Letter from Edward Renouf to Anny Schey von Koromla

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Tuesday 14 April

My Annerl!

It’s been so long since I last heard from you. I can’t wait to get back to Munich, where there’s surely a letter waiting for me.

The days here have been pleasant and restorative. We all have very sporty sunburn and were able to do a lot of skiing despite the wet snow. Our longest trip was to the Hochalm (my favourite spot) from where we had the most wonderful view across to the Zugspitze and the many white peaks around it. Only the Plessens and I went on that trip. The Americans have very little stamina and fall to their knees in the sunshine even before the ascent begins. They – the married couple – are nice, unpretentious, agreeable company. But if you want to have any sort of serious discussion about art, philosophy, literature – whatever it might be – they completely clam up and change the subject to what it was Peggy said about that delightful hat Polly wore three years ago in Cleveland, Ohio. So much for the woman. The man sings American songs from dawn til dusk, plays cards with his wife, becomes animated when he gets the chance to tell anyone about the ‘Wild West’ – riding, shooting, then more riding and more shooting – or the baseball and the football. When I have to sit and listen to this I feel as though the minutes are dragging on into empty years – they become a symbol of missed opportunities, gaps that can’t be made good, they shorten my life and set the demon of apathy on my heels. Otherwise I start yawning irrepressibly and, at the same time, with clouded but impassioned longing, I think of the many things I want to enrich my life with: firstly you, then writing, reading, conversations about the present and utopia, science, art and what have you – – –

I get up at six o’clock every morning, so I have three or four hours to myself each day while the others are still sleeping. In this time I’ve already filled sixty to seventy pages of a little book with my own philosophy. I’ll have to go over it again in Munich once I’ve worked out where I think I stand in relation to the whole cosmos of things and people –

Heavy snow today. The mountaintops around us are hidden and the slopes nearby are already a deep, velvety white. Our skis won’t make a sound.

A smart, friendly farmer has been playing his zither for us. He confided in me that the Tyroleans, as far as he knows, wanted to lose the war because, if they had won, they would have become a German colony, which would have been absolutely awful for them, so he said. He also said that during the food shortages after the war, when the Americans and the English were sending provisions, the farmers from this region hoped to become a colony of England or America – remarkable! He’s a thoughtful chap, this farmer, and quite like Franzl Vauper.

Will I see you soon?

Yours

How do you like the envelope? The farmer’s wife lent it to me.

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