Hamlet, I thought. When the mass was over, the coffins were carried out of the church, first my father’s, then my mother’s, and lastly my brother’s. My knees suddenly trembled as the gardeners bore Johannes’s coffin past me. They shouldered it with great skill, I thought, as if they were accustomed to shouldering a coffin every day. The huntsmen carried my parents’ coffins out of the church, but at my express wish Johannes was carried by the gardeners. Caecilia did not weep. I had the chance to look into Amalia’s eyes, and our brother-in-law the wine cork manufacturer, in his clumsy way, put on a brave face and made the best of a bad job. He was the one figure who was really out of place — this was more obvious than ever. All eyes were fixed on either me or Spadolini. Caecilia naturally insisted on being supported by her husband, not me, as we left the church. Amalia walked with me. Observing her, it struck me that during this period of mourning she had taken to walking with her head lowered. My sisters’ mocking faces first became embittered, I thought, and now they’ve become mournful. Caecilia was naturally more composed than her sister. Amalia looks much younger than she is, I thought, but not at all attractive. That’s why she’s still single, I thought. No man has ever been attracted to her, not even a man like the wine cork manufacturer. Momentarily I felt sorry for her, but then I could not help remembering how clownishly she had always behaved in any company. Amalia will never be happy, or even contented, I thought. Nor will Caecilia, who’s walking arm in arm with her unhappiness, I thought, looking at the wine cork manufacturer’s profile. I could not help thinking that it was the profile of a subaverage individual who had managed to insinuate himself into Wolfsegg. The village band played the Haydn piece again, better than before, I thought, and the cortege moved even more slowly toward the cemetery than it had previously moved toward the church. I have always hated processions and parades, especially accompanied by music. All the world’s disasters have been inaugurated by processions and parades, I thought. I was revolted by the thought that not far behind me were the former Gauleiters of the Upper Danube and the Lower Danube, the very people who had desecrated the Children’s Villa and permanently ruined it for me. Behind them were the veterans of the League of Comrades, some of them on crutches — men who had fought for their abominable Nazi ideals and been awarded the Blood Order for doing so. And behind them — so Caecilia had whispered to me just before the procession moved off — was my student friend Eisenberg, my soul mate, the Viennese rabbi, whom I was determined to speak to as soon as the ceremony was over. A funeral procession like this is grotesque, I thought. Unspeakable. Such an endless funeral procession is not only an imposition on everybody but utterly tasteless, I thought, though I knew that my view was shared by none of the participants. They wouldn’t dream of thinking such a thing. Indeed, had they been privy to my thoughts, they would have concluded that I was utterly tasteless. Maybe I am, I thought. But I felt no shame until I stood by the open grave. I had once said to Gambetti that when we stood by an open grave we had only treachery inside us. The perversity of this ceremony was borne in on me when the archbishop of Salzburg stepped up to the graveside to make a speech. He began by calling my father a brave warrior on the field of honor. He spoke only of my father and never once mentioned my mother, or even Johannes. This was not deliberate, I thought; it could be attributed to forgetfulness and conceit, to male selfishness and arrogance. There were twelve graveside speeches, all delivered by men who pretended to have been my father’s best friends, though this was naturally untrue. The archbishop of Salzburg and the bishop of Innsbruck claimed they had been, the former Gauleiters claimed they had been, two SS officers claimed they had been, and so did the commander of the League of Comrades and the president of the Huntsmen’s Association. For a whole hour they repeatedly spoke of Father as their best friend, and this quite outrageous presumption went unchallenged, as was to be expected at a funeral. The coffins had already been lowered into the grave. Finally Spadolini stepped forward. I thought he was about to speak, but that would have been out of character. He at once stepped back, as if wishing to melt into the background again, but this was a feint, as he had been the central figure throughout the ceremony. He did not compromise himself by uttering a single platitude but rejoined the ranks of the mourners crowded around the grave. I very nearly misjudged Spadolini, I thought. The commander of the League of Comrades said that Father had lived only for the aims of the League. At first I found this assertion contemptible, but a few minutes later I changed my mind, as I had to acknowledge that it was to some extent true. The president of the Huntsmen’s Association also spoke the truth, I had to tell myself, and so did the two former Gauleiters. Father, as a party member, had been one of them, and this was how everyone saw him. I continued to think how embarrassing it was that none of them remembered to say anything about Mother. Still at the graveside, I remarked to Caecilia that none of them thought it worth their while to say a word about Mother. The speeches were made by the menfolk, I thought, and the menfolk took no cognizance of Mother. And Johannes too was a thoroughly unimportant figure in the whole business, having forfeited any claim to importance by dying too soon. Aside from carrying his coffin and laying him to rest, no one had paid him any attention. Father was the great personality they could exploit at the graveside, and they exploited him for all he was worth. Father was still useful to them, but no one else was, I thought. The archbishop of Salzburg and the bishops looked once more into the open grave and then withdrew. Whereupon everyone filed past my sisters and me, as is customary. A hundred twenty-two woodworkers and now only twenty, two dozen gardeners and now only seven, I thought, standing by the open grave. Huge forest damage in the north, right down to Gallspach, I thought. Thirty-two first-class acres lost through