Correction: A Novel Read Online Free Page B

administration and policy, this country, once the very center of Europe, was, according to Roithamer, no longer anything more than a rummage sale of intellectual and cultural history, an unsold remainder of government merchandise, on which the citizen is granted only a second or a third or a fourth but in any case only the last bid, only the leftovers, Roithamer had known from the beginning, as I did too, how impossible it was to grow up and develop in this country, under this government, no matter what the auspices, as Roithamer said, this country and this government do not favor the development of a man of intellect, here every sign of intellectual energy becomes immediately transformed into a sign of intellectual weakness, every effort to get ahead, to move up, to move on, is made in vain, wherever you turn your eyes, your mind, your efforts, you see nothing but the failure of all efforts to make one’s way, to rise, to get on, to develop, every Austrian is born to failure and has to realize that he must give up the struggle if he is to remain in this country and in this state, under whatever auspices, he has to decide whether to stay and go under, to grow old in misery and without ever achieving anything in his own country and his own state, watching his own mind and body die a horrible slow death, whether to accept this lifelong process of decline while remaining in this country, under this government, or else whether to get up and out as soon as possible, and by so doing save himself, save his mind, save his personality, his nature, because if he doesn’t get out, Roithamer’s words, then he is sure to be destroyed in this country, if he isn’t yet contemptible, he is sure to become contemptible in this country, and under this system, and if he’s not a vicious or an infamous type, he’s sure to become a vicious or an infamous character, and a vicious and infamous creature in this country and under this system, so a man has to save himself from the first, from the very first moments he begins to think, by escaping from this country and this system and the sooner a man of intellect turns his back on this country and this system the better, he has to make up his mind to leave behind everything that constitutes this state and this country, to go no matter where, to the ends of the earth if necessary, but not to stay where there is nothing for him, or else if there is something, it’s sure to be only the most miserable, the most mind-destroying, the most head-wrecking kind of thing, sure to drive him to every kind of pettiness and meanness, here everything exists only to crush him, to vilify and disown him at all times, he must realize that here in his Austrian homeland he is chronically exposed to vulgar misunderstanding and vulgar vilification, sure to drive him to his destruction and to his death and to the annihilation of his existence. Surely it is clear that Roithamer had no alternative but to leave his homeland, which doesn’t even deserve that honorable title, since it still is an honorable title, because his so-called homeland is actually, for him as for so many others, nothing but a horrible lifelong punishment for existing, for the blameless act of having been born in the first place, a man like Roithamer never ceases to feel punished by his homeland for what is not his fault, because no man can be blamed for his birth, but Roithamer had to understand very early in his life, in his earliest childhood, in fact, which he spent with his three siblings in Altensam, that he would have to get away, as fast as possible and without any ifs or buts, if he was not to go under, as his siblings have gone under, in the last analysis, because there is not the slightest doubt that Austria has been the ruin of his siblings, his older brother certainly went downhill in Altensam, because of the circumstances characteristic of Altensam, the conditions that prevail in Altensam and always did prevail in Altensam, Roithamer’s