Peter Altenberg - Telegrams of the Soul

The next day I ran into one of the sweet young things. “Peter, lucky I should run into you. Right after you got out yesterday, I got to climb up onto the coach box and drive the rig, and Mr. coachman, he climbed in with Mitzl in the passenger compartment and pulled the shades. And then he went and gave us your ten Crowns. There’s a proper gentleman, let that be a lesson to you!” I hastened to write to Hans Schliessmann: “Your first inclination was correct. The ‘golden Viennese heart’ is still alive and well.”

Puff

*

“Say,” said the sweet, cuddly one to me, “that guy over there ain’t normal; he lives on a sandy island in the Danube, runs around half-naked, will ya get a load of him, he’s brown all over from the sun. He only comes here to sneer at us! At you too, Peter, you too. What’s the use of all your pretty poetry?”

The fellah over there really did look like life itself. Or like an African traveler. His hide tanned tough by light and air, tanned I tell you.

His friends at his table had all “fallen in love,” technically speaking.

So now they all nudged him to likewise finally “fall in love.”

“You want me to go weak?” the brown one replied to the pale faces. And everyone laughed.

“Some strength you got in you if you ain’t got none to spend!?” said sweet Anna.

“Let ’im be—,” said Hansi, “everybody knows what he’s gotta do. Even the sun probably don’t do him no good no more—.”

“Do you despise me too?” said the tanned man, turning to one of the girls who was reading a dime novel, totally immersed in it.

“Why should I despise you? I don’t even know you.”

“How did you get started in this kind of life?” said the natural man softly. Such is the standard question of all dilettantes of life.

“My story wouldn’t interest the gentleman much—.”

“On the contrary. You seem to me to have been born for something better!” Second standard line of the dilettante!

“I was corrupted—.”

“Aha, by love!”

“No, not love!”

“Then by desire!”

“No, they plied me with drink, on a picnic—.”

“By alcohol then! It’s got to have been one of the three poisons—.”

He categorized it all under the rubric “alcohol.”

Anna brushed by and said: “Hey, Mr. Robinson Crusoe, don’t you go and corrupt this innocent thing—.”

The Danube island man walked over to the open window, peered out at the darkness of the narrow street lit only with a glaring fleck of light from the pissoir, and took in a breath of the foul air with evident disgust. Then he said: “You’ve got too little respect for sunlight and fresh air, that’s your problem!”

The girls were momentarily befuddled by the thought that they actually might perhaps have too little respect for sunlight and fresh air. Since up till then they really had no respect for it at all.

Only Friederike, who never wanted to hear her named shortened into “Fritzerl” because she was the one they always called that, spoke up: “Well, we’ve got a better sense of humor than you, Mister—.”

“Zip it,” said the other girls, “don’t hurt the guy’s feelings, that ain’t right—.”

“Farewell, you fallen soul!” said the man and left.

“With our best regards, Mr. Robinson Crusoe—,” Anna called after him.

“What’d you all tell me to zip it for when I put that sorry sap in his place?!?” said Friederike.

“You can’t just go ’n rub their nose in the truth; he might still have picked one to take upstairs—.”

“No way, not that sun nut; all his sun-soaked strength makes him weak where it counts—.”

__________________

*Viennese slang for brothel

The little room is flooded with the scent of a mountain meadow. In the light brown wash basin lies a thick bunch of Daphne Cneorum, rose-colored asters.

“Daphne Cneorum—,” he remarks upon entering, savoring all the types of alpine laurel with their fine fragrance and color, and thinks of mountainsides bathed in sunlight.

“The hell with my flowers—,” she says. “What do you care what they’re called—?”

She undresses and crawls into bed.

“Say, what’d Max mean?! Are you fellahs really not going to come by no more?”

“No—,” he says, “it costs money and people talk. What are we, whoremongers?! For heaven’s sake!”

Silence.

“Well then, that’s that—,” she says softly.

He inhales the clear scent of woman’s breath and mountain meadow.

She lies there motionless.

Then she says: “It’s a damn shame, it is—. I was proud of you all, proud—. I always said: ‘My friends—!’ Maybe I didn’t act like I should have. I shoulda pulled the wool over your eyes, made a scene, a comedy—.”

“Come on, sweetheart, don’t be such a child—,” he says and kisses her hand.

“You’re fine fellahs, ain’t you—,” she says, “fine as silk! Why’d you bother coming?! What for?! Nothing to be done—. That’s all: ‘Nothing to be done about it.’ I can’t put it into pretty words, but that’s all—. I got thoughts in my head too, see—. That Robert, he’s such a dear. I’ll tell you a little story. But you can’t go blabbing it around town. One time he said to me: “You’re tired, Anna, better sleep—.” “ ’S’at what we came up for?!” I says. “Tired is tired—,” he says. “It’s just like after a hike in the mountains—.” Ain’t that sweet, though—?! I really did fall asleep. Why did I trust him? He’s not really my type. But he said: “Go ahead, Anna, sleep!”

Silence. She sighs. Silence—.

“You’re a fine lot. Fine as silk. I’m really gonna miss you’s—.”

Silence.

“Nothing to be done—. Tell Max—.”

“Tell him what?!”

“Nothing——.”

Silence.

“Why’d you ever bother coming?! What for?! I don’t get it. You’re fine as silk. I think I’m gonna dry up—.”

The little room smells of Daphne Cneorum—.

She climbs out of bed and plunks herself in an easy chair.

Then she opens the Venetian blinds and the morning spills in like a mountain stream.

“Shut the blind—,” he says.

She lets down the blind, crawls back into bed.

“I have friends, three friends—!! Black Bertha, she’ll never get it. The dumbbell! Listen up — my heart is hurting.”

He says: “Alright then, we’ll be back. But what good does it do you?! We just bother you. Anyways, come June, we’re going away. Max is going to the seashore, Robert’s going to the mountains——.”

She: “Am I holding you back or what——?!”

She falls asleep.

He feels inside: “Sleep! Extinguisher of consciousness, wave breaker—!”

He thinks: “We’re like dumb fate, breaking and entering a human heart, tearing open the white gates of friendship, letting the light come spilling in like a mountain stream—! Then we go and say: ‘What are we, whoremongers?! For heaven’s sake, sweetheart, give us a break—!’ ‘Adieu,’ she says softly. ‘Am I holding you back or what—?!’ That’s just the way life is, we tell ourselves. A splendid excuse!”

The little room is flooded with the scent of Daphne Cneorum. It’s like the incense of mountain meadows—.

The poor soul sleeps.

Sleep-extinguisher of consciousness! Wave breaker—!

The two well-established artists sat together in a little after-hours café engaged in a heated discussion on the innate brutality evident in the “I-ism” of one’s fellow man! They stressed the term “ I -ism” as if thereby precisely to emphasize the fact that: The rest of the world says “Egotism!”