...of endorsement (and cowardice)

...You're a stupid and destructive person, and you're not even ashamed of it, he said, and then fell silent. I have to own that the actor's attack on Jeannie gave me great delight, for I had seldom seen anybody say such things to her face or requite her with such asperity for one of her impertinences. Although I still found the Burgtheater actor repugnant, he had momentarily earned my esteem. Never before has Jeannie Billroth been told how lacking in decency she really is, I thought. Nobody's ever told her that for a long time she's been utterly incompetent in discussing ideas, I thought. Nobody's ever told Jeannie to her face that she's rude, even vulgar, as the actor just has. We feel a great delight when somebody is getting his just desserts, so to speak, by being reproached with his own rudeness and shamelessness, his own stupidity and incompetence, I thought, especially when we've waited years to see it happen. Jeannie's never before been told that she's basically a common little woman and a low character, but the actor from the Burgtheater has just spelled it out. I had the impression that everyone who witnessed the actor's outburst felt not only a certain momentary pleasure, but a satisfaction that would last rather longer than that. Naturally they did not express what they felt: they had no occasion to do so, nor could they have afforded to. The actor could afford to, however, just as I could afford, if only by my silence, to endorse everything he had said about Jeannie. For years, perhaps for decades, we may have wanted to tell someone the truth to his face, the truth that he has never heard because no one has dared to tell it to him to his face, and then at last someone does it for us. And I reflected that by telling Jeannie the truth to her face, whatever that truth may or may not have been, the actor had made it worthwhile for me to have accepted the invitation to the artistic dinner after all...

[Woodcutters, Bernhard, T.]

...of uninvolving

...While I was working on The Wild Duck I saw what was wrong with these young people: they will not tolerate discipline. But the actor who plays Gregers is quite outstanding, Jeanie Billroth objected to this point. To which the Burgtheater actor replied, Everybody says Gregers is good, but I don't understand what they see in him: I find his performance just average, no more than average - a piece of positive miscasting. Jeanie Billroth was the only other guest who had actually seen the production at the Burgtheater, and the others, having started off without knowing what The Wild Duck was and only gradually learning that it was a play, were condemned to silence. Every now and then they nodded, either looking straight at the actor or gazing down at the tablecloth, or else staring in bewilderment at the person sitting opposite, they had no chance whatever of participating in the actor's performance, with which he was regaling them so uninhibitedly, knowing that none of them would inhibit him. Auersberger's wife, far from inhibiting him, repeatedly urged him to go on, and it was natural that the actor, having just come from performing in The Wild Duck at the Burgtheater, should continue to expatiate on the performance and related matters...

[Woodcutters, Bernhard, T.]

...of observation

...This trick of going to the cafe Eiles had always worked. I would go in, get myself a pile of newspapers, and recover my composure. Nor did have to be the cafe Eiles, the Museum or the Braunerhof also produced the desired effect. Just as some people run to the park or the woods in search of calm and distraction, I have always run to the coffeehouse. Thus it was as likely as not, I reflected in the wing chair, that before finally addressing me the Auersbergers had observed me for some time, just as closely as I had observed Auersberger that day in the Rotenturmstrasse, and no doubt with the same ruthlessness, the same monstrous inhumanity. We learn a great deal, I reflected in the wing chair, if we observe people from behind when they are unaware of being observed, observing them for as long as we can, prolonging our ruthless and monstrous observation for as long as possible without addressing them, keeping control of ourselves and refraining from speaking to them, then being able simply to turn on our heel and walk away from them, in the truest sense of the phrase - if we have the skill and cunning that I displayed that day at the bottom of the Rotenturmstrasse, when I turned on my heel and walked away. We should apply this observation procedure both to people we love and to people we hate, I thought, sitting in the wing chair and observing Auersberger's wife, who kept glancing at the clock and trying to console her guests for having to wait for supper so long, that is to say until the actor made his entrance...

[Woodcutters, Bernhard, T.]

