Old Masters (10 page)

Eroica,
and I listen attentively and I actually get into a philosophical-mathematical state and I remain in a philosophical-mathematical state for a long time, Reger said, until all of a sudden I
see
the creator of the
Eroica
and everything is spoiled for me, because
in Beethoven everything is really marching,
I listen to the
Eroica,
which is in fact philosophical music, thoroughly philosophical and mathematical music, Reger said, and suddenly it is all spoiled for me and ruined because, while the Philharmonic play it in such a matter-of-fact way, I hear Beethoven's failure from one moment to the next,
hear
his failure,
see
his march-music head, you know what I mean, Reger said. Beethoven by then has become unbearable to me, just as I find it unbearable when I hear one of our big-bellied or thin-bellied singers kill the
Winterreise
with his singing, you understand, because that lieder-singing singer wearing tails and resting his hand on the piano while singing
The Crow is
always unbearable to me and ridiculous, he is a caricature from the outset, there is nothing more ridiculous, Reger said, than a lieder- or aria-singing singer leaning against the grand piano in tails. How magnificent is Schubert's music when we do not see it being performed, when we do not see those abysmally dull-witted conceited curly-haired interpreters, but we do, of course, see them when we are in the concert hall and everything as a result becomes embarrassing and ridiculous and an acoustic and visual disaster. I do not know, Reger said, if the pianists are more ridiculous and more embarrassing than the singers by the piano, it is a question of the state of mind we happen to be in at the moment. Of course anything we see while music is being performed is ridiculous, a caricature, and therefore embarrassing, he said. The singer is ridiculous and embarrassing, he may sing as he will, no matter whether tenor or bass, and all women singers are invariably even more ridiculous and embarrassing, no matter how they are gowned or what they sing, he said. A person bowing or plucking on the podium - it is too ridiculous, he said. Even the
obese smelly
Bach at the organ of Saint Thomas's Church was only a ridiculous and deeply embarrassing figure, there can be no argument about that. No, no, all artists, even if they are the most important ones and, as it were, the greatest, are nothing except kitschy and embarrassing and ridiculous. Toscanini, Furtwängler, the one too small and the other too tall, ridiculous and kitschy. And if you go to the theatre the ridiculousness and the embarrassment and the kitsch make you feel positively sick. No matter what or how the people speak, they make you feel sick. If they speak classical parts they make you feel sick, if they speak popular parts they make you feel sick. And what else are all those classical and modern so-called high or popular dramas but theatrical ridiculousness and kitschy embarrassment, he said. The whole world today is ridiculous and at the same time profoundly embarrassing and kitschy, that is the truth. Irrsigler was stepping up to Reger and once more whispering something in his ear. Reger stood up, looked about himself and left the Bordone Room with Irrsigler. I glanced at my watch, there were ten minutes to go to half-past eleven. One reason why I had come to the museum as early as half-past ten was to be absolutely punctual, for Reger demanded nothing more than punctuality, just as I myself always demand punctuality more than anything else, in fact punctuality to me is the most important thing in dealing with people. I can only bear the punctual ones, I cannot bear an unpunctual person. Punctuality is an essential characteristic of Reger just as it is one of my essential characteristics, when I have an appointment I keep it
strictly punctually,
just as Reger keeps all his appointments punctually, he has given me numerous lectures on punctuality, just as he has on reliability; punctuality and reliability are the most important aspects of a person, Reger has very frequently said to me. I may say that I am a thoroughly punctual person, I have always hated unpunctuality and besides I have never been able to afford it. Reger is the most punctual person I know. He has
never in his whole life been late, at least not through his own fault,
as he says, just as I have never in my whole life been late, at least not in my adult life, through my own fault, unpunctual people to me are the most hateful people, I have nothing in common with unpunctual people, I do not keep up with unpunctual people, I have nothing to do with unpunctual people and I do not wish to have anything to do with them. Unpunctuality is a characteristic of gross negligence, which I despise and detest, which brings nothing but demoralization and misfortune to people.
Unpunctuality
is a disease which leads to the death of the
unpunctual,
Reger once said to me. Reger had got up and left the Bordone Room just as a group of elderly men, Russians as I was immediately able to establish, was entering the Bordone Room, led, as I likewise established just as quickly, by a Ukrainian woman interpreter, and passed me, moreover passed me in such a way that they forced me aside and into the corner. People will crowd into a room, pushing a person aside without even apologizing, I reflected, and already I found myself pushed against the wall. Reger had left the Bordone Room after Irrsigler had whispered something in his ear and at just that moment the Russian group had entered the Bordone Room and taken up position in the Bordone Room, entering the Bordone Room and taking up position in the Bordone Room in such a way that I was no longer able to look into the Bordone Room from the Sebastiano Room; the Russian group had totally blocked my view of the Bordone Room. I only saw the backs of the Russian group and heard what the Ukrainian interpreter had to offer to them, like all other guides in the Kunsthistorisches Museum she was talking nonsense, it was nothing but the usual sickening art twaddle that she stuffed into the heads of her Russian victims.
