Gargoyles by Thomas Bernhard

one in the afternoon. Then he would eat a bite and work on until seven in the evening.
    He allowed his half-sister the “greatest possible” freedomin Hauenstein. But only six or seven weeks after they moved in he had spotted signs of insanity in her, “a madness rooted deep in clericalism.” This insanity, the industrialist thought, might recede at once if his half-sister were to leave Hauenstein. In her extreme loneliness she was always close to the point of taking her own life. But her half-brother could see that out of sheer consideration for him, for whom she did everything though she did not understand him at all, she did not even permit herself a single loud outcry, or thrashing about, which might bring her some relief. My father, for his part, could see she had the withdrawn look characteristic of women in insane asylums. Incidentally, she was obsessive about cleanliness.
    “Probably her half-brother has forbidden her to talk to me,” my father said. “I always have the feeling that she would like to, but isn’t allowed to.”
    He usually arrived in Hauenstein in the early morning, on the way to Prince Saurau in Hochgobernitz. “The air is purest then and the view of the Rossbach Alp at its most beautiful.”
    The road we were now driving on, he commented, had been built by the industrialist at his own expense. The whole length of it belonged to him. Everywhere, hidden in the woods, the industrialist had posted unemployed millers, miners, and retired woodsmen as guards whose task was to keep people from disturbing him.
    My father said he thought the industrialist could spend a while longer in Hauenstein, a few more years, perhaps. As yet my father had not detected the slightest signs of madness in the man, unlike the half-sister. But no human being could continue to exist in such total isolation without doing severe damage to his intellect and psyche. It was a well-known phenomenon,my father said, that at a crisis in their lives some people seek out a dungeon, voluntarily enter it, and devote their lives—which they regard as philosophically oriented—to some scholarly task or to some imaginative scientific obsession. They always take with them into their dungeon some creature who is attached to them. In most cases they sooner or later destroy this creature who has entered the dungeon with them, and then themselves. The process always goes slowly at first. Yet my father was not inclined to regard the industrialist as an unhappy man. On the contrary, he was leading a life that suited him perfectly, in contrast to his half-sister, who on his account was compelled to lead a totally unhappy life.
    At first such persons as the industrialist’s half-sister try to defend themselves, my father said. They do not want to be wholly at the mercy of their oppressor. But they soon see that fighting back is useless. They cannot help themselves. Then they become attached to their oppressor with a despair that systematically destroys them. “The cruel despair of servitude,” my father called it.
    Because they are ruthless to the core, such people as the industrialist attain their goal, even though everyone else regards the goal as senseless and the method by which it is attained repulsive.
    When we arrived at the hunting lodge, I saw that it indeed stood in a clearing and the whole picture conformed to what my father had said about it.
    There was not a single trophy in evidence. The place did not look like a hunting lodge at all. I thought at once: a dungeon! A provisional dungeon! All the shutters were closed, as if the lodge were uninhabited.
    The industrialist’s study was at the rear, my father said. The man never allowed himself more than a single open shutter.
    Everything in the place had to further the industrialist’s concentration on his work.
    We got out, and since my father was expected and our car must have been heard, the door was opened at once. The industrialist’s half-sister led us quickly into the