Though Roithamer was still far from having conceived even the idea of building his Cone, he was already fascinated by the building of Hoeller’s house and by the manner in which Hoeller had personally designed and created the house, unbeknownst to him as yet the idea of building the Cone for his sister had already been born inside him, even before the actual building of the Cone for his sister, and in the middle of the Kobernausser forest at that, existed even as a gleam in his conscious mind, his witnessing of Hoeller s art in building, and Hoeller s work on his house in the Aurach gorge must certainly be rated as an art, Roithamer said, had long since started him thinking about the Cone, sparked the idea of building the Cone, and this idea, to build the Cone and to build it, actualize it, in the Kobernausser forest, came to him in Hoeller’s house, it was in Hoeller’s house that Roithamer had decided, unconsciously at first, but then suddenly inspired by the idea of building the Cone, he reached the fully conscious decision of building the Cone, after watching Hoeller building his house, seeing the progressive stages of that project, in the Aurach gorge, Roithamer decided to confront such a project himself and to build something that so far, as Hoeller had also felt, no one before him had ever built (Roithamer), Roithamer’s constant watching of Hoeller’s building project had effected the creation of the Cone in Roithamer, at first in his head, then on paper, on hundreds, on thousands of papers, then at last in reality, because he, Roithamer, was the kind of man who had to create a reality, always a reality, out of what he had at first only imagined, to make it a fact, just as Hoeller had to turn into a fact the habitation he had at first only imagined for himself in the Aurach gorge, all that preparatory work for Roithamer’s Cone had in reality been done, as I now saw clearly, by Hoeller when he decided to build himself a house in the Aurach gorge, suddenly to sell the old house he had inherited from his parents and build himself the new one in the Aurach gorge with the proceeds plus some bank loans and the strength of his determination and his actual force of mind, he himself, Hoeller, had been hesitant at first in daring to tackle his project, but then he’d hastened with all the more energy to get it done. Like all country folk he, Hoeller, had acquired the basics of building by constantly watching building operations from childhood on, but had expanded his knowledge, once he had decided to build on his own, by private studies and reading of the technical literature, and had managed to perfect himself, up to a point, in the art of building himself a house to live in, basically it was the same process as the one followed later on by Roithamer, that sudden concentration of all his forces in Roithamer, the same Hoeller had been the first to experience, on the building of his work of art, with all the possibilities of expanding his knowledge of the art of building, of steadily developing and perfecting it, this total concentration on building in Hoeller had probably fascinated Roithamer years before his own decision to build the Cone, just as he’d always been highly interested, even absorbed, as I know, in building, the art of building, especially the art of building homes. But whether Roithamer knew that Hoeller had been both cause and model for his own building art, I don’t know, even though Roithamer was always talking about Hoeller’s building activity, meaning he always talked of it with the greatest respect, he was quite possibly not at all aware that Hoeller and Hoeller’s building activity was the cause of his own building activity, that he, Roithamer, might never have thought of building anything without Hoeller and Hoeller’s decision to build himself a house in the Aurach gorge. But just as Hoeller had wanted to build something special, a home, the contrary of what everybody else did, something contrary to all the precepts and all the concepts of the others, contrary to their reason, and in the most dangerous spot besides, something to make their eyes pop, Roithamer also wanted to build something special, something different from all the others, a cone, meaning a cone-to-live-in for his sister, and to top it off, as they said, inhuman in scale, in inhuman surroundings, at an inhuman location, namely in the middle of the Kobernausser forest. They both proceeded in the same way, each seeking to realize himself by means of what they both believed to be, Roithamer as well as Hoeller, and both achieved, an unusual deed in building a unique work of art, each in his own style. It was a good half hour before I broke the silence in which the Hoeller family had been sitting at table watching me without letup, to say that I thought Roithamer had hit on the idea of building the Cone while watching the Hoellers’ house being built. Since neither Hoeller nor his wife had anything to say to my remark, I fell silent again thinking that I was right, that