Look at this,
she said,
look at this mouth, and here,
she said,
look at these projecting ears, and here, look at this delicate pink on the angel's cheek, and here in the background you can see the horizon,
as if everybody could not see all these things in the Tintoretto paintings without those inane remarks. Museum guides invariably treat their charges as dimwits, invariably as the worst dimwits, whereas in fact they never are such dimwits, they explain to them chiefly those things which can, of course, be seen perfectly clearly and therefore do not need to be explained, yet they explain and explain and point and point and talk and talk. The museum guides are nothing but conceited twaddling machines, switched on for the duration of a group's tour through the museum, such twaddling machines utter the same words year after year. The museum guides are nothing but conceited art twaddlers who do not have the faintest idea about art but unscrupulously exploit art with their distasteful twaddle. The museum guides rattle off their art twaddle all year long and collect a pile of money for it. I had been pushed into the corner by the Russian group and saw nothing but those Russian backs, that is to say nothing but heavy Russian winter coats, all of them exuding a penetrating smell of naphthalene, since the Russian group had evidently had to make their way straight from their bus to the picture gallery in a drizzle. As I have suffered from respiratory problems for many decades and in any case feel, several times a day, that I am
about to choke,
even out of doors, those moments, which in fact were minutes, behind the Russian group were repulsive to me, pressed against the wall of the Bordone Room I was all the time inhaling air reeking of naphthalene, air much too heavy for my weak lungs. After all, I find it difficult enough to breathe in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, let alone under such conditions as the arrival of the Russian group. The Ukrainian guide talked to the Russian group in what is known as classical Muscovite Russian and I understood most of it, but she had a terrible, positively painful, pronunciation if she said anything in German, the
way
she said the word
Engelskopf
was quite ghastly. I was unable at first to say whether the interpreter had come from Russia with the Russian group or whether she was one of those Russian
émigrées
who had come to Vienna after the war and who are still coming to Vienna, those Russian Jewish
émigrée
women who are highly intelligent and who have always set the fashion behind the scenes in Vienna, which has invariably been of advantage to Viennese intellectual society. These Russian Jewish
émigrée
women are the real intellectual seasoning of Viennese society life, they have always been just that, without them Viennese intellectual life would be uninteresting. Admittedly these people, if, as it were, they turn megalomaniac and try to dominate absolutely everything, also soon get on your nerves, but then this woman interpreter was not exactly a prime example of the kind of Russian women
émigrées
I
have in mind, if indeed she was such a Russian
émigrée;
she looked to me more as if she had come to Vienna from Russia with her Russian group, the way she spoke to the Russian group in
their Russian
argued against the assumption that she was a Russian
émigrée
and in favour of her having come to Vienna with the Russian group, and quite possibly arrived in Vienna from Russia only that very day, at least that is what I immediately thought when I had taken a closer look at her clothes, in particular her boots, there was in fact nothing Western about her, she probably was a communist who had been trained as an art historian, I thought as I scrutinized her from head to toe, as it were, the moment I had an opportunity to do so. The Russian women
émigrées
I
have mentioned, after all, dress in a predominantly Western manner, albeit not as Western as real Westerners, but in a Western manner all the same. No, that interpreter is not a Russian
émigrée,
I thought, she crossed the frontier with the Russian group last night and did not even sleep last night, any more than the Russian group in her charge, the group has come to the museum straight from Russia, as it were, and straight from their dirty bus, I thought, that's what she looked like, that's what the woman interpreter looked like, that's what the group looked like. Because the Russian group was blocking my view I could not now see the velvet settee in the Bordone Room, I could not therefore see whether Reger was still outside or whether he had meanwhile returned to the room. The Sebastiano Room, where I was standing pressed against the wall, is the worst ventilated room in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, and of all places, I reflected, I had to be pushed against the wall by the Russian group in the Sebastiano Room, and of all people, I reflected, by such a crowd smelling of garlic and mud and dampness. I have always detested crowds, I have avoided them all my life, I have never gone to any meeting, no matter what, because of my detestation of crowds, just as Reger, incidentally, had not either, I hate nothing more profoundly than the multitude, than a crowd, I continually believe, even without seeking them out, that I am going to be crushed by the multitude or by the crowd. Even as a child I avoided multitudes, I detested crowds, the accumulation of people, the concentration of vileness and mindlessness and lies. Much as we
should
love each individual, I believe, so we hate the mass. Of course this Russian group was not the first I had encountered at the Kunsthistorisches Museum or that, as it were, assaulted me at the Kunsthistorisches Museum and pushed me against the wall, Russian groups have lately been coming to the Kunsthistorisches Museum in greater numbers, indeed it seems as if there are now more Russian groups at the Kunsthistorisches Museum than Italian ones. The Russians and the Italians always appear at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in groups, whereas the English never appear in groups but always on their own, the French likewise always appear on their own. There are days when the Russian guides, men and women, have a shouting match with the Italians and the Kunsthistorisches Museum becomes a shouting house. That, of course, mostly happens on Saturdays, that is on a day when Reger and I
never
go to the Kunsthistorisches Museum; that Reger and I have come to the Kunsthistorisches Museum today, on a Saturday, is an exception to the rule and, as can be seen, we have done well not to go to the Kunsthistorisches Museum on a Saturday, even though admission on Saturdays is free, as it is also on Sundays. I would sooner pay those twenty schillings for a ticket, Reger said to me once, than be exposed to those ghastly groups. Exposing oneself to groups of museum visitors is a punishment of heaven, I cannot think of anything more terrible, Reger said to me once. No doubt it was a punishment of heaven for him, albeit a self-invited one, that he made an appointment with me at the Kunsthistorisches Museum on this Saturday of all days, I thought, wondering about his purpose and unable to answer my question. Needless to say I should also have liked to know what it was Irrsigler had whispered in his ear, the first time it was something which evidently did not concern him in the least, and the second time it was something which made Reger immediately get up from the settee in the Bordone Room and walk out of the Bordone Room. Irrsigler misses no opportunity to point out that his is a
position of trust,
it is touching the way he says it, and he says it so often that it becomes more touching with each repetition. Irrsigler nods his head when Reger arrives and he spots him, he does not do so when he sees
me.
Three times already Irrsigler has received a loan from Reger for the purpose of furnishing his flat, a loan over several years, which he did not in the end have to repay to Reger. Reger had repeatedly made Irrsigler presents of clothes he no longer wears, truly top-quality treasures from the most superb tweed material; as Reger once said to me: