Free Correction: A Novel by Thomas Bernhard Page A

couldn’t shoot and had never indulged in any illusions about being able to shoot, and who basically despised hunting and everything related to hunting, in fact, deep down, we hated it, I know that Roithamer hated it as I did, he understood hunting but he hated it, he had often talked to me about his brothers’
    passion for hunting and, again and again, talked about how he loathed this passion of theirs, but he knew that it was a Roithamer family passion for hunting, even his father had been a great hunter and marksman, he had been Chief Game Warden and Hunting Commissioner for years, indeed for decades, that to be born in Altensam was synonymous with being born to hunt and to shoot, it was probably the first time in Altensam’s history that someone had actually turned up who not only did not like hunting but in fact despised hunting and most decidedly hated it, so it was quite understandable that the Roithamers regarded their deviant brother, for no reason except that they simply couldn’t understand him, if not with hatred, then with a certain reserve, though they naturally had not dared to show him either contempt or hatred on this point for a long time, since they were dependent on their brother, who suddenly was the sole owner of Altensam, actually they felt they were at his mercy and that he might one day drive them, in all their degenerate state, out of Altensam, something he’d never do, however; but to get back to hunting, what a peculiar situation, that a Roithamer who defied all the rules of Altensam’s history by being absolutely no hunter and absolutely no marksman, had nevertheless turned out to be the man, he and no other, I thought, as we found ourselves, out of the blue and only because we’d been forced to escape from those hundreds, even thousands, of crazy questions which were getting on our nerves and driving us out of our heads, standing in front of that shooting gallery, he and no other is standing here in front of this shooting gallery. To shoot? I asked myself and at the very same moment Roithamer paid for two dozen shells and started to shoot, he was shooting at those paper roses lined up in quite disorderly fashion in their holders opposite him, he was shooting them down one after the other, to the momentary stupefaction of all the bystanders, including even the owner of the shooting gallery, whom I recognized as a woman from the village and who had also recognized us, since of course none of the onlookers had believed that Roithamer would hit even a single one of the roses, yet he had shot down every last one of the roses in the shortest possible time. As the shooting gallery owner bent over to pick up the paper roses in order to place them, all tied up in a bunch, in Roithamer’s hand, I was observing the onlookers who now, like it or not, agreed that Roithamer was the best shot of paper roses they had ever encountered at one of their music festivals.
    Roithamer himself looked as though he were asking himself how it could have been possible for him, untrained as he was, in fact he had never held a gun in his hand but once in his life when he was nine years old and with his father’s help had tried shooting at paper roses and had of course made a sad mess of it, how could he possibly have brought down twenty-four roses with twenty-four shots? The onlookers of course challenged Roithamer at once to shoot down another series of paper roses, but of course he did not yield to such a provocation. He just waved his bunch of roses in the air above his head and made his way through the crowd, away from the shooting gallery and toward a table with some seating room left. I followed him there and saw him suddenly presenting all the paper roses he had won which, tied together as they were and held high in the air, looked more beautiful than fresh roses, to some unknown girl passing by who reminded him of his sister.
    All the paper roses but one, that is, all except this yellow paper rose I had just