276
Every day the same lhing
my darling
We gel up
We gel washed
We gel dressed
Then we have breakfasl
looks into the emply dog-baskel
lL was a mislake
We shouldn'l have
PARTISAN REVIEW
gone lo the Monument for the Unknown Soldier
Those dreadful people
And lhen you will gel
whal you wished for
all righl
pUlS on make-up, combs her hair
President, from the balhroom
wilh whom are you lalking OUl lhere
Presidenl's wife, as if she were looking for somelhing under
lhe dressing-lable
wilh him
wilh him
into the emply dog-baskel
wilh you
President, lO his masseur
She lalks wilh the dog
do you hear
my wife lalks wilh her dog
who is no longer lhere
What is "merely" morbid in the novels becomes absurd in the
plays. The dividing line is a thin one as every true clown has always
known.
Again, as the work of Bernhard grows, and the total pattern
emerges ever more clearly, it yields a fascination over and above that
which might accrue
to
any of the individual parts. Unlike Gide's
novels, which argue with each other, or Yeats's
Ego Dominus Tuus,
Bernhard seeks no antiself. Nor does he write to "find" his self.. His
apparent cancelling out of prior attitudes or viewpoints with each new
book is inherent in, and consistent with, his view of the ultimate
senselessness of all attitudes or viewpoints. The two sides of the
equation balance; there is merely a narrowing down: to zero equals
zero. Finally, language itself petrifies, breaks down. [This process,
namely of the breakdown of language, has been utilized, indeed
capitalized on, by the "new" German film makers who have their
characters talk not merely inarticulately, but inaudibly as well. Small
