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| Jusepe de Ribera St Jerome reading ca. 1622-26 etching Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Gerard ter Borch Girl reading ca. 1630-35 drawing Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
TWO BROTHERS
The lives of two brothers had developed in a way that in the nature of things was appropriate to their dispositions, and they had gone their opposite ways and had, in the course of time, grown completely apart from one another. We liked both of them and had, in fact, for decades carefully observed their capabilities, those of the philosophical one and those of the one who was in business, and we were alternately attracted by these capabilities and repelled by them, at times more by the philosophical capabilities of the one brother, at others by the commercial ones of the other. When we were all over thirty, we suddenly could no longer count on our relationships being restored to their old intimacy, and we lost sight of the two brothers. Eventually, however, we learned of the importance and the fame of our former friends and of the circumstance that it was precisely this importance and fame that had driven them apart and, as time went by, totally isolated them. The one brother now lived for nothing but his philosophy, the other only for his business dealings. When one of them died, his relatives said that he had worked himself to death. A year later, when the other one died, they said he had read himself to death. At the crucial point in their lives, each had gone his own separate and, of necessity, opposite, way to his death.
– from The Voice Imitator by Thomas Bernhard, published in German in 1978, translated by Kenneth J. Northcott and published in English by University of Chicago Press in 1997
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| Gerrit Dou Old Woman reading ca. 1631-32 oil on panel Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Jan Lievens Old Woman reading ca. 1626-33 oil on panel Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Rembrandt Old Woman reading 1631 oil on panel Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Simon van der Does Shepherdess reading 1706 oil on canvas Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Bernard Picart Woman reading 1716 etching Rijksmuseum, Amssterdam |
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| Cornelis Buys Young Man reading 1768 drawing Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Taco Scheltema Man reading 1794 drawing Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Pieter Bartholomeusz. Barbiers Girl reading early 19th century drawing Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Jan Hendrik van Amerom Man reading early 19th century watercolor Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Thérèse Schwartze Young Women reading and sewing in an orphanage 1885 oil on canvas Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Bramine Hubrecht Girl reading late 19th century etching Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Willem Witsen Paul Verlaine reading 1892 photographic print Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |