Correction

by Thomas Bernhard

  My study of the thorn apple, written while totally stunned by the cause of my sister’s death: my finishing the Cone, so Roithamer. Taking refuge from one science in another, so Roithamer, an artful device to break off one (tormenting) subject by taking up again another (an old, ancient) subject, so Roithamer (19 March). The thorn apple, because I considered my work on the Cone concluded, so Roithamer. But haunted by the notion that I must work on the Cone, so Roithamer, although the Cone is a closed chapter, the Cone is now exposed and abandoned to nature, so Roithamer. The notion I had from the first moment, regarding the site for the Cone: the middle of the Kobernausser forest, which corresponds with the present site of the Cone.

  Supreme happiness, so Roithamer, as the instant cause of (my sister’s) death, so Roithamer. The notion of turning a calculated center (forty-two kilometers from Mattighofen) into an actual center, incessant doubts (March 21). First the natural history, then statics, or first statics, then natural history,

  statics

  as

  natural

  history

  andsoforth,

  so

  Roithamer.

  Nature/man/statics, so Roithamer. To put the men to work like one’s own brain and to treat these working people as one treats one’s own brain, driving both toward the target to the limit of their capacity (March 23), so Roithamer. Giving it all they’ve got every minute. Ease, insolence, we see the building developing from our plans, the building plans turning into a reality, event, fulfillment of the event. To be in England, while the Cone is being built in the Kobernausser forest, but to remain for all the future in England. What we do secretly, succeeds, so Roithamer. What we publish is destroyed in the instant of publication. When we say what we are doing, it’s destroyed. The strain so exacerbated that it must end in the destruction (of the head and the body) of the nature of head and body, so Roithamer. We work on the periphery (England) in the center (Kobernausser forest). In company taciturn, then suddenly, out of this taciturnity, to talk, to talk again and again, to persuade, to despair, to talk and be afraid, over and over, and make them afraid, a constant process of making things known, everything known, they fear this as much as we do, so Roithamer. Until our ability to take it in is exhausted. When one studies statics, he learns to understand nature more and more, so Roithamer. First I let all these hundreds of books into my head, then my loathing for all these books, papers, which I’ve suddenly given up (April 2). First I bind (chain) everything to my head, then to my body, body and head all at the same time, “all” underlined. The Cone represents the logic of my (my sister’s) nature. I built the Cone as a natural scientist, so Roithamer, from England, in Austria, I wouldn’t have had the strength to do it from Austria, so Roithamer. First the idea of destroying the Cone (after my sister’s death), but I shall leave it to nature, entirely. But the edifice as a work of art is finished only after the death of the person for whom it was built and finished, so Roithamer. We think we are building an edifice, a work of art, but what we have built is something else. The doors of the Cone all open toward the inside, so Roithamer, “inside” underlined. At eighteen or nineteen I could not have had this idea, at forty-one I could no longer have had it, so Roithamer. The so-called architects, so Roithamer, all thought I was crazy, such an edifice cannot be built, but it is a question of the occasion of mental acuity (April 3). The question was not only, how do I build the Cone, but also, how do I keep the Cone, the building of the Cone a secret, so Roithamer. Half of my energies were concentrated on building the Cone, half of them on keeping the Cone a secret, so Roithamer. When a man plans such an enormity, he must always retain control of everything and keep everything secret, so Roithamer. First based on my reading, then on the basis of reading no longer taken into account, so Roithamer. My own ideas had led with logical consistency to the realization and completion of the Cone, when my sister was frightened to death, the Cone was finished, so Roithamer, I could not have taken her into the Kobernausser forest at any other than the deadly moment, she had dreaded this moment, when she dreaded it most deeply I took her there and so killed her, at the same time I’d finished the Cone (April 7), so Roithamer. For supreme happiness comes only in death, so Roithamer. Detour by way of the sciences to supreme happiness, death, so Roithamer. The experts, the critics, the destroyers, annihilators, so Roithamer. We always come close to the edge of the abyss and fear the loss of equilibrium, so Roithamer. When a body that has briefly lost its balance instantly resumes its original equipoise, then it has a stable equilibrium, so Roithamer. If, on the other hand, a body appears balanced in any given new position, “new Position” underlined, without returning to its original position, then its equilibrium is indifferent. When a body whose equilibrium is briefly disturbed does not return to its original balanced position but seeks a new equilibrium, then its equilibrium is labile, so Roithamer. The Cone’s physical center of gravity rests on its axis, so Roithamer, through the gravitational center of the base and the tip of the body at one-fourth its height a body needs at least three points of support, not in a straight line, to fix its position, so Roithamer had written. When we wake up, we feel ashamed, waking up is the always frightening minimum of existence, so Roithamer (April 9). The situation is always the same, in rational terms: wake up, wash, get dressed, work, see people, don’t despair, try not to despair (April 11). We accept (April 11). We answer the letters we receive, no matter whom or where they come from, not because a trap has been set for us in all of these letters (April 13). If I had not become involved with the art of building, it would have been something else, equally terrible.

