A Translation of "Verfolgungswahn?," a Poem by Thomas Bernhard

Paranoia? [1]

When I suddenly became peckish

in Hainburg

I went into a tavern

and ordered myself,

having just arrived from Krakow,

some roast pork with dumplings

and a half-liter of beer.

En route through Slovakia

my stomach had grown empty.

I had a chat with the owner;

he said the Polish Jews

should all have been killed

without exception.

He was a Nazi.

In Vienna I went into the Ambassador Hotel

and ordered myself a cognac

a French one, of course, I said,

preferably a Martell

and had a chat with a painter

who incessantly kept maintaining

that he was an artist

and that he knew what art was,

the entire rest of the world had no clue

what art was

it soon became evident

he was a Nazi.

In Linz I went for a demitasse

at the Café Draxelmeyer

and chatted with the headwaiter

about the Rapid-LASK football match

and the headwaiter said

that the Rapid side all deserved to be gassed

that Hitler would have more to do today

than during his lifetime,

and it had soon become evident

he was a Nazi.

In Salzburg I ran into my old religion teacher

who said to my face

that my books

and pretty much everything I had so far written

was crap,

but today one could publish the worst crap,

he said, in an age such as ours

that was nothing if not crappy;

during the Third Reich none of my books

could have been published, he said,

and he expressly averred that I was a swine

and a disloyal dog

and he bit into his sausage sandwich

and with both hands hiked up the skirts of his soutane

and stood up and left.

He is a Nazi.

Yesterday I received from Innsbruck a postcard

that bore a picture of the Goldenes Dachl,

and on which was written minus any citation of evidence:

“People like you deserve to be gassed!  Just you wait!”

I read the postcard several times

and grew frightened.

[1] First published in Die Zeit, Hamburg, January 1, 1982.

The editors of the newspaper commissioned five authors to write a poem commemorating the end of the year.  The headline above all five poems reads: “Mourning, Which Now Speaks in the Cold.  Five German Poems in Commemoration of the End of the Year.”

THE END

Translation unauthorized but Copyright ©2014 by Douglas Robertson

Source: Der Wahrheit auf der Spur.  Reden, Leserbriefe, Interviews, Feuilletons.  Herausgegeben von  Wolfram Bayer, Raimund Fellingerund und Martin Huber [Stalking the Truth.  Speeches, Open Letters, Interviews, Newspaper Articles.  Edited by Wolfram Bayer et al.](Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 2011), pp. 213-214.