Three Novellas by Thomas Bernhard

Author:Thomas Bernhard
Format: epub

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Being constantly in seclusion, said the truck driver, I had presumably not heard anything of the rumor that had been going around for a long time to the effect that I had not gone to play watten for the last two months simply because, in order to go and play watten and thus get to the inn, I would have to pass through the wood in which Siller, the papermaker, had hanged himself, dear sir, and I think that in the nature of things it is not only for this one reason but for several different reasons, certainly for a whole lot of reasons, which it is really impossible for to me to lay before you here. No, not to go and play watten because the papermaker had hanged himself in the wood that I would have to pass through if I wanted to go and play watten would be nonsensical, I say to the truck driver. I have a whole lot of reasons, which I find impossible to explain, I say. But the truck driver says: come on, come and play watten tomorrow! Once again, he is trying out his art of persuasion, which is, at the moment, more painful for me than it is for him, because it has once more been set in motion with such shamelessness, but he is not in the least conscious of the shamelessness of suddenly saying to me again that I should go and play watten, when I had made it absolutely clear to him, made it clear a hundred times, that in spite of whatever objections he might have, I was not going to play watten any more. A person like this, I think to myself, never feels any shame. It’s true, I think to myself, last time I did hold out the prospect of a game of watten to the truck driver, one day I will play watten with you again, I said to him, but only to get him to leave. Now he says: last time you said you would go and play watten again. To which I reply: I said to you last time that I would go and play watten because I needed some peace, peace, do you understand, it never for one moment entered my mind to go and play watten with you again. A person like the truck driver gradually reduces a person like me to despair, I think to myself, and brings you to the point where you lie to him, just in order to get some peace. I said I would go and play watten, I say, because you bothered me, disturbed me while I was working, ruined one of my extraordinary thoughts, but not because I really intended to go and play watten again. I am not going to play watten again. Can’t you see that I can no longer walk even as far as the rotten spruce, to say nothing of going to play watten again. Three times around the hut and I’m exhausted.

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