Peter Altenberg - Telegrams of the Soul

The old man sat there crab-red. He said: “No, anybody who didn’t see that child today—”

The lady felt: “Bane of my existence, Edgar! Rosita should have been your child! Yours, do you understand?! Yours and mine!”

She said: “What would become of Rosita in your company, the both of you?! It’s a good thing we’re going away soon. All these changes. Passing her from hand to hand. It’s no good for children. Debauchery.”

The two old men were embarrassed like schoolboys.

Mr. Peter eyed the young woman: “Restless one! What are you missing? Always stern and measured in your manner. Never a whimsy.” Then he took the little silver spoon that had had the honor of being in Rosie’s mouth and pressed it to his lips.

The grandfather got all flustered. People only understand their own poetry. The young woman smiled with glee: “You really are a madman. I’d like to be like you, Mr. Peter, a free-wheeling soul!”

Rosie dreamed in the room next door: “Ohohoho! I was at a theater!”

The old nanny thought: “How restlessly she sleeps. All these frivolities. Imagine, dragging her along to a theater, food for the heart. Children need order. Madame is sensible, not such a lunatic. But who bears the brunt of it all? Me.”

When she turned 18, she was once asked why she remained so cool and distant to all her charming gentleman callers?

Whereupon the ravishing beauty replied: “I was ten years old. And I went with my beloved Papa and the poet one evening to see Buffalo Bill.* Papa and the poet were very kind to me, and I found myself in an extraordinary state of mind. The whole place was drowned in the shimmer of spotlights and a cloud of pistol smoke, and the American buglers blared through the speedy charges. Everything was out of this world. It lasted for almost three hours, and Papa wanted to take me home with him already before the final number. Then the poet said: ‘Elizabeth must not miss the three Circassian riders—.’ And so we stayed. Like a storm wind they came sweeping in, astride in their shortened stirrups, their arms spread wide, no reins in sight, unbelievably free and proud, as if hovering on flying horses. I leapt up from my seat, and shivering, grasped Papa’s hand. Since then, no one really appeals to me—.”

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*In 1890, Buffalo Bill (Colonel William Cody) brought his Wild West Show to Vienna

When the doctor gave her the news, that she stood balanced before the dark gates of Tuberculosis, she said: “No way, not at 18 years old, for cryin’ out loud!”

And she hurried off to Gravosa, 1and lay all by her lonesome on Saint Martin’s Island with her stock of provisions from 7 A.M. to 7 P.M., and stretched out her arms, naked as the day she was born, to receive the healing energy of nature.

She had her body rubbed with mentholated French brandy twice a day for a good half hour and swallowed a liter of cacao with six raw beaten egg yolks and copious amounts of saltwater fish filets.

When she got well she was full of ambition and a lust for life and she found an engagement acting in a very small theater. Her first role was that of the French Countess Laborde-Vallais. She had no idea what to do with it, but a young gentleman sent his visiting card to her dressing room.

She had bravely plucked herself from the jaws of death and soon realized that life wasn’t worth having struggled so mightily to save. She had eluded that peril “Death,”—and now had to face the greater peril “Life!” Sunbaths, cacao, beaten egg yolks, mentholated French brandy rubs were not enough to elude life!

Later she happened to make the poet’s acquaintance. She didn’t understand what it meant to be a poet. You write books and you’re a poet. But what’s it all about and what good is it?

But one day he said to her: “What was it like on Saint Martin’s Island? You lay there, gave yourself to God, and awaited the healing powers of meadow, forest and sunlight—.”

And somebody said to her: “Enough already with your boring Saint Martin’s Island! That was then, this is now, thank God!”

Then she peered at the poet with a look that begged for help and he flashed her a helpful look in reply—.

That’s when she fathomed what a poet was and what he was good for.

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*The harbor of Dubrovnik, in Croatia

The kingfisher was already ever since childhood my favorite bird.

This contrast between “delicate bird” and “stark winter chill”!

On top of which he’s iridescently tinged blue-green like a hummingbird in the tropical forests! The winter hummingbird!

His sharp pointed beak spears little fish out of the water; like harpoons spear whales!

He sits on the lookout for days on end, perched on a tree stump beside a pond. Suddenly he shoots forward, dives under, and spears. An elegant killer.

He robs the carp ponds clean of fish. Nobody would put it past him. For days on end he waits on a tree stump, tinged green-blue, his beak a lance, a sword, a dagger, a fatal needle!

A “romantic retainer” decked out in blue-green iridescent armor! A fairy-tale hero of nature!

Lilly had a pond dug on the grounds of her grandfather’s estate, had it bordered with willow, alder, hazel shrubs, oleaster. She had the whole thing caged in by a fine chain-link fence. And she put in a kingfisher. And now she watches him for hours on end roosting and waiting. The master of the pond!

Consequently, the compliments of the gentlemen callers who hope to subdue her delicate soul all sound vapid and laughable.

She is consumed, consumed by the laws of nature and by its mysteries—.

In contrast to which, every man appears petty and pitiful. He’s nothing but a “fumbling, brutal, uncomely” kingfisher. He too waits hours, days on end, to trap his prey! He spears and devours. But it isn’t “measly minnows” that he devours, slays! He slays “souls”!

He sat with his young wife at “Ronacher’s” Variety Show. He said to people who raised their eyebrows: “Why not? I’m interested in the tendrils of art. Aren’t there also, after all, perfectly legitimate joints at the Prater? Well then!?”

The show begins at eight o’clock. A thousand bulbs light up.

“The Pickwicks.” Fat fellahs in light blue undershirts leapfrog over each other, sweating.

You can almost hear their lungs cry out: “Enough already, cut it out—.”

Everybody applauds. The young woman thinks: “Such tiresome — un-wholesome stuff!”

A little girl thin as a pink thread works her way across a white telephone wire.

A thin thing struggling with a thinner thing!

“Unwholesome!” mutters the young woman.

Three bears out of the wild make their appearance. One intones something in his native growl. Nobody understands. It means: “I was wild, wild arggggggggh I was wild—!”

Everybody applauds.

“Thoroughly un-wholesome!” the young woman thinks to herself.

A pantomime up next, “La Puce.” “The very soul of silence enveloped by vulgarity.”

“A young woman in a light green silk dress undresses herself in search of ‘la puce’ (the flea), and so misses her rendezvous. The flea is her noble protector. The flea wins the day. Hurray for the flea—!”

Everybody applauds.

The young woman feels: “How terribly tiresome—!”

Now the drum virtuoso Belín.

“That’s just what we need, a drummer—,” somebody says, “hope he’s good for a laugh! What can he do? Beat the drum?!”

The audience cries out to him without words: “Hello, Mr. Drummer—!”