Extinction (22 page)

task. It was no good assuring them that I went to the library only to read. You go to the library to pursue your
perverse thoughts
, my mother would insist, no matter how often I protested that I went to the library in order to read and for no other purpose, and that I did nothing else there. I repeatedly swore that I went to the library only to read, that I spent my time there
reading
. She would not be convinced but called me a liar and repeatedly maintained that I had gone to the library to pursue my
perverse thoughts
. When I asked her what she meant by my
perverse thoughts
, she refused to answer but called me a troublemaker, as she had so often since my early childhood. She added that I was an impudent liar and walked off. She constantly suspected me
of pursuing perverse thoughts
. She probably had no idea what she meant by this, but it became a stock reproach, and even in company I was not safe from it. At dinner, in the presence of strangers, usually the kind of guests I found most repugnant—middle-class people from the neighboring small towns whom she had known since childhood and still kept up with—she would say that I was always pursuing my
perverse thoughts
. I have to say that my mother loved my brother, Johannes, above all because he never felt any need to visit the libraries. Johannes, she would say, doesn’t go to the library to pursue
perverse thoughts:
he goes to the Huntsmen’s Lodge, where it’s fun. In my view, based on experience, the fun at the Huntsmen’s Lodge was of a fairly basic and vulgar variety, consisting in the endless recital of crude and utterly vulgar jokes that I could never find amusing without feeling dirty. This was the main reason that I abhorred the Huntsmen’s Lodge, whereas my mother always enjoyed the crude, basic, and abysmally primitive jokes that circulated at the Huntsmen’s Lodge. Nothing delighted her more, and she always left the Huntsmen’s Lodge with tears of laughter in her eyes—which on one occasion even my father called perverse. You go to the Gardeners’ House, she used to say to me, where it’s all so boring—that’s typical. She thought nothing of spending half the night with the huntsmen, joining in their brainless songs, pressing up close to them on a bench, and permitting them to make unequivocal verbal passes at her; indeed, as the evening progressed she would not object to their making physical passes or even, I have to say, pinching her bottom. When my brother had finished his homework he was always told he had done well, but when I had finished mine they always found
something to criticize, noticing a mistake here, an irregularity there, and constantly upbraiding me for what they called my illegible writing. If my brother came home with a good mark they naturally praised him, but in my case a good mark was acknowledged only by a reluctantly friendly nod. I recall that my brother was given the best bed linen, unlike the worn sheets that I had to sleep on, and first-class pillows, unlike mine, which were patched and mended. My stockings, coats, and jackets had to last longer than his; his clothes were replaced when they became dirty or had unsightly holes in them, but it was no use my asking for new clothes. If I did I was called a
wastrel
, but they never called my brother a wastrel. I do not think my parents ever treated me fairly, for even in my early childhood they had a feeling that I might be superior to them, though I cannot say exactly what prompted this feeling. Only my grandparents were fair to me. They treated me just as they treated Johannes; for them there was no difference between their grandsons, or at least they made no difference between us. Our happiest times at Wolfsegg were when our grandparents were alive. This was natural, I once told Gambetti, as they showed no favoritism. As soon as they died I became aware that my parents wished to punish me because they thought my grandparents had treated me better than my brother. This was not true, but it was what my parents always imagined, especially my mother. It was as though our parents, after the death of our grandparents, had thought to themselves, Now we must turn our attention to Johannes, who had a raw deal from his grandparents; we must treat him particularly well because he was always put down by his grandparents and had to suffer from the favoritism they showed to his brother. The truth is that my brother was never put down by our grandparents, nor was I ever shown favoritism. Our parents, however, believing that I had been at an advantage and my brother at a disadvantage, decided that from now on I should be made to pay for what they imagined to have been the case, though it bore no relation to the truth. And so, once our grandparents were dead, our parents always treated Johannes with affection and me with aversion, and in due course the favoritism they showed him became unbearable, and its effect was compounded by the aversion they showed to me. They became accustomed, in short, to loving my brother and hating me. It’s absurd, I had told Gambetti on the Pincio, that in a
