Correction: A Novel (32 page)

My study of the thorn apple, written while totally stunned by the cause of my sister’s death: my finishing the Cone, so Roithamer. Taking refuge from one science in another, so Roithamer, an artful device to break off one (tormenting) subject by taking up again another (an old, ancient) subject, so Roithamer (19 March). The thorn apple, because I considered my work on the Cone concluded, so Roithamer. But haunted by the notion that I must work on the Cone, so Roithamer, although the Cone is a closed chapter, the Cone is now exposed and abandoned to nature, so Roithamer. The notion I had from the first moment, regarding the site for the Cone: the middle of the Kobernausser forest, which corresponds with the present site of the Cone.

Supreme happiness, so Roithamer, as the instant cause of (my sister’s) death, so Roithamer. The notion of turning a calculated center (forty-two kilometers from Mattighofen) into an
actual
center, incessant doubts (March 21). First the natural history, then statics, or first statics, then natural history,

statics

as

natural

history

andsoforth,

so

Roithamer.

Nature/man/statics, so Roithamer. To put the men to work like one’s own brain and to treat these working people as one treats one’s own brain, driving both toward the target to the limit of their capacity (March 23), so Roithamer. Giving it all they’ve got every minute. Ease, insolence, we see the building developing from our plans, the building plans turning into a reality,
event, fulfillment of the event.
To be in England, while the Cone is being built in the Kobernausser forest, but to remain for all the future in England. What we do secretly, succeeds, so Roithamer. What we publish is destroyed in the instant of publication. When we say what we are doing, it’s destroyed. The strain so exacerbated that it must end in the destruction (of the head and the body) of the nature of head and body, so Roithamer. We work on the periphery (England) in the center (Kobernausser forest). In company taciturn, then suddenly, out of this taciturnity, to talk, to talk again and again, to persuade, to despair, to talk and be afraid, over and over, and make them afraid, a constant process of making things known, everything known, they fear this as much as we do, so Roithamer. Until our ability to take it in is exhausted. When one studies statics, he learns to understand nature more and more, so Roithamer. First I let all these hundreds of books into my head, then my loathing for all these books, papers, which I’ve suddenly given up (April 2). First I bind (chain) everything to my head, then to my body, body and head all at the same time, “all” underlined. The Cone represents the logic of my (my sister’s) nature. I built the Cone as a natural scientist, so Roithamer, from England, in Austria, I wouldn’t have had the strength to do it from Austria, so Roithamer. First the idea of destroying the Cone (after my sister’s death), but I shall leave it to nature,
entirely.
But the edifice as a work of art is finished only after the death of the person for whom it was built and finished, so Roithamer. We think we are building an edifice, a work of art, but what we have built is something else. The doors of the Cone all open toward the inside, so Roithamer, “inside” underlined. At eighteen or nineteen I could
not
have had this idea, at forty-one I could no longer have had it, so Roithamer. The so-called architects, so Roithamer, all thought I was crazy, such an edifice cannot be built, but it is a question of the occasion of mental acuity (April 3). The question was not only, how do I build the Cone, but also, how do I keep the Cone, the building of the Cone a secret, so Roithamer. Half of my energies were concentrated on building the Cone, half of them on keeping the Cone a secret, so Roithamer. When a man plans such an enormity, he must always retain control of everything and keep everything secret, so Roithamer. First based on my reading, then on the basis of reading no longer taken into account, so Roithamer. My own ideas had led with logical consistency to the realization and completion of the Cone, when my sister was frightened to death, the Cone was finished, so Roithamer,
I could not
have taken her into the Kobernausser forest
at any
other than the deadly moment,
she had dreaded this moment, when she dreaded it most deeply I took her there and so killed her, at the same time I’d finished the Cone (April 7), so Roithamer. For supreme happiness comes only in death, so Roithamer. Detour by way of the sciences to supreme happiness, death, so Roithamer. The experts, the critics, the destroyers, annihilators, so Roithamer. We always come close to the edge of the abyss and fear the loss of equilibrium, so Roithamer. When a body that has briefly lost its balance instantly resumes its original equipoise, then it has a stable equilibrium, so Roithamer. If, on the other hand, a body appears balanced in any given new position, “new Position” underlined, without returning to its original position, then its equilibrium is indifferent. When a body whose equilibrium is briefly disturbed does not return to its original balanced position but seeks a new equilibrium, then its equilibrium is labile, so Roithamer. The Cone’s physical center of gravity rests on its axis, so Roithamer, through the gravitational center of the base and the tip of the body at one-fourth its height a body needs at least three points of support, not in a straight line, to fix its position, so Roithamer had written. When we wake up, we feel ashamed, waking up is the always frightening minimum of existence, so Roithamer (April 9). The situation is always the same, in rational terms: wake up, wash, get dressed, work, see people, don’t despair, try not to despair (April 11). We accept (April 11). We answer the letters we receive, no matter whom or where they come from, not because a trap has been set for us in all of these letters (April 13). If I had not become involved with the art of building, it would have been
something else, equally terrible.

