on standby for a funeral; they’ve always had all the props and costumes ready, but it’s taken a long time for the occasion to present itself. All they’ve had to do is dust everything off. In fact the black banners had already been hung on the house, as I saw. The gardeners are carrying out my sisters’ instructions, I thought, more likely Caecilia’s than Amalia’s. At the same time I wondered what role they had assigned to the wine cork manufacturer from Freiburg, what lines they had allotted him, what words he would have to deliver when the drama began. I had met him once, at my sister’s wedding a few days earlier, and doubted whether he would be permitted to deliver any lines of his own. Wolfsegg suddenly has had to be transformed from a wedding set into a funeral set, I thought. As I stood by the wall I was still amazed that my journey from Rome via Vienna had gone so smoothly and that everything had run on schedule. Neither the railroad workers nor the airline staff had struck, and the connections had been perfect. My sisters can’t have finished clearing away the wedding decorations, I thought, and now they’re having to put up funeral decorations everywhere in exact accordance with the time-honored plan. They’re familiar with this plan, I thought, as my mother used to go through it with them in every detail at least twice or three times a year — for fun, she said, and because you never quite know. Weddings and births too are celebrated according to a preordained plan. My sisters know, for instance, that a funeral requires not just one but two laurel branches from the Orangery to be placed behind the lamps on the left and right of the entrance hall and two cypresses to be placed on the balcony, one on the far left and one on the far right; these must be of equal height, but not tall enough to reach up to the dining-room windows. Wolfsegg has precise plans for every kind of solemnity, and all these plans are kept in the top right-hand drawer of my mother’s writing desk. My father did not have to force her to comply with these strict procedures, as she quickly developed a passion for them. And she always had a passion for funerals, though she certainly did not envisage her own, or at least she never envisaged its taking place so soon, I told myself. It occurred to me as I stood by the wall that she would have taken charge of her own funeral if this had been possible. I imagined my sisters carrying out my mother’s wishes regarding her funeral. The word eagerness came to mind. To anyone else but me it would have been natural to have the taxi drive up the avenue to the main entrance. Having recognized me, the taxi driver was somewhat surprised that I got out where I did, between the two inns, and no one would understand why I walked through the village and across the square, I thought. But I wanted to walk up to Wolfsegg, and the deserted village square suited my purpose ideally. I not only felt I was unobserved, I was unobserved. And after all I had no luggage, which in itself was unusual, given that I had come from Rome. Moreover, having no luggage, I could walk with my hands in my trouser pockets. I entered the avenue with my hands in my pockets, thus evincing a monstrous insolence that not even the village people would have understood. At the age of forty-eight I arrive from Rome for the funeral of my parents and my brother and walk up to the house with my hands in my pockets, I thought, pressing myself against the wall to avoid being seen by the gardeners as they crossed from the Farm to the Orangery with their wreaths. A lying in state is always a great spectacle, I thought, a work of art that takes shape little by little under many hands that are adept at creating such a work of art. Repressing all thoughts of my parents and my brother lying in state in the Orangery, I reflected not on the tragedy itself but on the work of art that accompanied it, on the splendor attendant upon a lying in state, not on the terror. Since I had always been a keen watcher and an even keener observer, having made watching and observing one of my chief virtues, it was natural that I should stand by the wall, watching and observing. The gardeners afforded a perfect opportunity. I had always enjoyed watching and observing them, and during these moments, which I deliberately spun out into hundreds and thousands, I was able, from my present vantage point, to enjoy this experience once again. Such observation is of course a forbidden art, but we cannot forgo it once we have acquired the taste. Another huntsman arrived from the Farm, carrying a long candlestick, which he handed to a gardener who emerged from the Orangery, presumably in order to receive it. These candlesticks, about ten feet in height, are placed at each end of the catafalque in order to throw the most favorable light on the body lying in state. Four in all are placed by the catafalque. I recalled that they had all been given a fresh coat of gold paint many years earlier. This had intrigued me at the time, for I fancied that they were being painted and polished for a particular funeral and that it was already known whose it was to be. I was mistaken, for decades had elapsed since the last funeral, my paternal grandfather’s. When there has been no funeral in a family for a long time it is commonly supposed that several will take place in rapid succession. This has been proved correct at Wolfsegg, I thought, which means that there will now be a lull. Misfortunes seldom come alone, they say; hence funerals seldom come alone. They come in threes, one after another, just as misfortunes proverbially come in threes. Yet this time, I thought, one misfortune has brought three sudden deaths but led to only one funeral— one times three, three times one. I now heard, wafting up from the village through the trees and shrubs on the hillside, the strains of a familiar piece by Haydn played by a wind band. They’re probably rehearsing the music for tomorrow’s funeral in the Music House, I thought, the Music House being an old building next to the school. After a few bars the music stopped and there was total silence. Then the band struck up again, starting from the beginning, went on a few bars longer than before, and stopped again. As usual during rehearsal, they started several times, played a few bars, each time a few more than before, then stopped. Always the same piece by Haydn. As a child I loved to listen to the villagers’ music making, especially the wind band, and I still do. I rate it as highly as so-called serious music, in many cases more highly, knowing that so-called serious music would be inconceivable without popular music, especially the music played at country weddings and funerals. What would weddings and funerals be without such music? I wondered. Village musicians usually have a perfect ear for what they are playing, and when they are good they are nearly always a match for professional musicians. They also have the advantage of being amateurs, of playing for love, not professional ambition, which as we know can amount to a professional disease. How differently they played at my sister’s wedding, I thought — briskly and cheerfully! Their music is now slow and melancholy, though also by Haydn. Haydn is the composer I revere most, along with Mozart, and whose music I most enjoy, next to Mozart’s. Perhaps Haydn should be rated much higher, as he has always been overshadowed in the history of music by the universally loved Mozart. I love both, but Haydn is the greater of the two, I thought. This music by Haydn was in tune with the noontide atmosphere, with the shimmering air and the movements of the gardeners, carefully carrying their wreaths and bouquets from the Farm to the Orangery, unflustered and unfaltering. I was reminded of the many afternoons in my childhood when the sound of the band, playing the same piece, probably in the same scoring, had wafted up to my room from the village. But whereas they normally play only simple pieces, I thought, they’re now playing something complicated, something