Read Online Correction: A Novel by Thomas Bernhard - Free Book Online Page A

writings of Wittgenstein, a native of the same region as Roithamer and always a keen observer of Roithamer’s regional landscape, they were always just the same few books of philosophy and poetry which, with his name inscribed on the flyleaf, he always carried about with him no matter where he had been staying or working, so few that he had always been able to slip them into his traveling bag and take them along, they always had to be within reach. Here in Hoeller’s garret they had been left, after his death, where he himself had placed them, on the shelf above his desk, so now they belonged there forever, in this place that had been Roithamer’s actual study, his idea- and thought-chamber, where in his lifetime no one but myself and Hoeller had ever been permitted to set foot, Roithamer had made sure, in a secret understanding with Hoeller, that no one but himself ever set foot in this room, and in Roithamer’s absence only Hoeller, not even me, no one except for Hoeller, who had to enter the garret if only to air it out regularly, but under strict orders to change nothing in the garret, to leave everything as Roithamer had seen fit to leave it, and always in the best possible order, everything in Hoeller’s garret had its own fixed place, closely corresponding to Roithamer’s character, his peculiarities, and clearly explicable out of his own special view of the world, Roithamer would instantly have noticed the slightest change in Hoeller’s garret the moment he set foot in it after his return from England, or from South Tyrol, where he had often gone directly from England to visit a close friend, a musicologist who was also, as Roithamer always emphasized, a theoretical mathematician at the University of Trent who, when he was not teaching at Trent, had lived and worked on an isolated family estate, over a thousand meters above sea level, near Rovereto, where for many years he had devoted himself entirely to his work, so Roithamer said, having made himself the object of his extremely interesting investigations, or when Roithamer returned from Carinthia, another occasional refuge of his, because he had a beloved cousin there, the daughter of a Klagenfurt lumber merchant, he liked to spend a day or two with her every two or three years, but most times Roithamer came straight back from England to Hoeller’s garret, it would have been unthinkable to let anything be changed in Hoeller’s garret during Roithamer’s absence, Hoeller had always made absolutely certain that nothing was ever changed in Hoeller’s garret and he insured himself against such changes by simply never letting anyone set foot in Hoeller’s garret in Roithamer’s absence, Roithamer had offered Hoeller a regularly payable rental for the use of his garret, but Hoeller had firmly refused to accept anything of the kind, he considered it an honor that Roithamer could use this garret, otherwise completely unused and used by no one, for his own purposes, it was enough for Hoeller that the garret would be used, lived in, by Roithamer, a man known for many years before he ever moved into Hoeller’s garret to be quite extraordinary, a man of rare worth who was superior to at least all known men and, as Hoeller said, a brilliant phenomenon , it was enough for him, Hoeller, that this extraordinary and invaluable man, Hoeller said, this brilliant man, with regard to whom one could safely assume that he would come to be known even more widely as the extraordinary and rare and brilliant man he was, would be using Hoeller’s vacant garret, which otherwise was likely to decay quickly from lack of use, for his scientific purposes, and besides, he, Hoeller, considered it only natural to put this garret at the disposal of a friend, a childhood friend, a school friend, a friend of his youth, for that friend’s scientific and artistic pursuits which he, Hoeller, did not pretend to understand, but which he certainly admired as the continual manifestations of