...of feigned ignorance

...The fact that I had not heard from Joana for so long, I thought, sitting in the wing chair, had for some time struck me as suspicious, and I had often wondered lately whether Joana, a woman who had been deeply wounded, who had been cheated, deserted and scorned, might one day commit suicide. But in the Graben I had pretended to the Auersbergers that I knew nothing of Joana's suicide, feigning utter astonishment and shock, even though by eleven o'clock in the Graben I was no longer astonished or shocked by the tragedy, having heard about it at seven o'clock that morning; after walking up and down the Graben and Karntnerstrasse several times I found I was able to endure Joana's suicide, that I was able to bear it, in the bracing air of the Graben. Actually it would have been better had I not appeared utterly astonished by the Auersbergers' announcement of Joana's suicide; I should have told them that I had known for some time and that I even knew how she had killed herself. I ought to have told them the precise circumstances, I thought, and so deprived them of their triumph, which they were actually reveling in and savoring to the full, as I noted at the time while we were standing in front of Knizes'; for by pretending to know nothing whatever about Joana's death, by acting as though I had been stunned and shattered and dumbfounded by the terrible news, I had allowed the Auersebergers the thrill of being the sudden bearers of ill tidings, which naturally had not been my intention, though this was what I managed to achieve by my ineptitude, by claiming to know nothing whatever about Joana's suicide at the time of our meeting. All the time I was standing there with the Auersbergers I feigned ignorance, while knowing more or less everything about Joana's suicide...

[Woodcutters, Bernhard, T.]

...of diners

They're hungry, and hunger is just about the only thing that can shut them up for a moment. They clap when I bring in the fries, then fall into devout silence to taste them. They're burning hot, crisp outside, soft inside, and slightly disturbing, because they're not evenly cut and don't come from the freezer. Are they OK, nonetheless? Was that an unambiguous OK? They're delicious? Oof, I passed the test. Now I have to gird myself for a silent duel with Monkey. He stares at me and I stare back. Will he, won't he? He's still not sure. He looks at me and nods. I concede the match.
"Yes, I've got some."

[Dear Reader, Fournel, P.] 

...of e-readers

I cannot stand the countryside. That's why I go there every weekend. So as to read and have a heart attack in enemy territory, in dark and lugubrious silence. As I gave up having a good night's sleep long ago, I get out of bed in the pitch dark of the back of beyond and automatically dive into the thickest of my weekend doorstops. I sink onto the sofa, wrap my legs in a blanket, and read. My habitual technique is quite simple: I stack the pile of sheets on my paunch, and as I read I transfer them one by one to my chest. The increasing pressure on my ribcage gives an accurate reading of how much work I have done. For the first twenty pages I read with great attention, as slowly as I can make myself read, then I speed up gently, allowing my professional experience and what I know of the author and the book's concept to take over - imagination does the rest. This is my semi-somnolent reading style, which constitutes my deepest mode of engagement with a text. It's the perfect time for working on authors that the firm has published for many years - solid old troopers who need nothing more than a tuck or a nip.
The tablet is on my paunch. I hold it in both hands. There is a page open on the screen. I've matched the font size to the strength of my half-moons. The reader is cold to the touch. It'll take a minute for my hands to warm it up. My reading lamp makes an unpleasant glare in one corner of the screen. I switch it off. Now the only light comes from the text. That's a plus. If I look at myself in the mirror, with the tablet under my chin, I look like a ghost. I am the ghost of readers past.
With a flick of a finger I turn pages that don't fall on my pile. They depart body and soul to some imaginary place I can hardly imagine. My chest is anxious and gives me no guide to how far I've got. There's no noise of turning pages to break the silence of the house. I miss the slight breeze I used to feel on my neck from each page as it fell. I am hot. The light from the page absorbs my eyes. I've suddenly lost a character and I have to go back. My useless pencil is still behind my ear (I'm a bookie reader) and I'm puzzled as to how I'm going to keep track of typos. I'm really put off by the idea of summoning up a keyboard the way the intern showed me and barging into the text. I've always been a man of margins and lead pencils. I want to be erasable. For a second I rest the reader on my chest and close my eyes. I'm waiting for the screen to go to sleep so I can too, just for fifteen minutes, until dawn comes.

[Dear Reader, Fournel, P.]

...of old paper

When was it exactly that I stopped jumping for joy at the mere thought that I might discover a masterpiece and come back into the office on a Monday morning a new man? Twenty years ago? Could it be thirty? I don't like doing sums of that sort, they have a whiff of mortality about them. When I close my eyes the steady glow of the Perzel lamp passes through my eyelids and summons up black whorls and floating ruins like a drawing by Victor Hugo. My breathing slows down as does my cardiac rhythm somewhat. I could easily drop off. I could die. Yes! Like Moliere, I could die in the saddle. They'd say, "He died as he lived, among books, whilst reading!" and to be honest I would have passed on while dreaming of nothing. I haven't really read properly for a long time. Do I still know how to read - I mean, to read in the full sense of the word? Am I still up to it? If I let my head loll to the side, my heart beats louder and sends a shiver through the oak...
The whole house is bathed in the silence of old paper. Books, like snow, gobble up sound. My profession has its own smell and mufflers. I can smell it better in this quiet. Going back into the noise of the world is always a challenge.

[Dear Reader, Fournel, P.]