the Hoellers, eating something different from what they were eating, underlined, still affected by my argument with my mother and so I was in a debilitated condition as the Hoellers watched me, after I’d previously been watched by my mother, but watched differently by the Hoellers than by my mother, how differently, “how” underlined, that’s indescribable, but it was an entirely different kind of look, because it was an entirely different perceptiveness, because the Hoellers are different from the Altensam people, I thought, but it’s not a greater simplicity, the so-called simple folk are not really simple, I was on the one hand still affected by the argument with my mother, about the new color job on the farm building, and also affected by the silence between mother and me in the Altensam kitchen, that condition of silence between me and my mother, realizing that again we’d had the argument both of us, I as well as my mother, always dreaded, once I’d announced my homecoming to Altensam, and which had of course broken out again this time, whether it’s the new color job on the farm building, or some purchase, or a sale, some real estate speculation on which I or my mother can’t agree, or as it might be father, by this time totally withdrawn and hardly noticeable any longer, who serves to trigger it off, then on the other hand the silence in Hoeller’s room, under the effect of which I was now condemned to the same speechlessness as the Hoellers sitting at table with me. The whole time not a single word at the Hoellers’ table, when supper was over the Hoellers stood up, including Hoeller himself, his wife cleared the table, in silence, they all walked out of the room, in silence, the children following their mother into the kitchen to do the washing up, Hoeller went to the hall, I followed him and it was only then, after I had thanked him for my supper, that I was able to come out with my reason for coming down to the Hoeller house this very evening of my arrival, I told him I wanted to lodge at his house for a while, could he, as a favor, let me room in his garret for a while, I found myself able, as I had not expected to be, to explain my wish, which I had simply reeled off to Hoeller, who was totally unprepared to hear it, I said to him that to look at this house, to study it, explore it, as well as yourself and everything connected with you and your house, will be the best preparation for my plan to build the Cone. Hoeller agreed to my proposal, he said I could move in tomorrow morning, I said I’d bring only the barest necessities with me, he told me I could stay in the garret as long as I liked, as long as I needed, it would be a pleasure for him to have my company for a time, the mere idea was a pleasure, so Roithamer. We’d spent only a few minutes in the hall, then Hoeller had to go to his workshop, so I said good-bye, it was a relief to know, even if only briefly, that I no longer had to fear having to stay in Altensam, where I’d hoped to relax and restore myself a little, for quite a while as I’d thought, under these, “these,” underlined, terrible circumstances, a groundless fear now, and so I took a detour, past a hazel hedge I’d loved as a child, back up to Altensam, and withdrew to my room after showing myself briefly to my brothers, my sister was visiting a friend in town. After a sleepless night, like my nights in England for quite a while now, I’d gone quite early, I think it was five in the morning, to Hoeller’s house, Hoeller was already up and at work in his workshop at that hour, in order to study it scientifically from the first moment, I was all set to look and study and explore the Hoeller house most thoroughly and with the greatest pleasure from the first. To begin with I immediately had the chance to make comparisons, looking at Hoeller and looking at his house, studying Hoeller and studying his house, what was characteristic of Hoeller was also characteristic of his house, the house inside was like Hoeller inside, by studying the Hoeller house I had a sudden insight into Hoeller and, conversely, by studying Hoeller, I had insight into the house, one served as a simultaneous illumination of the other. I could have said without hesitation, so Roithamer, Hoeller’s inside is the same as the inside of his house. I could have said that the strength (or weakness) of Hoeller’s character clearly manifests itself in (and by) his house. And just as Hoeller’s wife submits to Hoeller, and the children submit to their father, without ever for a moment giving themselves up, as I thought, they subordinate themselves to the house, without giving themselves up. The Hoeller house corresponds to Hoeller, and he and all its other inhabitants conduct themselves in it, in his house, accordingly. And where, I asked myself, did Hoeller get the idea for this house of his, because I am fully aware that I got my idea, to build the Cone for my sister, from Hoeller and his house at the Aurach gorge. But I haven’t asked him to this day where he got the idea for building his house, though he naturally must have gotten the idea from a house that another man built for himself (or for someone else) before, probably a house standing nearby, for Hoeller hasn’t gotten around too much. Possibly Hoeller doesn’t even know where he got the idea for building his house and for building it as he ended up building it, a house so much in accordance with himself, so visibly in accordance with himself, as I’ve never seen another. I’ll ask him where he got the idea, I thought, and I asked Hoeller where he’d gotten his idea, because I simply had to know, while I looked over and studied and explored his house, it was indispensable to me to know. But Hoeller can’t remember where he got the idea to build his house. The chances are that the house that gave Hoeller the idea to build his own house is standing quite close by, I thought, as close as can be to the Hoeller house.

