Old Masters (18 page)

thoroughly.
But we cannot help studying everything thoroughly, that is our misfortune, by doing so we dissolve everything and ruin everything for us, indeed we have very nearly ruined everything for us already. A line of Goethe, Reger said; it is studied for so long by us that in the end it no longer seems quite as magnificent as at first, it gradually loses its value for us and what initially may have seemed to us the most magnificent line altogether ends up as an elemental disappointment. Anything we study thoroughly ultimately disappoints us. A mechanism of dissection and disintegration, Reger said, that is a habit I acquired in my early years, without realizing that this was my misfortune. Even Shakespeare crumbles totally if we concern ourselves with him and
study
him for any length of time, his sentences get on your nerves, his characters disintegrate
before
the drama and ruin everything for us, he said. In the end we no longer take any pleasure in art, any more than in life, no matter how natural this may be, as progressively we have lost our naiveté and with it our stupidity. Yet in exchange we have only gained unhappiness. By now it has become absolutely impossible for me to read Goethe, Reger said, to listen to Mozart, to look at Leonardo or Giotto, I no longer have any prerequisites for that. Next week I shall again take Irrsigler to lunch at the
Astoria,
Reger said, while my wife was alive I used to go to the
Astoria
for lunch with her and with Irrsigler at least three times a year, I owe it to Irrsigler to continue those Astoria lunches, he said. We should not only use people like Irrsigler, we should also show them a kindness now and again. And the best way is for me to take Irrsigler to the
Astoria
for lunch. Of course I could take his family to the Prater from time to time, but I do not feel up to that, the Irrsigler children hang on to me like burrs and well-nigh tear the clothes off me with their effusiveness, he said. And the Prater is so distasteful to me, you know, the sight of all those drunken men and women cracking their cheap jokes in front of the shooting galleries and giving free rein to their horrid primitiveness, I feel soiled all over whenever I have gone to the Prater. But then the Prater today is no longer the Prater as it was in my childhood, the turbulent amusement park; the Prater today is a distasteful assembly of vulgar people, an assembly of criminal types. The whole Prater reeks of beer and crime and we encounter in it nothing but the brutality and the brazen feeble-mindedness of vulgar snotty Viennesedom. Not a day passes without a murder in the Prater being in the papers, every day at least one, usually several, rapes in the Prater. In my childhood the Prater always was a joyous day out and in spring there really was a perfume of lilac and chestnuts there. Today proletarian perversity stinks to high heaven. The Prater, this most charming of all inventions for amusement, is now nothing but a common fairground of vulgarity. Ah, if the Prater were still as it was in my childhood, Reger said, I would go there with the Irrsigler family, but as it is I do not go there, I cannot afford to; if I went to the Prater with the Irrsigler family I should be wrecked for weeks to come. My mother was still driven to the Prater with her parents in the carriage and would run along the Prater Avenue in a floating silk dress. Such pictures are history, Reger said, all that is long past. Today you are lucky if you are not shot in the back in the Prater, Reger said, or stabbed in the heart, or at the least have your wallet lifted from your jacket. The present age is an utterly brutalized age. Taking the Irrsigler children to the Prater is something I have done only once, never again. They hung on me like burrs and tore the clothes off me and demanded every other moment that I took them on the ghost train or on the automatic merry-go-round. It made me feel quite sick, Reger said. Needless to say, I have nothing against the Irrsigler children, Reger said, but they are too much for me. Irrsigler on his own is all right, but the whole Irrsigler family, that is impossible. With Irrsigler at the Astoria, at my corner table looking out at the deserted Maysedergasse, that is all right, but with the Irrsigler family to the Prater, that is impossible. Each time I invent a new excuse in order not to have to go to the Prater with the Irrsigler family. A visit to the Prater with the Irrsigler family seems to me like a visit to hell. I also cannot bear the voice of Frau Irrsigler, Reger said, I cannot bear that voice. The Irrsigler children also have basically frightful voices, it does not bear thinking about those voices growing up, he said. Such a quiet pleasant person as Irrsigler and such a loud-voiced woman as the Irrsigler woman and such loud-voiced children as the Irrsigler children. On one occasion Irrsigler suggested that I should make a trip into the countryside with him and his family. That, too, I declined and I have been writhing for years to escape just such a
rural excursion
