Letter from Edward Renouf to Anny Schey von Koromla

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Schwaz

6 September

Dear Baroness Schey,

The card from my great aunt has just arrived, with reminders of Bruno Walter, Mozart, the Vienna Woods, the Goethe Parlour and the drive home at break-neck speed. We were still thirsty when we got there, so we drank at a dark fountain while the crickets chirped wilful variations on motifs from Johann Strauss –

Yesterday I was plucking scales on the guitar. Replied to a letter from Hayward that had long gone unanswered, then read Burckhardt’s lecture on Demetrios, a follower of Alexander the Great. Alexander died at thirty-three! Not that his death is remarkable. When someone mentions his death, one thinks only of his life! Power, audacity and wealth have their own splendour, almost regardless of smooth and harmonious transitions.

When I went to bed I thought I heard knocking at the ceiling of my room. Favoured ruse of the ghosts of this epoch! I fell asleep and dreamt so convincingly of my dearest Parisian friend, Madame de Ma Foi, that I was remonstrating with the carelessness of fate when it woke me.

Still, I was up by half seven, took a cold bath, didn’t shave. Immediately started writing all the important letters that might have distracted me and kept me from my work. This is the last of them. It’s the same with writing as it is with [illegible] and music. Please forgive the scrawl. In weather like this (thunder and rain) one’s entitled to have a bit of a stomach ache and to not want to bend over a table. Regards to Beate, Inge and Clemens.

Yours,

Edl

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