A Year with Thomas Bernhard: The Sealed 1972 Diary
March 3, 1972
Thomas has been “missing” for five days. He isn’t even at the Krucka in
Reindlmühl. When I fetched cider from
Thomas’s cellar on Tuesday, I left the key to the gate in such a position that
I’d be sure of noticing if anybody touched the key. Because as of today it hadn’t been touched
yet, at 5:30 p.m. I decided to call Thomas’s Aunt Stavianicek in Vienna. Because it’s more than high time that I
notify Thomas that Radax will be coming to Nathal on Saturday, at 2:00 p.m. Mrs. Stavianicek answers the phone and says
that Thomas is lying on the couch right next to her. But she says that he isn’t sleeping, that he
can speak with me right away.
Thomas tells me that on Monday he had suddenly decided to go
to Vienna, and that he had been planning to tell me that at midday. I tell him that the neighbor saw him, and
about my phone conversation with Radax.
Thomas has spoken with him himself in the meantime. Then I just say: thank God; I’d been worried
Radax would come for nothing. Thomas
says he took off so fast on Monday that he left the laundry hanging on the
clothesline outside. I’m supposed to
bring in the clothes. He says he’ll be
coming on Monday.
March 5, 1972
Dr. Peter Fabjan comes over from Wels. He’s come straight from Nathal and picked up
some tires stored there. He asks about
Thomas and is glad that he isn’t here. I
offer Peter some of Thomas’s cider. Then
he say: No, thank you, I just washed my hands with cider from Thomas’s cellar,
because I’d gotten dirty from the tires.
But please don’t tell Thomas about it.
Peter is terribly disconcerted by the fact that Thomas told me about
their recent quarrel. The tension
between them is easing up.
March 7, 1972
Thomas still hasn’t come back from Vienna. Today I received a letter from Governor Erwin
Wenzel, which I’m enclosing.
Linz,
March 3, 1972
Dear Mr.
Hennetmair!
First of
all, I wish to apologize for the tardiness of this reply to your communication
of January 24, 1972. But it was
necessary to get in touch with the Department of Culture in connection with the
subject you raised, whence the delayed response.
I can
assure you that the Upper-Austrian State Government has an extraordinarily high
regard for the author Thomas Bernhard and that it is always prepared to assist
this artist. Admittedly, in the specific
case of the Adalbert Stifter Prize, there are admittedly certain directives
that not even the Upper-Austrian State Government can circumvent. According to the current statutes the nomination
of candidates for receipt of the prize is to be made by a jury empaneled by the
Austrian State Government. But I have
asked the Director of the Department of Culture to inform the gentlemen of the
jury of your petition, I can readily imagine that the jury is thoroughly
prepared to confer the prize on Bernhard.
The reason that he has not yet received the prize is not that he has
been regarded as unworthy of such a distinction, but rather that Bernhard has
after all received a more important prize virtually every year.
I thank
you once again for your suggestion and urge you to continue attentively
following cultural events in our State.
Yours with sincere regards,
Dr. Wenzl
In the afternoon I drive to Nathal; the key still hasn’t been
touched. I step into the courtyard and
check the mail that’s been thrown in there.
It includes a request to pick up a registered letter from Vienna. At about 5:00 I call Aunt Hede in
Vienna. She offers to call Thomas. I decline the offer; I just want to know if
he’s ill and when he’s coming back. Thomas
is well and will be coming back the day after tomorrow. I ask her to give Thomas my regards and say I’ve
only got unimportant mail for him. He
mustn’t be disturbed by news of the registered letter.
March 9, 1972
At 11:30 in the morning I drive to Nathal with my wife. The gate is open; he arrived about a quarter
of an hour ago. All the doors and
windows are open; he hasn’t lighted the heating stove yet. I tell him about the letter from Governor
Wenzl and the letter from Barbara Peymann.
We invite him to have lunch with us 30 minutes later.
Thomas comes over and stays till 2:30 p.m. He says that the contracts at the Burgtheater
were signed a long time ago and that the deals with the actors etc. have
already been sealed. A cancellation
would cost a hundred thousand schillings.
But he has managed to get them to agree to hire a different
director. What’s more, quite a number of
performances have been scheduled, and a friend said to him: be prudent; you
stand to make 350,000 schillings if these performances take place.
At 7:00 Thomas comes over for dinner. We have a magnificently entertaining chat,
and at 9:45 we watch the broadcast about Guido Zernatto. At 11:00 Thomas drives back to Nathal. He also told me that for the electric heating
he was only going to be allowed to have 6 kw instead of the 40 kw he had
requested. He plans to have the workers
get started in about a fortnight. At
7:00 we remembered the celebratory dinner party in Marl that he was supposed to
be in attendance at then. Radax flew
first class to Marl, because it was an-all-expenses-paid trip. He’s going to stop by Nathal on his way back.
He’ll make a pitch for the dubbing there.
March 10, 1972
Thomas comes over for dinner at 7:00 in the evening. We are planning to chat by ourselves until
10:30 and then watch the first German channel’s broadcast about the awarding of
the Grimme Prize. By then Thomas has
told me among other things that he made the acquaintance of André Heller, or,
to put it better, failed to make his acquaintance. He was sitting with a female friend in a
coffeehouse when André Heller came into the restaurant. Her face beaming with joy, the friend said to
Heller: “Allow me to introduce you to Thomas Bernhard.” Heller said, “I don’t
give a toss about Thomas Bernhard,” turned around, and left the restaurant. Well, so now I know André Heller, said
Thomas. Thomas also ran into Kruntorad
in Vienna, and Kruntograd strongly encouraged him to let his play A Party for Boris be performed at the
Burgtheater. Furthermore, during his
most recent visit to Vienna, Thomas read Mrs Kaschnitz’s memoirs, because in
them she mentions that he was with her at a reading in Frankfurt six years
ago. Later we watch the broadcast about
the Grimme Prize. Thomas finds Höfer
execrable; Wiebel spoke very well; the Grimme awardees were given short shrift;
even their names were barely mentioned; Vandenberg and Radax were onscreen for
just a few seconds. Thomas said he was now
quite glad he hadn’t gone there. He
still hasn’t received a reply to his most recent letter to the execrable
Donnepp, who was seen onscreen a few times.
At midnight Thomas drove back home.
March 11, 1972
Now that the cost of the installation of the new heating
system has gone down a great deal and his Italian
has been broadcast a second time in Germany, a broadcast for which he has
received another 5,000 marks, Thomas has been urging me to find him some lot of
land with a selling price of up to 200,000 shillings. We met to discuss this at the post office at
7:45 in the morning. We agreed that in
the afternoon in Reindlmühl I would inform Thomas of the results of my
inquiries about the availability of purchasable land. I told Thomas that I wasn’t going to be
picking up the mail until a quarter-past eight because I had phone calls to
make, etc.
As I was about to leave the post office at about a
quarter-past eight, Thomas came in and said he had read his mail in the
meantime. In the afternoon he’s got to
receive a visitor from Salzburg, so he’ll only be staying in Reindlmühl until
midday; in the afternoon he’ll be at Nathal.
If you’re going to have company, I don’t want to disturb you, I
say. But he says: No, no, come anyway; I
want to learn what you’ve found out.
In the afternoon I visit Thomas. His visitor, the Countess von Axel Corti, is
sitting on the bench in the courtyard. I
say: It’s impossible to do this so quickly; I can’t say yes or no to your
questions; come by this evening. It’s
3:00 sharp, and he asks if he can come by as early 4:00, an hour from now. He says this while taking a sidelong glance
at his visitor. Presumably the visit is
lasting too long for his liking. But I’ve
got no time and don’t cotton to this proposal.
We end up agreeing on his visiting me at 7:00 p.m.
Thomas is so eager to hear what I’ve got to report
to him that throughout the “Zeit im Bild” evening news program he keeps
apologetically turning to me and saying: Tell me such and such a thing in more
detail. He’s completely fixated on the
idea of buying a good piece of land for up to 200,000 schillings. But an inspection tour won’t be possible
until the middle of next week, because on my end some further negotiations with
the sellers are going to be necessary.
Thomas urges me to hurry, but I can’t possibly move any faster, because
of course I’ll drive the price through the roof myself if I’m too pushy.
It’s still an amusing evening, and Thomas doesn’t
drive home until 11:00. Among other
things, he says there are far too few “genuinely good execrable people,” but far
too many nice, good, weak ones.
(In the afternoon I borrow Thomas’s chainsaw,
etc.)
March 12, 1972
Quite contrary to his habitual practice, Thomas
comes to see me on a Sunday. He stays
from 6:30 in the evening till almost 11:00.
He nags me to scare up any old promising piece of land. We also spend some time sitting in front of
the television, and when some guy onscreen says he’s “overwhelmed” he says:
it’s also possible to understand him as being overwhelmed. (Overproduction) That’s true of a lot of
people. All children that their parents didn’t want to have are “overwhelming.” I simply take this literally.
March 13, 1972
For the past seven years Monday evening has
generally been the evening we spend together at my house. Thomas comes over at 7:00 and stays till
10:30. Since on Tuesday evening I’m
going to have meetings with people to discuss the properties he’s interested
in, meetings that could last till 10:00, I ask Thomas not to visit me on
Thursday evening, because I’m going to have a busy day. But we agree to go for a ride to inspect the
properties on Wednesday the 15th.
I’m going to pick Thomas up for that ride at 7:45 in the morning in
Nathal.
March 15, 1972
At 7:45 I drive with Thomas to the post
office. This time only part of the mail
is there; a mail bus is running late, and we’ll be getting something more later
on. The finest and most promising piece
of land, 19,000 square meters of south-facing slope in Grossalm, he finds
execrable in the extreme. For two hours
straight he lambasts me. It’s incredible
how many things he criticizes.
Everything in sight, from trees to boundary stones, the view of
Hochlecken—everything is ghastly, an imposition. I’ve apparently confused him with some stupid
German who’s fallen in love with the view.
Even so, he would consider buying this spot for 70,000 schillings, but
not for the asking price of 171,000 schillings.
Afterwards we visit the estate called Kaltenbach in Grossalmstrasse near
Altmünster. Thomas only comes along to
hear my “verdict,” because about a million schillings are being asked for this
piece of property. But there are only
about eight hectares of shabby, shady land there. But there it also comes to
light that the Austrian government’s forestry has made an offer of eight
schillings per square meter of the property. Because the Austrian government is paying such
a rock-bottom price, Thomas sees the price of nine schillings per square meter for
land on the sunny side with better access etc. in another, more favorable light. But I take no notice of this and change the
subject of the conversation to the owner’s children and dog.
Yesterday I didn’t pick up the reply to my bid to
the “dauber,” so that he got a “shock” when I, the expected buyer, didn’t show
up. Thomas wants to go see him now. In any case, Schmid, as the “dauber” actually
calls himself, has gotten over the shock by now; he’d like to know what the
answer is. I’ve offered him 25,000
schillings for 4,000 square meters, and Schmid can hold onto the trees that are
ready for felling.
It is clear to us that we aren’t going to be meeting
with Schmid, but I manage to schedule an appointment with his wife for the
evening. Thomas gives me bits of advice
on how I should negotiate and what I should say. Among other things, he says that I’ve got to
point out to him that the survey for the partition of these 4,000 square meters
has already cost more than 6,000 schillings.
You see, the seller, Schmid, held onto these 4,000 square meters after
the sale of the Krucka, and Thomas would have to pay 6,200 schillings for this
survey. He really wants me to make sure
I mention this during the meeting. Then
I circle back to the fact that after the visit to the Kaltenbach estate Thomas
upbraided me for having talked too long about the children and the dog. Now I can tell you why I do that. Whenever I’ve talked about children and dogs,
I’ve won the game right away. Because
people won’t let me get into bed with them, but they will let their dog into
their bed. Accordingly you can never go
wrong if you have that kind of conversation with people. Because I’m obviously not some kind of baker,
who starts selling his hotcakes and his bread there and is an immediate hit. But what’s just as important about that kind
of conversation is the fact that while I’m having it I can mull over what’s
good and what’s bad, what’s being said about “business.” Just now you’ve given me some really stupid
advice, to say that the surveyor cost 6,000 schillings. Even if at the moment it looks like a good
idea to mention this, it can destroy absolutely everything. And in order to recognize the right time to
mention it and to think things over, I need the “chinwag about the kids.” Because if I say that the surveyor costs
6,000 schillings for 4,000 square meters, it’s possible that the seller or his
spouse will bury their face in their hands and scream: What, are we supposed to
sell this piece of land for 25,000 schillings when the survey has already cost
6,000 schillings? Thomas admitted I was right straight-away. When you’re offering 25,000 schillings for a
piece of land, you can’t say that the survey has cost 6,000 schillings.
At noon we were back in Nathal. But because he had already run me close
enough to ragged for the day, I asked him not to come that evening. I’ve also got a lot of other things to take
care of in the evening. And so I’ll come
to him with his mail at 8:15 tomorrow morning.
I’ll brief him further then, because I’m still intending to negotiate
with the “dauber,” etc.
Meanwhile Thomas has looked into his disused
pigsty to see if any further mail has arrived there. I’m already sitting in the car and ready to
drive away when Thomas walks up with an express letter from his publishing
firm. He says: It’s a rare event when I
receive an express letter from my publisher.
I’m curious to see whether it’s auspicious or inauspicious. Then I say: Tomorrow morning I’ll tell you
what happened at the “dauber’s,” and you’ll tell me whether the letter was
auspicious or inauspicious, and drive off.
My afternoon is being wasted in recuperating from the
stresses of dealing with Thomas, and I’ve also written everything above in the
full heat of my rage.
March 16, 1972
Because the local postman has mistakenly only
brought me my own mail, I’ve got to follow the postman back to the district
post office to fetch Thomas’s mail and don’t get to Thomas’s house till
half-past eight in the morning. He says
to me: I couldn’t imagine your not showing up punctually. I’ve already locked up the house, and I’m
driving to Reindlmühl right now. Today
is such a lovely day. Get a load of
this: only yesterday afternoon I was in
Freilassing. The express letter from my
publisher shared with me the news that I could withdraw 10,000 marks from the
bank in Freilassing. Of course I
immediately did just that.
I told Thomas that the “dauber” isn’t going to
sell his woodlands. That if he does, it
won’t be until three or four years from now at the earliest. Whereupon Thomas insists on our yet again
inspecting Asamer’s patch of woodlands adjacent to Thomas’s property in Nathal
right away. I really must see to it that
Asamer sells the woods. Now he would
even pay 150,000 schilling for them. I
say: Fine, let’s take a look at those woods.
But yesterday after I was turned down by the “dauber” I immediately
thought that now you’d want to have Asamer’s woods, and so I went on to speak
with Asamer along those lines at eight o’clock last night. Naturally not in a nagging sort of way, but
as incidentally as possible. But at the
moment he’s not ready to sell. Thomas
says that I must inform him that he’s willing to pay him the entire purchasing
price right now regardless of when the transfer will be officially recorded in
the land registry. I tell Thomas that if
Asamer is there, I won’t do that until I can use it as a way of spreading ca.