with the Irrsigler family. Imagine me hiking through the countryside with the Irrsigler family, quite possibly the Irrsigler children would even start singing. That I could not stand: the Irrsigler children expecting me to march through the woods of the surroundings of Vienna with them, the Irrsigler woman in front and Irrsigler at the rear and alongside me, holding hands if they had their way, the Irrsigler children. And then the Irrsigler family might possibly expect me to join in their singsong. Simple people have this urge towards nature, an urge towards the open spaces, I have never had that urge, Reger said. There is nothing more ghastly that could happen to me than hiking with the Irrsigler family through the surroundings of Vienna and then perhaps even to stop at an inn garden. I was nauseated at the thought of the Irrsigler family eating fried schnitzels in my presence and filling their bellies with wine and beer and apple juice at my expense. Lunching with Irrsigler at the Astoria is something I enjoy too, I do not need any pretence for that, lunching with Irrsigler at the
Astoria,
three times a year, a glass of wine with it, Reger said, that is all right, anything else is not. The Prater is absolutely impossible and the surroundings of Vienna are absolutely impossible. If Irrsigler had even a spark of musicality in him, Reger said, I would take him along to a concert now and again or I would simply let him have my press tickets, but Irrsigler has not the slightest feeling for music, he suffers agonies when he has to listen to music. Anybody else, even if it is agony to him, will take his seat in the Musikverein in the third or fourth row to listen to Beethoven's Fifth, because there, more than anywhere else, everything favours human vanity; not so Irrsigler, he has always declined to go to the Musikverein and always with the simple statement:
I don't like music, Herr Reger,
Reger said. For three years the Irrsigler family has been waiting for me to go to the Prater with them, Reger said, and one time I have a headache and another time I have a sore throat and yet another time I am snowed under with work and another still I have to catch up on my correspondence and each time I find it distasteful to have to say these things. Irrsigler knows perfectly well why I do not go to the Prater with his family, I have not told him why but then Irrsigler is no fool, Reger said. At the
Astoria
he always orders the same silverside of beef because I always order the same silverside of beef. He waits until I have ordered my silverside of beef and then orders silverside of beef for himself, Reger said. But whereas I only drink mineral water, Irrsigler takes a glass of wine with his silverside of beef. The silverside at the
Astoria
is not always first-class, but I quite simply prefer it to anything else at the
Astoria.
Irrsigler eats slowly, that is the unusual thing about him. I myself eat my silverside of beef so slowly that I think I must be eating even more slowly than Irrsigler, but Irrsigler, even though I eat my silverside of beef as slowly as possible, eats his a lot more slowly still. Irrsigler, I said to him at the
Astoria
last time, I owe you so much, probably everything, naturally he did not understand. After the death of my wife I 'was suddenly all alone, true I had a lot of people but not really any individual and I certainly did not wish to bother
you
in my dreadful state. For six months I avoided all contact with people, if only because I wished to escape from their frightful enquiries,
people always ask those dreadful questions about someone's death in
such an unashamed manner
and at every opportunity; that is what I wished to escape, and so I only had Irrsigler. And for nearly six months after my wife's death I did not come to the Kunsthistorisches Museum, it is only for the past six months that I have been coming here again, and initially of course not every other day as had been my habit but once a week at the most. But now, for the past six months I have again come to the Kunsthistorisches Museum every other day. Irrsigler, because he never asked anything, was the only possible person, Reger said. I always reflect, should I take Irrsigler
to the
Astoria
or
to the Imperial,
anyway to one of the very top restaurants, but at the
Imperial
he does not feel as comfortable as at the
Astoria,
a person like Irrsigler cannot bear the absolute magnificence of the
Imperial,
Reger said. And the
Astoria
is also a lot more discreet. In this way I hope, from time to time, to discharge my gratitude to Irrsigler, who is so important to me, Reger said. Irrsigler has the agreeable quality of being a good listener, moreover of being a good listener in an entirely unpresuming way. Whereas Irrsigler is the most pleasant person to me, the Irrsigler family as a whole are the most unpleasant. How does a person like Irrsigler, Reger asked, come to have a wife as the Irrsigler woman with her shrill voice and her hen-like walk? We often ask ourselves how people who are such complete opposites come together, Reger said. A woman with a hysterical animal voice and with a hen-like walk and a man like Irrsigler who is so balanced and so agreeable. And the Irrsigler children, of course, in virtually everything are taking after their mother and in virtually nothing after their father. Each more
mal-réussi
than the other, Reger said. The Irrsigler children are all
mal-réussis,
Reger said,
but of course the parents believe they have
réussis
children, all parents believe that.