  One is always suddenly repelled by seeing how common people are, by their viciousness, bad taste, brutality, vulgarity. Understood nature, by understanding myself, nothing. They (friends) come in and sit down and the talk is, as it always has been; about philosophy, building, natural history, travels, natural catastrophes, books, the past, the future, theater andsoforth, it seems to be as always, but it’s suddenly deadly (April 17). Everything is ultimately the Cone. When I’m listening, I’m struck by the fact that I tend to think everything out beyond what the thinker who is doing the talking- does, so Roithamer. The building of the Cone has probably caused her mortal illness to break out, my sister has always had her mortal illness, just as everyone has his mortal illness from the first. One temporizes with a mortal illness, with death, then abruptly death comes, so Roithamer. Pine trunks: gigantic asparagus stalks of death, so Roithamer. The Kobernausser forest the end for her (my sister), for me (April 19). Mozart, Webern, nothing more (April 21). To build an edifice for a person, the most beloved person, as a crazy idea and to destroy, to kill this person with the completion of that edifice, the Cone. At first: many rooms, then: few rooms, then: suitable rooms, rooms suitable for her, so Roithamer. A body is not necessarily tipped over by all the forces acting on it, so Roithamer, insofar as regards the critical tipping edge these forces rather impart a varying impetus for turning the body around, so they partially counter act the tipping over (April 23). A body does not tip over when the force holding it upright in place is stronger than the force pushing it over. Lawfulness of the material. There is no backing out so close to the goal, so Roithamer. At the time I had decided to build my sister the Cone, my knowledge of building was not yet sufficient to enable me to start building in confidence, so I’d begun to build in a state of extreme nervous tension, while at the same time beginning an even more comprehensive study of building, at first I’d planned a year’s study, then two years, but I ended up having to study statics and stress analysis and building technique for three years. My talks with the experts involved had led to nothing, my reading ultimately led to nothing, it was only my discussions with Hoeller and then my totally independent approach to building that made it possible for me to realize my plan, so Roithamer. The experts had only distracted, deceived and delayed me, the progress I made in my thinking about the Cone I owed to my constant contemplation and study of the Hoeller house. Books, art
icles, experts had never really been much use in my case anyway, so Roithamer. All those experts thought they were dealing with a madman, so that my talks with them were always setbacks in my plan, so Roithamer. If I’m going to build my sister an edifice suited to her nearly a hundred percent, I had thought, then I must first of all study my sister’s personality and in addition the basic principles of statics and stress analysis, so Roithamer. The more openly I spoke of my plan, the crazier I seemed to my listeners, but in the end I didn’t care about the opinion of all those people who considered themselves experts, all I cared about was my project, the execution of my plan, the realization of my idea, which kept looking crazier to me, too, the deeper I got into it, but every idea is a crazy idea, so Roithamer. Like all those who pursue an idea, which is ipso facto a crazy idea, I had to pursue my crazy idea, and I could not allow myself to be dissuaded from this crazy idea by anything whatever, especially not by myself, for I had the greatest doubts, but the greater my doubts, the more stubbornly I pursued my idea, and in the end nothing could have made me abandon my idea, I wouldn’t have let anything make me abandon it, I’d allowed myself to be irritated over it all the time, but not to abandon it, but the chronic irritation by my idea finally resulted in my having the absolute certainty that I would pursue my idea till I reached my goal, its realization and fulfillment in the Cone, so Roithamer. All those irritations effected in me only a greater obstinacy and a greater fascination with my idea, so Roithamer. As my irritation increased, I was forced to think and act with greater precision, so Roithamer. A man who says he is building for his sister a Cone in which she must live in future, is bound to seem crazy, so Roithamer. And when he says he is building a Cone for his sister in the middle of the Kobernausser forest, in its exact geometrical center, impossible to calculate according to the experts, but I was finally able to prove it, he must seem even crazier, and when he says that he is building for his sister, in the middle of the Kobernausser forest, a Cone in which his sister must live for the rest of her life and be happy, supremely happy, he must be regarded as even crazier still, so Roithamer. But we mustn’t let ourselves be so irritated that we abandon our intention, so Roithamer, only irritated enough to further our intention, for irritation is also most useful to no matter what intention, even the craziest, so Roithamer. We always think that we’re now so irritated that we’ll have to abandon our intention, no matter what intention, because the people around us will not tolerate such a plan (like the building of the Cone), but we must not suffer the kind of irritation that will force us to abandon our intention. Wherever we look, we see nothing but abandoned intentions, for the so-called realized and completed edifices we see everywhere in the world are also nothing but abandoned intentions, so Roithamer. But I, in contrast to all these hundreds of thousands and millions of so-called realized and completed, but in reality abandoned (building)-