By Thomas Bernhard, from the short story “Montaigne,” which appears in Goethe Dies, a collection that was published last month by Seagull Books. Bernhard was the author of numerous novels and plays. He died in 1989. Translated from the German by James Reidel.

From my family and thus from my tormentors, I found refuge in a corner of the tower. I had brought with me a book from the library after I had read a few sentences in it, a book by Montaigne, as it turned out, to whom I am related in such a close and truly enlightening…