It is a positively frightening thought what may become of these Irrsigler children one day, Reger said, when I see these Irrsigler children then I see, even today, by no means at least average but far below-average human beings with, at best, a dichotomous character. I am always reminded, Reger said, of
the concept of the stupid brood,
that is what is so unpleasant about the Irrsigler family. Such an excellent man and such a fine character and such an ill-bred family. All this is quite commonplace, 'Reger said. The Austrians, being congenital opportunists, are cringers, he now said, and they live by coverups and forgetting. There is no political atrocity, no matter how great, that is not forgotten after a week, no crime, no matter how great. The Austrians are positively congenital
coverers-up
of crimes, Reger said, the Austrians will cover up any crime, even the vilest, because they are, as I have said, congenital opportunist cringers. For decades our ministers have committed ghastly crimes, yet these opportunist cringers cover up for them. For decades these ministers have committed
murderous
frauds, yet these cringers cover up for them. For decades these unscrupulous Austrian ministers have lied to the Austrians and cheated them and yet these cringers cover up for them. It is a real miracle if, now and again, one of those criminal and fraudulent ministers is kicked out, Reger said, because he is accused of serious crimes committed for decades, yet a week later the whole affair is forgotten because the cringers have forgotten the affair. A twenty-schilling thief is prosecuted by our justice and locked up, but a defrauder of millions and billions, when of ministerial rank, is at best chased out with a huge pension and instantly forgotten, Reger said. It really is a miracle, Reger continued, that a minister has just been booted out again, but, mind you, no sooner was he sacked and kicked out and no sooner had the papers called him a billion-schilling swindler and a major criminal who should be put on trial than he will be forgotten in perpetuity by those selfsame papers and hence also by the entire public. Although the minister should be charged and put on trial and locked up, in accordance with his crime, if I may say so
for life,
he enjoys his fat pension in his villa on the Kahlenberg and no one dreams any longer of interfering with him. He lives, as the saying goes,
on the fat of the land
as a retired minister and when one day he dies he is even given a state funeral and a grave of honour at the Central Cemetery, Reger said, alongside his predeceased ministerial colleagues who were the same kind of criminals as he. Austrians are congenital coverers-up and forgetters where the atrocities and crimes of ministers and other governing figures are concerned, Reger said. Austrians spend all their lives cringing and covering up the worst atrocities and crimes in order to survive themselves, that is the truth, Reger said. The papers merely record and accuse and of course magnify, but they immediately annul everything opportunistically and forget opportunistically. The papers are the discoverers and the agitators and at the same time the coverers-up and the whitewashers and oppressors where political atrocities and crimes are concerned, Reger said. Just recall how the papers execrated the now retired minister and levelled the most serious charges against him and, as the saying goes,
finished
him and forced the Federal Chancellor to dismiss him, and no sooner had the Federal Chancellor dismissed this minister than the papers forget all about the minister and with him the atrocities and crimes which he in fact committed, Reger said. Austrian justice is a justice made compliant by the Austrian politicians, Reger said, anything else is a lie. The fact that this affair was hushed up not only by the government but also by the papers preys on my mind, Reger said. But if you are an Austrian things would have been preying on your mind for years, because over these past few years not a day has passed without a political scandal and political corruption has assumed a scale that would have been inconceivable a few years ago, Reger said. Whatever my mind may be occupied with, these political scandals are continually on my mind, disturbing it. Do what I like, these political scandals are on my mind, Reger said, whatever I am engaged in, these political scandals are on my mind, Reger said. Whenever we open our paper we have another political scandal, Reger said, every day a new scandal involving politicians of this