underlined. Correction of the correction of the correction of the correction, so Roithamer. Signs of madness, insomnia, feeling sick of life. More and more of this soliloquizing, because I haven’t got a soul left, apart from Hoeller not a soul, left alone with myself in Hoeller’s garret, I haven’t a chance of ever leaving Hoeller’s garret (May 7). A prison, a prison to soliloquize in (May 9), so Roithamer. We read a book, we’re reading ourselves, so we loathe reading, so Roithamer, we never open another book, we don’t permit ourselves to read anymore. To hear and see (May 11), so Roithamer. We can’t always exist at the highest pitch of intensity, so we start to slow down in our thinking and doing (feeling), so that after a while we can go back to thinking, doing, feeling with even greater intensity, and in this way we can eventually reach ever greater degrees of intensity; as long as we haven’t crossed the border, the extreme limits, we’re not crazy, so Roithamer. In contemplation of the yellow paper rose, nothing else (June 3). We always go too far, so as not to fall short, we always bring our plans to realization, relentlessly against all opposition and especially against ourselves, we go to the extreme, but without breaking through the final barrier, so Roithamer.
We always go on to the absolute limit, we don’t shy away from that, just as we don’t shy away from death. One day, in a single instant, we’ll break through the final barrier, but the moment hasn’t come yet. We know how, but we don’t know when. It makes no difference whether I go back to England from Austria or back to Austria from England, so Roithamer. We still have a reason not to cross the final barrier. We’re tempted to do it, we don’t do it, so Roithamer, we keep thinking: do it, don’t do it, consistency, in consistency, until we cross the final barrier. Science for one thing, my plan, the Cone, for another, supreme happiness/supreme unhappiness, in creating and fulfilling something extraordinary we’ve arrived at nothing more than what everyone else also arrives at, nothing but solitude, so Roithamer. When a body is acted upon by external forces besides its weight it tips over on one side of the base if the (so-called) weight (vector) acts along a line through the so-called center-of-mass that intersects the supporting surface outside the base of the body; in the case of a stable equilibrium, the weight vector points inside the base, in the case of an unstable equilibrium it points exactly toward the tilting edge of the base, “tilting edge of the base” underlined. We always went too far, so Roithamer, so we were always pushing toward the extreme limit. But we never thrust ourselves beyond it. Once I have thrust myself beyond it, it’s all over, so Roithamer, “all” underlined. We’re always set toward that predetermined moment, “predetermined moment”
underlined. When that moment has come, we don’t know that it has come, but it is the right moment. We can exist at the highest degree of intensity as long as we live, so Roithamer (June 7). The end is no process. Clearing.
A Note About the Author
Thomas Bernhard, born in 1931, lives in Ohlsdorf, Upper Austria. One of the most important and internationally acclaimed writers in the German language today, he is the author of Gargoyles (1970), The Lime Works (1973), and of numerous plays. His three forthcoming volumes of autobiography are currently being translated.
A Note About the Translator
Sophie Wilkins, who lives in New York City, has translated, amongst other distinguished works, The Lime Works by Thomas Bernhard, Botho Strauss’s Devotion, and the revised edition of C. W. Ceram’s Gods, Graves, and Scholars.
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