everything in Hoeller’s house proved to me that Roithamer had been motivated to build his Cone by the building of Hoeller’s house, the briefest stay in Hoeller’s house was enough to confirm this supposition of mine, but this supposition had never yet been so clearly confirmed as it was while I had been sitting at table with the Hoellers considering the circumstances that had led to the building of Roithamer’s Cone, as they had led to the building of Hoeller’s house. Hoeller had to build his house in the Aurach gorge, considering all (his) circumstances, Roithamer had to build his Cone in the middle of the Kobernausser forest, all (his) circumstances considered. And in fact everything in Hoeller’s house, I thought, twist and turn it how you will, is original, just as everything in and about Roithamer’s Cone is original, the more closely you study it, consider it, observe, check and recheck every detail, the more absolutely original it must be called. And so, I thought, Roithamer had always sat here at this table, as I was sitting here now, in Hoeller’s family room with Hoeller’s family in the evening, at noon Roithamer was on his own, as I happen to know, he ate hardly anything at noon, a mouthful of clear cold water, a piece of bread at the most, were enough for him, but in the evening, exhausted from his work, he could indulge himself in a little contact with the Hoellers, in their company, he could go down to their family room to share their meal with them, it isn’t every day that a man like Roithamer, incessantly preoccupied with his kind of work, can afford to have such contact with people like the Hoellers, not just any time, but only at quite definite times and at quite regular intervals, such as in the evenings, after he had quite exhausted himself up in Hoeller’s garret, and couldn’t have gone on, not one moment longer, in Hoeller’s garret, Mrs. Hoeller’s three or four knocks on the ceiling, viz. the attic floor, with the hazel stick, were actually always his signal for dropping his work and getting to his feet and going down to the Hoeller family room, I know about this routine and I can imagine that Roithamer greatly valued their adherence to this routine as a ritual, Hoeller’s wife knocking three or four times on the ceiling, viz. the attic floor, which Roithamer had often told me about in England, had been his signal for dropping his work, and Hoeller’s wife, Roithamer said, always timed these knocks exactly right, not a moment too soon and not a moment too late. He, Roithamer, had never told Hoeller’s wife that she always knocked at the right moment, but she must have assumed that it always was the right moment because it was never followed by any kind of protest on Roithamer’s part. Not that Hoeller’s wife and I had ever come to any special understanding about it, but I had instantly grasped that her knocks on the ceiling, viz. the attic floor, meant that supper was ready and that she expected me to come down and join them at the table. In Hoeller’s workshop the noise made by the chamfer bit Hoeller was probably using also stopped immediately after the knocking, a sign that Hoeller too was stopping work and coming in to supper from his workshop. But even had I not been noticing and observing all this for myself, Roithamer had described it all to me, the whole process, how pleased he had been at her punctuality every time Hoeller’s wife knocked with her hazel stick, which meant that he had apparently never considered her knocking a disturbance, it often came as a liberation from some blind alley he had constructed, speculated, thought himself into, andsoforth. The Hoellers, I thought, were probably behaving toward me now as they had behaved toward Roithamer, the moment I had moved into Hoeller’s garret I had become locked into the mechanism of their behavior with Roithamer, everyone who now lives in Hoeller’s garret after Roithamer is probably locked into the same behavior mechanism that functioned for Roithamer, and now it is I who live in Hoeller’s garret, though there would probably be others living there after me, even if Hoeller denies it, I thought, the sort of people suitable for Hoeller’s garret, and it seemed to me that the Hoellers regarded me as nothing else than the man who had taken Roithamer’s place. Most of all it was from the behavior of Hoeller’s children at table that I immediately deduced that they thought they had to behave toward me as they had behaved toward Roithamer. Suddenly I’d discovered on the wall opposite, near the door, a death notice on which I could read Roithamer’s name, all the way across the room, it was a big room, I could read Roithamer’s name. Everything in this room and in this house, I thought, still shows the impact of Roithamer’s suicide, which was of course classified by everyone, Hoeller included, as the result of mental confusion, so-called, and I thought that everyone in Hoeller’s house still behaves, such a long time after Roithamer’s death, as if Roithamer were still among them.