200,000 schillings’ worth of manure on the fields. (That won’t be possible until May.)
After our inspection of the woods, Thomas drives
to Riendlmühl, to the Krucka, and I ask him to come see me at 7:00 p.m. When Axel Corti is then mentioned on
television in the evening, he says: He’s making a good impression on me. He’ll certainly do that well at the Burgtheater. Of course his wife, who’s from Salzburg, was
at my house this week. You remember her,
of course—my afternoon visitor. When the
crash of the 151st Starfighter plane was reported on on the news
magazine show, Thomas sings: “Merle, Thrush, Finch, and Starfighter…[here B.
quotes the lyrics of a popular children’s song, substituting Starfighter for Star {i.e., starling}
(DR)].” Then we chat with Granny and Mum
until 10:00. Thomas says that tomorrow
he’ll be driving to Vienna first thing in the morning, because Aunt Hede has
got to go back into the hospital. Today
he received from her a postcard announcing that she was planning to take a trip
to Opatija; now that’s not going to happen. But Thomas plans to be back here by Sunday
evening. Then he plans to come straight
to my house, because he’ll want to learn whether I’ve scared up anything to
buy. Once again he starts giving me bits
of advice on this. They’re all the things
he’s picked up from watching me for ten years.
A lot of what he says is taken directly from what I’ve told him about
how to approach business matters.
Thomas also tells me again about the bombing raid
that he survived as a boy when he was picking blueberries with several women
near Traunstein. The women prayed aloud
to Heaven with their hands raised skyward as the bombs were falling. They could distinctly see the bombs being
dropped, and so they all leapt into the bushes and loudly prayed. But because in the process the women had torn
their dresses to bits, Thomas couldn’t help loudly laughing as they were all
praying. After the bombs had exploded,
some farmers came up; they had seen that the blueberry-pickers had taken cover
where the bombs had fallen and couldn’t believe that they were still alive. But quite nearby there were some large
craters, and only dirt, wood, and splinters had fallen on the women. This hail of debris and the clouds of smoke
after the explosion had naturally made them all say afterwards that it was a
miracle that nobody had been injured.
Because they were all covered in rubble.
Towards 10:00 p.m. Thomas said goodbye until
Sunday. He has absolutely no desire to
see for a second time the Radax film that’s about to be shown, because he says
it’s really awful, even though Radax won the Grimme Prize for it as well at the
time. So prizes issued by adult
education centers obviously aren’t worth very much, said Thomas. He was referring to Konrad Bayer and “I Am
the World, and That’s My Business,” a docudrama directed by Ferry Radax.
March 17, 1972
On our way back from Linz, my wife and I visited
Thomas in Nathal at about 6:00 in the evening.
He shows us where the electric stove is being installed and how the rooms
are being fitted out and converted.
After a half an hour, we left Thomas and asked him to come see us in
about thirty minutes.
At 7:00 Thomas walked in. This is always a good time, because now we
can still have supper before the news.
After the news we sat around until nearly 11:00. I told Thomas that I had received a ton of
books from my aunt in Linz today. I left
more than half of them there because I didn’t know the value of the books. I only took the “Nazi books.” From
the Karawanks to Crete, published by the high command of the Wehrmacht, or The German House Book, published by the
culture division of the propaganda department of the NSDAP. Also All
Rivers in Bohemia Flow to Germany, Germans
at War in Spain and The Farmers’
Child by Springenschmid. The inside
of the Springenschmid book is stamped “The German Women’s Welfare
Association.” At the sight of “Women’s
Welfare Association” Thomas flies into a rage.
I never got more boxes to the ears or less to eat anywhere than at the Women’s
Welfare Association. I lived in one of
the Women’s Welfare Association’s hostels in Thüringia when I was about eleven
years old. They boxed my ears so long
that I turned into a bed-wetter. Then
early next morning in the breakfast room during breakfast they openly showed
everybody my soiled bedclothes. To this
day I can scarcely believe that my mother put me in that place. But I have even
more trouble forgiving her for having left me there when she knew full well
what was going on there. That’s why to
this day I can’t let anybody get away with yammering on to me about the Women’s
Welfare Association and other sanctimonious stuff from the Nazi period. Because those hypocritical female champions
of “welfare” brought me up on nothing but boxes to my ears.
Thomas once again reminds me that I absolutely
must scare up something for him when he parts company with me at just before
11:00.
March 19, 1972
Shortly before 7:00 p.m. Thomas walks in to watch
the news. After the main news magazine
program was over we weren’t interested in any other programs and amused each
other with our own conversation. On
Friday I brought back for Thomas from Linz two beautiful rustic schnapps
decanters along with their accompanying sets of six shot glasses. Today I presented him with them. He was crazy about the glass stoppers and
about the irregular shapes of the little schnapps jugs. Thomas is expecting the electricians for the
installation job to show up on Monday and Tuesday, and he asks me to drop in a
couple of times to see how the work is going.
After 10:00 Thomas drives home.
March 20, 1972
As I stepped through the front door at Nathal,
Stadlbauer the Laakirchen electrician’s firm’s van was just driving off. Thomas greeted me agitatedly and told me to
get a load of this fine mess. The men
just left without saying goodbye because he simply couldn’t take another minute
of watching the work being done so lousily.
He said that the men couldn’t even use a chisel properly, that they’d
kept unfastening the door frame with their impossibly incompetent chiseling.
I only stayed till 6:00, because after listening
to him bellyache for an hour I’d had enough.
But Thomas was right about each and every detail. He actually understood everything better than
the so-called craftsmen. I invited him to
come to my house at 7:00. Because Granny isn’t there, I said, I’m going to have to light the stove myself so that we can
stay warm. I promised him a good supper
and asked him to be punctual because I myself was already quite hungry.
When at five minutes past seven Thomas still
hadn’t shown up, I decided to intercept him in my car, because he was planning
to come on foot, so that he could pass the time till seven more agreeably. But as I was walking to my car, Thomas
arrived from Gmunden in his own. He
couldn’t stand being at home anymore, he said, and had then driven to Gmunden
and bought himself a late Biedermeier desk for 11,000 schillings. He closely inspected it once again and then took
it as it was. When I tell Thomas that
I’ll be driving to Vienna at two in the morning, he asks me to give his aunt a
call from Vienna to brief her on his problems, give her his regards, and ask
her how she’s doing. In the light of my
early departure for Vienna, Thomas drives home at 9:00.
March 21, 1972
As
my meeting with Dr. Michael Stern in Vienna was already over by 6:00 a.m.,
after it I drove straight back to Weinberg without calling Thomas’s aunt. Because I didn’t want to disturb her so early
in the morning. I also told Thomas this
as soon as I got back and invited him to my house to watch his program “At Home
with Thomas Bernhard.” For days he’s been saying that he fears the worst about
it. He only let the crew get as far as
the hallway, and apart from that he had wired to withdraw his consent to filming
years ago, so that the telegram had arrived in Vienna earlier than the two
people from the ministry of education to whom he had given consent.
At
the beginning of the program, as details of his biography were being read out,
he said that back then he was incredibly young and believed he had to represent
himself as such a wretched creature so that people would pay attention to him. Today, Thomas says, he can no longer put up
with hearing that he was a garbage man and looked after a seventy-year-old
woman. But I wrote that, and I’ll have
to keep hearing it for the rest of my life.
But they should at least also say that I wrote it when I was about
twenty years old. But the way they
presented it, it sounds as though I’d only just written it.
After
the end of the program, Thomas says that there was nothing embarrassing in it,
that he’s glad that it slipped by so painlessly. Because they could have included some truly awful
footage that would have done him no good, because he really was quite rude to
those people.
Thomas
stayed till just before 11:00, and we agreed to watch The Italian at my house tomorrow.
To that end, Thomas is supposed to come for supper at 7:00, and between
the end of the news and the beginning of the broadcast of the film at 9:20 we
plan not to watch any television so that our ability to take in the film won’t
be impaired.
March
22, 1972
At
four in the afternoon I visit Thomas for an hour. Things are looking much better inside the
house; the work is drawing towards its conclusion. Ferdl is already done with the “dusting,” and
Thomas has removed most of the debris and dirt himself. At 7:00 he’s here for dinner, and, as previously
discussed, we watch The Italian at
9:20. Thomas is satisfied with the adaptation; he says that one couldn’t ask
for anything more from Radax. Radax
hasn’t got anything more to give; this constitutes his highest achievement. I fundamentally disagree with Thomas, because
I’m familiar with all the “takes” and can justly say that the best ones were by
no means always selected from the available stock of shot film. I said that the film was by no means boring
but that many of its good scenes would have been better if they’d lasted only
five to ten seconds, that a lot scenes should have been tightened up a great
deal. Thomas sticks by Radax; I insist
that I’m going to remonstrate with Radax, and indeed in great detail; that he did
a better job directing than editing and that he should have gotten more out of
the available material. Thomas says that
during the editing Radax was perhaps too much under the influence of [Martin]
Wiebel [from IFAGE]. This discussion
dragged on until almost 1:30 in the morning.
During
my afternoon visit at Nathal Thomas showed me the Grimme Prize. A fantastically impossible pedestal that
can’t stand on its own but that can’t be fitted into the socket into which it’s
supposed to fit either. Falkenberg
accepted the prize for him and also sent him the pedestal.
24
March 1972
I am in the process of selling off a few old picture
frames. Thomas has been aware of the
frames for a very long time but has always written them off as rubbish. I drive to Nathal to show him the frames one
more time just in case before they’re gone.
Thomas is in the middle of whitewashing his house. Rochelt and the Hufnagls have announced
they’ll be stopping by in the afternoon, and so he and Ferdl have thrown
themselves into a big work project so that they’ll see right away that he’s got
no time for them. They’re coming on
account of the environmental protection activity that’s taking place near
Altmünster tomorrow, Friday [In 1972 the 25th actually fell on a Saturday (DR)].
I set up the four picture frames in his kitchen and quote him
a price of 960 schillings, a quote that doesn’t include the inscription on one
of the frames [Presumably an engraved inscription on some sort of detachable
plate (DR)], which Thomas finds worthless.
I tell Thomas that tomorrow I’m going to sell these frames on commission
to Menzel in Salzburg. Then Thomas says:
These are exactly the sorts of picture frames I’ve been looking for for years; not
a single one of them is ever going to leave my house again. I’ll take the lot; here, I’m giving you 800
schillings for them. Not a penny less
than 960 schillings, I insist. In
Salzburg I’d be just as hardline, because they’re a steal. Just take a look; where else are you going to
get something like this? Then Thomas
hands me the 960 schillings and says, help yourself to the inscription on the
frame, but at least let me keep my head.
You’re really fleecing me; I don’t expect this kind of thing from you.
So the deal is done; Thomas has got a lot of work to do; the
Hufnafgls could walk in at any moment, and I tell Thomas I’d like to visit him
again towards eight o’clock, because as far as I can see, he’s going to be busy
until then. At 8:00 I run into Thomas in
the hallway when he’s on his way to the bathroom. He says, I’ve got to go upstairs to visit
with the Hufnagls. They’re up in the
vestibule; the heating cycle’s been running for a few hours already; it’s
already quite warm. Up there I find Mr.
and Mrs. Hufnagl and Hans Rochelt’s girlfriend, whose name is Irina David. The conversation centers on tomorrow’s press
conference and gala in Altmünster. I
agree to attend with my spouse. After an
hour, at about 9:00, Thomas and his guests drive to Gmunden; I drive home.
March 25, 1972
At 8:00 a.m. I run into Thomas at the Ohlsdorf post
office. Thomas tells me that later on
yesterday they all got together with the state assemblyman and mayor of
Altmünster, Dr. Scheuba, and that he promised to come. Naturally he has no interest in this gala,
and I’m supposed to excuse him for his absence.
On account of urgent work projects; you know the drill. But of course I’m not an idiot and I’ll
attend that kind of function. By the way,
Thomas added, what’s the matter with you; are you taking some kind of pills, or
what the hell else is it that’s making you seem so different than usual to
me? How am I different than usual? I ask.
I can’t exactly say, but you seem different than usual; you’ve never
been like this. Then we say our
goodbyes.
March 27, 1972
At 8:00 a.m. I meet up with Thomas at the Ohlsdorf post
office. He takes great interest in the
fact that since we last met I’ve scrounged up a house for Peymann in
Pfaffstätt. He’s planning to visit me in
the evening.
Thomas shows up at 7:00 p.m. He tells me that he’s been in
Wörgl with Hufnagl the architect.
Hufnagl’s got a school under construction there. He’s also been in Wildschönau. He says that it’s really terrible there, that
he imagined its being a different sort of place. I apologize to Thomas for not having been
able to call his aunt in Vienna, because I was already finished with Dr. Stern
at 6:00 a.m., and by 10:00 I was already back in Wels. I didn’t want to call his aunt so early in
the morning. Thomas wanted to know
whether she had yet scheduled an appointment at the hospital and how she was
doing in general.
Thomas stayed until 10:30.
He also read my letter to Mrs. Peymann.
March 28, 1972
Thomas is housebound because since yesterday he’s had the
workers for the installation of the electrical heating in his house. I visit him several times over the course of
the day, and in the evening he’s glad that he can discuss his problems with the
electricians with me. Among other
omissions they forgot to install the cable with the outgoing day-current along
with the one for the outgoing night-current.
Ferdl had already dusted the outlet; they wanted to make another outlet
in another place and do even more damage to the look of the house. Additionally, Thomas noticed just in the nick
of time that the thermostat was about to be installed in the wrong place.
Thomas stayed until about 10:00 p.m.
March 29, 1972
I visit Thomas several times over the course of the day, because
he asked me to stop by when the workers were in the house. The installers were doing a better job. In fact, they might even have fitted
everything together by then, and the house was already quite warm.
Since I’ve got my weekly gym session this evening, Wednesday
evening, we agree that I’ll come to see him on Thursday morning to plan a trip
to Pfaffstätt on Friday, Good Friday.
I’ve promised to drop by between ten and eleven.
March 30, 1972
At 11 o’clock, when I arrive at Nathal, Thomas has made so much
headway with his “domestic laborers” that he says: If you’ve got the time we
can leave for Pfaffstätt anytime this afternoon. I say sure.
We take off at 1:45, but in my car.
Then in the afternoon Thomas and I drive to Mattighofen via
Vöcklabruck, Strasswalchen. There we
take a look around the market and walk around the church, which is surrounded
by its churchyard. We both buy a copy of
the Wochenpresse, because Thomas
already knows that there’s a good review of his work The Italian in it.
When Thomas sees that it’s only 38 km from Mattighofen to
Salzburg, he says that Mattighofen would be quite manageable in terms of
distance for the Peymanns. When we get
to Pfaffstätt, Thomas is wildly enthusiastic about the lodgings I’ve scared up. It’s been ages since I stopped being able to
put with this kind of overwhelming approval from him. The house, the garden, the stable, all the
rooms were unlocked, and we walked through the entire house. As we stepped into the house, Thomas said he
missed my loud shout of “Hello!” because I’m in the habit of shouting that out
when I walk in like that. I said that
that would be pointless, that sure, the house was unlocked but that certainly
nobody was in the house. And it’s
probably even been a fairly long time since anybody was last in the house,
because the chickens are standing and looking hungry at the door to the stable. When the chickens are standing by the door
like that, nobody’s at home. I’m
surprised the doors haven’t been locked.
