Joseph Roth: Joseph Roth: A Life in Letters

2. To Resia and Paula Grübel

[Brody, 2 September 1912]

Dear Resia,

you’re quite right, time hurries on and the years go around quickly, and already I’ve completed seventeen of them. I was very pleased to get your birthday congratulations; that’s not just a manner of speaking either, I mean I felt real, deep, inner, genuine-in-every-fiber pleasure. I know how devoted you are to me, and that you really are concerned for my welfare. It’s not so hard to tell real feelings from false. I see you take delight in the way my writing is coming on, and I want to thank you for that especially. Thank you too for your wishes regarding my studies. This last year will soon be over, and after my final exams all the trials and tribulations of school will be behind me, and I will go on to the great school of life. Let’s hope I earn equally good grades at that institution. [. .]

Thanks again, and kisses from your

Cousin Muniu

Dear Paula,1 I want to thank you as well for writing. I’m delighted that my dear younger cousin is thinking of me as well

Kisses,

Muniu

1. Paula: Paula Grübel (1897–1941?). Lifelong friendship with Roth. She was murdered in the Holocaust.

3. To Heini Grübel

[Brody, no date]

Dear Heini,1

your sweet little note pleased me every bit as much as a long letter would have done! You are still so young, and frankness and straightforwardness are the plants native to the childish soul. That’s why good wishes from you made me so happy, because from whom other than a child, symbol of the life to come, should one desire wishes? I in turn wish you success at school. It’s not so long ago that I started wearing the school uniform myself, and quite soon now I will set it aside. I hope you get through gymnasium cheerfully and in good health. What makes me especially happy is the thought that we’re now both scholars together.

Servus,2 my dear chap,

Kisses from your Muniu

1. Heini: Heinrich Grübel, younger brother of Paula and Resia.

2. Servus: familiar Austrian greeting, classically used between intimates and equals, i.e., classmates at school, or fellow officers in the army.

4. To Paula Grübel

Vienna, 14 August 1916

Dear Paula,

it really was coincidence. Who ever would have guessed it: all of nineteen! But then, nineteen years are like a piece of fluff on the scales of eternity. And it’s in eternity that we live. From eternity, in eternity, for eternity. Yes, for eternity as well.

What do I have to give you? I don’t have any money. But I get paid 6 hellers a line. Count the number of lines in this letter,1 and you’ll have a tidy sum.

What can I wish for you? Three kingly things: a crown, a scarlet cloak, a scepter. The golden crown of imagination, the scarlet cloak of solitude, and the scepter of irony. It’s hard to come by these things at nineteen. They’re not much in evidence.

But there’s one thing I wish you above all: that you don’t forget your laugh. Laughter is a tinkling silver bell that some good angel gave us on our life’s road. But because it’s so light and loose, it’s easily lost. Somewhere by the wayside. And big fate goes by with squeaking boots, and grinds it underfoot, the laughter.2 Some people are lucky and find another. Or someone else finds it, and picks it up, and returns it to its rightful owner. Not often, though! So look after it!

I’m going to be in Baden later this week. At any rate, before I join the army.

Bye! Till soon!

Mu3

1. Roth numbers the lines of this letter.

2. laughter: a passage like this has absolutely the same rhythms and diction as some of JR’s very late writing; cf. “Rest While Watching the Demolition,” from 1938.

3. Mu: Muniu.

5. To Paula Grübel

Vienna, a Wednesday [1915 or 1916]

Dear Paula,

I have a pretty next-door neighbor. She spends all day in front of her embroidery frame, doing petit point. A thoroughly Dutch figure, in spite of the fact that she’s a brunette. In the afternoon, when the sun shines, a sunbeam falls plumply and lingeringly on her embroidery. And then when her blond little boy stands beside her, the whole scene is utter Holland. Unfortunately, Mme Sun has had a toothache these past few days. She’s wrapped her face in black cloths. From time to time a bit of white cotton wool peeps out.

And now it’s gone and started raining. M. Wind, my friend, has married Mme Cloud. I attended their wedding, a jolly affair. Now Mme Cloud is giving birth to their children on a daily basis: small and great Showers. What a to-do. I must ask the wind to desist, because his sons will insist on spoiling my creases. And you know how sacrosanct they are.

We have cake. It’s resting quietly in a corner just now, giving off a splendid aroma. It’s almost like Brody, on a Friday. Or do you know of two phenomena more indissolubly connected than home and baking smells?

A couple of days ago, I went out. It was gorgeous. The fields look just like my cheeks when I haven’t been to the barber’s for a couple of days. The song of the last scythe hangs unseen in the air. In the clouds there’s still a last verse of lark song. The dandelions have a patriotic shimmer. Somewhere in the distance, smoke rises vertically into the sky. The ground is decked out in all the cast-off glory of the trees. And in the air there’s the bitter whiff of steaming earth and wet foliage. .

Ever since 1 October, the library has been open all day. Soon lectures will begin. This year, Brecht1 is giving a course on classical drama (less interesting, unfortunately). Then the girl students will show up, with their earnest expressions and tousled hair. Anxious faces, like a three-day rain. How I hate those women! Though students are no more women than streetwalkers are.

Do you remember Csallner? The fellow who used to borrow lecture notes from me in German? We’ve become friends. He has some admirable qualities. Including an attractive fiancée. I would back him to achieve, oh, half a dozen children, a small pot belly, and a professorship in Budapest — and still to remain a Philistine.

I have poems due to appear in Österreichs Illustrierte Zeitung , if they haven’t come out already. I haven’t the cash or the inclination to go to a café or to invest in a copy. Either would set me back 60 hellers. If you wouldn’t mind, perhaps you can see if they’ve run something of mine. No royalty, alas. But a few short stories I sent in, I should be paid quite well for. Then I’ll be in Baden. I’m looking forward to All Souls’ and Christmas. Two poems in the supplement will earn me 12 crowns.

What do you think about money? I don’t think it’s worth bothering about. If I had it, I would chuck it out the window. Money’s the opposite of women. You think highly of a woman until you’ve got her, then when you get her, you feel like chucking her out (or at least you ought). Whereas money you despise as long as you don’t have it, and then you think very highly of it.

I was pleased that you came around yesterday. Even more pleased, admittedly, that I was out. Even so, I’d like to see you. You’ll be needing to find me in any case, so that I can read you this letter. .

It’s too bad you live so far away. I have thin soles, and shoemakers are expensive. A shoemaker’s heart is tougher than his soles. [. .]

Things are all right. I myself am better than all right. My heart is heavy and my pockets are light. Mind you, if my pockets were as heavy as my heart, then my heart would be as light as my pockets.

When are we going to see each other?

Greetings

Muniu Faktisch2

1. Brecht: Walter Brecht, professor of German literature at the University of Vienna.