and drained of any meaning to me. I had visited various people whom I usually visited every time I came home from England, but none of these people meant anything to me any longer. The nights I spent lying awake in bed without even any need to go back to England, what was I to do in England with Roithamer no longer there. The nights were absolutely horrible. There were times when I got up and went to the window when I came close to doing away with myself. But in the morning my head was always clear again. Toward noon I’d be depressed again, locked into my mood of growing despair. I didn’t know whether to go back to England or not, suppose I look for something to do here in Austria, perhaps a lectureship at nearby Salzburg University. Just a lot of crazy notions. Whenever I tried to read the books from my father’s library, I soon broke off reading every time.
They said that Roithamer had willed me his papers. Everything seemed to me intent upon my destruction. I escaped to my father’s shack in the mountains.
There I suddenly fell sick. Pure chance, I thought, still staring down into the Aurach from my window, that they found me up there. Most likely, I thought, suddenly conscious again that I was here in Hoeller’s garret, most likely I shall go back to England. Then I paced back and forth in Hoeller’s garret.
Suddenly the mere idea of going back to England alone and without Roithamer felt horrible. I sat down at first on the chair beside the door, then got up and sat down at the desk. I took the yellow paper rose out of the top drawer and held it up to the light that had ceased to be a light, the twilight had already darkened everything, soon it will be pitch-dark, I thought, and laid the yellow paper rose back in the drawer. Was I right in going from the hospital, not to my parents’ house, but to Hoeller’s garret, I thought, and I kept going over it in my mind how deeply my parents’ feelings would be hurt when they found that I left the hospital and went directly to the Aurach and into Hoeller’s house. Even though they like Hoeller, I thought, they probably still won’t understand my going to Hoeller instead of to them. My father visits the Hoellers often, as a child I used to go along when he visited the Hoellers in their old house, the one on the lower Aurach which Hoeller suddenly sold in order to build the new house with the proceeds, plus a hefty bank loan. He had sold the old house on condition that, though the new owners had moved in long since, he and his family could stay in it another two years, or only as long as he needed to build the new house he had designed. The whole thing had been Roithamer’s inspiration for his Cone, Roithamer had quite unconsciously, as I now know, modeled his own plans and their execution for his Cone on Hoeller’s plans for Hoeller’s house and the building and finishing of Hoeller’s house. Hoeller, given his circumstances, had needed four years to plan and build and finish his house, while Roithamer had needed six years to plan and build and finish the Cone for his sister. If Hoeller had not built his house, the idea of building would probably never have entered Roithamer’s head and so today there would be no Cone, that unique instance in Europe of a cone built as a habitation, in the middle of the Kobernausser forest. But Hoeller’s procedure had been the same as Roithamer’s, I thought, the one built himself a house ideal for his purposes, the other an ideal cone, as he believed, for his sister. On the one hand I thought: what audacity for Roithamer to build that Cone, on the other hand: what audacity for Hoeller to build his house in the Aurach gorge. After all, I thought, it is right here in Hoeller’s garret that the idea of building the Cone was worked out, so the Cone unquestionably comes from Hoeller’s house, from Hoeller’s garret. I had never yet been more conscious of this fact than at this moment, when I was summoned to come down to supper
They said that Roithamer had willed me his papers. Everything seemed to me intent upon my destruction. I escaped to my father’s shack in the mountains.
There I suddenly fell sick. Pure chance, I thought, still staring down into the Aurach from my window, that they found me up there. Most likely, I thought, suddenly conscious again that I was here in Hoeller’s garret, most likely I shall go back to England. Then I paced back and forth in Hoeller’s garret.
Suddenly the mere idea of going back to England alone and without Roithamer felt horrible. I sat down at first on the chair beside the door, then got up and sat down at the desk. I took the yellow paper rose out of the top drawer and held it up to the light that had ceased to be a light, the twilight had already darkened everything, soon it will be pitch-dark, I thought, and laid the yellow paper rose back in the drawer. Was I right in going from the hospital, not to my parents’ house, but to Hoeller’s garret, I thought, and I kept going over it in my mind how deeply my parents’ feelings would be hurt when they found that I left the hospital and went directly to the Aurach and into Hoeller’s house. Even though they like Hoeller, I thought, they probably still won’t understand my going to Hoeller instead of to them. My father visits the Hoellers often, as a child I used to go along when he visited the Hoellers in their old house, the one on the lower Aurach which Hoeller suddenly sold in order to build the new house with the proceeds, plus a hefty bank loan. He had sold the old house on condition that, though the new owners had moved in long since, he and his family could stay in it another two years, or only as long as he needed to build the new house he had designed. The whole thing had been Roithamer’s inspiration for his Cone, Roithamer had quite unconsciously, as I now know, modeled his own plans and their execution for his Cone on Hoeller’s plans for Hoeller’s house and the building and finishing of Hoeller’s house. Hoeller, given his circumstances, had needed four years to plan and build and finish his house, while Roithamer had needed six years to plan and build and finish the Cone for his sister. If Hoeller had not built his house, the idea of building would probably never have entered Roithamer’s head and so today there would be no Cone, that unique instance in Europe of a cone built as a habitation, in the middle of the Kobernausser forest. But Hoeller’s procedure had been the same as Roithamer’s, I thought, the one built himself a house ideal for his purposes, the other an ideal cone, as he believed, for his sister. On the one hand I thought: what audacity for Roithamer to build that Cone, on the other hand: what audacity for Hoeller to build his house in the Aurach gorge. After all, I thought, it is right here in Hoeller’s garret that the idea of building the Cone was worked out, so the Cone unquestionably comes from Hoeller’s house, from Hoeller’s garret. I had never yet been more conscious of this fact than at this moment, when I was summoned to come down to supper
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