Ingo Schulze - New Lives

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34. Hanns Eisler, Johann Faustus (Berlin, 1952).

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35. A standard procedure at the time, as the editor himself learned firsthand.

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36. As children the two had had a Hungarian street map of Paris that they had tried to learn by heart. — Information provided by V. T.

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37. Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast.

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38. Built in Budapest at the end of the nineteenth century, it offers a view of the Danube and of all of Pest across the river.

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39. Train station in Dresden.

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40. For T. plastic cups were the symbol of the official world, from kindergarten to the army — information provided by V. T.

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41. Quote from André Breton’s Nadja.

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42. Café in Dresden.

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43. Military abbreviations: Short Leave of two days; Extended Leave of three days.

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44. At the end of this volume of letters the reader may perhaps see the occasion differently.

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45. The E.T. in Spielberg’s film of the same name becomes a lower-case Latin et, meaning “and.”

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46. Anna Seghers, The Trial of Jeanne d’Arc in Rouen, 1431, radio play (Leipzig, 1975); T. evidently means still photographs included in the book and taken from the silent film La passion de Jeanne d’Arc (1928), directed by C. T. Dreyer.

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47. Sweater vest.

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48. The dating of this letter is problematic. There is hardly any way to make the details dovetail. T. is evidently mistaken about the date. “The day before yesterday” was Sunday, that is the same day on which they worked late into the night. An earlier date is likewise hardly possible. And yet discrepancies also arise for Wednesday and Thursday. The most probable time for the letter to have been written is Thursday morning, although it seems odd that there is no mention of the day on which the first issue was published.

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49. Volkspolizei, the People’s Police.

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50. Presumably he means on Tuesday of the previous week.

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51. Leipziger Volkszeitung [Leipzig National Newspaper].

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52. Martin Luther Church is at the opposite end of Market Square, a distance of about eight hundred feet.

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53. Two new residential developments, one with fifteen, the other with five thousand inhabitants.

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54. They had been preparing the second issue.

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55. T. wrote the majority of his letters, especially those to N. H., between five and nine a.m.

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56. The first two paragraphs of this letter reflect contradictory intentions. On the one hand T. describes letter writing as a pastime; on the other, the idea that he “has” to say something suggests that he regards it as his duty to report about his work. This ambivalence, despite whatever embellishments accompany it, is always present.

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57. One month previous, on Jan. 18th, T. had written that he owed his job at the paper to the “Prophet,” Rudolf Franck. “He initiated things and put in a good word for me.”

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58. The launching celebration was held on Feb. 2nd, the first day of sales.

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59. As a photographer Nicoletta Hansen had accompanied a journalist who was doing a story about the countless number of newly founded newspapers, especially in Thuringia and Saxony. When the article finally appeared there was no mention of the Altenburg Weekly. T. had asked the reporter for N. H.’s address.

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60. Apparently this was a bilingual edition of Apuleius’s Cupid and Psyche (Leipzig, 1981), in which there were color photographs of the nine frescoes executed in 1838 by Moritz von Schwind for the music pavilion in Rüdigsdorf near Kohren-Sahlis.

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61. These additional plans evidently led nowhere.

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62. A specialty in Altenburg and Schmölln: pork roast (either rib or shoulder) marinated in marjoram and roasted on a spit over a birchwood fire.

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63. Large Neeberg Figure, by Wieland Förster.

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64. This is the first time that T. describes himself, however indirectly, as an artist/writer.

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65. Strangely enough, T. has chosen the least appropriate place here for his confessions, since he is advocating much the same thing as the lowbrow that he just threw out of the office a few hours before.

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66. This passage sounds the central motif of his letters to N. H. for the first time.

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67. If one applies this mode of thought to T. himself, one might well conclude that he has found a strong “drug” for himself.

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68. Despite various attempts to learn the nature of these accusations and what had preceded them, I am still in the dark as to the meaning of this passage.

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69. The piles of tailings at the Wismut mine.

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70. Miss Julie, by August Strindberg.

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71. Franz Flieder, director.

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72. General manager.

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73. The first performance of the remounted production took place on Sunday, March 4th.

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74. All quotes agree verbatim with the text, which may indicate that T. had a copy in front of him when writing this letter.

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75. At the time Johannes Rau was the prime minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, had been nominated as the Social Democratic candidate for chancellor in 1986, and was later elected president of the Federal Republic of Germany, 2000–2004.

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76. A local term for musical chairs.

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77. Clemens von Barrista, Living Money — Lebendes Geld (Heidelberg, 1987).

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78. Most of Goethe’s and Schiller’s ballads were written in 1797; it was also the year in which Hölderlin’s Hyperion was published.

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79. T.’s nickname for Barrista, taken from his “big black American cruiser,” a “LeBaron.”

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80. Crossed out: “without having first washed her hands,”

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81. Presumably T. means mousse and grappa.

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82. In order to protect the rights of privacy, no details can be provided.

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83. The proof room at the printing shop of the Leipziger Volkszeitung, where the Altenburg Weekly was read for corrections every Wednesday.

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84. Cf. the letters that follow.

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85. The question as to what extent these “susurrations” (cf. below) had anything to do with T.’s real experience is something each reader will have to decide for him-or herself over time. Quite obviously he is searching here for some reason to be writing these letters. A rather poor motivation.

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86. T. apparently expected that N. H. had written him before she even left Altenburg. The accident had happened only two days before.

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87. Here T. addresses the central theme of his letters to N. H.

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88. Willi Schwabe’s Attic —an East German television program. At the beginning of each episode Willi Schwabe, with lantern in hand, would climb the stairs to a kind of storage room. The background music was the “Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy” from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker.