Free Correction: A Novel by Thomas Bernhard Page B

rediscovered in the top drawer of the chest when I opened it to put my toilet things inside. So all these years, I thought, Roithamer has kept this yellow paper rose here, it probably reminded him of that music festival on his twenty-third birthday and everything connected with that music festival. I had taken the paper rose out of the drawer and held it against the light, it was unquestionably, the paper rose he shot down at the Stocket music festival along with twenty-three others. That music festival where we stayed till dawn at one of those large plank tables, in company with several of the country boys and coal miners we had known from childhood, has remained a pleasant memory, how Roithamer suddenly told them all about his childhood in Altensam, in that intense way he had, the characteristic narrative style of the country folk around Altensam, actually Roithamer had much in common with the countrymen around Altensam, while he had almost nothing in common with his own Altensam family; how very familiar he was with the ways of the country folk around Altensam, and how very much he loved their ways, I thought, as I stood by the window, with the paper rose in my hand, contemplating Hoeller’s attic from my vantage point at the window, looking toward the door, it was after all among them, these country folk, that he had grown up, as he would say, not in Altensam but among the country people and their families, and it is true that as a child Roithamer had spent more time among the country people in the villages around Altensam than he had in Altensam itself, his own home, he took advantage of every free minute he had to get away from the drill in Altensam, which was little more than a cruel and incomprehensible parental fortress to him, and escape to where he might find actual kinship , in the villages around Altensam, with the people of these villages, the farmers and young fellows and men working in the coal mines of Altensam, he would simply leave Altensam right after supper, without permission and go down to the villages below Altensam, to the people there who understood him, away from those who lived in Altensam and never understood him nor wanted to understand him, because down there, below Altensam, in the farmhouses and in the homes and hovels and huts of the miners down there he was always a welcome sight, and he could always count on having the attention of these simple people whose minds were as clear as they were incorruptible, they listened to me , Roithamer’s words, whenever I said something, and they tried to understand me and they did understand me , and I could count on them to help me whenever I came to them, often in sharp distress, my conscience deeply troubled, they were friendly in their crude manner, always offered me food and drink, I could have stayed with them as long as I wanted and actually I would have preferred to stay with them always, even as a child, but the mere thought was out of the question. While I felt cold in Altensam, within the walls of Altensam, even among my parents and my siblings, going down to the villages always warmed me up, as a child I was always strictly forbidden to go down to the villages, even when they gave permission they didn’t like my going down there because they sensed that I felt good in the villages, that Altensam was a prison to me I had often told them, even as a child I had this idea that Altensam was nothing more than a prison, a prison from which I would one day have to escape, is what I always thought, even if I have been sentenced to life imprisonment in this dungeon of an Altensam, I must get out, get away from Altensam, where even my parents seemed always to have been there to guard or punish me, never to protect me, which is what parents are for, to take care of their children, what they should have been in Altensam is the preservers and protectors of their son and their other children, which is what my parents never were, instead they were