Old Masters (11 page)

everything I wear comes from the Hebrides.
But Irrsigler gets little opportunity to wear Reger's sartorial treasures because all week long he is on duty in his uniform at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, except Mondays, but on Monday he is at home in his dungarees because his Mondays are invariably taken up with domestic jobs. He does everything himself. He does his own painting, he does his own carpentry, he nails and drills and even welds everything himself. Eighty per cent of all Austrians spend their leisure time in dungarees, Reger maintains, and most of them even on Sundays and holidays, the majority of all Austrians walk around in working clothes on Sundays and holidays, painting and nailing and welding. An Austrian's leisure hours are his real working hours, Reger maintains. Most Austrians do not know what to do with their leisure time and so they will kill it dull-wittedly. All week long they sit in their offices or stand at their workplaces, Reger says, and invariably on Sundays and holidays one can see them, without exception, slipping on their dungarees and performing jobs at home, they paint their own four walls or hammer nails into their roofs or wash their cars. Irrsigler, Reger says, is such a typical Austrian, and the Burgenlanders are the most typical Austrians anyway. A Burgenlander gets into his Sunday best for only two, or at the most three hours once a week to go to church, the rest of the time he wears his dungarees, which are his working clothes, and this he will do as long as he lives, Reger says. A Burgenlander works all the week in his dungarees, he sleeps strikingly little but well, and on Sundays and holy days he goes to church in his Sunday best to sing a hymn to the Lord, only to slip out of his Sunday best and back into his dungarees immediately afterwards. A Burgenlander is still a typical peasant even in today's industrial society, even if a Burgenlander has worked in a factory for a number of decades he still remains the peasant his ancestors were, a Burgenlander will always be a peasant, Reger says. Irrsigler has lived in Vienna for a great many years and yet he has remained a peasant, Reger said. A peasant, incidentally, has always been comfortable in uniform, Reger said. A peasant either remains a peasant or he slips on a uniform, Reger said. If there are several children one will remain a peasant and the rest will slip on a state uniform or the Christian Catholic uniform, this is how it has always been, Reger said. A Burgenlander is either a peasant or he slips on a uniform; if he cannot be a peasant or slip on a uniform he inevitably comes to grief, Reger said. The peasantry, when it wished to escape from peasantry, has always, for centuries, escaped into a uniform, Reger said. Irrsigler, he believed, had been lucky because posts as stateemployed attendants at the Kunsthistorisches Museum only come up every few years, in fact only when one of the attendants leaves or dies. Burgenlanders were favoured for employment as museum attendants — why, that he, Irrsigler, could not say, but it was a fact that the majority of museum attendants in Vienna were Burgenlanders. Probably, Irrsigler suggested on one occasion, because Burgenlanders were regarded as particularly honest but also as particularly stupid and undemanding. Because they, the Burgenlanders, even today still had an
intact character.
When he considered what things were like in the police, then he was glad the police had not accepted him. He also mentioned that at one time he had had an idea of entering a monastery, because there too a person's clothes were provided, and the monasteries were nowadays looking for replacements as never before; however, as a
lay brother
in a monastery he would
only have been exploited by those in superior positions,
as he expressed himself,
by the priests who made a rather pleasant life for themselves in the monasteries at the expense of the lay brothers who were totally subject to them.
All he would have done there, he said, was
chop wood and feed the pigs
and in summer thin out the cabbages and in winter shovel the monastery paths clear of snow. The lay brothers in the monasteries are poor worms, Irrsigler once said, he did not wish to be a poor worm. Although his parents would have been pleased to see him enter a monastery;
I could have entered at once,
he said, he had actually been on the point of entering one in the Tyrol. To be a lay brother was even worse than being a convict in a penal institution, Irrsigler said.
The monks in holy orders had it made for them,
he said,
but the lay brothers
were
nothing but slaves.
