Letter from Edward Renouf to Anny Schey von Koromla

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22 September

Dear Baroness Schey!

You gave me such a sense of ambition and self-assurance that, as I walked home on the lonely path from the station, I was already thinking up the story that I’m writing today – though it’s so long it will take several weeks to complete. It’s set in the summer when I worked as a company rep. in the USA and experienced some of the things I’ve already told you about. It’s perfect material for a novella, as you said. Creating something from memories of one’s experiences is for the writer like drawing or painting from a model. I’m sure this sort of work must be more fluent, dynamic and natural than a completely free poem could ever be. The fact that the composition couldn’t possibly have quite the same harmonious logic can only be advantageous. The connecting harmonies are naturally hidden away in the stuff of things and events, and rarely come to the surface, like the timber frame of an unfinished house or the skeleton a malnourished alpine cow. Consequences should always be unexpected, but in such a way that they can also be perceived as fatalistic – as though they couldn’t possibly have been otherwise in the given situation. Every step has to come as a surprise, but it also has to convince us that it exhausts all possible outcomes of the previous steps. I mean the possible outcomes that necessarily follow on from prior events. I’m expecting great things of this story!

Zilie made up my room and a little something for me to eat. When I came to table the lovely card from Kufstein was lying there next to my plate! How has the word ‘love’ become so worn out, so meaningless? One has to find smaller words for bigger meanings. The falcon managed to fly to me despite having just one wing! May it always be so and keep coming forever!

I was admiring the painting again today. Sure as the sun comes up, I’m going skylark hunting!

– – – – Edl

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