  Yet there’s no other house to compare with it, I thought, so Roithamer. It’s also possible that Hoeller never saw the model for his house in reality, for in reality there isn’t any model for Hoeller’s house in the vicinity, I thought, so Roithamer, it must have come to him in a dream. In that case it’s quite likely, I thought, that Hoeller didn’t see a model for his house in a dream, but that he dreamed the house itself. All he had to do was trust his dream and accurately copy the house he saw in his dream, so Roithamer. Since he’s a master of the craft and in addition drew on all sorts of books, as I know, including the kind of books I myself got hold of for my own purposes, for the rest of building knowledge he needed, it was only a question of willpower and endurance for Hoeller to be able to build his house. That he chose, of all places, the Aurach gorge for the site wasn’t a matter of low cost, on the contrary, the costs of the site here at the Aurach gorge were, as I know, exceptionally high, it just happens to be characteristic of Hoeller. Just as it’s characteristic of me to build the Cone for my sister in the middle of the Kobernausser forest. The monstrousness of realizing my plan is clear to me, I said to myself, after the monstrousness of Hoeller’s plan to build his house had become clear to me, but the actual monstrousness of it then turned out to be much more monstrous than I could ever have imagined. But it’s the same monstrousness for me to build and to realize and to complete the Cone as it is for Hoeller to build and realize and complete the Hoeller house, so Roithamer, everything regarding his house, the Hoeller house, I thought, so Roithamer, is as much in accordance with his nature as everything regarding the Cone for my sister is in accordance with mine. And because I always felt at home with Hoeller, I also felt at home with the house he had built (for himself and his family), everything in this house is home to me, I thought, and I went on the one hand from top to bottom in the house, and on the other hand from bottom to top, closely examining everything in my scientific way and checking out everything, but I could see that the inside of the house as well as the outside of the house at the Aurach gorge, that, in short, the entire Hoeller house was already familiar to me, one hundred percent familiar, I said to myself. And so I thought that everything in the Cone that was to be built and to be realized must also be familiar to me, one hundred percent familiar or at least almost one hundred percent familiar, because my sister, for whom I w
anted to build the Cone, wanted to at first, but then most decidedly and most determinedly had to build for her, “had to” underlined, one hundred percent familiar. Once I have fully grasped my sister’s nature with my intelligence, on the one hand, and on the other hand with my emotional awareness, then I can begin building the Cone, so Roithamer. As for me, I wonder why Hoeller has lodged me in this garret which, as I now see, really belonged so entirely to Roithamer, surely not only because I was Roithamer’s closest intimate and because I told Hoeller that I was now going to work on Roithamer’s literary legacy, but only in Hoeller’s garret, probably because it seemed the most natural thing in the world to him, Hoeller, that I wanted to domicile myself in Hoeller’s garret in order to sift and sort Roithamer’s papers there. I told Hoeller that his garret was so full of Roithamer’s living spirit that there could be no better place for working on Roithamer’s papers than Hoeller’s garret which is simply one hundred percent conducive to working on Roithamer’s legacy, besides which it also afforded me the opportunity to study the contents of the books and articles Roithamer had accumulated in Hoeller’s garret, primarily for his cone-building project, all of which had a bearing on Roithamer’s legacy, what he had read must be integrated with what he had ultimately written, the one must be brought into relationship with the other and everything put together had to be brought into relationship with Roithamer, by me. Everything in Hoeller’s garret belonging to Roithamer and left by Roithamer for my work on Roithamer’s papers, was in exactly the state in which Roithamer had left it just before his suicide, Hoeller told me, nothing had been touched by anyone else since Roithamer left Hoeller’s garret, he, Hoeller, was the only person who ever set foot in the garret, he allowed no one inside, not even his wife or his kids, who were always asking, out of curiosity, to be allowed in Hoeller’s garret, which had basically already become Roithamer’s garret, but their father, Hoeller, had always forbidden them to enter it. The Cone, I’d said to Hoeller on my arrival, was unique not only in Europe, it was unique in all the world, never before had any man yet built such a cone, in the course of centuries, in the course of the entire history of building, frequent attempts had been made to build a cone as a habitation, a pure conical shape as a live-in object, I’d said to Hoeller, but no one ever succeeded, not in France, not in Russia, as Roithamer wrote, “not in France, not in Russia” underlined. He, Roithamer, had had to move into Hoeller’s garret in order to be able to build the Cone, he had made Hoeller’s garret his construction studio for building the Cone,

  “‘construction studio for building the Cone” underlined, because a splendid thing can come only out of another splendid thing, in this case, the Cone out of Hoeller’s house. Basically, “basically” underlined, there had never been any problem for Roithamer and Hoeller in understanding each other. Must try to describe mother, the Eferding woman, so Roithamer, compared with my sister: First, personal characteristics. Actual y I tried several times to be with my mother in Altensam, just as she probably tried being with me, but these efforts were always doomed at the outset, they never got beyond being mere useless tries equally destructive to the sanity of either of us, they only turned against us and ended by destroying and finally annihilating everything inside us. Actually she always loathed being with me and vice versa; as far as I was concerned, obsessed as I was with my work and my passion for my work only, nothing else, for in fact everything always was my work, “everything”