The prince said: “Huber is from Bundau. He uses a language, has a way of speaking, that instantly made me think: inimical to civilization. I think: This is a man who is glad to and not glad to leave Bundau. Or rather: who would be glad to leave Bundau if he could leave it gladly. And so on.… He has left Bundau; but surely not only because of the advertisement. I ask him at once: Have you left Bundau because of my advertisement? The man is out of the question, I think. He says: Because of the ad, yes. I say: But I am looking for a topnotch man. I think of Henzig. To that Huber responds that he has thirty years’ experience, without saying experience in what. I look at the man and I know,” the prince said, “what kind of experience the man has had for thirty years. Foreman of a woodcutting crew. I tell him to sit down, there’s a chair, and Huber sits. Grotesque! I pour him a glass of whisky and again I say: I don’t drink, myself, on doctor’s orders, but talking is easier over a drink. Huber drinks his glass down at one swig. Grotesque! His clothes are neat; they are hung on a nail, not in a closet, I think. I pour him another. I look at his hat, his jacket, his trousers, his coat buttons. I think: It’s cold in Bundau, the winter never ends there, the people who live in Bundau are absolute winter people. Subsistence farmers, I think, Doctor, subsistence people. It’s an area that permits a bare minimum subsistence. The prevailing tone there is blackish green, a greenish blackness, a darkness so great it actually prevents suicides. In these people thought is perpetually on the verge of drowning, any pleasure in life on the verge of perishing, everything freezes and dies. Why, how are things in Bundau nowadays? I ask Huber. Always the same, Huber says. Several times, Doctor, he repeats: Always the same. Drack, the sawmill owner, lives in Bundau, doesn’t he? I say. Oh yes, Drack, the sawmill owner, Huber says. I say: It was Drack who made the floors for the Belvedere, wasn’t it? I say: Drack has three sisters. It’s a pleasure talking to Drack, I say. You know,” the prince said, “Drack is the only man in Bundau who has money. Yes, Huber says. I am thinking,” the prince said, “that it is inexplicable that three applicants should have come in answer to my advertisement the very first morning. What do you say to that, Doctor, three applicants on the first morning to a ridiculous want-ad in a ridiculous newspaper, composed in an altogether ridiculous style? What do you say? I say to Huber,” the prince said, “Drack has shifted entirely to making parquet, hasn’t he? He no longer makes ordinary flooring, does he? Except occasionally, I say. There are exceptions, Huber says. I am thinking that my want-ad was badly written. Why should three applicants respond to a badly written want ad on the first morning? Mysterious. Mysterious!” the prince said. “I thought, it’s not Huber’s fault. Fault? Huber? Why? Stop this, I thought. I ask Huber when he read the advertisement,” the prince said. “I certainly want to know that,” the prince said. “It strikes me that I also asked Henzig and Zehetmayer about it. I say: When did you read the want ad? Do you have it there in your pocket? I say. Huber takes the advertisement out of his pocket and puts it on the desk. I read it through once more. Did you read it at breakfast, I ask. He says he did not, and indicates that he has not even had his breakfast yet,” the prince said. “He succeeds in conveying that without saying a word; everything about the man suddenly tells me that he has not yet eaten breakfast. I go into the kitchen,” the prince said. “I see that there is nobody in the kitchen, not a soul in the kitchen, I fix a ham sandwich and butter a roll for Huber, and go back to the office with it and tell him to eat. Cider? I ask. No, no cider. Of course he has children, but I am not sure whether there are three or four. I say, Eat! and ask: How many children do you have? Three, he says. How old, I want to know. Thirty-one, twenty-four, and sixteen, he says. Four have died. I think: What matters is life? I say: You have a fine wife, eh? She does a good job of farming eight and a half acres, Huber says,” the prince said. “If it weren’t for Drack, Drack in Bundau. He nods. Drack, I say, indirectly feeds Bundau. Drack philosophizes and his three sisters keep him well-stuffed, which he hates, I say. It’s tough sledding with three sisters, I say. Drack and Bundau …” the prince said. “And then it occurs to me: You have two sisters in the house yourself. It also occurs to me that I’m the same age as Drack. And it occurs to me that basically the same conditions exist in Drack’s house as in mine, the economic, familial, and personal circumstances, only Drack is down and I’m up, but I could just as well be down and Drack up.