I showed Thomas all the rooms and led him through the whole house. When we were back walking in the street, we
asked a lady where the woman who owned the house was. She’s working at the tavern, she said, but
her nine-year-old son should be at home.
We passed through the garden once again, because Thomas was so
enthusiastic about every little thing in the house that he said he was going to
write to Peymann. There’s absolutely no
need for them to see the house beforehand; if they won’t take it they can get
stuffed.
Then we went to the tavern.
There we were hit straight in the face by a fearsome stench. The dining room with its ancient furniture
was empty. A hallway took us to a
miserable hole of a room in which six women were crammed together in a tight
space and mechanically plucking chickens.
The table was piled high with mountains of guts, and the chickens were
being passed from hand to hand. The woman
stuck with doing the actual plucking was Mrs. Bamberger, who we wanted to speak
with. When Mrs. Bamberger caught sight of
me, she shook a few buckets of water onto her rubber dress and took off her
rubber boots. On account of the stench,
Thomas and I walked to an exit gate via the hallway and stepped out into the
open air. But even out there it wasn’t
any better. Right there in plain view
next to the building hundreds of chicken-heads were piled up against a
chicken-decapitating machine. Thomas
said: This is all much more disgusting and appalling than anyone could ever describe. Those six women in that tiny room—it’s the
sort of thing you never still come across nowadays. This whole operation is obviously illegal and
in violation of the health regulations.
Mrs. Bamberger eventually came outside without her rubber
dress. But on account of the stench I
said the deal was perfect. I’ve spoken
by phone with Peymann; they’ll take the rooms no matter what. She’s just got to set up some beds wherever
she thinks is best. The large room that
she uses herself and that she’s willing to swap for a smaller one won’t be
needed. We don’t want to impose so much
work on her. We told her we had
inspected the unlocked house. She wasn’t
surprised that her son had left without locking it up. There are still places, I say to Thomas,
where people leave their houses unlocked when they go away. You know, I don’t allow my own house to be
locked up during the day. Even when my
people aren’t in the house but in the garden.
Things are hardly ever stolen from unlocked houses. Usually all the houses in the entire village
are left that way, and because everybody notices a stranger right away, it
would be hard for anybody to steal anything.
Thomas was bursting with enthusiasm for Mrs. Baumberger. He says he couldn’t imagine a better
landlady. On the way back we take a
route that leads from Salzburg to Mattsee to Köstendorf, then take Federal
Highway 1 to Vöcklabruck and finally Weinberg.
Because I had relished my Maundy Thursday lunch of spinach with sunny
side-up eggs, I wanted to offer Thomas the same meal for dinner. He said he had eaten the same thing for lunch
at the tavern. So we switched to
omelets. But we promised each other to
eat spinach with sunny side-up eggs more often, because it tastes so good. Thomas stayed until 10:00 p.m. and couldn’t
stop raving about the great lodgings in Pfaffstäft.
Thomas also said that he would pick up the butter he’d ordered
at the Krucka, that he wasn’t really expecting any visitors for Easter, but
that first thing Tuesday he’d be going to Vienna to visit his aunt in the
hospital. He added that we’d see each
other before then.
April 4, 1972
At 8:00 in the morning I run into Thomas at the Ohlsdorf post
office. Thomas walks up to me and says:
I was hoping to run into you here; otherwise I would have driven straight to
your house. I spent the long holiday weekend
lying in bed with a fever, Thomas says.
I left the gate open each day and was hoping you’d come by. I told him I’d assumed he might visit
Wolfsegg for Easter. Because then Count
Saint Julien’s entire family is there at one time, so he could take care of his
required yearly visit to all of them in one trip. I thought he’d take advantage of the cheerful
atmosphere of such days over cakes and coffee, not only there but maybe
somewhere else as well. It never
occurred to me to drive over, because no matter what, I wasn’t expecting to
find him at home. And even if you were
at home you presumably would have had a visitor, and you know I don’t like to
disturb you then as a matter of principle.
Yes, says Thomas, I was hoping you’d stop by and there were no visitors
here, and whenever you see that the gate is open and that are no visitors here,
you can walk right in, as you of course do at other times. So I didn’t have a single visitor or anyone
to lend me a hand. Then I said, you’re
coming straight home with me. I’ve got
to take Granny to Dr. Beck’s office; after that I’ll take you straight back to
my house. You won’t need to wait; Granny has announced that she’ll be coming and can get in there ahead of schedule. They’ll tell the doctor that she’s got to see
her right away. Thomas immediately
agreed to this arrangement.
We paid our visit to the doctor’s office and then drove to the
pharmacy. Thomas was hoarse and could
hardly speak. Thomas’s cold syrup had to
be specially prepared and wouldn’t be ready to be picked up from the pharmacy
until 5:00 p.m. Given that Thomas had
felt so well during our trip to Pfaffstätt on Maundy Thursday, I was quite
surprised that he was so ill now. My mother
saw Thomas and said: You’ve lost your calves.
That’s right, said Thomas; they’re lying in my bed. He really looked quite enfeebled. Then in the evening I brought him the syrup
from the pharmacy and was at his house from 6:00 to 7:00. We agreed that I’d come to him with his mail
at 8:15 a.m.
April 5, 1972
As agreed, I come to Thomas’s house with the mail. While I’m there I can report to him that
Asamer is now prepared to sell him the woods adjoining his lot in Nathal. I told Asamer that I’d be bringing him the
money and finalizing the sale no later than tomorrow. But, I added, Asamer will be at home all day
today because it’s raining. Thomas’s hasn’t got a trace of fever, but his voice
is even hoarser than the day before. And
so I suggest my driving him to the bank to withdraw the money for Asamer
tomorrow. But Thomas is so greedily
eager to get hold of the woods, as he has been since the autumn, that he says
that maybe tomorrow he’ll be feeling worse than today, that I’ve got to drive
him to the bank right away, and that he’d like to get the whole business
settled immediately. He types the
necessary sales contract himself on his typewriter, and so we drive first to
the bank and then to Asamer’s place in Ohlsdorf.
The deal takes place in accordance with my plans. The whole thing takes lasts until shortly
before noon. I stop by my house with
Thomas in order to brief my wife.
At Asamer’s Thomas drank nothing but a cup of tea, marjoram
tea, and when my wife asks me, have you invited Thomas to have lunch with us? I
can only say: He can’t eat anything; nothing tastes good to him; he’s just that
sick. Thomas asks me to make sure to
take the contract to Dr. Meingast this afternoon. At Asamer’s Thomas also immediately pays me
the 4, 500 schillings he’s promised me for brokering the sale. There’s still a lot more I can achieve for
that money, he says. But my achievement
didn’t consist in also driving to Dr. Meingast’s office after the sealing of
the deal, but rather in knowing the most auspicious moment for the sale. Back in the autumn I was already saying to
Thomas: the only time, if ever, when the sale can take place will be when the
farmers are fertilizing their fields. At
a time like that even a farmer as well-situated as Asamer may need cash.
In the evening, after I had delivered the contract to Dr.
Meingast, I was back at Thomas's house for about an hour.
I promised to bring him his mail at 8:15 a.m. again tomorrow. Thomas asked me to bring him some newspapers
as well. But since I didn’t have
anything to do in Gmunden, Thomas was content with having Die Presse, the Kurier,
and Die Salzburger Nachrichten, which
I could even buy in Steyrermühl.
April 6, 1972
Towards 9:00 in the morning I walk into Thomas’s house with
mail and newspapers. I still had to make
a few telephone calls and so I was running late. His voice was still very raspy, and I said to
Thomas: As long as I hear your raspy voice, I don’t need to ask you whether
you’re doing better yet. Yes, said
Thomas, it keeps staying stuck down here, and he pointed at his chest. Once he’d recovered, he said, he’d go to
Vienna and get a physical. Then I said I
had assumed he’d already done that during his last trip to Vienna. Of course way back when he had weathered the
same illness, and I had hoped that he’d be convinced by a follow-up checkup on
his case of “Bocke’s disease” that this had nothing to do with it anymore. Then Thomas said that he had actually
intended to do that. But that in Vienna
he was so healthy that he’d felt as though it would be ridiculous to have a
follow-up checkup. But, I said to
Thomas, that’s certainly no reason not to have a follow-up checkup. Because of course in the case of such a
strange illness and such a strange Bocke’s disease operation the doctor will
also be interested in seeing whether you’re healthy. You actually owe it to your doctor to let him
see whether you’re healthy. Yes, yes,
next time I’ll go see him, said Thomas.
April 7, 1972
At 8:15 a.m. I’m back at Thomas’s with mail and newspapers. I’m back again from six until eight in the
evening. Because there won’t be any mail tomorrow, Sunday, Thomas was planning
to drive to Gmunden by himself to read the newspapers and consume another
proper soup. So far he’s only had four
sausages, each of them prepared in a different way. He hasn’t had a proper appetite all day. I’ve brought to Thomas a few items from the
supermarket in Wels. Among these are a
pack of 500 disposable handkerchiefs, because he’s got an enormous demand for
them. As I’m leaving I tell him I’ll be
stopping back again late tomorrow afternoon.
He says he’s feeling so weak that he might not even be able to do more
than read through these newspapers in the meantime.
We also spoke about The
Italian. I said that his speedy
power of discrimination would be an asset during editing. That because he wouldn’t need much time to
look at this or that, he’d quickly come to the right decision. To this he said that he’d let Radax make a
hash of Frost on his own, that he’d
leave him alone. Then he’ll demand and
get the rights and the go-ahead to produce a television film entirely by
himself. He’ll do all the directing and
editing himself based on instructions in his own screenplay.
April 8, 1972
As promised, I visited Thomas towards five in the
afternoon. He told me that he’d only
been home since 3:00. He ran into Mrs.
Hufnagl in Gmunden and drove with her to Traunkirchen, Pühret, to have fish for
lunch. He ate a char, but in particular
the soup before the meal did him good.
He said that he absolutely needed to have something proper to eat once
again, and that he would also go dine at the tavern tomorrow, Sunday, morning.
The three hours I spent with Thomas until 9:00 actually went
by quite quickly. He had his entire
rural neighborhood wiped out by a plague epidemic and then bought up all the
houses and lots in the neighborhood, all the property, his two houses and all
their furniture, etc. but subsequently declared that it was all pointless. If he lives long enough to get old, he wants
children to run away from him as he’s walking down the street and to cry out:
“Quick, run, here comes the old skinflint.”
And mothers will have to say to their children: “If you’re not nice,
Bernhard will come get you.” They’ll have to fear and loathe him. He’d like to look exactly like the late Mr.
Franzmaier of No. 1, Hochbau, Ohlsdorf: tall and haggard.
The
picture from 1965 is inscribed: “Franzmaier from Hochbau with Wolfi, Granny,
Reinhild, and Franzmaier’s girlfriend.
Thomas was looking on.”
Then before I leave I suddenly recalled a home remedy for his
cold: vaporizing French brandy one drop at a time on the stovetop and inhaling
this steam through the nose. Of course
it’s a drastic cure because it burns your eyes and your respiratory tracts, but
the congestion loosens up and you get air flowing through your nose again. Of course it’s got to be done patiently
several times an hour; otherwise it won’t have a lasting effect. Because Thomas hasn’t got any French brandy
at home, I promise to bring him some at 10:00 tomorrow morning, so that he’ll
able to get some air before lunchtime.
April 9, 1972
As promised, I’m at Thomas’s house with the bottle of French
brandy. He diligently sniffs in the steam and notices right away that his
respiratory tracts are opening up. But
the stuff won’t come up from his chest.
It’s still sitting down there, he keeps saying; it’s got to come up;
otherwise I won’t be healthy. I show
Thomas a letter from the Rosenbach Gallery in Hanover, which wrote to me at the
suggestion of his friend Dr. Wieland Schmied.
After Thomas had read it, he handed it to me and remarked: That’s a
letter from him that you could just as easily have received from Neulengbach. Thomas keeps going back to the stovetop and
sniffing and sniffing. He’s enthusiastic
about the relief that he’s noticing right away.
I take a few hits myself and it doesn’t even seem very harsh to me. Probably healthy respiratory tracts aren’t as
sensitive to the steam. After a good
half-hour I take off and say I’ll stop by again late in the afternoon to see
how he’s doing.
April 10, 1972
Shortly after eight in the morning I’m at Thomas’s with the
mail, and I apologize for not having been able to come again yesterday on account
of a visitor. In the evening I was very
tired, and that was also true of my visitor.
But yesterday we had also spoken about the article in the Oberösterreichische Nachrichten in which Thomas was described as an
“inconvenient executioner of Alpine mindlessness,” and then I realized once
again that it’s really quite taxing to speech and debate with Thomas for hours
on end. That also played a bit of a role
in my decision to let him “sit” on Sunday evening. He himself has been confined to his house for
quite a long time, hasn’t been receiving any visitors with whom he could
squabble, hasn’t been sending off any poison letters either; a moment of
inattention to his sickliness could very easily lead to an attack of
resentment. Because his cold has been
dragging on for so long that it’s really getting on his and my nerves. But we don’t let this show and trick
ourselves into thinking that it isn’t.
His aunt wrote to him that her brother who was two years
younger than her died on Easter Sunday.
Thomas says it’s better that his aunt is in the hospital now and won’t
be able to attend the funeral. It’ll
affect her less. We shared a laugh over what a fine day it had been to die on,
over the fact that he’d chosen to die on Easter Sunday of all days, but it was actually
only bad news. Because Thomas says to me
that he’s going to start driving out to eat and read newspapers again, I invite
Thomas to come to my house in the evening if his health permits, and then I’m
off again.
April 11, 1972
At a quarter-past eight in the morning I’m at Thomas’s house
with the mail. He doesn’t feel a jot
better and says he would have found it too taxing to come in the evening. Thomas is still in his bathrobe and shows me
his scar from the chainsaw. It’s about
five centimeters long, dark red, and it’s a bulge half as wide as a pencil. The deep notches from the stitches are
distinctly recognizable. We chat for
about an hour, and Thomas says that he plans to come this evening, because he’s
got to get out of the house for a bit. I
told Thomas that he should build up his strength by drinking an egg yolk mixed
with a teaspoon of honey and a tablespoon of brandy. I’ve been doing that for a few days myself. It’s been doing me a world of good.
Since I’ve
got a spare moment at 5:00 p.m., I drive to Thomas’s. I noticed some wood-gatherers in his newly
purchased patch of woods. I took a
closer look and noticed that the occupants of the Gruber estate had already
taken a few huge piles to the removal truck.
At the same time I noticed that last Sunday’s storm had knocked over a
30-cm wide spruce at the roots and this tree had fallen from the edge of the
woods into the woods themselves without damaging any of the other trees. I reported this to Thomas and told him that
the tenants from the Gruber estate were saving him a lot of work, because
otherwise he’d have to remove the deadwood himself. It would be good if these people continued to
take an interest in the wood in the future, because he’s still got a great deal
of clearing away of deadwood to do, as the woods have been untended and
neglected for some time. Thomas doesn’t
feel well and says that he won’t even be coming over this evening. After about a half an hour I’m off again.
April 12,
1972
At 8:15 in the morning I’m back at Thomas’s
with the mail. It includes a letter from
Dr. Meingast in Gmunden that Thomas hands right back to me and asks me to take
care of for him. He also gives me the
original contract that Dr. Meingast asks for in the letter. Thomas doesn’t want tomorrow’s 8:00 a.m.
onsite inspection, which is the subject of the letter, to be postponed yet
again on account of illness. He wants me
to consult with Panholzer the engineer so that the rendezvous site won’t be at
the plot itself but at Schachinger’s tavern next to the church in Reindlmühl
instead. He says that he’s going to sit
in the tavern the whole time, and that I’m going to have to show them the house
and the limits of the property on my own.
Besides, he says, he would prefer me to be there instead, because he’s
terribly embarrassed at having confused Panholzer with the other engineer,
Meindl, when he sent he sent his telegram to Meindl from Vienna. I tell Thomas that that mix-up is absolutely
nothing to be worried about. Meindl is
very influential at the district office, such that Panholzer will actually feel
honored by having been confused with him. For
breakfast Thomas is taking spoonfuls of egg yolk and honey as I
recommended. He says he used rum instead
of cognac. Now that’s just poison, I
say; it’s important to use brandy in that mixture, because it’s fortifying. You must never use good grain alcohol. It doesn’t matter, spirits are spirits; why
should it make any difference what kind of spirits you use? says Thomas. Rum is off-limits, I says, because it’s made
from poisonous aromatics, and brandy is definitely brandy and not grain
alcohol. Brandy is more refined and more
fortifying. Thomas won’t concede this,
and finally I say: If you won’t admit there’s any difference between different
kinds of spirits, you might as well get drunk on the wood alcohol that’s a
waste byproduct of paper production. Just
like Mr. Hradil, who died at the age of 45 because he used to drink that stuff
constantly. If spirits are just spirits,
then get them straight from the wood.
Then Thomas says that he’s already feeling much better, that it’s
already been eight days since I took him to the doctor. But that if he doesn’t get better in four
days, he’ll have to go back. You’re a
proper farmer, I say to Thomas. He also always
makes sure that everything’s in order around the farm, but when he’s got
something wrong with himself, he won’t go to the doctor unless he’s forced to. You’ve obviously already built up a tolerance
to these pills in the past eight days; they’re not helping you a bit. Probably the doctor would have prescribed
something different after four days if she’d seen that there’d been no
improvement. Probably something
stronger. Apart from that you’re
obviously not feeling at all better; I can tell that from your voice. It’s just that you’ve gotten used to your
condition, and you’re confusing that with “feeling better.” Tomorrow it won’t be possible on account of
the commission, but on Friday I’ll take you to the doctor, to her back door, so
that you can go in right away. I’ll do
that because I won’t let another whole weekend pass without a doctor. In any case, by then it’ll have been ten days
since your last visit to the doctor.
You’ve been putting it off for six days.
After a little while, a good hour or longer, I say goodbye and promise
to come over at about four in the afternoon to inform him of the new rendezvous
site that I’ll have agreed to with Mr. Panzholzer.
After I’ve gotten hold of Mr.
Panzholzer and delivered the original contract to Dr. Meingast, I return to
Thomas’s. We agree that we’ll meet up at
the Ohlsdorf post office at 7:00 tomorrow morning. You see, I want him to drive to Gmunden in
his own car so that I won’t be tethered to him.
Some time ago, Dr. Wieland Schmied told me that Thomas had done this to
him when he was dependent on him. That
Thomas can take a sudden mischievous pleasure in getting the other person to do
the opposite of what he plans or wishes to do.
So when on the other hand Thomas gets a sense that the other person
would like to go for a drive, he digs in his heels, etc.
We also speak about that
evening’s broadcast, in which Ferry Radax will have something new to say. Because I don’t want to miss this broadcast,
I go to the gym during the 6:00-8:00 p.m. session for the youngsters instead of
during the 8:00-10:00 session for the adults, so that I can avoid breaking my
exercise routine and also see the broadcast featuring Radax. But Thomas stays at home, and I don’t want to
go see him that late, so each of us watches the broadcast at his own house.
April 13, 1972
At 7:30 a.m. sharp I meet up with Thomas in
front of the Ohlsdorf post office. It’s
still too early to pick up the mail, and so we ask the postman to deliver
Bernhard’s mail to my house at No. 3 Weinberg.
Bernhard leaves his car parked at the tax
office in Gmunden, and we take mine to Reindlmühl. Mr. Panzholzer the engineer is already
waiting there in front of Schachinger’s tavern.
We explain to him that Thomas is going to stay at the tavern and that
I’m going to show him the house and rest of the property. Thomas goes into the tavern, and I drive with
Mr. Panholzer to the Krucka; naturally we cover the last stretch on foot.
The property at 98 Grasberg,
the “Krucka” Photo: Matthias Burri
I show Panhozer the borders of the property
in detail, then I show him the house and pour us some schnapps. As we’re discussing the pros and cons, Thomas
comes in from the rain. He says there
was no heat at the tavern, so that he thought it better to follow us here
slowly so as to avoid freezing to death.
As it’s also freezing cold in the Krucka, I say: Fine, then we’ll have
to leave again right away so that you don’t catch cold.
We were originally planning to take care of
the paperwork at Schachinger’s tavern, but I proposed our visiting the Alpine
hotel in Altmünster. There Thomas orders
a huge plate of cold cuts for three people and some tea. But when we then turned our attention back to
the paperwork, there were constant discrepancies of scale between Panholzer’s
and Thomas’s estimates. It eventually
turned out that in Panholzer’s deed the appraisal of the property of Ms.
Charlotte Schmidt at 45 Feldstrasse in Holzen über Schwerte had inadvertently been
used as a draft in place of the appraisal of 68 Grasberg. Because the previous owner of 98 Grasberg was
called Josef Schmid, the two Schmid(t)s
had been confused with each other.
Thomas was outraged by such brainlessness on the part of the authorities,
especially in the light of the fact that they’d been dealing with this deed for
months and nobody had detected this error.
Accordingly, all the factors discussed since have completely changed,
and a definitive assessment is impossible without the appropriate documentation
from the tax office. By 11:00 I’ve
already told them I’m going straight to Dr. Meingast to ask him to get hold of
the appropriate documents before the end of the day. Thomas stayed at the hotel with Panholzer,
and we agreed to meet up at my house shortly after midday. At the ticket agent’s I also picked up the
five tickets I’d ordered for the premiere of the play in Salzburg.
Thomas didn’t show up at my house in Weinberg
until just before 1:00. He lingered a
bit in Gmunden to read the newspaper. In
addition to his mail he’s received a telegram today. Thomas eats and drinks and wants a verbatim
account of what I’ve said at Dr. Meingast’s office. I reported to Thomas that I had asked Dr.
Meingast to get hold of the appraisal of the property from the tax office
before the end of the day. That I’d told
him that I’d have to visit you at 5:00 p.m. to share with you what I’d managed
to get done at Dr. Meingast’s office.
I’d pointedly drawn his attention to the fact that at 5:00 I’d have to
tell you that he’d gotten hold of the appraisal as promised. I also told him that as I had some other
business to attend to at the district agricultural office tomorrow I’d also make
sure that the appraisal had arrived there by then. There would have been absolutely no point in
hurling abuse or raising a fuss about such incredible brainlessness, I
said. Because the mere fact that
something like has happened is already disgraceful enough. When a fourth-grade public schoolboy shows up
to class with the wrong books, he’s punished by the teacher. What is one to do with an attorney who makes
mistakes like that. That was quite good,
the way you dealt with him, said Thomas.
I couldn’t have gone there, I would have ended up raising a horrible
fuss. Then I show him the telegram and
say: At least take a look at the telegram; perhaps it’s important. Thomas opens the telegram, reads it; it’s a
fairly long text, and then he hands it to me to read. The telegram is from Musulin. It asks Thomas if he’ll write a review of
Zuckmayer’s book Henndorf Pastoral. The telegram proposes 4/24 in Vienna and 5/5
at Musulin’s house in Frankfurt as possible dates and locations for handing
over the review. He says he’s convinced
that Thomas would be happy to do it, that it would give him a thrill, etc.
Yours, Danko. After I’d read the
telegram, Thomas angrily said: That’s the sort of thing people are always
trying to force you to do. But I’m not
going to do anything of the sort. This
goes to show once again how…and blind Musulin is. Zuckmayer’s book is simply awful; all the
names in it are misspelled, etc. But
people are buying it just because it’s by Zuckmayer, and they also even like it
because it’s by him. I say: I’m
surprised that Musulin didn’t know you well enough not to hope that you’d write
such a book review. He ought to know you
well enough to know that he’ll never get you to do that. Yes, naturally, of course that annoys me;
we’ve known each other for fifteen years, but in actual fact he’s never really
known me at all. But of course he’s charming,
and rich, filthy rich, and…Of course, when you’re watching his TV broadcasts
you can often tell what he’s…really like.
But with all his money, he does everything he can to hide it. But he’s very charming, and you’ve always got
to be wary of people who are charming.
They’ve got no substance; they’re nothing but charming and there’s not much of anything behind the
charm. It’s impossible to get by on
nothing but being charming and nice. I
simply cannot say something good about a book that I abhor, because of course
that’s what Zuckmayer and Musulin are expecting of me. On top of that it annoys me that he writes
that as a little boy I used to like drinking chocolate there at Zuckmayer’s
house. I say: So far I haven’t read the
book at all, apart from an excerpt in the newspaper in which he got blood
poisoning in a pond. But I got the
impression that it wasn’t any better written than an eighth-grader’s
composition exercise. I can’t understand
how a man like Zuckmayer could write something like that and have it published. Thomas says: The only person to blame for
that is Schaffler. He’s just a
gold-digger; he’s talked him into writing it, because it’ll sell well even if
it’s rubbish. Zuckmayer is senile; he’s
got a greedy wife and a greedy daughter, and they just want to squeeze
everything out of Zuckmayer’s name that can still be squeezed out of it.
Finally Thomas says that it irritates him
that it’s going to cost him 50 schillings to send the telegram in which’s he’s
going to decline to write the review, and it vexes him even more that he’s also
going to have to drive to the post office in order to send it. I’ve always got a few telegram forms for that
purpose ready to hand at home. I’ll give
you two of them and some carbon paper so that you can also make a carbon copy. Thomas makes as if to go to the study nook,
where my typewriter is set up. But I go
get my typewriter and say: Take your time. I place the machine in front of him on the
table and say that I’ll take the telegram to the post office for him.
Thomas types: Baron Musulin 28
Leerbachstrasse/Frankfurt D 6. Have been
ill two months and condemned to complete inactivity. Sincerely Thomas. There, now they’ll think I’m about to kick
the bucket. But I wouldn’t have used any
other excuse even if I’d been well, because I can’t be wasting my time on
Musulin and Zuckmayer.
Then, beaming with joy, I show him the
tickets for the Salzburg Festival premiere of The Ignoramus and the Madman that I picked up earlier today. Thomas contemplates the tickets and says: Ten
years ago I would never have dared dream that something like this would ever
exist. The Ignoramus and the Madman; the title alone is madness, but
everything is madness. The seventh row;
these are good seats; critics and guests of honor will be sitting right in
front of you. But why is the performance
on the 28th? Well, you see,
Kaut told me that there’s been one tiny change.
Thomas contemplates the tickets a bit longer and suddenly says: But
these are for August 28. They’ve given
you the wrong tickets. The premiere is
on July 29! Thomas says I’ve got to go right away, before the end of the day, and
return the tickets and absolutely insist on being given tickets for the
premiere. He says that this travel agency
in Gmunden had once booked him a trip to Brussels that went all the way to
Brussels on a branch line without any express service. That on top of that his aunt had once been
given the wrong timetable, and when she complained about it, the employees
there had just kept calmly consuming their sausage rolls, whereupon his aunt
kicked up a huge ruckus. She’ll never
use this travel agency again. Then I say
that they were adamantly determined to sell me a ticket to a matinee on August
26. Even though I repeatedly said I
hadn’t ordered it, they kept saying that this ticket had been ordered by me,
that I had to take it. Finally, when
they took a good hard look at my request, they said, yes, the ticket was
ordered by somebody else. Thomas said:
The world is crawling with these “little Meingasts” who screw up everything.
Thomas stayed till 5:00, and we agreed that
I’d go straight to the ticket agent’s and then report back to him. Thomas said that when I got there I should
say that all three of them deserved to have their heads chopped off, and that
all three of these heads with their tongues lolling out should be put behind
the front window with a sign over them reading: They sold wrong timetables and
wrong tickets. That I should take an axe
with me. That on top of that I should insist
on their calling the box office in Salzburg while I’m standing there and that
if the people in Salzburg say that no more tickets are left, I should
remonstrate with them and tell them that that can’t be true, that the author
himself said that, because he knows from experience that there are always a few
tickets left even when they say there aren’t any. That the call must be made right away,
because the box office is always open, there’s always somebody there. That I should throw down the tickets and immediately
demand to have my money back. That I
should also tell them about the business with his aunt and with the
preposterous train itinerary they booked him there. In response to all of this I say to Thomas:
I’ll do what I can, but I’m so worn out that I can’t raise any more fusses
today; besides, I still won’t have any tickets even if I do lop off their
heads. Thomas asks me to come see him as
soon as I get back from Gmunden; he wants to know how things turned out.
In Gmunden the paperwork associated with my order makes it
clear that tickets for 8/29 were ordered.
The 29, I say, comes from me, but you’re to blame for the 8. I ordered tickets for 7/29. I’m also shown a letter from the box office
in Salzburg in which they write that there isn’t going to be any performance of
The Ignoramus and the Madman on the
29th, but that there is going to be one on the 28th, and
that they are therefore sending tickets for the 28th. On being informed that there are no more
tickets left there, the employee says that the author knows that despite that
there are always a few tickets available, and that because the customer is an
acquaintance of his, they should hand them over. In Salzburg they insist that they’re all
gone. As a sop they tell her that if any
tickets are returned they’ll be sent over.
Whereupon I say to the employee that Thomas Bernhard has asked me for
their heads, that he’s furious at them, and that they had once led him to
Brussels along a branch line, via Brussels, and I also rebuked the employees
for what his aunt had gone through.
That’s completely irrelevant, this woman said. But of course it’s very much relevant, I say,
because the same sort of cockup happened then.
She gives me back my money without further ado and asks me to come back
tomorrow, when Mr. Ruckser, who took down my order wrong, will be there,
because it’s in his handwriting.