In the monasteries, he said, medieval slavery still existed as far as the lay brothers were concerned, it was no joke being a lay brother and at mealtimes all they got were the left-overs. He had had no wish to be a servant to pot-bellied theologians, to what Reger called
abusers of God,
who enjoyed a life of plenty in the monasteries, he had said
no
at the right moment. On one occasion Reger had gone to the Prater with the Irrsigler family, Reger's wife by then had been very ill. Contact with children always bothered him, Reger said, he had always only been able to stand children for a very short time, he had not to be in the middle of a
work process
when meeting children, it had been an adventure inviting the Irrsigler family to a visit to the Prater but he, Reger, had for some time felt that he owed something to Irrsigler,
because in actual fact I make use at the
Kunsthistorisches
Museum of something I am not entitled to, I sit for hours on the settee in the
Bordone
Room,
Reger said,
in order to think, in order to reflect and even in order to read books and essays, I sit on the
Bordone
Room settee which is provided there for normal visitors to the museum, not for me, and quite certainly not for me over a period of thirty years,
Reger said. I expect Irrsigler to let me sit on the Bordone Room settee every other day without being entitled to expect this, after all quite often other people in the Bordone Room would like to sit down on the Bordone Room settee but cannot do so because I am sitting on the Bordone Room settee, Reger said. By now the Bordone Room settee has more or less become a prerequisite of my thinking, Reger again said to me yesterday, the Bordone Room settee suits me much better than the Ambassador, where I also have an ideal seat for thinking, on the Bordone Room settee I think with a much greater intensity than I do at the Ambassador, where I also think since I never discontinue my thinking, Reger said, as you know
I think all the time,
indeed I also think in my sleep, but on the Bordone Room settee I think the way I have to think, therefore I sit on the Bordone Room settee for thinking. Every other day I sit on the Bordone Room settee, Reger said, naturally not every day, for that really would be destructive, I mean if I sat on the Bordone Room settee every day, that would destroy everything within me that I value, and nothing of course is more valuable to me than thinking, I think therefore I live, I live therefore I think, Reger said, I therefore sit on the Bordone Room settee every other day and remain sitting there on the Bordone Room settee for at least three or four hours, which of course means no less then than that I occupy the Bordone Room settee for those three or four, sometimes five, hours for my exclusive use and no one else can sit on the Bordone Room settee. For the exhausted visitors to the museum, who enter the Bordone Room totally exhausted and would like to sit down on the Bordone Room settee, it is of course unfortunate that I am sitting on the Bordone Room settee but I cannot do otherwise, even as I wake up at home I already think about sitting on the Bordone Room settee as soon as possible in order not to fall prey to despair; if ever I were unable to sit on the Bordone Room settee I should be in the depths of despair, Reger said. Throughout these more than thirty years Irrsigler has always kept the Bordone Room settee for me, Reger said, only once did I come to the Bordone Room and found the Bordone Room settee occupied, an Englishman in plus-fours had sat down on the Bordone Room settee and was not to be induced to get up from the Bordone Room settee, not even in response to Irrsigler's insistent pleas, not even in response to my pleas, it was all no use, the Englishman remained seated on the Bordone Room settee, Reger said, and took no notice either of me or of Irrsigler. He had come specially from England, or more correctly from Wales, to the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna in order to look at the
White-Bearded
Man,
the Englishman from Wales said, according to Reger, and he could see no reason why he should get up from the settee which was surely intended for visitors to the museum who were particularly interested in Tintoretto's
White-Bearded
Man. I
had argued with the Englishman for some time, but the Englishman eventually no longer listened, he was therefore no longer interested in what I was saying in order to make him understand how important sitting on the Bordone Room settee was for me, what significance the Bordone Room settee had for me. Irrsigler had told the Englishman, who incidentally was wearing a high-quality Scottish jacket, Reger said, that the settee on which he was sitting was reserved for me, which of ourse was totally contrary to regulations since not a single settee in the Kunsthistorisches Museum can ever be a reserved settee, by this remark Irrsigler had placed himself in the wrong, Reger said, but he actually said the settee was reserve.; the Englishman, however, had taken no notice either of who t Irrsigler had said to him nor of what I had said to him with regard to the Bordone Room settee, he had calmly let us speak while making notes on a little notepad, presumably, as I assumed, relating to the
White-Bearded
Man.
The Englishman from Wales might
possibly be an interesting person
, I
thought, Reger said, and I thought that rather than engaging on m feet in a by then pointless and useless argument about the Bo done Room settee, whose importance to me I should have never been able to make him understand, I would simply sit down .n the settee next to the Englishman from Wales, and so, nee. less to say, in all politeness I quite simply sat down on the settee next to him. The Englishman from Wales moved a few centimetres over to the right so that I could sit down on the left. I had never before sat on the Bordone Room settee
à
deux,
as it were, this was the first time. Irrsigler was obviously relieved that by sitting down on the Bordone Room settee I had defused the situation and he presently disappeared in response to a brief signal from me, Reger said, while I, just as the Englishman from Wales, once more inspected the
White-Bearded
Man.
Are you really interested in the
White-Bearded
Man
?
I
asked the Englishman and received, as a kind of delayed response, a short nod of his English head. My question had been nonsensical and I instantly regretted having put it; I thought, Reger said, I have just asked one of the stupidest questions that could be asked, and I decided to say no more and to wait in complete silence for the Englishman to get up and leave. But the Englishman had no intention of getting up and leaving, on the contrary he took out of his jacket pocket a thicker book, bound in black leather and read something in it; he alternately read his book and looked up at the
White-Bearded
Man,
while I had noticed that he used
Aqua
brava,
a toilet water that I find by no means unpleasant. If that Englishman uses
Aqua
brava,
I
thought, he has good taste. People who use
Aqua
brava
all have good taste, an Englishman, moreover an Englishman from Wales, who uses
Aqua
brava
is
therefore not unlikeable to me, I thought, Reger said. Now and again Irrsigler appeared on the scene to see whether the Englishman had by then disappeared, Reger said, but the Englishman had no intention of disappearing, he would read several pages of his black leather book and then for several minutes study the
White-Bearded
Man
and the other way about, and it looked as if he intended
to remain seated on the
Bordone
Room settee for a very long time.
Anything they tackle the English tackle thoroughly, just as the Germans, whenever art is concerned, Reger said, and in all my life I had never seen a more thorough Englishman where art was concerned. No doubt the man sitting next to me was a so-called art expert and I thought, Reger said, you have always hated art experts and now you are sitting next to such an art expert and actually find him likeable, not only because he uses
Aqua
brava,
not only because of his high-quality Scottish clothes, but gradually likeable generally, Reger said. Anyway, Reger said, the Englishman read his black leather book for at least half an hour or more and just as long looked at Tintoretto's
White-Bearded
Man,
in other words he sat next to me on the Bordone Room settee for a whole hour, until he abruptly got up, turned to me and' asked what I was actually doing there in the Bordone Room, surely it was most unusual for someone to sit more than an hour in a room such as the Bordone Room,
on this exceedingly uncomfortable settee,
staring at the
White-Bearded
Man.
Needless to say, I was completely taken aback, Reger said, and did not know at the moment how to reply to the Englishman. Well, I said, I did not know myself what I was doing here, I said to the Englishman from Wales, I could not think of anything else to say. The Englishman looked at me with irritation, just as if he regarded me as an absolute fool,
Bordone,
the Englishman said,
unimportant;
Tintoretto,
well yes,
he said. The Englishman took a handkerchief from his left trouser pocket and put it in his right one. A typical gesture of embarrassment, I said to myself, and as the Englishman, whom I had suddenly begun to like, was about to leave, having long pocketed his black leather book and his notepad, I invited him to sit down again on the Bordone Room settee and keep me company for a little while, he interested me, I told him frankly, there was a certain fascination for me about him, I told him, Reger said to me. Thus for the first time I made the acquaintance of an Englishman from Wales who seemed absolutely likeable to me, Reger said, because generally speaking I do not find the English likeable, just as, incidentally, I do not the French either, nor the Poles, nor the Russians, not to mention the Scandinavians whom I have never found likeable. A likeable Englishman is a curiosity, I said to myself when I had sat down again with him, having of course stood up as the Englishman stood up. I was interested to know whether the Englishman had really come to the Kunsthistorisches Museum solely for the