… I say to Huber,” the prince said. “But Drack’s sisters are hunchbacks, and I think that Drack is the victim of his three sisters. A man can be strong, as strong as he likes, and Drack is strong, but his three sisters are stronger.… Unmarried Drack is a result, I think; widowed Saurau is a result. I say: Drack could have made a dozen good matches. I say this more to myself than to Huber, but Huber hears it,” the prince said, “and he stops eating and says: The Princess of Thurn and Taxis. Afterward Huber says that hoof-and-mouth disease in Bundau has finished off almost all the livestock, that Bundau will never recover again. Do you hear that, Doctor, never recover again! Epidemics, I say, once they come, it’s too late. For the state, I say, everything is too late. For the kind of state we have nowadays, everything is always too late. The state wastes medicines on carcasses! Well, I say, when did you read the want ad, Huber? His wife brought the newspaper back with her from Knittelfeld very early in the morning. Gone there to consult the doctor,” the prince said. “Kidney disease. Huber took the newspaper from her while he was putting on his shirt. She’d been nagging him as she did every day, saying they had no money. He didn’t work, she worked her fingers to the bone, he idled, earned nothing, she was keeping everything going, he squandered everything, and so on.… Finally she called him a layabout and a shirker, and then he lost his temper,” the prince said, “and threatened to slap her, but didn’t do so and went into the bedroom and threw himself down on the bed. I read the want ad there on the bed, Huber said. He had immediately jumped up and dressed and left the house and come from Bundau to see me. On the way it had struck him as foolish to apply for the position (Zehetmayer!). But no, he had kept telling himself, I’ll go up there, I’ll go up, I’ll go up to see Prince Saurau. And what with repeating to himself, I’mgoingup, I’mgoingup, he suddenly found himself up on top. But the sight of the castle disheartened him, he said, and he walked around it four or five times before he knocked. Again and again he wondered whether he shouldn’t run off, down to a tavern.… But then he saw Henzig coming out, a rather impressive man, said Huber, and there was nothing left for him to do but knock. At my age it would be foolish to start in on a new job, Huber said to me. But his wife was constantly after him,” the prince said, “she was driving him crazy. Every day she proved to him her indispensability and his superfluousness. But of course he wasn’t at all suited to the post he was applying for, Huber said, and by that he meant not entirely unsuited — probably. It occurs to me that the abilities of a foreman are first-rate,” the prince said. “Huber’s abilities are probably the finest, and I say so. I say: Your abilities are undoubtedly excellent. But he might also be thinking that he was not suited to the post of steward, I said. No, no, I say,” the prince said, “such a post calls for a quite different sort of experience. He knows that, and I say candidly not that Huber is probably not suited to the post, but that he is simply unsuited for it. I say,” the prince said, “but it would surely be a blessing to get away from Bundau again. Yes, Huber said. I myself have not been in Bundau for two years,” the prince said. “As usual it is only a funeral that prompts me to leave the castle, to visit valleys. I’m constantly going to all sorts of regions in the country (and abroad too, of course) because someone dies whom I’m related to, whom I know or don’t know. People of our sort are always travelers to funerals, in addition to our regular occupations. And the ones who die, Doctor, are always those whom we expected to die. Surprises are rare. I say,” the prince said, “the cemetery in Bundau is being enlarged, isn’t it? And Huber says: Disputes. The mayor, the socialists … and so on.