Right afterwards I visit Thomas in Nathal; it’s about 6:30 in
the evening. He immediately asks me
whether I talked about chopping off their heads, and when I say yes, he asks: Did
you also say that their tongues would have to be lolling out of their chopped-off
heads as well? I forgot to say that, I
say. But I mentioned the bit about the
sign that would have to be posted above their chopped-off heads. Then it’s fine, says Thomas; how’s the
situation with the tickets? After I’d briefed him, he said that I shouldn’t let
it slide no matter what. That they could
get hold of the tickets whenever they liked. That I’d ordered them in the proper way, that
I had a right to the tickets. What the
hell, if somebody flew here from America they obviously couldn’t say to him: It
was a mistake; we haven’t got any tickets either. Thomas tries really hard to stir me up to
take the initiative quite energetically tomorrow, because he’s convinced that
tickets are still available, even if the people in Salzburg have said there
aren’t any left there.
Then he shows me the bill from Stadlbauer the master
electrician in Laakirchen; it amounts to 32,346.10 schillings for the
installation of the entire heating system.
He was charged 4,000 for labor, so that the radiators and the building
materials cost about 28,000 schillings.
We both found the bill quite fair after we went through the individual
items. Thomas says he budgeted for
30,000 to 35,000 schillings, so shortly before noon today he went straight to
Gmunden to transfer the money. Now he
says he’s got 50,000 schillings in debt at the bank. Now it’s easier for him, because it’s very
disagreeable to have credit at the bank, because the inflation rate is rising
so quickly. He says that it’s better to
have 50,000 in debt than 50,000 in credit.
That kind of credit melts like snow in the sun.
Then we find ourselves talking about Radax. Thomas saw the broadcast on Wednesday and is
disappointed in Radax. His statement in
Viennese dialect was particularly execrable, a person simply can’t say
something like that. On top of that, in
the meantime Thomas has perused Radax’s screenplay, perused it more closely,
and noticed that Radax transcribed whole passages from the book verbatim and
then just tacked on where the person’s got to go or where the person’s got to
be next. What Radax has done certainly
isn’t worth 20,000 DM. When you consider
that he’s getting 20,000 for this, you become conscious of the fact that that’s
much too much for this job. On top of
that Radax writes: Frost, adapted
from the novel of the same name. That alone is already a disgrace. But when he comes, I’ll tell him a thing or
two. I tell Thomas that he shouldn’t do
that, that he should instead let Radax fail, and he’ll come to do that even
more easily with something new. Because
a bad film by Radax based on Frost
won’t do him any harm.
When Thomas notices shortly before 7:30 that I’m about to
leave him, he says that he’d like to come along, that he couldn’t bear to spend
this evening alone. Later on at my house
Thomas is so high-spirited and witty that I say he’ll “laugh himself out of his
own chest” before long, that he’s laughing so hard his insides are surely
coming loose.
At 11:30 I take Thomas home.
We agree that at 8:30 in the morning I’ll come to him with his mail and
then ride with him to the doctor’s office.
14 April 1972
Shortly before 8:30 a.m. I’m at Thomas’s house. He’s only got two letters. Each of them is from a publishing firm. He chucks them and doesn’t even read them. Once again he asks me to come with him to the
doctor again, and also actually to go with him into the office. You see, I had already promised to book him
“from behind,” so that he could go right in.
He also gives me the photocopy of the municipal government’s confirmation
from the farmer’s association, which the agricultural commission urgently
needed, because the municipal government didn’t have access to the confirmation
from the farmer’s association. It’s a
letter from the Ohlsdorf municipal government in which it’s confirmed that
Thomas is running his farm on his own. I
then talked Thomas into having a photocopy made so that I could take possession
of it. At the time I also added my own
notes as an attachment. But it was good
that Thomas had this photocopy as well.
I had it photocopied again and took a copy to Mr. Panholzer the engineer
from the agricultural commission. I
invited Thomas to my house for dinner at 7:00 p.m. Between now and then Thomas will visit Dr.
Meingast himself and ask him for the main contract for this coming Monday. I point out to Thomas that he should tell Dr.
Meingast this by 10:00 a.m. at the latest so that he can pick up the lustrum by
noon. Because it’s Friday, and in the
afternoon Dr. Meingast might be at court and no longer able to get the dates
from the surveyor’s office and so also unable to finish preparing the contract
until Monday. You see, this contract can
only be signed on a Monday, when Asamer stays at home all day, and once the
weather is better, Asamer will also be out in his fields from four in the
morning till eight in the evening.
Because he’s constantly on the move on his own with his machines in his
roughly 150 hectares. What’s more,
because he already knows the price he’s sold the land for, once he’s begun to work
in his fields we won’t even be able to drag Asamer to the notary’s office with
a lasso, because we’ll never be able to find him, what with his fields being so
expansive. So Thomas will do everything
he can to make sure to get hold of the contract from Dr. Meingast by
Monday. Thomas also gives me some advice
on my visit to the ticket office and says in conclusion: If the worst comes to the
worst, you can have mine, because of course you know I’m not going to attend
the premiere in any case. Then I say:
Haven’t you promised that ticket to Irina, Rochelt’s wife? She told me she didn’t have any tickets yet
but that she’d certainly be receiving one, and then I thought, “She’ll be
sitting next to Aunt Hede.” Then Thomas gets indignant: I’m not giving anybody
a free ticket. Only in the event that
you couldn’t get hold of anything would I give you the ticket. I’ve told all my acquaintances that they must
surely think I’m worth the cost of a ticket to the premiere, and that if they don’t,
they’ll just have to miss it. I’m
certainly not going to insist on their attending the performance. For exactly the same reason I don’t give
away books anymore. Where would that get
me; if I give 49 acquaintances a book, then the fiftieth is upset if he doesn’t
get one. That’s all stopped; that
business of giving away books. If
anybody’s interested in my books, he’ll have to buy them. But naturally in the event that you can’t get
a ticket anymore, you can certainly have mine.
Well, you know, I say, in my case it’s on account of my family; they’ve
really been looking forward to it. Maybe
I could still get tickets through Peymann, because of course he’s bound to have
a few tickets at his disposal.
Next I accompany Thomas to the doctor’s office in
Steyrermühl. I make his appointment
“backwards,” but because just then the doctor is giving a patient stitches,
which is going to take at least another 20 minutes, the nurse promises that
Bernhard will be announced immediately afterwards. So he’s just going to have to take a seat at
the front. I sit there with Bernhard for
about another 30 minutes because we’re having a very interesting conversation
and the patient with the stitches still wasn’t finished. When I left him we had no idea that this would
be a successful day for both of us. That
he’d finalize the contract and I’d get hold of the tickets for the
festival. I said goodbye and that I’d be
seeing him at 7:00 that evening.
At 7:00 p.m. Thomas shows up for dinner as scheduled. He managed to get everything done just fine;
the sales contract is set to be signed at three o’clock Monday afternoon. The rendezvous point is Dr. Meingast’s
office. He hasn’t notified Mr. and Mrs.
Asamer yet, because he was planning to ask me to do that for him. I tell him I’ll drive to the Asamers’ house in
Ohlsdorf right after dinner, because I’ll be sure of finding Rudolf at home
then. The sooner they know that they’re
going to have to be in Gmunden at 3:00 p.m. this coming Monday the better.
But even before then I can report to Thomas that the travel
agent’s in Gmunden has already promised me the tickets. Officially no further tickets can be
delivered to the agent’s, but they’ve received the tickets privately, meaning
via a private individual. It’s just as
Thomas said. When they say they’re
completely sold out, there’s still always something there for private
emergencies. Of course I was very happy
about this and gladly drove to Asamer’s afterwards. I found Asamer at home, and
he agreed to sign the contract with his wife on Monday. Thomas was soothed by learning that this had
been taken care of as well, and he remained in a good mood until 10:30 p.m.
Granny sewed up the torn pocket of his windbreaker very
nicely. He was actually highly delighted
that the seam turned out so well that it was almost unnoticeable, and he
thanked her very warmly.
Because most of the time Saturday and Sunday are days on which
we find it hard to meet up because most of the time I’m busy viewing lots or
houses with customers, we’ve agreed that if we don’t meet up before then I will
in any case come to his house with the mail early Monday morning.
April 15, 1972
Thomas stops by at three in the afternoon and only finds only
my mother here, because we, my wife and I, are on the road with prospective
buyers of houses. Thomas chats for a
while with my mother in the garden and asks her to give me his regards. Since there were quite a lot of people here
on Saturday, it wasn’t until Sunday that I recalled that I had actually said to
Thomas: If you don’t stop by, I’ll check in with you to see how you’re doing.
April 17, 1972
Shortly before eight in the morning I came to Thomas’s house
with the mail. He’d received a huge pile
of letters, including one from Musulin.
I asked Thomas if he’d mind if I stayed a bit longer so that I could
look through my own mail and for another reason that I’d tell him about
later. Thomas was fine with staying
until 9:00. We also spoke about the
Japanese Nobel Prize winner who had committed suicide at the age of 72 the
previous day. A few years ago one of his
fellow-Japanese writers committed hara-kiri.
As I had done many times before, I told him that suicide was a very
frequent cause of death among writers.
Thomas says: At 72 that’s the best thing you can do. If you were to kill yourself at the age of
72, I’d hold you in very high regard and doff my hat to you. Or the pointed cap you’ve got on right now, I
say. Thomas says he’s wearing it so that he doesn’t
catch a cold, because he’s just washed his hair. As soon as I walked in I noticed that he
seemed healthy. That was why I wanted to
stay there with him longer. After an
hour he hadn’t coughed even once, so I said to him that I was trying to observe
whether he was still coughing.
Especially whether he was coughing those dry, short coughs that are
typical of “Bocke’s disease,” which he wasn’t.
So he can calmly go to Vienna, get a checkup there, but still assert
that he’s got a cough and pressure in his chest so that he can be thoroughly
tested for “Bocke’s” and come back with a firm confirmation that he hasn’t got
a case of “Bocke’s” sitting in his
chest. Thomas agrees with me. As I took my leave I invited him to come over
to my house at 7:00 in the evening.
Before I leave Thomas also tells me that he felt the
earthquake at exactly 12:05 p.m. He said
that it was impossible he was mistaken, because he was lying on the divan when
suddenly flames starting shooting out of the stove, as if the stove was about
to explode. At the same time he was
being shaken towards the stove.
Whereupon he leapt to his feet and wrote down the time, 12:05, on a slip
of paper. So, he said, it was impossible
he was mistaken, because he knew what TV show he’d been watching, and it hadn’t
aired at 11:00 a.m. or whatever other time was reported in the news. He said it was really sloppy work to report a
wrong time for the earthquake, because he had distinctly felt it, and that was
most certainly at 12:05. In the meantime
I’ve read in the paper today that an aftershock was felt in the Vöcklabruck
area. So Thomas really hadn’t been
mistaken, but the aftershock wasn’t announced in yesterday’s news.
At 7:00 Thomas came by as scheduled. During dinner he told me that today he’d
mailed replies to two letters that he’d received some time ago. One was to the general manager of the
Burgtheater, who had written him a five-page letter about a fortnight ago. But he, Thomas, said that he found it impossible
to write a full reply to such a long letter.
That he couldn’t understand how the general manager of a theater could
ever write such a long letter to an author, a letter with so many little
details, etc. That that wasn’t
appropriate either for the general manager or for the author. But that just goes to show what small fry
these people are. He only wrote a very
brief reply to Klingenberg, didn’t go into particulars in the letter and
notified him that he’d have to come see him.
He wrote the second letter to his female friend in Hamburg,
and in it he offered her his ticket for the premiere in Salzburg. You see, in the meantime she’s written him a
very nice letter, and she’s supposed to sit next to Hede at the premiere while
he waits for us in the coffeehouse. I
show Thomas my tickets for the premiere, which I received today. He sees that they’re seats at the back behind
the central box and says, these seats are very good; he’s had a seat like that
quite often, and if I can’t see anything I should simply bash the person at the
front of the box on the head. He has
always just thwacked away at the people in front until they just got tired of
it and let him have a proper view.
Then came the highpoint of the evening, when we went up to the
second floor to watch the TV news program The
Age in Images in Granny’s apartment.
Right at the beginning of the news Granny pulled Thomas’s stiletto out
of his buckskin breeches. I noticed
this, and because Granny had been playing this same practical joke every two
months for as long as I could remember, I said to her: Omi, if you do that one
more time, Thomas is going to stab you.
Yes of course, said Thomas. Let’s
do it right now, I said, so that we can report your actual age in the
newspaper. I’m 72, as you know full
well, said Granny. Thomas says, That’s
the age when that Japanese guy Kawabata killed himself; it’s a very good age to
die at. Where do you want to be buried,
I asked Omi, next to Grandpa in Ottensheim or in Ohlsdorf? Then Thomas drafted a half-dozen newspaper
headlines: Writer Stabs to Death 72-Year-Old Granny, Blood-Dripping Knife
Recovered from Crime Scene, etc.
In
Granny’s apartment on the second floor of Karl Ignaz Hennetmair’s house, the
viewing schedule was dominated by five channels: “Austrian Channels 1 and 2,
German Channel 1, and Thomas in an Austrian accent and in a Bavarian one.” (Diary entry, June 27, 1972).
When footage of the Socialist Party’s conference in Villach
is shown, Thomas starts acting like a ventriloquist as he mimics the political
promises in a high voice and then announces the price and tax hikes in a very
deep voice. He keeps switching between
the two; he makes promises in a high voice, and in a deep voice he admits that
the opposite of what’s promised will happen.
As Governor Sima’s speaking a few really lame sentences, Thomas says,
people like this make political programs, we’re ruled by people like this. They’ve simply got no personalities, and the
Austrian People’s Party has also hit rock bottom; they haven’t got any
personalities either. What can possibly
happen next, when the people believe all that stuff, when they’re duped by such
inanities. After the news on the German
channel, we turn off the set, and because Granny was planning to go to Linz
early tomorrow morning, she went to bed.
When were alone afterwards Thomas said that he had received a
long letter from Musulin. Musulin is so
nice and…He writes whether he can help me, because I’m so ill, etc. Naturally it’s true I’m ill, but there’s
obviously no help for it. I have no idea
what I’m supposed to write in reply; is he expecting some sort of
tear-jerking letter from me, or what? If
he already knows how execrable and lousy I’m feeling, he must have noticed from
my telegram that it’s not all about my illness, even though I wrote “cordially
Thomas.” If it had really been only
about my illness, I would have added a couple of words to a telegram like that,
for example, that I was “unfortunately” condemned to inactivity. If that had been genuinely true, I would have
had to limit my telegram to a few words like that. But he’s so…, he doesn’t realize that at all,
something like that never occurs to him. “For two months I’ve been ill and
condemned to complete inactivity, cordially Thomas,” so if he’s intelligent,
he’s absolutely got to realize that this isn’t just about my illness. But am I supposed to stop writing
“cordially,” so that he’ll realize what a monster I actually am? If he knows what a horribly unpleasant person
I am, he’s simply got to comprehend a telegram like that. But apparently he still doesn’t understand me
at all. A person simply can’t expect
anything from me; of course, I don’t expect anything from people either. I’m not even going to do the interview with
Kaut, which we were planning on doing before the festival and that I promised
him. Tell me, said Thomas, how am I
supposed to do that, before the festival?
