Laura Furman - The O Henry Prize Stories 2005

Her first “phase,” as the family neatly termed such episodes, seems to have occurred in the autumn of her thirteenth year. Engagements in Brussels, Paris, and Berlin were abruptly canceled, due to “temporary illness,” according to the notice released by Herr Kornblau's office, though even then there were rumors of a nervous attack. Some said that Anna was under the care of the famous Professor Meynert; others, that she was in residence at the luxurious psychiatric retreat of Professor Leidesdorf where doctors in white gloves and silk top hats administered the latest in electric and water-immersion therapies. In any event, the young virtuosos reemergence several weeks later marks the first known instance in which she kept her right hand purposely concealed. Anna, along with her parents and a number of family friends, attended the opening of the Kunstlerhaus exhibition in late October; she was observed wearing a tailored suit of steel-grey bengaline, the long sleeves that grazed her palms even further extended by a ruffled trim of Irish lace. She carried in addition an embroidered silk kerchief wrapped as if casually about her right hand, and from that time forward the young pianist never showed her hand in public until the instant she sat before the keyboard.

Commentators have noted in this eccentricity all the characteristics of a neurotic symptom. Without doubt, the compulsively veiled hand, as well as the “phases” during which she retreated from the outside world, indicate significant stress in the girl's life. Some have portrayed these symptoms as a response to her treatment by the pan-German press, which, in the course of advocating the union of Austria's German-speaking regions with the Reich, had begun to review her performances in the manner of anti-Semitic diatribes. Others surmise that these were a sensitive girl's reactions to the more general malaise hanging over the city, although the pursuit of art, with its constant, debilitating risk of failure, not to mention the solitude and unwholesome narcissism that sustained concentration necessarily entails, is, even in the best of circumstances, enough to induce the entire range of pyschopathy. That Anna was merciless with herself, and suffered accordingly, is evident from her cousin Hugo's diaries. For instance, in the entry dated 11 November 1898, we find Anna telling Hugo:

It's only when I’m with you that I’m allowed not to work.

And on 5 December, in response to Hugo's entreaties not to strain herself:

She looked down at her shoes and smiled to herself, as if I were a rather dense little boy who’d asked her to make the river stand still.

“To play well-I suppose I’ve always assumed that it's a matter of life and death.”

It was Hugo to whom the family turned when Anna lapsed into one of her phases. Hugo Kuhl was destined to become a minor celebrity of the age, an ironic, deliciously blasé feuilletoniste for the liberal press and the author of a number of drawing-room plays, of which The Escape Artist and Dinner with Strangers are still known to scholars. But at the time in question Hugo was merely a literary-minded student at the university, known to his circle as a stylish, handsome wit of no defined vocational goal, also an accomplished amateur pianist with a sec touch. It seems that he alone, out of all Anna's siblings and numerous cousins, could give some organizing principle to the drift of her phases, during which Anna managed to dress and feed herself but little else.

21 March

To Uncle Leo's flat in the P.M.

Anna listless, almost catatonic, Hermine tearing around like a fishwife, railing at her to practice-

Shame on you, Anna, for shame! Herr Puchel will be so furious!

Anna silent, tears in her eyes; I could have cheerfully throttled dear aunt at that moment. Chose instead to move A into the afternoon sun, onto the cut-velvet sofa by the window. Sat for a peaceful hour while I read Tantchen Rosmarin aloud, As head on my shoulder. For me, a perfect hour. For her, I imagine that existence was almost tolerable.

In fact Hugo was basically helpless when confronted with a phase, and admitted as much in his diaries. His therapy seemed to consist of taking her out for long walks on the Ringstrasse, or among the earthier amusements and shops of the Prater. The two cousins were often seen strolling arm in arm, a strikingly handsome, fashionably dressed young couple, and yet mismatched for all their good looks and evident wealth: Hugo obviously too old to be Anna's suitor, Anna clearly too young to be Hugo's wife. Even so, some have suggested that their devotion to one another surpassed the usual bond of sympathetic cousins, and, indeed, there are aspects of the diaries that imply infatuation. Hugo notes even their most casual physical contact, as when Anna places her arm on his, or their legs happen to brush while riding in a carriage. He remarks frequently on her beauty, variously describing it as “radiant,” “precocious,” and “disabling,” and once comparing her, without his usual irony, to Rembrandt's sublime portraits of Jewish women. And then there are the insights which come of close observation, as when he tries to make sense of Anna's stern artistic will:

When one is sickened by ugliness, tedium, stupidity, false feeling-by daily life, in other words-one must construct rigorous barriers of tact and taste in order to survive.

They walked in all weathers, at all times of day, sometimes covering the entire four kilometers of the Ringstrasse. After one such outing Hugo made this terse entry:

Walking with A today on the Ring.

Insolent thugs holding a meeting in the park opposite the Reich-srat, chanting, singing vile Reform Union songs.

Cries of ostjuden -they actually threatened us!

I have never been so furious in my life. Still trembling six hours later, as I write this.

A in a state of collapse.

Witnesses gave a decidedly sharper account of the incident, which arose not in connection with a Reform Union “meeting,” but rather a demonstration by some Christian Social toughs over the language rights bill currently paralyzing Parliament. These witnesses-including a Dienst-mann on break and the note-bearer to the Emperor's First Lord Chamberlain-said that perhaps thirty demonstrators strutted out of the park and approached the young couple chanting “Jew, where is your patch? Jew, where is your patch?,” an obvious reference to the triangular yellow patch that Jews were required to wear before emancipation. It was unknown whether the mob specifically recognized the Kuhls, or simply assumed they were Jewish on the basis of looks; in any event, they continued chanting as they surrounded the couple, crowding in so closely that there was, as a nearby coachman put it, “a good deal of mushing about, not blows exactly.” With one arm around Anna, the other fending off the mob, Hugo maintained a slow but determined progress past the park. Eventually the mob broke into laughter and fell away, manifesting a mood that was, on that day at least, more sportive than resolutely bloody.

Months later Hugo was still brooding in his diary, his humiliation evident; as for the young virtuoso, if the incident put her in a state of collapse, she recovered quickly. Within the week she traveled to Budapest and performed a program of Beethoven's C minor Concerto and Brahms's Paganini Variations. Her novel handling of Brahms's octave glissandos was especially stunning, the way she took them prestissimo, staccato , and pianissimo all in one, producing a feverish, nearly unbearable nervous effect which electrified the critics no less than the crowd.

“The child,” Heuberger wrote in the Neue freie Presse , “does not play like a child, but with the mastery of genius powered by long and serious study.” The pan-German press reviewed the performance in typically viperish tones. “Like glass shattering,” the Deutsche Zeitung said of the sounds she produced. “Her hair is almost as beautiful as Paderewski’s,” the Deutsches Volksblatt sarcastically remarked, adding, “the position of her fingers on the keys reminded one of spiders.” Her fingers: though Puchel's technical exercises ensured that all fingers developed equally, the teacher had not, to this point, chosen to emphasize her sixth finger in performance, though it could be heard, or perhaps more accurately, felt , in the cascades of her arpeggios and brass-tinged double notes, the dizzying helium lift of her accelerando. But at some point during the spring or summer of 1899 Herr Puchel sat Anna before the Fantasy. Even from the beginning, practice sessions devoted to that work took place in the privacy of the Kuhls’ comfortable Salesianergasse apartment, rather than in Puchel's more accessible Rathaus studio. In the interest of maximizing box-office receipts, Kornblau had decreed to Anna's inner circle that the dormant and presumed-lost Fantasy would be presented to the public with all the drama and mystery of a Strauss debut.