… Nobody wanted to give up any land for the town, Huber says. So the town simply expropriated some. Expropriated, I think. For me that is a cue that brings to mind the whole repulsiveness of the state, the stupidity of the state, the whole idiotic bureaucratic rabble who run the state. Expropriated! Everywhere there are expropriations, I say; everywhere down below me land is being expropriated for the most paltry reasons. The politicians expropriate here and there. Everywhere. They expropriate and they ruin. Nature is being ruined. Expropriated! I cry out, and I say: I hope this state expropriates itself soon. I hope it commits suicide as fast as possible, I cry! It’s high time for this Republic to expropriate itself!” the prince said. “This ridiculous Republic, I said. Expropriated! They hack off your toes, Doctor, they cut off toes and heels. Nobody can walk any more! Suddenly,” the prince said — we had stood still and were gazing down into the gorge—“suddenly I’ve poured Huber another glass of whisky and am in the midst of talking politics with him. The state is rotten, I say, in all seriousness the Republic is rotting. That is my favorite phrase of late, Doctor: The state is rotten. Everything is empty, I say to Huber: The Reds are empty and the Blacks are empty, the monarchy is empty of course, and of course the Republic is empty. After all, everything is lying dully, lethargically in its death-throes, right? Everything except for science. I say to Huber: The republican death-throes are probably the most repulsive, the ugliest of all. Aren’t they, Doctor? I say: The common people are stupid, they stink, and that has always been so. Huber says then that there are Communists in Bundau, and what is more among Drack’s workers. Communists! I say. Communists! Yes, Communists. There are plenty of them working for me as well, I say. Everybody down below the castle is communistic, I say. Everybody. But the Communists don’t know what Communism is. Unfortunately! Then, coming back to my want ad, I say to Huber that he, Huber, is undoubtedly a good man, but as I’ve said, unsuited for the post of steward.” The prince said he thought the man was fifty but he looked sixty. “Fifty years ago it would have been perfectly possible to consider a foreman for such a post,” the prince said. “But not nowadays. Nowadays the business requires a scientific type, like Henzig. No, I say to Huber, after all you did not seriously think that I could employ you! Half past eleven, Huber, I say,” the prince said. “I pour a fourth glass for him. I say: The man you saw going out, the good-looking man, he’s the one. Henzig, I say, he’s the one. Forestry school, I say, soil culture, Vienna, Paris, London, Madrid. And a robust body besides, as I said, I say. English, French, Italian … Kobernausserwald, I say. Has that modern arrogance and scientific attitude, unsparing even toward himself. Those scientists aren’t stupid people, I say. Basically it seems to me,” the prince said, “forestry today is simply an economic science, if not a pure natural science. Everything is a science today, I say,” the prince said. “Huber wants to stand up, but doesn’t. Everything is a gigantic scientific apparatus, I say. Absurd, I say. Huber stands up. In Austria, I say to Huber, everything is bogged down in a perverse backwardness. Two hundred years behind the times in almost all fields, I say. Ridiculous, I say. That isn’t any exaggeration, Doctor, and I say: Substances, I say, a mighty chemistry. The farther away it moves from the conventional concept of nature, the more beautiful, the mightier, I want even to say, the more poetic. Huber, I say, how is the mail delivery in Bundau nowadays? Still a ghastly mess, Huber says, ghastly. And the schoolchildren? I ask. Without further words, by merely saying schoolchildren I summon to mind all my concern for the misery of the schoolchildren in the mountain districts. Huber goes to the door,” the prince said. “I think: His trousers, absurd. His jacket, absurd. His walk, absurd. Grotesque, I think. The concept of schoolchildren, Doctor, is equivalent to misery throughout the world, but in the Bundau region the situation is the worst, the bitterest it can be anywhere. For twenty years there has been talk about building a new school at the end of the Bundau valley, but to this day no new school has been built. I think repeatedly: The whole educational system in our country is backward, simply outmoded, wretched, isn’t it, Doctor? And I think: If you allow every sudden inspiration to coagulate into a thought.… I say: Huber, one must not reflect.… I have been reflecting, Doctor, on the stupidity of all phrases, on stupidity, on the stupidity in which man lives and thinks, thinks and lives, on the stupidity.… I permit myself to live — absurd! Everyone lives — absurd. The stupidity of entrusting oneself to the German language, my dear Doctor — absurd! And not only the German language, I think, but still the German language above all. The stupidity resulting from German, I think.… The stupidity of a world consisting of advantage and disadvantage and of nothing else.… Philosophize! No! In Bundau I once saw a plump pheasant sitting on a boar, I say to Huber. I really did. Huber listens. Listen, Doctor, Huber listens.