I’m sure that starting in May the reporters from all the newspapers will
descend on me, and I’ll be expected to say something about my play. Before the premiere they’ll all impose
themselves on me, but I won’t say anything at all. I’ve got nothing to say. The play is there, and there’s nothing to say
about it or any need to interpret it.
Everything I’d say would certainly just be stupid, and in ten years I
myself wouldn’t be able to listen to it.
On top of that journalists leave out sentences or distort what you’ve
said because they cut something out. I feel
so strong that I’m not going to get involved in anything. Naturally, I say, like that one time when you
said “narcissism” [Narzissmus] and
they left out the “r,” even if it was just out of sloppiness; you’re constantly
exposed to the danger of your meaning being distorted, and you’re at their
mercy. They can select and publish the
worst bits instead of vice-versa. But
what’s the best way for me to escape from their clutches? says Thomas. Well, I say, you should lock yourself in your
house again and not budge, and since you’ve recently stopped interacting with
your neighbors altogether, they don’t know where you are, and they’ll say maybe
he’s at the Krucka or in Vienna. And if
you’re actually confronted by somebody from the newspaper, because he happens
to chase you down, you’ll say you’re stuck in the middle of a great work; that
you’re totally preoccupied with it, that you can’t possibly be torn away from
it. You’ve got to rebuff a person like
that just that bluntly. I gave him some
advice to the effect that he should walk in the deepest part of the forest, so
that your walks won’t be noticed by the neighbors and they can’t give away any information,
etc. On account of the daily mail and
the newspapers that he’ll want to read in the coffeehouse, holing up in the
Krucka for several weeks is out of the question. In the end Thomas justifies his plan not to
give the newspapers any information at all and not to let anything be written
about the performance beforehand, on the grounds that there’s no point to it.
Because either the play will be a success, in which case it isn’t necessary to
try do anything on its behalf beforehand, or it’ll be a flop, then everything
that’s been written beforehand will have been for nothing. That’s why he’s not going to do the interview
with Kaut, the president of the festival, either. So the only good thing to do is to do
nothing. Thomas sang and even warbled
and stayed until 11:00. It’s like a
weight being off his chest again, the idea that he’s not going to take on any
further obligations whatsoever.
Because tomorrow I’m planning to go to bed quite early,
because I’m going to go to Vienna at three in the morning on Wednesday, I
promise to bring him his mail early tomorrow and visit him at about 8:00 in the
evening just so that we can see each other.
April 18, 1972
At 7:15 in the morning I took Granny to the train in
Steyrermühl. Afterwards I picked up the
mail in Ohlsdorf and took it to Thomas.
I gave him Granny’s warm regards.
She said he should sharpen his knife while she’s away; she’ll be back on
Friday. Then we’ll see right away
whether Granny’s waterproof and stab-proof, said Thomas.
Because I was planning to leave for Vienna at three in the
morning, I told Thomas that I’d visit him at about 5:30 p.m., at 6:00 at the
latest, and that I’d then go to bed early.
Because I had a ton of things to take care of, it was 6:30 p.m. sharp
when I knocked on Thomas’s door. The
gate is locked from inside, and when after I’ve knocked twice there’s no sound
of anybody stirring, I went around to the back of the house to see if Thomas
had left the courtyard through one of the back gates, and to peer through the
crack in the gate to see if he was in the cellar or the stable. When I observed that he wasn’t in the cellar
and hadn’t left the courtyard through the back, I continued circling around the
house to my car and drove off immediately.
There wouldn’t have been any point in sticking around, because he would
have been in a bad mood when he came to the door. He waited for me from 5:30 on, counting every
minute, and in my mind I can see him furiously locking the door just after
6:00. As I was driving away I felt that
he was watching me, and I didn’t look back at the house even for a second so
that he’d get the impression that I couldn’t have cared less whether he came to
the door or not.
On top of that I didn’t want to see him in a peevish
mood. Obviously he hadn’t had any
opportunities to vent his spleen anywhere lately, so that I myself was in more
and more danger of being a target of it.
April 19, 1972
I was planning to be back from Vienna at about 11 a.m.; but we
ended up not being back until six in the evening. As we were walking in, our daughter Reinhild
said that Bernhard had stopped by a half an hour earlier and asked where I
was. When he heard that I hadn’t yet
returned from Vienna he said that he was worried.
April 20, 1972
At 1:00 p.m. Wieland Schmied and his three-year-old daughter
walk into my house. We shoot the breeze
for an hour so that we can drive over to Thomas’s together.
Naturally Thomas wasn’t at home. I realized this as soon as I noticed that the
key to the gate outside the house was in its usual “stowage space.” But Dr. Schmied pulled himself all the way up
to the window-grates to see if the car wasn’t parked in the courtyard and
Thomas himself actually inside the house. He said he wouldn’t put it past Thomas to
stow the key to make people think he wasn’t at home even though he actually
was. Then I said to Dr. Schmied: That
really wouldn’t make any sense, because of course the only person who knows
where the key is stowed is me; he puts it there so that I can fetch cider, or
in case he’s been burgled, I can get into the house immediately if he isn’t
here. Doing that for strangers who
wanted to visit him wouldn’t make any sense.
Well, I dunno, says Dr. Schmied; he knows I’m coming, so maybe he’s
taking cover. I say that at the moment
Thomas tends to be in a fairly good mood, because he’s lucked out in purchasing
those woods over there. As I say this I
point at the woods. You see, by then we’d
walked round to the backside of the house and were headed towards those woods.
After this Dr. Schmied wanted to go to Gmunden to make a telephone
call. Because I wasn’t sure whether he’d
run into Thomas in the course of the day, I told him that he and his wife
should come to my house at seven in the evening. Thomas is sure to show up at
my house around then, because by then we won’t have seen each other in a full
day; he’ll surely stop by. Aha, said Dr.
Schmied, you’ve still got your usual time in the evening. Yes, I said, at least when things are normal. But Dr. Schmied said he wasn’t sure exactly
when in the evening he’d be able to stop by, because his wife was on the road
with her boss, Dr. Willi Keller, and he couldn’t come over until she got home. Because he’s used to a nocturnal existence, I
said he could even stop by at 10 or 11 p.m., that it wouldn’t inconvenience me
in the slightest. In addition, I said, I’d stop by and see him in Lederau in
the afternoon, because I had some stuff to do in the area. By doing that I’d learn if he hadn’t already
run into Thomas in Gmunden.
Then at about 4:30 I was in Lederau. Dr. Schmied showed me the new larch
floorboards in the hallway, in the ribbed vault, etc. He hadn’t run into Thomas yet; his wife
hadn’t gotten home yet either.
Afterwards I drove to Thomas’s house at
Nathal. He met me in the courtyard and
said: Mrs. Schmied is here. They ran
into each other on the street towards Ohlsdorf; Thomas was on his way home, and
Mrs. Schmied wanted to visit Thomas. It
was at about 5:15 when I walked into Thomas’s house, and so I got the
impression that the visit had been going on for a while already. Thomas was incredibly rude to Mrs. Schmied,
so that she eventually said: You’re really a monster. Whereupon I said: You’re saying that as
though he’s only become a monster just now; you’ve got to admit that he’s
always been a monster. He just keeps
becoming more and more of one. You don’t
want the doctor, by whom I meant her boss, getting the idea that Thomas is just
being a monster today. That would be a
huge misconception. Thomas Bernhard, I
said, will evolve into an even bigger monster from year to year; after all,
he’s getting older. Thomas nodded at my
words, and I noticed that he had no problem with being described as a proper
monster in the presence of this new visitor, the doctor who had arrived with
Mrs. Schmied. Thomas poured Mrs. Schmied
and me some schnapps. The doctor, who
hardly said a word, declined to take any.
Because he has a low tolerance for it, said Mrs. Schmied.
Then we got started talking about Aunt Hede, who’s
still in the hospital, who’s already been there for four weeks. She wrote that she would have to stay there
another four weeks. Thomas said: She
simply hasn’t been eating enough; she only weighs 44 kilos now, so that her
little gastric ulcer has gotten bigger.
I said: Because she’s been taking too little nourishment, the little
gendarmes have simply crawled into the bigger ones, so that they’ve still got
something to digest. Whereupon Thomas
gazed at me reflectively and said: What more is there to say about this?
Then—it was about 5:25—Thomas said that he still
had to mail an express letter at the post office before 6:00. On top of that, after I’d told him about my
plan to have everybody meet up at my house after 7:00, he said that he was
already too weak for an evening get-together today. That he might still just manage to stop by
Lederau very briefly. But that he was
still feeling very enfeebled by his illness.
This is the reason that he still wants to send the express letter to
Mrs. Gertrud Frank from Residenz Publications in Salzburg today, to keep Elias
Canetti from coming to visit him this coming Sunday. That he’s simply in no condition to entertain
Canetti and engage in a taxing conversation with him for several hours. Thomas said that he had written that not
seeing him (Canetti) would pain him. At
the same time, he said, he’d be glad if he didn’t see him, because incessantly
speaking about death with him was unpleasant.
Even though he likes him, Canetti, very much, he’ll be glad if he
doesn’t visit him. Because it’s
revolting to discuss your current problems.
Everybody’s got to follow his own path and solve his own problems.
By then it was ten minutes to six and more than
high time to take the letter to the post office. But because Thomas didn’t want to chuck us
out, he said that tomorrow he’d send a telegram in lieu of the letter. Then I said: But you can’t write in a
telegram that it’ll pain you not to see him.
It’ll be better if the letter is still sent off today. I’m ready to take it the post office right
away.
I really found it quite pleasant to get away in
such an auspicious way. Because in the
first place, Thomas was already getting quite annoying, and in the second place
I wanted to see at least the second and third periods of the international ice
hockey game between the U.S.S.R. and Czechoslovakia. So I’d still be able to see if the Czechs had
won the world championship after I’d dropped off the letter.
April 21, 1972
At 12 noon sharp Thomas came to my house. He likes coming by at midday on Fridays,
because he knows there will be a good desert then, and he’s a huge
desert-lover. After lunch Thomas talks
about what happened with Dr. Schmied yesterday evening. He says that they had dinner at Roith’s
Tavern. The whole time, until two in the
afternoon, he heaps abuse on Schmied’s wife.
He says that she’s insufferably loud, that with the looks of a
40-year-old she behaves as ridiculously as a 20-year-old and deliberately plays
the role of a 20-year-old. That he, Dr.
Schmied, plays along. He plays the role
of a 25-year-old. Schmied has all the
charm of a ten-schilling plastic bucket; his opinions are just that trite and
stupid. Their kid is spoiled rotten;
she’s been taught no manners whatsoever; she just keeps doing the opposite of
what her parents want her to do. Her
parents bicker about her manners in front of her; each of them expects the
other one to make her behave. For him it
was a nightmare, this evening; he was scarcely able to endure it. He doesn’t like saying anything against
Schmied, because he’s quite fond of him; but he says that this squabbling of
theirs is even worse than the squabbling between the Hufnagels, that he can’t
put up with it anymore either. What kind
of marriage is this, when they’re constantly saying you’ll have to let me have
this, and you can hold onto that, and constantly talking about divorce, etc.
Just before 2:00 p.m., Thomas was lying on the
cushioned bench next to the stove, with his feet propped up on the chair in a
very comfortable position; I told him that I had to be in Wels at 3:00 and had
to leave no later than 2:30. Whereupon
Thomas beseeched me to come with him to Nathal first so that I could help him
hang up the portrait of the French diplomat.
He said that I’d hammered the nails for pictures into the wall so well
already a few times that he wanted me to hammer the nail into the wall this
time as well. We drove to Nathal right away.
I wanted to hang the picture about 5 cm higher, but he insisted on
leaving it at the height it ended up being, above the table in the little room
on the ground floor. I was persistently
of the opinion that the picture would have a better effect if it were hung
about 5 cm higher, but Thomas stuck to his guns. Then Thomas showed me a telegram from
Klingenberg, the general manager of the Burgtheater, in which the latter wrote:
“Contract with Axer (the director Thomas had wanted) finalized, but no letter
will follow.”
Obernathal 2: the ground-floor room with the portrait of the
French diplomat
Thomas said, Klingenberg has obviously realized that
I’m none too keen on receiving letters from him because I answered his
five-page letter so curtly. On top of
that I can’t help assuming he realizes I’ve got a sense of humor, because of
course otherwise he wouldn’t have added “but no letter will follow.” So far in
all his telegrams he’s always written: Letter will follow. But now he obviously realizes that I couldn’t
care less about his letters. Because if
Axer’s going to direct the play, if he’s the one who’s going to be calling all
the shots from now on anyhow, what more have the two of us got to write to each
other about it? Now maybe Boris
at the Burgtheater will actually be good.
On the top of that it’ll be included in the season ticket subscriptions,
so I’ll be getting my 450,000 schillings whether or not anybody attends the
performances.
Then Thomas showed me the literature section of the Parisian
newspaper Le Monde and a note from a
family in Brussels he’s friends with [the Uexkülls] that says, if you can’t
translate this, just come and see us.
Under a banner headline there was a review of his novel Gargoyles. Very positive, said Thomas, at least as near
as I can tell. He said his high school
French was so bad that he was always embarrassed when he was alone at their
apartment in Brussels and the telephone rang.
Then he just stands there and can’t communicate with the caller at all. Then they think, What kind of dope is that on
the other end of the line? The most he
can be sure of is that the review is very favorable is because in the event
that there’d been a negative reaction there’d have been just a short note or
even nothing at all in Le Monde.
I’m running a bit behind schedule when I leave for Wels. Before I took off Thomas showed me the script
of The Ignoramus and the Madman. Thomas is glad that it’s exactly 99 pages
long. I perused the conclusion, where
Winter the waiter is summoned and the diva asks: “Did you send the telegrams to
Stockholm, Copenhagen, etc.?” Winter says: “Naturally, madam.” I said the word “not” was obviously missing
from the script. Thomas said: No, I left
it out; it’s better that way; don’t mention it to me anymore; everything else,
the “Thank God” and the whole conclusion, is going to stay the same. It’s dark, and nobody knows who’s sweeping
the glasses off the table.
At 6:30 in the evening Dr. Wieland Schimed comes with his
daughter Franziska and without his wife; he says she isn’t feeling well. Thomas has already told me in the afternoon
that Schmied would probably be coming this evening; he said it was debatable
whether his wife would come, because he had insulted her. Dr. Schmied said that he was driving straight
to Thomas’s, that he just wanted to check in and would come right back with
Thomas. After supper everybody stuck
around till 10:00. All the way through
our conversation Thomas was tearing into Dr. Schmied in a massive way. He said that everything he exhibited and sold
was trash. That people were just being
talked into believing it was modern art, but that Dr. Schmied had absolutely no
understanding of his own business, that he was certainly no expert, because if
he were he’d never, ever sell such trash.
