However, he never reached Merano and nobody has heard of him ever since, although the investigation was only interrupted after two years of intense inquiries. Meanwhile the tobacco factory has been closed and the villa has been sold, because the investigation has swallowed all the so-called net profit left by our uncle from Innsbruck. No buyer has been found until now for the tobacco factory –whose three hundred workers have had to be dismissed– because the demand of tobacco has fallen in the last few years and our uncle’s factory was really antiquated. They say, however, that it will have to be sold when the lawyers that have intervened in our uncle’s search claim their honoraries, which will be undoubtedly high. Every spring we recall when, towards mid-may, we went to Innsbruck and, once there, we slept in our uncle’s house; and the next day, early in the morning, we head for Stamps to spend some days in his villa, reading and strolling in the nearby forests. We are convinced that the good health we have always enjoyed must be attributed to the fact that, twice a year, in spring and autumn, we went to Innsbruck and Stamps to our uncle’s house. We must put down to the misfortune that happened to our uncle in his trip to Merano the fact that, whenever we go out on a trip, we do not ask for a return ticket any more, just a one way ticket.
Text by Austrian novelist, playwright and poet Thomas Bernhard