Where she gets this talent from I don’t know, since our father had no interest whatever in society, and our mother disliked all the social to-do, as she called it. My sister’s business sense, which is her most distinctive trait, though no one would suspect it without knowing her as well as I do, comes from our paternal grandfather. It was he who made the family fortune, in the most curious circumstances, but at all events, however he did it, he made so much money that my sister and I, the third generation, still have enough for our existence, and all in all neither of us leads the most modest existence. For even though I live alone in Peiskam, I spend more money each month than other people who have large families. Who, for instance, heats more than nine rooms — not small rooms either — all through the winter just for himself? In fact, even though I am the most incompetent person in all so-called money matters, I could live for another twenty years without having to earn a penny, and then I could still sell off one parcel of land after another without seriously impairing the estate and thus lowering its value, but that won’t be necessary, and it’s absurd to contemplate it in view of the fact that I have only a very short time left to live, thanks to the incessant and inexorable progress of my.illness. I give myself one or two years at the most, by which time my need for life or existence or anything else this world has to offer will probably be exhausted. If I wished, I might describe myself as affluent, unlike my sister, who is really rich, for what one sees of her wealth is far from being the whole. In one point, however, which I have already mentioned, I differ markedly from her: she donates millions to the church and other such dubious institutions for the good of her soul and for her own private amusement, whereas I donate nothing and would never dream of donating anything in a world which is choking on its billions, yet prates about charity at the drop of a hat. I haven’t the least desire to amuse myself for weeks on end by giving to charity, nor have I the capacity to derive pleasure from newspaper accounts of my generosity and love of my neighbour, because I believe neither in generosity nor in love of one’s neighbour. The world of do-gooders is steeped in hypocrisy, and anyone who proclaims the contrary, or even asserts it, is either a subtle exploiter of humanity or an unpardonable idiot. Ninety per cent of the time today we are up against subtle exploiters, ten per cent of the time against unpardonable idiots. Neither can be helped. The church — since this suits my argument — exploits both, no matter what church it is, and the Catholic Church I know far too well to leave it a thing. It is the subtlest of them all, taking advantage wherever it can and getting most of its money from the poorest of the poor. But the poorest of the poor can’t be helped. The idea that they can is the most widespread of lies, propagated above all by the politicians. Poverty can’t be eradicated, and anyone who thinks of eradicating it is set on nothing short of the eradication of the human race itself, and hence of nature itself. The greater the sums my sister gives to charity, the louder and more devilishly she laughs about them. No one who has heard her laughing about one of her donations can be in any doubt about what makes the world go around. I’ve heard this laughter so often that I never want to hear it again. People are always talking about it being their duty to find their way to their fellow men — to their neighbour, as they are forever saying with all the baseness of false sentiment — when in fact it is purely and simply a question of finding their way to themselves. Let each first find his way to himself! And since hardly anyone has yet found his way to himself, it is inconceivable that any of these unfortunate millions has ever found his way to another human being — or to his neighbour, as they say, dripping with self-deception. The world is so rich that in fact it can afford anything, but this is prevented by the politicians who rule it. They cry out for aid, yet daily squander billions on arms alone. No, I positively refuse to give this world a single penny, for, unlike my sister, I don’t suffer from this devious craving for gratitude. Those people who are everlastingly saying that they are prepared for any sacrifice, that they would sacrifice everything non-stop, ultimately their lives, and so forth, those saints who are as greedy for sacrifice as pigs for the trough and who are to be found in every country and every continent under every possible and impossible name, I find utterly revolting. Such people have no other aim in mind than to be inundated with praise and showered with honours. These dangerous people, who are more self-seeking and self-satisfied than any others, whose numbers run into millions from St. Francis of Assisi onwards and who disport themselves day in day out in countless religious and political organisations the world over merely to satisfy their craving for fame, I find utterly abhorrent. The so-called social element, which has been talked about ad nauseam for centuries, is nothing but the basest of lies. I refuse to have any part in it, even at the risk of being misunderstood, though to be honest that is a risk to which I have always been indifferent. My sister, together with a number of so-called ladies from the so-called higher and highest reaches of society, once arranged a bazaar at which the Christ Child was made to croak nonstop through some dreadful loudspeaker, and my sister contributed five hundred thousand schillings to the proceeds. She then had the gall to explain to me that she cared about the poorest of the poor, but she soon realised, even though — or perhaps precisely because — I said nothing about this hypocritical enterprise of hers, that I had seen through her. In return for it she had the pleasure of being gallantly kissed on the hand by the Monsignor, the president of one of our biggest charities, who is nothing but a wily old socialite. I should be horrified at having my hand shaken by this particular gentleman. Fifteen or sixteen years ago, when I had some connection with him, admittedly only slight, he asked my sister whether, in return for eight hundred thousand schillings in cash, she would furnish an apartment for him. My sister agreed and furnished the Monsignor’s apartment exclusively with renaissance furniture from Florence and late eighteenth century Austrian pieces from two Marchfeld castles that had come her way. When the commission was completed she threw a party for him which was attended by fifty hand-picked guests, the lowliest among them being an Irish earl. He had been chosen as a guest for the evening by the Monsignor and her just because he owned a cotton mill on the border between Lower Austria and the Burgenland which she wanted to acquire at all costs. In this I know she was successful; my sister is always successful in such matters. For eight hundred thousand schillings, no doubt from church funds, she furnished the Monsignor’s apartment, and I actually told her to her face that she had done it with church funds — at a cost of eight hundred thousand schillings, which in present-day terms is more like six or seven million. Just imagine: the Monsignor furnishes an apartment for himself at a cost of eight hundred thousand schillings and at the same time goes on the air to beg on behalf of his charity in a whining appeal addressed to the poorest of the poor, and couched in terms that are mendacious in every detail. I asked my sister whether she didn’t feel ashamed, but she didn’t: she was too intelligent for that, as she herself would put it, and simply said, Four hundred thousand came from me — the Monsignor only paid four hundred thousand. Such goings-on revolt me. But they are typical of the so-called upper crust, to which it has been my sister’s life-long endeavour to belong. A mere count had to have great charm and infinite wealth for my sister to converse with him for any length of time; her normal behaviour she reserved for nothing less than princes. I don’t know where she gets this dreadful madness from. I’ve often wondered whether there’s anything the least bit natural about a person like her. On the other hand there are times when suddenly, from one moment to the next, my attitude to her becomes one of admiration. The little brother is powerless in the face of such a radiant person, which is what she often calls herself. Every room is transformed when she enters it; wherever and whenever she appears, everything changes and becomes subordinated to her alone. And yet she’s not really beautiful. I’ve often asked myself whether she’s beautiful or not, but I can’t say. She is and she isn’t. She’s different from all the others and has the ability, if not to extinguish everybody around her, at least to relegate them to the background, to put them in the shade. This makes her the exact opposite of myself: all my life I have been inconspicuous, not modest — that would be quite the wrong word — but inconspicuous and essentially retiring. The result of my being so inconspicuous and retiring has been that in the course of time I have liquidated myself, as I might say — as I do say, since it’s the truth. Your tragedy, my little brother, is that you always stay in the background, she often says. Her tragedy, however, she once said, was that she must always be in the foreground, whether she wanted to or not, that she was always forced into the foreground wherever she was and whatever the situation. What she says is never stupid, because it’s always cleverer than what other people say, but much of what she says is wrong. At times — not just at times, in fact, but all the time — I could scream at the nonsense which evidently earns her the highest admiration in all quarters. Naturally she goes to the opera, and she never misses a Wagner opera, with one exception: she never goes to see