… He is standing at the door. Yes, yes, I say, I went down into Bundau hundreds of times with my father, for the pheasants and the boars, I say. Bundau kept drawing my father into it — the attraction of Bundau, I say. I was perhaps eight or nine years old, I say, when we went to Bundau, very early in the morning, and suddenly deep in the valley we saw the pheasant sitting on the boar. Then my father described to me the relationship between the pheasant and the boar. Grotesque! I say. And he told me all sorts of things about pheasants and boars. We were sitting on a log, my father and I, and as the pheasant shamelessly bobbed up and down on the boar’s tail, my father shot it. Shot it right off the boar’s tail, I say. The boar takes one leap and disappears into the underbrush. I go after the pheasant, and while I am stooping for it my father fires a second shot. I ask him as I come back with the pheasant why he fired the second shot. Into the air, I say, why into the air? My father doesn’t know why. I’ve never fired a shot pointlessly into the air, my father says. There are fine pheasants and fine boars in Bundau, I say. Huber wants to leave. He steps into the vestibule. Of course, I say, I can use you, though not for the steward’s post. I propose to Huber that he work for me as foreman, though without old-age pension; Krainer needs help. But he doesn’t accept my offer. A queer man. It’s clear that Huber doesn’t want to work, not any more, never again. No, no, he says. He would rather go on listening to his wife’s nagging every day. I think: Huber would be a real help to me. You see, everything is neglected, Doctor. But it’s no use, Huber leaves. I reflect that my want ad has helped him escape from Bundau. Cold Bundau, I think. Huber as steward, I think. Huber and Zehetmayer — grotesque! I’ll settle with Henzig at once, I think. Henzig is the only fellow for the job. Basically Henzig is what I have always been looking for and never found. I realize,” the prince said, “that there is a personality who in no time will become priceless, indispensable to me. The man is first-rate. Of course it takes a whole day,” the prince said, “for the telegram to reach Kobernausserwald. If I send it now, at noon, I thought, it won’t reach Kobernausserwald until tomorrow morning. The postal system, the hopeless, ruined Austrian postal system. I go into the vestibule and dictate the telegram to my elder sister, and she calls old Krainer and he rides down to the post office. I’m not running any risks with Henzig,” the prince said. “I’ve already settled the financial side with him. He’ll live in the hunting lodge, no, in the Pavilion, no, in the hunting lodge, in the hunting lodge. Assume duties of position at once if you wish, I telegraphed. But it occurs to me that Henzig is still under contract to the state and can’t begin work until next week at the earliest. The state forests which ruin everything,” Prince Saurau said, “the state which ruins everything, the unending, everlasting suicide of the state. Doctor, nowadays all states are constantly committing suicide, and not only in Europe. It is my ancient theme, Doctor,” the prince said. “The state that ruins everything, the people who do not know how to run their state and ruin it. The phrase intellectual catastrophe occurs to me, Doctor. After Huber has left, I have a sign reading Steward’s position filled put up on the big gate, and go into the office. And sure enough, a number of other applicants for the job arrive. I watch them until they leave, some immediately after reading the sign, most after hesitating for quite a while. Much too old. Again and again I wonder that so many applicants should respond to this particular want ad. Remarkable, I think, that the right man was among the first three applicants, isn’t it, Doctor? To talk with people one has just met makes you thoughtful and is very tiring. There is always the question of how much one should make contact with them, whether one should make contact with them at all. Doctor, don’t you think … contacts,” the prince said. “As you always say, Doctor: I am insofar as I have contact with people, and so on. But contact always brings out first of all the ironic element in my mind.… Irony, which diminishes the unbearableness.… Brushing against the peripheries of people with weak nerves.… I think: Was I too friendly with Huber, or was I not friendly enough with Huber? And how was I toward Zehetmayer? Odd that the question of whether I was too friendly or too unfriendly always arises as soon as a person has left me. But I was quite friendly toward Huber, I think. And I was also quite friendly toward Zehetmayer. I certainly was least friendly with Henzig. It was a very short interview, an encounter, a surge of dislike for the man. Henzig, I think, is the ideal steward.”