People only buy it because they’re being asked to shell out so much
money for it, and because they’re stupid, they think if it’s expensive it’s a
work of art, etc. Then the conversation
turned to Lehmden. Dr. Schmied didn’t
remember that he had once given me a book by Lehmden. Then his castle in Deutschkreutz was
eviscerated by Thomas. So far he’s had
eight rooms refurbished. It’s lunacy to
live in a castle like that. In Vienna
they’ve got a tiny apartment; his wife never goes to see him anymore at
Deutschkreuz because she can’t endure being in that castle. And it really is unbearable and sheer lunacy,
says Thomas. He’s constantly running
around from one place to another looking for subsidies for that castle, even
Schaffler’s stepped in for him, but a whopping white elephant like that will
never amount to anything.
When I asked Dr. Schmied what he thought of the painting from
the eighteenth century, the portrait of the French diplomat, Thomas said: “How
can you ask Wieland a question like that, when he doesn’t know a single thing
about paintings; he knows nothing about modern art and even less about old
art.” Thomas subsequently got more and
more aggressive and vehement in his evisceration of Dr. Schmied. But the latter just let it all wash over him;
he knows Thomas all too well and knows that there’d be no point in fighting
against it. On top of that I got the
feeling that Thomas was right and that Dr. Schmied just sells that trash for
the money and that he’s just talked himself into believing it’s art. Only a few of Lehmden’s things were good,
Thomas said, and a he liked a few other individual pictures, but Thomas
eviscerated the vast majority of them.
Thomas is scheduled to have lunch at Pabst’s
with the Hufnagls and O’Donells at noon tomorrow. Thomas said that Dr. Schmied should come
too. Dr. Schmied agreed to do so, but
not firmly, because he’s going to be leaving tomorrow, and probably he’d also
be “worked over” too heavily by Thomas.
Now, after scaring away his brother, Thomas the monster has found
another victim to get him riled up.
Lately I’d been very careful not to let him get started on anything with
me, because he didn’t have his aunt around to argue with either, and I knew it
was high time for Thomas to be able to get properly “riled up” up again. He needs that. It’s also possible that that’s the reason he
asked Canetti not to come from Salzburg to visit him on 4/23, because he was
afraid that there’d be a quarrel or some friction on account of the state of
his health.
April 23, 1972
Towards 7:00 in the evening Thomas came to my house in
consternation and said: “Now I’m going have to move away from Nathal for a
year.” My wife and I were utterly flabbergasted
to hear such a thing. Thomas said that
he had just heard that they were going to be drilling for oil just next to Maxwald’s
property near his farmhouse. That the
site had already been unplugged. That
now of all times, when he was about to throw himself into his work again, he’d
be completely unable to deal with that kind of noise pollution. That on top of that, those workmen worked
with spotlights on all night long, which was something he really couldn’t be
expected to put up with. At the time
there had last been drilling, in Ruhsahm, when there had been some woods
between the drilling site and his farmhouse, he had been terribly disturbed and
unable to sleep. Thomas conferred with
me about whether he should immediately write to the minister of culture and education,
etc. I told him that approval would have
to be granted by the Ohlsdorf municipal government first and that no matter
what, a hearing with the neighbors about the drilling would have to take place. That during the time of that drilling in
Ruhsam I myself had received an invitation to the hearing about the
construction even though my property had been very far away on the street and
next to the woods. I told Thomas that
he’d surely be heard before the drilling site was approved and surely have the
opportunity to stall it in a few appeals courts, so that because they wouldn’t
be able to start drilling quickly, they’d switch to another site. Because of course the drilling equipment will
have to be used, and the oil company surely won’t want to get involved in a
long string of appeals.
Thomas said he was going to sue them for expenses for a hotel
stay and lost income, etc. Thomas spewed
abuse and argued with me until 11:00 p.m.
He had arrived on foot, and because I was already exhausted from our
conversation, I let him walk back home.
On all other occasions I’ve offered him a lift in my car.
Before he left, Thomas asked me if I’d go with him to Ohlsdorf
Town Hall at 7:30 a.m., because he wants to learn more there. He wants me to be with him then.
April 24, 1972
At 7:15 in the morning Thomas came to my house and said that
last night he’d hardly been able to sleep a wink, but today he was up by 5:00
and then wrote a letter to the Ohlsdorf municipal government. That he had come to the conclusion that it
would be better to address the letter with all its arguments etc. to the
municipal government. Here, read it, he
said. It was a crowdedly handwritten page
with a few lines on its other side.
Thomas stated his entire case, which we had talked over the day before,
and informed the municipal government that he would be sending a copy of this
letter to Governor Wenzel and to Mr. Sinowatz, the minister of culture and
education. When I’d read the letter,
Thomas said, this way I’ll be saving myself the effort of writing two more
letters, because I’ll send the carbon copies to Wenzl and Sinowatz, and now the
whole thing will be ready to hand everywhere.
Now for once the ministry of culture and education will have to show why
it exists and what it can do. It’ll just
have to get down and dirty with the ministry of commerce, or whoever else is
responsible.
Along the way Thomas told Granny that he had
already gotten over yesterday’s shock; and they were already once again talking
about how they wanted to stab each other.
Granny wanted to test the blade of his knife on Thomas, but Thomas said
he wasn’t going to stick it in because we was too much of a coward. Granny said she wanted one good stab before
“the curtain falls.” The “iron curtain,”
said Thomas. A “slime curtain” will fall
if the drilling takes place, I said. Did
you see the way the whole neighborhood and the trees looked the last time? Everything was covered by a ten
centimeter-thick layer of slime, when an eruption of gray slime was shot out of
the borehole after the drilling. The
fire brigade had to come to remove the slime from the courtyard and the trees. You can’t move away, I said to Thomas. That’s no solution; obviously you’ve got to
stay here on account of the “slime curtain.”
Any day something might happen that will require you to be here.
Thomas took this doom-mongering of mine very
unkindly, and later, after the letter had been mailed in Ohsldorf and we were
parting company, he said to me: You’re a monster, Hennetmair; see you.
April 26, 1972
Today at 8:00 in the morning I ran into Thomas at the Ohlsdorf
post office. I reported to him that
yesterday I had been at the house of his 82-year-old female neighbor at 99
Grasberg and done some bargaining in connection with the acquisition of some
additional land next to the Krucka, an acquisition that he had asked me to take
care of. I told Thomas that she told me
that she had already told the “Krucka man” (she was referring to Thomas) that
she couldn’t say anything. Because I
understood the mentality of these people, I said to Thomas, I patiently and
slyly tried to figure out what she “couldn’t say.”
In the course of further conversation with the 82-year-old
woman, it turned out that another male neighbor, namely Druckenthaner the
farmer, had also been interested in acquiring this piece of land for
years. That Druckenthaner had even
offered to let the sellers settle for life in a house much further uphill, a
house that already had electric lighting and wasn’t as hard to get to from the
village, etc. But that on account of
their uncle from Salzburg, who comes from Salzburg every weekend expressly to
help them with the work, they didn’t want to sell it. Upon my declaring that this uncle surely
wasn’t going to move there and would surely sell the property, the old woman
said that the uncle wanted to move there himself and was planning to have
lighting installed. From this, I said to
Thomas, I gathered that a sale of the land either to him or to any of the other
interested parties was out of the question during the old people’s lifetime. It will be necessary to have a timely
discussion with the uncle and make him a proper offer to buy in the event of an
emergency. Originally we, especially
Thomas, were planning to “outplay” the uncle.
But he’s got much more influence with the old woman than we had
expected. Most of the time “legacy
hunters” like the uncle from Salzburg fall by the wayside and come away
empty-handed. But the old woman believes
that the uncle would like to live there himself, and she’s too heavily under
his influence.
But Thomas and I are convinced that the uncle from Salzburg will
be glad to have Thomas buy the property from him in the event that he inherits
it, because nobody else will think it’s worth the price that Thomas will offer
to pay for it as a neighbor. Thomas also
says: Since you’ve got gym class tonight, I’ll come see you tomorrow. Yes, at the latest, I said. I’d been firmly expecting you yesterday
evening.
Thomas also asked me if I had stopped by his house, the Krucka;
he was curious to learn how it was looking. I walked up the hill and walked
back down the hill. I walked past Druckenthaner’s
tenants’ house with the four dogs. There
was a lot of fresh snow on the ground, and I found it too slippery, I said,
otherwise I would have stopped by your house.
Ah yes, said Thomas, it did snow a lot yesterday.
April 27, 1972
At 11:30 a.m. Thomas came to see me. When he saw me, he said he could tell that I
had been playing cards for a very long time.
Yes, I said, at 11:30 I stepped in for somebody; we had been planning to
play tarot until midnight, but before we knew it was two in the morning. All three partners swore and cursed about the
fact that we were stupid enough to play for so long when we left off at
two. Yes, it’s always like that, said
Thomas. A few days ago I played
blackjack with Mrs. Schmied at Pabst’s, and I stipulated the exact time, down
to the last minute, when we’d call it quits.
And of course the winnings and losses aren’t paid back; rather, whoever’s
losing at the end has actually lost, said Thomas. I won a thousand schillings, and when the
clock showed the exact minute, I took my winnings and said: I’m sorry we agreed
to do it like this. Because I don’t know
anything; to be sure, the Hufnagls don’t play it often, but whenever they do,
they play it like that.
Then Thomas told me that he had also sent a copy of the letter
to the mayor regarding the oil-drilling to the mining office in Salzburg and to
Schaffler (at Residenz Publications). In
each case I only wrote a couple of additional lines. I wrote that the nature of the problem would become
clear from a reading of the enclosed letter to the mayor, that they had to stop
this from happening, and a closing. I
expected that eighty percent of the recipients would chuck the letter into the
wastepaper basket, ten percent would reply to it, and another ten percent,
meaning Schaffler, would actually do something for me.
Then I showed Thomas Mrs. Barbara Peymann’s letter of 4/23/1972,
which I received this morning and have also already replied to. Even so, I didn’t show Thomas the text of my
reply and didn’t even tell him that the reply was already in the mail. Thomas read the letter and said that he
wouldn’t write to Barbara Peymann, that of course he didn’t know her at
all. But he said he’d still write to her
husband, Claus Peymann, to inform him that the accommodations in Pfaffstätt were
ready. But it’s awfully cheeky of her to
write that they’ll be coming to Salzburg in the middle of the week and get in
touch with me from there. Obviously the
first thing they should do is inform me directly that they’ll be coming. On Wednesday of next week I’ll be in Vienna
and taking my aunt to Wolfsegg and not waiting here to find out if this lord
and his lady will be coming. I seconded
Thomas’s opinion and said that the letter was ineptly written. How so, said
Thomas, that’s the way they write out there. Didn’t you notice the closing, “For today I
am yours with very friendly regards, Barbara Peymann”? What does “for today” mean, I say, tomorrow
and nothing else? It’s a cliché, said
Thomas. Yes, but a stupid, mindless
cliché; you wouldn’t write something like that would you? There’s never any call to write clichés, I
say. Well, most people could never write
a proper letter, said Thomas. Eighty
percent of people would never be able to figure out how to write to me, and so
they don’t write to me. Ten percent
write me lousy letters, and at most ten percent of the letters I get are
good. Those would be the short letters,
I said, and the telegrams. Thomas
laughed and nodded in agreement. Then
Thomas said: Yesterday I received another insufferable letter from the wife of
Ruepricht the actor, a man I’ve never liked to begin with. She wrote: “I know that you don’t want
this. Nevertheless, I’m coming to see
you this coming Saturday afternoon. Get
ready for it.”
As we were speaking, I invited Thomas over for lunch, and
Thomas told me that yesterday he and O’Donell were over at Dr. Jungk from the
agricultural commission’s house, and that Jungk gave him ridiculous
preferential treatment there, as if he were some sort of prizewinning animal or
God only knew what sort of great personality, to such an extent that O’Donell
and he himself were astonished. Well
now, I said, it’s not every day that he gets to hang out with a Büchner
prizewinner; in fact not even every year or ever again in his entire life. On top that I know from my aunt that Jungk is
a very nice person, because he was the best schoolmate of my cousin who was
killed in the war.
Then Thomas told me that Ruepricht’s wife, the woman who’s
coming this coming Saturday, had ridiculously pompous stationery with a huge
letterhead with Attersee and Litzlberg Castle and that both her Vienna
apartment and her Litzlberger address were printed above it. The mere sight of stationery like that horrified
him from the outset. Thomas also said
that he had written to his publisher Unseld that his new novel would be called Correction, and that even as he was
writing to Unseld he was nailing himself to the resolution that the novel would
be finished by the end of 1972 and published in 1973. You know, he said, I need that; I’ve got to
set myself deadlines, otherwise I don’t manage to get any work done, otherwise
a novel never comes into being, if I haven’t got to write it, if I haven’t got
to meet a deadline.
So far with everything I’ve done, I’ve always
worked under duress. Because I’ve got to
work on my new novel Correction, I’m
not going to get involved in anything whatsoever. Kaut is in for a surprise when he throws a
reception and a certain person doesn’t show up.
I’ve delivered my play, I’ve also got the money now, and if the press or
television wants something on account of the forthcoming premiere in Salzburg,
I won’t show my face anywhere. I won’t
say anything at all or about anything at all.
If the play is good, they’ll want something from me again anyway, and if
it’s a flop, I’m done for whether I give an interview beforehand or not. Kaut
is now apparently worried whether he won’t have the nerve to go through with
what he’s signed up to do. But it makes
no difference to me, I couldn’t care less what they do with my play. Hermann plans to come to see me
next week without letting me know beforehand.
That just isn’t going to be possible.
People can’t get away with thinking that just because they’re in
Salzburg they can drive straight to Bernhard’s house. Something like that deserves to be scheduled
beforehand, but at the right time. Next
week I’m going to be in Vienna. On
Tuesday Aunt Hede will be getting out of the hospital, she’s got an appointment
for a checkup at the Baumgartner Höhe on Thursday. I’ll go to Vienna no later than Wednesday, if
not as early as Tuesday afternoon. Right
afterwards I’ll take Aunt Hede to Wolfsegg.
She’s already told them she’ll be coming.
I’ve received some cough syrup from Mrs.
Schaffler. So I don’t know what it
is. It doesn’t taste like anything at
all, and I don’t even know how much of it I’m supposed to take. There was no note with it; she just sent me
the bottle on its own. Of course she’s
learned that I’m ill, because I wrote that I couldn’t receive a visit from
Canetti, and then she sent me the bottle right away. But Canetti is so far gone that anybody can
invite him over. He’s old and senile and
gives a reading in a different village every eight days.
By then Thomas had asked me several times what I
thought of the title Correction,
whether it was good or bad, or if I liked it, what I thought of it. I kept saying that the title was a very good
flash of inspiration, that it couldn’t be better. That it was a title that let you write about
anything, that it didn’t tie you to a specific theme. Yes, exactly, that’s just what I’m planning
to do, says Thomas, so I can write completely freely about everything; on top
of that there will probably be a lot of corrections.
