Read Wittgenstein's Nephew for Free Online

actually afraid that he might
suddenly
rush in and embrace me and cry his heart out. I loved him, but I did not want to be embraced by him, and I hated it when he cried hisheart out to me at the age of fifty-nine or sixty. His whole body would quiver and he would stammer inarticulately, frothing at the mouth and clutching one so tightly that it became unbearable and one had to resort to violence in order to extricate oneself. I often had to fight him off, which I naturally hated doing, but there was no choice, as I would otherwise have suffocated. In his last years these hugging fits became worse, and one needed the utmost self-abnegation and almost superhuman strength to free oneself from his embrace. It had long been clear that anyone who behaved like this was dangerously sick. It was only a matter of time before he himself finally suffocated during one of his sudden attacks.
You’re my only friend, the only person I have, the one and only
, he would stammer to the person he was embracing, who was at a loss to know how to calm the poor wretch, how to relieve his tension. I dreaded these embraces and feared that Paul might suddenly burst into the room. But he did not come. Every day, indeed every hour, I was afraid that he would burst in, but he did not. I learned from Irina that he was lying on his bed in the Ludwig Pavilion as if dead, refusing to eat. The methods that were used to treat him led to total debility, and when the doctors had destroyed him they left him in peace. When he was reduced to a skeleton and unable so much as to stand up unaided, they would discharge him. He would then be driven to the Traunsee, either in a car belonging to one of his brothers or alone in a taxi. Once there, he would lie low for a few days or even weeks on one of the family’s estates; right up to his death he had a contractual right of domicile in a two-hundred-year-old farmhouse situated in a high valleybetween Altmünster and Traunkirchen, where an elderly maid with a lifelong devotion to the Wittgensteins ran a small farm to cater to the private needs of any members of the family who were on vacation in the country. At times like this his wife, Edith, would stay behind in Vienna. She knew that he would recover only if he had
nobody
around him, not even her, though she was closer to him than anyone else and he remained in love with her until his death. When he was staying by the Traunsee he would always look me up—not in the first few days, but later, when he felt able to meet people and no longer had cause to fear the ruthless stares of sensation-seekers, when he was once more in a mood to converse and philosophize. He would then turn up at Nathal, and at first, if the weather was mild, he would sit alone in the yard with his eyes closed, listening to the records I played on the first floor, from which the sound carried perfectly through the wide-open widows.
Some Mozart, please
, he would say.
Some Strauss, please. Some Beethoven, please
. I knew what records to play in order to put him into the right frame of mind. We would listen to Mozart and Beethoven together for hours, without saying a word. This was something we both loved. The day would end with a light supper prepared by me, after which I would drive him home. I shall never forget those wordless musical evenings I spent with him. It would take him about two weeks to
normalize himself
, as he put it. He would stay in the country until it began to get on his nerves and he longed to return to Vienna. Once he was there, four or five months would elapse before the first symptoms of his sickness reappeared. During the early years of our friendshiphe drank incessantly, and this naturally accelerated the progress of his illness. When he gave up drinking—which he did without protest—his condition at first showed an alarming deterioration and then a marked improvement. He no longer drank any alcohol. No one had enjoyed drinking as much as he had. He would