Free Wittgenstein's Nephew by Thomas Bernhard Page A

moment. Sitting with my friend by the wall of the yard at Nathal, I reflected on the course his life had taken over the past seventy years. He had had as much wealth and protection as anyone could possibly have. He had grown up in the inexhaustible Austria of the monarchy and had naturally been educated at the famous Theresianum, but then he had quite consciously struck out on a course of his own which was opposed to the family tradition, turning his back on what were, to a superficial view, the Wittgenstein values—wealth and property
and
protection—in order to lead a so-called intellectual existence and thereby save himself. One might say that he made an early getaway, as his uncle Ludwig had done years before, abandoning everything that had, after all, made them both possible, and transforming himself, like his uncle Ludwig before him, into what the family regarded as a
shameless character
. Ludwig transformed himself into a shameless philosopher,Paul into a shameless madman. Moreover, it is far from certain that a philosopher can qualify as such only by writing down and publishing his philosophy, as Ludwig did: he remains a philosopher even if he does not publish his philosophizings, even if he writes nothing and publishes nothing. Publishing merely clarifies and causes a stir through what it clarifies, which cannot be clarified or cause a stir unless it is published. Ludwig published his philosophy, Paul did not: Ludwig was the born publisher (of his philosophy), Paul the born nonpublisher (of his philosophy). Yet in their own ways both were great, original, revolutionary thinkers, whose thinking was always exciting and of whom their age can be proud—and not only their own age. It is naturally a pity that Paul left us no written, printed, or published evidence of his philosophy, such as we have from his uncle Ludwig, both in our hands and in our heads. But it is nonsense to compare Ludwig and Paul. I never talked to Paul about Ludwig, let alone about his philosophy. Only occasionally, and somewhat to my surprise, Paul would say,
Of course you know my uncle Ludwig
. That was all. We never once talked about the
Tractatus
. On one occasion, however, Paul said that his uncle Ludwig was
the maddest member of the family. After all, to be a multimillionaire and a village schoolteacher is a bit perverse, don’t you think?
I still know nothing of the real relations between Paul and his uncle Ludwig, nor did I ever inquire about them. I do not even know whether they ever saw each other. All I know is that Paul flew to the defense of his uncle Ludwig whenever the family attacked and made fun of him. I gathered that Wittgenstein the philosopher was a sourceof embarrassment to them as long as he lived. Ludwig Wittgenstein, like Paul Wittgenstein, was always the fool who had greatness conferred on him by foreigners—and foreigners always have a flair for oddity. They would shake their heads and find it droll that
the world had been taken in by the fool of the family
, that
the useless one had suddenly acquired fame in England and become the great intellectual
. The Wittgensteins, in their arrogance, quite simply rejected their philosopher and accorded him not the slightest respect, and they are still punishing him with their contempt, seeing in him, as they saw in Paul, nothing but a traitor. They
discarded
him as they discarded Paul. Having been ashamed of Paul as long as he lived, they are ashamed of Ludwig to this day. This is the truth, and not even Ludwig’s considerable fame has been able to stifle the family’s habitual contempt for its philosopher, in a country where Ludwig Wittgenstein ultimately counts for nothing and is scarcely known even today. Not even Sigmund Freud has been properly recognized or acknowledged by the Viennese; this is a fact, and the reason for it is that the Viennese are far too perfidious. And Wittgenstein has fared no differently. When Paul referred to
my uncle Ludwig
it