CHAPTER 1

Although I had arranged to meet Reger at the KunsthistorischesMuseum at half-past eleven, I arrived at the agreed spot athalf-past ten in order, as I had for some time decided to do, toobserve him, for once, from the most ideal angle possible andundisturbed, Atzbacher writes. As he had his morning spot inthe so-called Bordone Room, facing Tintoretto's White-BeardedMan, on the velvet-covered settee on which yesterday,after an explanation of the so-called Tempest Sonata, hecontinued his lecture to me on the Art of the Fugue, from beforeBach to after Schumann, as he put it, and yet was in the moodto talk rather more about Mozart and not about Bach, I had totake up position in the so-called Sebastiano Room; I wascompelled therefore, entirely against my inclination, to submitto Titian in order to be able to observe Reger in front ofTintoretto's White-Bearded Man, moreover standing, whichwas no disadvantage because I prefer standing to sitting,especially when engaged in observing people, and I have all mylife been a better observer standing up than sitting down, andas, looking from the Sebastiano Room into the BordoneRoom, I eventually, by focusing as hard as I could, was able tosee Reger completely in profile, not even impaired by theback-rest of the settee, Reger who, no doubt badly affected bythe sudden change in the weather during the preceding night,kept his black hat on his head the whole time, so as I wastherefore able to see the whole left side of Reger exposed to me,my plan to observe Reger undisturbed for once had succeeded.As Reger (in an overcoat), supporting himself on a stickwedged between his knees, was totally absorbed in viewing theWhite-Bearded Man I had not the least fear, while observingReger, of being discovered by him. The attendant Irrsigler(Jenö!), with whom Reger is linked by an acquaintanceship ofmore than thirty years and with whom I myself have always tothis day had good relations (also for over twenty years), hadbeen warned by a hand signal on my part that for once I wishedto observe Reger undisturbed, and whenever Irrsigler appeared,with clockwork regularity, he acted as if I were not there at all,just as he acted as if Reger were not there at all, while he,Irrsigler, discharging his duty, subjected the visitors to thegallery, who, incomprehensibly on this free-admission Saturday,were not numerous, to his customary (for anyone who didnot know him) disagreeable scrutiny. Irrsigler has that irritatingstare which museum attendants employ in order to intimidatethe visitors who, as is well known, are endowed with all kindsof bad behaviour; his manner of abruptly and utterly soundlesslyappearing round the corner of whatever room in order toinspect it is indeed repulsive to anyone who does not knowhim; in his grey uniform, badly cut and yet intended foreternity, held together by large black buttons and hanging onhis meagre body as if from a coat rack, and with his peaked captailored from the same grey cloth, he is more reminiscent of awarder in one of our penal institutions than of a state-employedguardian of works of art. Ever since I have knownhim Irrsigler has always been as pale as he now is, even thoughhe is not sick, and Reger has for decades described him as a statecorpse on duty at the Kunsthistorisches Museum for overthirty-six years. Reger, who has been coming to the KunsthistorischesMuseum for over thirty-six years, has known Irrsiglerfrom the first day of his employment and maintains an entirelyamicable relationship with him. It only required a very smallbribe to secure the settee in the Bordone Room forever, Regertold me some years ago. Reger entered into a relationship withIrrsigler which has become a habit for both of them for overthirty years. Whenever Reger, as happens not infrequently,wishes to be alone in his contemplation of Tintoretto's White-BeardedMan, Irrsigler quite simply blocks the Bordone Roomto visitors, he quite simply places himself in the doorway andlets no one pass. Reger need only give a hand signal and Irrsiglerblocks the Bordone Room, indeed he does not shrink frompushing any visitors already in the Bordone Room out of theBordone Room, because that is Reger's wish. Irrsigler finishedan apprenticeship as a carpenter in Bruck-on-Leitha but gaveup carpentry even before qualifying as an assistant carpenter inorder to become a policeman. The police, however, turnedIrrsigler down because of his physical weakness. An uncle, abrother of his mother, who had been an attendant at theKunsthistorisches Museum since nineteen twenty-four, gothim his post at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, the mostunderpaid but the most secure, as Irrsigler says. Anyway,Irrsigler had only wanted to join the police because the career ofa policeman would, as he believed, solve his clothing problem.To slip all one's life into the same clothes without even havingto pay for those clothes out of his own pocket because the stateprovided them, appeared to him ideal, and his uncle, who gothim into the Kunsthistorisches Museum, had thought the sameway, and anyway there was no difference in this respectbetween being employed by the police and being employed bythe Kunsthistorisches Museum, admittedly the police paidmore and the Kunsthistorisches Museum less, but then servicein the Kunsthistorisches Museum could not be compared withservice in the police, he, Irrsigler, could not imagine a moreresponsible but at the same time easier service than in theKunsthistorisches Museum. In the police, Irrsigler said, a manserved day after day in danger of his life; not so if he served atthe Kunsthistorisches Museum. As for the monotony of hisoccupation there was no need to worry, he loved thatmonotony. Each day he would cover some forty to fiftykilometres, which was more beneficial to his health than, forinstance, service in the police, where the main part of the jobwas sitting on a hard office chair, life-long. He would rathershadow visitors to the museum than normal people, for visitorsto the museum were at any rate superior people with anunderstanding of art. In the course of time he had, he said,acquired such an understanding of art that he would be capableat any time of guiding a conducted tour through the KunsthistorischesMuseum, or certainly through the picture gallery, buthe could do without that. Anyway, people do not take in whatis said to them, he says. For decades the museum guides havealways been saying the same thing, and of course a great deal ofnonsense, as Herr Reger says, Irrsigler says to me. The arthistorians only swamp the visitors with their twaddle, saysIrrsigler, who has, over the years, appropriated verbatim many,if not all, of Reger's sentences. Irrsigler is Reger's mouthpiece,nearly everything that Irrsigler says has been said by Reger, forover thirty years Irrsigler has been saying what Reger has said.If I listen attentively I can hear Reger speak through Irrsigler. Ifwe listen to the guides we only ever hear that art twaddle whichgets on our nerves, the unbearable art twaddle of the arthistorians, says Irrsigler, because Reger says so frequently. Allthese paintings are magnificent, but not a single one is perfect,Irrsigler says after Reger. People only go to the museum becausethey have been told that a cultured person must go there, andnot out of interest, people are not interested in art, at any rateninety-nine per cent of humanity has no interest...