We talked so much that I was worried that I wasn’t
going to be able to notice everything well enough to write it all down
afterwards. Accordingly I fetched a
number of courses of food from the kitchen myself and secretly took some notes
every time I was there. This time I used
the back side of a congratulatory telegram as my notepaper.
At 2:00 in the afternoon, as Thomas was saying
goodbye, I invited him to come over at 7:00 in the evening, and he said: Fine,
we’ll see each other again in a couple of hours.
After Thomas had left, I started taking down these
notes. Whenever I’m working on these
notes, my wife’s standing guard so that she can warn me so that Thomas won’t
walk in on me and see that I’m writing about him. At 3:30 my wife raises the alarm: Bernhard’s
coming, she shouts into the room at me.
Thomas still saw me clearing my stuff away, but to keep him from
noticing anything, I picked up a few business letters and receipts and
pretended that I’d been doing some business work.
Thomas said, now the catastrophe has started. A Caterpillar has already pushed the dirt
away; they’re already working on the drill.
What am I supposed to do? Thomas asked me to go with him to the post
office and to the mayor’s office right away.
He said that he wanted to call Schaffler in Salzburg right away, that he
would have to make the mining office stop the work immediately. We drove to the
post office; Schaffler was out of town, but the secretary knew the whole story
and said that a letter was on its way to Bernhard, that the mining office was
going to inspect the site and that until they had, no work whatsoever would be
allowed to take place. To be sure, if
the owner of the oil company has already signed the contract, it will be
somewhat difficult to cancel the job. No
matter what, a hearing about the drilling with all the neighbors will be held. Armed with this news we went to the town hall
to ask the mayor to stop the work. But
we had to visit the mayor at his house in Ruhsam because he wasn’t at the
hall. He said that the work ought to be
stopped immediately, that he was going to send a certain municipal official, Siegerl
Pesendorfer, to the site to demand that the work be stopped. After a telephone call to the town hall it
transpired that Pesendorfer was at a hearing about a water conduit and might
not be back in less than an hour.
Because such a huge bulldozer can move mountains of earth in an hour, I
said: We’ll drive Pesendorfer to the entrance of the drilling site ourselves
and announce to the driver of the bulldozer that the work is being stopped.
From time to time Thomas would say that his career
would be ruined if a drilling station were built there. At the building site the foreman of the
bulldozing operation was already ready to finish the work. He told us that only yesterday his boss had
ordered him with the greatest urgency to get started and that a second
bulldozer was supposed to be arriving shortly, that then the work would be
finished very quickly. And even as we
were speaking a flatbed truck arrived with a second bulldozer. This new man hesitated to follow the order to
stop, and so I gave him my card and also wrote Thomas’s address on it. I gave it to him and told him that before he
began he should go to the mayor himself and ask whether it was true that the
work was being stopped. Then he believed
us and made a very complicated U-turn so that he could drive back to Mondsee,
where the headquarters of Kothmaier the transport company is. But shortly after he left for Mondsee the
official, Pesendorfer, arrived, made the announcement to the two men, and the
case was closed. Thomas was delighted,
and we went to Maxwald’s, a.k.a. Haumer’s, house to share the news of this
situation with him. We drank five shots
of schnapps with Maxwald. By then it was
six in the evening, and Thomas said to me: We’ll celebrate this today; I’m
treating you to supper. You can pick
where we go. I said: Fine, but we’ll
have to stop by my house first so that I can tell my wife where I’ll be. We stopped by Thomas’s even before that,
dilly-daddled and shot the breeze, so that it was a quarter to seven when we
got to my house, where I told my wife that I was leaving to have dinner with
Thomas. But by then I was already so
tired and exhausted that I told Thomas that I’d prefer it if we stayed at my
house, because here I could prop my feet up on a chair and be comfortable. Thomas had no problem with this, and as my
wife was fixing something to eat, we were both overcome with fatigue; probably
the schnapps was also having its usual effect.
Then the front doorbell rang, and the Hufnagls
came in. Both of them were very loud and
brought commotion into the house. Thomas
asked me to tell the Hufnagels all about what had happened today. Because the two of them weren’t immediately
sorry for Thomas on account of that and even started laughing, Thomas got more
and more irritated at the Hufnagls. On
top of that they couldn’t grasp the thread of the whole thing. When Hufnagl finally said they’d come there
to find Thomas to invite him to dinner at Pabst’s, Thomas said: It’s
impossible, I’ve been invited to have dinner here. I added that my wife wasn’t ready to receive
visitors, that otherwise I’d gladly invite them to join us for dinner. After the Hufnagels had left, Thomas said: I
don’t know how you could ever be prepared for that much commotion. Tonight I couldn’t have put up with it a moment
longer; it was good that you didn’t insist on their staying; I never could have
put up with that. Thomas very
courteously thanked me for having helped him in this fashion today.
By then we had eaten, and I asked Thomas to write
his overdue letter to Peymannn. Well
then, let’s get down to business, Thomas said.
He typed it on my typewriter; I made sure to keep a carbon copy, which I
attach.
Ohlsdorf 4/27/1972
Dear Cluas Peymann,
Hennetmair and I have inspected the house in which you are all
supposed to lodge; I cannot imagine a more ideal refuge for your entire
collective. So please thank the man in
writing; he is a genius. From Kaut I
hear that you’ve been phoning around in search of accommodations long after
we’ve found them for you. How stupid! From
Salzburg I’m getting nothing but lousy news, skimpy but lousy news. As far as I’m concerned the story’s over
until the rehearsals; at that point I’ll allow myself to surface once or twice
so that you can curse me. I found proofreading
the play The Ignoramus very taxing.
Hermann and Bickel are bound to come, because I myself sagely
didn’t agree to their coming.
From May the second onwards I’ll be in Vienna for four or five
days, which means I won’t be here.
At the moment I’m throwing everything I’ve got into a heroic war
against an English oil company and the government, who are both determined to
drill for oil in the immediate neighborhood of my workhouse and to ruin me.
The excavator has already dug up all the dirt, but today thanks to
me the machine was stopped and pulled away.
For the time being. I abhor the use of armed force. Especially against excavator drivers and oil
magnates.
Rest assured you are a horrible human being.
What sort of director you are remains to be seen.
Very sincerely,
Thomas B.
Thomas stayed till 11:00 in the evening, and we agreed that
early tomorrow morning he would bring me the documents signed by the owner of
the drilling site, Baldinger, for photocopying, so that we’d have the documents
that were signed there ready to hand.
April 28, 1972
At 7:15 a.m. Thomas is at my house and hands me the documents
signed by Alois Baldiner in the envelope in which Uexküll had sent him the
review from Le Monde. As I had things to do in Gmunden throughout
the morning, I told Thomas that he should come to my house at 2:00 p.m., that
then I would try to help him get Baldinger to withdraw his signature. Because I think that will be necessary even
if the construction project is halted for the short term. Thomas saw that I had a pile of documents in
front of me, and I told him that I’d like to fetch the mail from the post
office at 8:00, but that I still had a lot things to take care of
beforehand. Fine, said Thomas; of
course it’s still a bit too early for my visit to the town hall anyway, but I
don’t wish to disturb you any further.
I’ll come back at two in the afternoon.
At 6:00 p.m. I saw Thomas’s car in front of the town hall; I
went into the post office. There I ran
into Pesendorfer, the official. He told
me that everything had changed again today, that the work had already been
resumed and that the building contractor was asking the mayor for a damage
settlement for the unauthorized cessation of the work. In the presence of the contractor and
Bernhard the mining authority and Salzburg was phoned, and from there it was
explained that no official permission was required for the excavation of the
topsoil or for the bulldozing. That a
cessation of the work could not be ordered.
I didn’t have time to go to Thomas at the town hall to help him, because
in the meantime I had learned that that at the tavern Baldinger was on the
verge of tears because the gentlemen at the oil company had threatened him with
a lawsuit if he didn’t sign. But I also
learned that he had been absolutely opposed to having any drilling done on his
property, but that in order not to have to deal with the lawsuit, he had
signed. It was clear to me that from
then onwards everything boiled down to getting Baldinger to withdraw his signature,
which had been extorted from him. But in
order to do that it was necessary for me to go immediately to Gmunden to have
the photocopies of the originals in my possession made so that we could
undertake something by means of the photocopies. In Gmunden I ran into Mrs. Hufnagl, who had
visited me with her ex-husband the previous day. I asked her to come immediately with me to
Tausch the tax adviser’s office, where I was having the photocopies made. I told Mrs. Hufnags that she would have to
follow me to Ohlsdorf in a taxi right away because Thomas was in a tight
spot. He needs help and the
documents. I also said that on the way
she should keep an eye out to see if Thomas wasn’t already heading to Gmunden
on the other side of the road. Towards 11:00
a.m. I was back at home and preparing the text that Baldinger was to sign.
At 1:30 p.m. Thomas came to my house in the company of Mrs.
Hufnagl. Thomas said to me that the
construction work had been stopped yet again at 10:00 a.m. because at 10:00 the
head of the mining office had called from Ohlsdorf town hall and stated that
not even any preliminary work was allowed to be carried out. He stated that he would take personal
responsibility for the cessation when the latter told him that he would be receiving
a bill from the construction company for the losses the cessation would
occasion usw. Whereupon Thomas said that
now it would be a good idea to go straight to Baldinger and ask him for the
retraction of his signature from the agreement of 4/15/1972 etc. I showed Thomas my draft of the letter to the
oil company. Thomas was elated. That’s exactly right, said Thomas; Baldinger
is just blind; he really couldn’t read it; that’s why it’ll be the way that you
say. I’m quite certain of it. This is why Baldinger will also sign this
letter. But to keep me from operating as
an amateur lawyer, let’s go to the town hall and have Secretary Möser write the
letter. We did this, and then Thomas
drove with Maxwald to Baldinger to get his signature. In Maxwald’s house I waited for the two of
them with Mrs. Hufnagl, who accompanied us all along the way. A fair amount of time passed before Thomas
came back with Maxwald, because Baldinger had had to be fetched from the woods
first. Baldinger naturally signed and
in conversation confirmed that the gentlemen had threatened him with a lawsuit
if he didn’t sign. I said to Thomas: now
the head of the mining office [Franz Prezelj] is completely covered, because
even his cessation wasn’t yet legally binding.
He will be glad to find this letter available this coming Tuesday, on
which he has agreed to make a personal appearance. Thanks to Baldinger’s signed letter of April
28, 1972, the mayor and the head of the mining office are covered. Therefore before the end of the day I will
also leave a photocopy at the town hall and at the same time take the letter to
the post office.
By then it was 4:30 p.m., and Thomas drove with Mrs Hufnagl to
Lederau to see Mrs. Schmied. They were
all planning to meet in Laakirchen in the evening. Before they could do that Hufnagl the
architect would have to get back from Wörgl, where he’s involved in the
construction of that school.
April 29, 1972
At 8:30 a.m. my wife came into the bedroom and said to me,
Thomas is here. If I want to, I should
get up, but I don’t have to; he’d like to speak to me, but only if it’s
convenient; otherwise he’ll come back later.
Naturally, I jumped right into the shower. I was fine with getting out of bed. Thomas wanted to know how things were going
to play out, whether the gentlemen from the oil company wouldn’t badger
Baldinger again and bring him round to signing, whether those gentlemen
wouldn’t insist on everyone’s sticking to the 4/15 and, and who would have to
reimburse the workers involved in the bulldozing. I said to Thomas: I don’t know how things are
going to play out, because I’m not a clairvoyant. I’ve hardly been the judge and jury of the
case; one again you want to know what’s going to happen and how things are
going to play out. One thing is
certain—that these gentlemen won’t insist on the legality of the signature of 4/15
and that they’re not going file a lawsuit about it either, because they
themselves will let sleeping dogs lie.
Because otherwise, it would of course come to light that in acting on
the agreement they had been in violation of the law. Because they hired the workers illegally,
they are legally obligated to reimburse them and will have to restore the
property to its original state. Yes,
says Thomas, but if Baldinger is bowled over again, if he doesn’t dare say that
they threatened him with a lawsuit and that he didn’t want the thing to happen,
etc. What’s more, there are quite a lot
of witnesses here who know how it was realized.
Baldinger can only tell the truth, as he told it to everybody and to you
and even to Maxwald. Having been
pacified in this way to some extent, Thomas left after an hour.
April 30, 1972
At 6:00 in the evening Thomas came to me and said he wanted to
stay till 7:00, when he would be meeting the Hufnagls and O’Donell for dinner
at Pabst’s in Laakirchen.
I asked Thomas if he had run into Mrs. Rueprecht from
Litzlberg. I ran away, said Thomas. Yesterday I was at the Hunting Lodge
Restaurant in Offensee with O’Donell.
Archduke Johann was having a VW bus washed with a hose when we got
there. There were only four tables,
where lunch was being served. The whole
building is execrable, both inside and out, and it doesn’t fit into the
neighborhood either. Whereupon I said to
Thomas, I said the same thing to my wife when I was there a few weeks ago. When you see that, you’ll say that. I am entirely of your opinion. But of course, said Thomas, that kind of
architect talked the dopey boy into something, and he simply did it. But in financial hindsight it’s turning out
to be a complete washout. The food is
wretched, and everything about the décor and furniture is atrocious. To avoid coming home too early I walked
around the lake with O’Donell afterwards, and then we also went to the
Forellenhof. The staff there also just
stand around like at the Offensee. The
whole thing’s a washout, there’s no business, how is something like that
supposed to pay off? What enormous investments! People just don’t want such pubs, everything
made out of glass, etc. Like an actual
woodcutter’s hut, that’s what pubs should be like. Small, a space in which the guests sit all
mixed together and where you’ve got to associate with the locals. The old Hunting Lodge should have been turned
into a guesthouse but also left the way it was.
When I got home, said Thomas, there was naturally no sign of
Mrs. Rueprecht there. But Erika (Dr.
Wieland Schmied’s wife) had thrown in a note to me stating that she had already
gone home to Germany. When she got back
from supper at Pabst’s, there were six men in her bed. People had already squatted in the house in
the past; probably once again people were thinking there was nobody in the
house. On top of that, Erika wrote, she
had been at the police station for four hours and had a minor accident. Whether she was there in connection with the
six men or the accident or as a witness, I can’t figure out why she was at the
police station so long. I said to
Thomas: We should go over there in a few days.
Then at the office we’ll learn all about what was going on. Because it’s interesting, whatever might have
happened.
Thomas also told me that he had seen the car accident that
happened between Steyermühl and Vorchdorf, which was reported in today’s Kronen Zeitung. Thomas looked at the clock; it was 7:00 p.m. They’re already waiting on me now, he said,
I’ve got to leave; otherwise it’s completely off. With that Thomas said good night.
END OF PART III
Translation unauthorized but Copyright ©2019 by Douglas Robertson . Source: Karl Ignaz Hennetmair,Ein Jahr mit Thomas Bernhard. Das versiegelte Tagebuch 1972. Sankt Pölten: Residenz Verlag, 2014.
2 comments:
Thanks.
Many thanks for this.
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