One is always suddenly repelled by seeing how common people are, by their viciousness, bad taste, brutality, vulgarity. Understood nature, by understanding myself, nothing. They (friends) come in and sit down and the talk is, as it always has been; about philosophy, building, natural history, travels, natural catastrophes, books, the past, the future, theater andsoforth, it seems to be as always, but it’s suddenly deadly (April
17). Everything
is ultimately the Cone. When I’m listening, I’m struck by the fact that I tend to think everything out beyond what the thinker who is doing the talking- does, so Roithamer. The building of the Cone has probably caused her mortal illness to break out, my sister has always had her mortal illness, just as everyone has his mortal illness from the first. One temporizes with a mortal illness, with death, then abruptly death comes, so Roithamer. Pine trunks: gigantic asparagus stalks of death, so Roithamer. The Kobernausser forest the end for her (my sister), for me (April 19). Mozart, Webern, nothing more (April 21). To build an edifice for a person, the most beloved person, as a crazy idea and to destroy, to kill this person with the completion of that edifice, the Cone. At first: many rooms, then: few rooms, then: suitable rooms, rooms suitable for her, so Roithamer. A body is not necessarily tipped over by all the forces acting on it, so Roithamer, insofar as regards the critical tipping edge these forces rather impart a varying impetus for turning the body around, so they partially
counter
act
the tipping over (April 23). A body does not tip over when the force holding it upright in place is stronger than the force pushing it over. Lawfulness of the material. There is no backing out so close to the goal, so Roithamer. At the time I had decided to build my sister the Cone, my knowledge of building was not yet sufficient to enable me to start building in confidence, so I’d begun to build in a state of extreme nervous tension, while at the same time beginning an even more comprehensive study of building, at first I’d planned a
year’s
study, then
two
years,
but I ended up having to study statics and stress analysis and building technique for
three years.
My talks with the experts involved had led to nothing, my reading ultimately led to nothing, it was only my discussions with Hoeller and then my totally independent approach to building that made it possible for me to realize my plan, so Roithamer. The experts had only distracted, deceived and delayed me, the progress I made in my thinking about the Cone I owed to my constant contemplation and study of the Hoeller house. Books, articles, experts had never really been much use in my case anyway, so Roithamer. All those experts thought they were dealing with a madman, so that my talks with them were always setbacks in my plan, so Roithamer. If I’m going to build my sister an edifice suited to her nearly a hundred percent, I had thought, then I must first of all study my sister’s personality and in addition the basic principles of statics and stress analysis, so Roithamer. The more openly I spoke of my plan, the crazier I seemed to my listeners, but in the end I didn’t care about the opinion of all those people who considered themselves experts, all I cared about was my project, the execution of my plan, the realization of my idea, which kept looking crazier to me, too, the deeper I got into it, but every idea is a crazy idea, so Roithamer. Like all those who pursue an idea, which is
ipso facto
a
crazy idea, I had to pursue my crazy idea, and I could not allow myself to be dissuaded from this crazy idea by anything whatever, especially not by myself, for I had the greatest doubts, but the greater my doubts, the more stubbornly I pursued my idea, and in the end nothing could have made me abandon my idea, I wouldn’t have let anything make me abandon it, I’d allowed myself to be irritated over it all the time, but not to abandon it, but the chronic irritation by my idea finally resulted in my having the absolute certainty that I would pursue my idea till I reached my goal, its realization and fulfillment in the Cone, so Roithamer. All those irritations effected in me only a greater obstinacy and a greater fascination with my idea, so Roithamer. As my irritation increased, I was forced to think and act with greater precision, so Roithamer. A man who says he is building for his sister a Cone
in which she must live in future,
is bound to seem crazy, so Roithamer. And when he says he is building a Cone for his sister in the middle of the Kobernausser forest, in
its exact geometrical center,
impossible to calculate according to the experts, but I was finally able to prove it, he must seem even crazier, and when he says that he is building for his sister, in the middle of the Kobernausser forest, a Cone
in which his sister must live for
the rest of her life and be happy, supremely happy,
he must be regarded as even crazier still, so Roithamer. But we mustn’t let ourselves be so irritated that we abandon our intention, so Roithamer, only irritated enough to further our intention, for irritation is also most useful to no matter what intention, even the craziest, so Roithamer. We always think that we’re now so irritated that we’ll have to abandon our intention, no matter what intention, because the people around us will not tolerate such a plan (like the building of the Cone), but we must not suffer the kind of irritation that will force us to abandon our intention. Wherever we look, we see nothing but abandoned intentions, for the so-called realized and completed edifices we see everywhere in the world are also nothing but abandoned intentions, so Roithamer. But I, in contrast to all these hundreds of thousands and millions of so-called realized and completed, but in reality abandoned (building)-

