him from this solitude which meant nothing to him, solitude often mattered to him, now and then he’d say I need solitude, would think I need it, solitude would come at his summons, on summoning it he would remain with it standing behind the wall listening to the noise of his contemporaries, could hear the noise from behind that wall better than anywhere else, sometimes he would go looking, crossing the Tiergarten on foot, beneath the striding angel, protected by the angel and whatever the weather, for solitude before the fall, would find in the garden, beneath the angel and following the path, the wall he needed for composing, on the path would be shot down by a firing squad and pictured himself falling, face-down in the dust thick with his head’s blood, after which he could walk on again, at a rapid pace, does he know how to walk any way other than as if between airports, listening out with just one ear, he could hear the brand-new sounds of the brand-new year, the end of the crows and the cuckoos’ début, when he thought of it though he rarely thought of it, he would set the new sounds to his walking tempo, considered the tempo, of the music not the walking, although walking and music are often associated, could hear the cuckoo, its insecure third dipping a little towards the fourth, so little it was barely, the random spacing of the cuckoo’s call, the uncalculated length of the silence between each call, he was measuring the times by his steps, three steps, two, then seven, then two, four, then three, circling around Neuhardenberg the still-dominant crows, perched on the black trees and the wrong solitude, he knew that this solitude did nothing for him, drinking his tall blended whisky on the rocks, alone and more than alone, the birds are no help, made the birds vanish, off you vanish now, more solitary than ever without them, leaving the exhibition so perfectly explicit as to the effects of collective happiness, his morale fatally punctured by the display of works from the times of collective happiness: those joyous, glowing, Aryan children singing songs of happiness; pink-cheeked, broad-hipped seed-sowers sowing joy and good health; and the sunlit landscapes of peasant labor, he was at the same time resolved to suffer no more of collective happiness, of the exhibition would retain only the Blue Self-Portrait, thought he glimpsed in the darkness of the estate’s trees something of nature resisting nature, like a natural idea of resistance. The pianist’s fingers practicing in mid-air, the pianist’s technique in practice on the fabric of his jacket, the pianist’s technique in counterpoint to nature, he grew impatient as if waiting for someone, Lord above um Gottes Willen I need someone to talk naturally about nature without giving in to the natural temptation quite naturally to love nature, it must be possible, on leaving the display of collective happiness, to find refuge in some unexplored region of nature in not its natural but its savage state, not admired but brutish, not beautiful but pre-Polish. He had looked for the girl in Neuhardenberg Castle, distractedly looked but not seen her. He would have liked to bump into the girl at the exhibition but she wasn’t there, he would have liked, yet hadn’t gone there in order to bump into her either, didn’t exactly have views on the girl nor hopes regarding her, had never looked to have any privileged relationship with her but now, over his topped-up whisky would rather have liked a girl and even that particular girl, precisely her, that one, why not, the girl laid up on rocks of ice, savored by every part of his tongue, he drove out the thought, had thought it only once but that day no, didn’t want, had pictured her laid out only once but at Neuhardenberg Castle balked, wanted to discuss the exhibition, exchange a few thoughts on music and the Third Reich, discuss Schoenberg perhaps or Eisler or Brecht or Theresienstadt or the resistance to collective happiness put up by all artists classed as degenerate and persecuted by happiness even in their nightmares, with that girl he’d have had no need to explain or comment or define or defend his idea which was not a vision of the world but a counter-vision, she would have understood how he’d seen the exhibition and how he’d been changed by what he’d seen, yes: changed, not amazed or shocked or surprised, she’d have understood the mood in which he was leaving, she yes understood perfectly for she’d have seen the exhibition how it was possible to see it and absolutely not in the way it was impossible and forbidden to see it, no need to show her, that girl, how to see the exhibition nor to make her comprehend the Nazis’ musical perversion. He was able at the drop of a hat to point out the alienation that music achieved, the cul-de-sac of it, the musical decay it demanded, to whoever would listen, he was ready to explain over and over, but for the girl no point, not getting hung up on these everyday obscenities, exchanging something other than harmony and something quite other than musical sentiment, she would spontaneously have kept well away from harmony and sentiments and would instantly have seen the impossibility of all ‘poetic’ poetry without his having to explain anything at all to her about poets, wouldn’t simply have grasped the impossibility but would have positioned herself entirely outside that poetic musical emotion, would, that girl, have been the ideal partner to take to the exhibition. But she wasn’t there. The pianist had been alone with his thoughts about dead poetry and music’s abolition, had come out broken as a person by a barren and devastating solitude, hands gripping the glass and gaze lost in his tall whisky. He was not however, gaze in his glass, there in the Neuhardenberg castle’s restaurant, alone in the
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