...of a stratagem

...Absolutely everything about her is natural - everything she does, everything she says, as well as everything she doesn't say, everything she keeps to herself. One might think there was no more natural person in the world. It's as though she didn't have to give a single thought to anything. But equally naturally that is mistaken. I know how much calculation goes into everything she undertakes, how carefully everything is concocted before she finally dishes it up in front of all these people. In the most natural way in the world she constantly gives them to understand - though of course it isn't true for a moment - that she has read, if not everything, then at any rate most things, that she has met and is well acquainted, if not with all, then at any rate with most of the important and famous people who matter. And all this she gives them to understand without actually saying anything of the sort. Although she knows nothing about music and hasn't even a superficial understanding of it, everybody believes she knows a great deal about music. And the same goes for literature, even philosophy. Where others have to make a continual effort to keep up, she doesn't need to worry about a thing: everything comes to her at will, quite automatically. Naturally she is educated, in a manner of speaking, but only superficially. Naturally she knows a lot, more than most of the people she associates with, but her knowledge is of the most superficial kind, and yet nobody notices this. Where others constantly have to convince you in order not to be defeated and collapse and make themselves ridiculous, she remains silent and invariably scores a triumph, or else she makes some perfectly timed remark, from which it follows that she is in control of the whole scene. I have never seen my sister worsted. She, on the other hand, has often seen me come to grief over some ludicrous point. Two more different, more contrasting characters it would be impossible to imagine. This is probably the source of the tension between us. I have money and never talk about it, she once said, you have philosophy and never talk about it. This observation demonstrates where we both stand, and possibly also, I fear, where we have come to a standstill...

[Concrete, Bernhard, T.]