intentions which are seen standing around all over the surface of the globe, I fulfilled my intention, I managed to realize and fulfill it even though I had to do so in a frenzy of irritation, everything tends only to irritate me, so Roithamer. Every idea leads to extreme irritation, so Roithamer. The head of a planner and builder, so Roithamer, has to reach and fulfill its aim in a state of extreme irritation, so Roithamer. First there were the socalled geologists whom I felt obliged to consult and who caused me the utmost irritation with their disdain, then I suffered extreme, utmost irritation and disdain from the socalled architects, then from the skilled workers, again extreme irritation and disdain, but all this utmost irritation and disdain was necessary, so Roithamer, to make me create and perfect the Cone, I’d never have reached my goal without my irritation and their disdain, I’d simply have been too weak to fulfill it. They all told me that I lacked all the necessary qualifications to create, much less fulfill my plan, yet now I am in a position to say that I had
precisely all the necessary qualifications,
because the Cone is done, perfectly. Even though the effect of the finished Cone is not as anticipated, so Roithamer, but the effect of a finished task is always unexpected, it’s always the opposite of what we expected and very often a deadly effect, so Roithamer. They told me that while I have the talent I do not have the staying power, but I did have the staying power and luckily I was also, during the whole time they were building the Cone, absolutely unyielding against everything, “everything” underlined. Suddenly I’d realized that the people around me, whom I’d considered competent because I thought them more experienced than myself, were totally incompetent, that the so-called competent people are never and in no way competent and that it’s always only one’s own head, and only that part of one’s head which is wholly concentrated on its objective, which can be competent, so Roithamer, but to reach that point I had a long, weary, and painful way to go. A man who says that he is building for his sister an edifice designed especially for her, with the air- and light-conditioning that will be perfect for her, and who even names the site (an impossible site to obtain) and says that he won’t let anything get in the way of his plan or the realization of his plan, such a man is seen as a madman by all those to whom he’s confided his intention, so Roithamer, and so, while they had to accept me as an established scientist they also had to regard me as an absolute madman. And so the people around me simulate respect and do all they can to destroy my ideas, all ideas, so Roithamer. Wherever we turn in this world, all we see is nothing but destroyed ideas, all there is, as any reasonable person must admit, is nothing but destroyed ideas, just as everything is only a fragment, it’s always only an abandoned intention, so Roithamer. But the world has resigned itself to this state of affairs and made itself at home in it, so Roithamer. While they (the so-called architects) regard themselves as competent, as renewers of the earth’s surface, as bold, openminded free planners, they’re in fact nothing but chronic deserters of original ideas, they create nothing, build nothing, accomplish nothing, they only produce mere fragments, always, so Roithamer, the earth’s surface is cluttered with their fragments. They couldn’t and certainly wouldn’t understand my idea, anyway they never had accepted it, while all the time masquerading as the most fearless avant-garde building artists in the world, so Roithamer. They hadn’t gone along with my ideas at all, never went
with
me for even the shortest distance in my thinking, made too uneasy, probably, by the thought of where I might lead them, so they’d always given up at the outset, when I asked them to join me in my ideas, in my thinking, they held back, but after never even entering into my thinking they decided I was crazy, in the very act of pronouncing the idea I’d given them of my plan
interesting,
they were saying that I was crazy, so Roithamer. They were afraid of choking to death inside my mental processes, so Roithamer. And so I had only Hoeller, in reality and in fact, Hoeller followed me into my mental processes from the first, he’d dared to follow me in my thinking because it was not unfamiliar to him, it resembled his own, so that he had preceded me there, to him it wasn’t the dark frightening maze it was to those architects, though he might have felt a bit queasy entering into my much longer (than his) mental processes, so Roithamer, but Hoeller never thought me crazy, never, so Roithamer, because he, Hoeller, was experienced along such lines of thought and had no need to be afraid, “no need to be afraid” underlined, of and inside such lines of thought. One has to be able to get up and walk away from every social gathering that’s a waste of one’s time, so Roithamer, to leave behind the nothing faces and the often boundlessly stupid heads, and to walk out and down and into the open air and leave everything connected with this worthless society behind, so Roithamer, one must have the strength and the courage and the relentlessness even toward oneself, to leave all these