house that boasts five libraries the mind should be held not only in low regard but in positive contempt. I have to suppose that one library was not enough for those who built Wolfsegg and were its first occupants. They had a natural need for thought and intellectual activity and were undoubtedly passionate thinkers, who were devoted to mental endeavor and made thinking their chief preoccupation, as so much of the evidence we have about them shows. They were convinced that the consummation of human existence was to lead a life of thought, a life centered on the mind, Gambetti, not one bounded by everyday concerns and everyday stolidity, as my family believed. What times those were, when understanding was elevated to the plane of thought and to think was the supreme imperative! Today everything that once distinguished Wolfsegg has atrophied, having been consciously belittled by successive generations and actually trodden in the dirt in the past century, above all in recent decades. They provided themselves not just with one library but with five, I told Gambetti—the upper left library, the upper right, the lower left, the lower right, and the one in the Children’s Villa. For centuries all branches of learning were represented in them, all schools of thought, all the arts. On one occasion, Gambetti, I had retired to the upper left library to read Jean Paul’s
Siebenkäs
, which was incidentally one of Uncle Georg’s favorite books. Poring over it for hours, I gradually forgot everything around me, including the fact that at the time I was supposed to be helping my mother sort her mail. I had forgotten that on alternate Saturdays I had to go to her writing room, as it was called, at six o’clock in the evening to sort her letters.
Siebenkäs
had made me forget everything, including my mother’s instructions. Every Saturday between six and seven she used to sit in her writing room and have either me or my brother sort the letters that had arrived during the week into the exact order of their receipt. Having sorted them, I had to put them in a certain spot on her desk. While sorting the letters I was able to have a quiet talk with my mother, which was not possible at any other time. She would meanwhile deal with her correspondence and give me a chance to consult her on various matters. Although she never liked it when I asked what she considered importunate questions, I was allowed to do so while sorting the mail, and she was prepared to answer them. This routine of sorting the mail in the writing room during the brief
hour before supper gave me my one opportunity to get close to my mother. Sometimes she herself would address a kind, even affectionate, word to me. As I sorted the mail I often felt that I loved my mother, indeed that I loved her dearly. As I looked at her from the side, her face seemed beautiful, though at other times I was put off by its ordinariness. The feeble light cast by the lamp on her desk was flattering and showed her face to advantage, I told Gambetti on the Pincio. When I had sorted the letters and placed them on the desk, she would sometimes look up from her correspondence and place her hand on my head, almost tenderly. Then, as though instantly ashamed of this gesture, she would withdraw her hand and dismiss me. She would take her hand away and promptly return to her correspondence, as though suddenly realizing that I was not Johannes. But I wanted to tell you something else, Gambetti. It was nine o’clock when, having ensconced myself in the upper left library to read
Siebenkäs
and forgotten all about sorting the mail, I suddenly woke up, as it were, in a state of alarm and put the book aside. I left the library, which, as you know, was more or less off limits, and went down to join the others, who had long since finished supper. For five hours I had been rooted to my seat in the library, reading
Siebenkäs
, and had forgotten not only about the mail but also about supper. I came downstairs, Gambetti, to find them all sitting in the green drawing room, waiting for me. I was received in silence. After a while, during which my brother waited in gleeful anticipation of what was about to happen, my mother took me to task without so much as looking at me, demanding to know where I had been, why I had not turned up to sort the mail, and how it was that I had put the finishing touch to my customary insolence by not only ignoring the sorting of the mail but also failing to appear for supper. There was no excuse, she said, or at least none that she could imagine, for ignoring my obligation to sort the mail and leaving them to have supper without me. They had all been extremely worried about my whereabouts, she said, thinking of all the dreadful things that could have happened to me. Did I realize what terrible anxiety I’d caused her? You’ve no excuse whatever for not turning up to sort the mail and for missing supper, she said. She had still not deigned to look at me. Then she rounded on me and said,
You’re a monster!
If I’m not mistaken you’ve been in the library! And what have
you been doing there? You’ve been pursuing your
perverse thoughts
again. My father, my brother, and my sisters waited tensely for the culmination of the accusation, their whole attention fixed on me as I stood terrified in the doorway. I was perhaps nine or ten at the time—I’m not sure exactly. I was trembling all over. My sisters, though still only very small girls, were agog with malevolent excitement, longing to see some sensational punishment meted out to me after my mother’s pitiless scolding. Now, what were you really doing in the library? my mother asked. I was reading
Siebenkäs
, I replied. Whereupon she jumped up, boxed my ears, and sent me to bed. My real punishment was to be locked in my room without food for three days. I sat down at my table and for three days did nothing but howl, while my sisters incessantly ran to and fro outside the door, gleefully shouting
Siebenkäs, Siebenk
ä
s, Siebenkäs
. If you ever read
Siebenkäs
, my dear Gambetti, don’t forget this little story, I said. Does Gambetti still remember this story after all this time, I wondered, now that I’ve actually given him the book to read? All the books I read at Wolfsegg have a
subsequent history
like this; they are all linked to a
subsequent history
(or
prehistory!
) that has affected my whole life, I thought, though not always such a sad one. My mother had no idea what
Siebenkäs
was, Gambetti, and thought I was kidding her. When she was in Rome five years ago in the fall—you remember—I naturally took her on a tour of the city. But she was bored to death. All she wanted to see were the famous shops, especially those on the Corso and the Via Condotti. She had a long list of these famous shops and planned her walks accordingly, but she had listed them alphabetically, which she soon saw was a mistake, as their alphabetical order bore no relation to their locations. We visited one famous shop after another, especially in the vicinity of the Piazza di Spagna, and never spent less than half an hour at any one of them; in most of them she spent up to an hour, and this drove me almost to distraction. My mother has a quite primitive craze for jewelry, I told Gambetti, and so she rushed from one jeweler to another in search of not just one ring or one necklace that suited her taste but masses of them. I was extremely reluctant to accompany her, as you can imagine, but I had no choice. As you know, I disapprove of people who want to see only famous monuments and churches, but I must say that I have never known anybody with such a shameless and undisguised lack of
interest in the countless cultural treasures that Rome has to offer. My mother went to see Saint Peter’s. I took her there, and she was of course thrilled by the Bernini altar, which I detest, but aside from this she saw nothing during her stay in Rome but the interior decor of Roman jewelry shops and fashion houses. On my recommendation she stayed at the Hassler, which was too old-fashioned for her. She found fault with everything there, although the Hassler is undoubtedly the best hotel in Rome and perhaps one of the three or four best in the world. Nothing was good enough for her. In the end she’d made so many purchases that she didn’t know what to do with them, and her room was piled high with parcels. We had five invitations to dinner with relatives, and of course with our friend Zacchi, I told Gambetti, but she accepted only one—not Zacchi’s, as you may imagine, but the Austrian ambassador’s, because she took it to be the grandest, though it was as boring as usual. The company at the embassy dinner consisted of the usual brainless diplomats and their even more brainless wives, who spent two hours reeling off their social inanities. But you must be wondering why I’m telling you all this, Gambetti. I’ll come to the point. On our way from the Hassler to the Austrian Embassy, my mother, quite suddenly and apropos of nothing, reverted to something that had happened years ago, in fact decades ago. What was this
Siebenkäs
that I had teased her with years ago? For decades she had been obsessed with the
Siebenkäs
episode, which I now realized had affected her as much as it had affected me. We had left the Hassler, Gambetti, on one of those wonderful Roman evenings that make you believe in paradise, and we’d gone only a few yards when she asked me, What is
Siebenkäs?
Can you tell me? I told her that