ridiculous, useless, dim-witted people and heads behind and breathe free, breathe out what’s been left behind and breathe in something new, one must abandon at top speed these useless social agglomerations, banded together for their inevitable dim-witted purposes, so as not to become part of these dim-witted social groups, to get back to oneself from these social doings and find peace and light in oneself, so Roithamer. One must have the courage and the strength to break away from such company, such entertainment, such verbal violence andsoforth, in which one has become involved against one’s will, one must break away under any circumstances, so Roithamer, one must break off every one of these unspeakably stupid conversations, break away and walk away from all these senseless, useless and invariably dangerous subjects, to save oneself, rescue one’s own head by escaping at any moment, at any time, from wherever it is, to escape into the open air, so Roithamer. To be honest, almost all the social gatherings we’ve ever been drawn into, without quite knowing how or why, strike us as useless, they serve no purpose at all, all they do is weaken us. At the right moment we must get up and leave such gatherings, circumstances, conditions, for what naturally becomes a lengthy, lasting, always unending solitude, so Roithamer. Such a rising up and going away is a daily occurrence, always we leave behind a society that repels us, so Roithamer. But as we keep leaving them, they more and more regard us as crazy and hate us, a situation that worsens from day to day, that militates against our head and against our character and against our whole being, so Roithamer. That the people I described in “About Altensam and about everything connected with Altensam, with special attention to the Cone” are not the same as those I knew grew clear to me when I stepped into my train, my second-class compartment, in London, or rather at Victoria Station. Even before the train left, so Roithamer, I’d realized that everything I’d described in my manuscript was not so, that everything is always different from the way it’s been described, the actual is always different from the description, Altensam and everything connected with Altensam, it’s different. Dover, Brussels, Cologne, I had to recognize that everything in my manuscript was all wrong, the characters are different, the character is another, so Roithamer. As my brothers came forward to meet me in Stocket, I had the evidence that everything I’d described was all wrong. Even before Dover I’d started to make corrections in the manuscript and little by little I’d corrected everything and finally realized that nothing in it expresses the reality as it actually is, the description runs counter to the actuality, but I drew the logical consequences from this insight, so Roithamer, I did not hesitate to correct everything all over again and in the process of correcting everything all over again, so Roithamer, I destroyed everything. That none of them are what they are, that nothing is what it is, so Roithamer, as I realized back at Victoria Station. The fact of my sister’s funeral on the one hand, the fact that everything is all wrong on the other, I was preoccupied with these facts while crossing the Channel to the Continent and on through the incessant downpour along the whole plain all the way to Altensam, where my first encounter with my brothers proved to me that everything I feared was indeed true, so Roithamer. I had taken my manuscript out of my traveling bag and I’d seen at once that everything in my manuscript was all wrong, that I’d not only described some things badly, but that I’d described everything all wrong, because the opposite is true, so Roithamer. Yet I suddenly again felt like changing what I had done in years of hard effort into something else, suddenly on the train I was once more in the same state in which I’ve always been when I believed I was finished with something, at such a moment I know it’s all the other way round, and I’m willing to do it over the other way around. Little by little a new manuscript would be the result, as it is now again, an entirely different, new manuscript resulting from the destruction of the old one, but best of all was not to let a new one come into being, to stop making positive corrections, best to destroy it altogether, so Roithamer. When I make corrections, I destroy, when I destroy, I annihilate, so Roithamer. What I used to consider an improvement, formerly, is after all nothing but deterioration, destruction, annihilation. Every correction is destruction, annihilation, so Roithamer. This manuscript too is nothing but a mad aberration, just as perhaps and with certainty, “with certainty” underlined, the erection of the Cone was nothing but a mad aberration, those who always regarded the building of the Cone as a mad aberration, seem to have been proven basically right, so the manuscript was also nothing but a mad aberration, but he’d have to accept responsibility for this mad aberration and take it to its logical conclusion, it was absolute madness, so Roithamer, to build the Cone and to write this manuscript about Altensam, and these two crazy acts, one resulting from the other and both with the utmost ruthlessness, have done me in, “have done me in”