Letter from Edward Renouf to Anny Schey von Koromla

Description

Waldfrieden

20 February

Annerl!

I’m sat here quite distraught over you! I don’t know what I can say or do to make you believe me. Spring is coming, the whole blue sky is sparkling in bright sunshine, the ice is melting, the ground is beginning to swell, and I can hardly wait to jump on a steamer and run straight into your arms . . . . . . . . ! Then I receive these lovely letters from your children, telling me that you dare not write to me for fear of getting in the way of my career! And your own last letter sounded as though you still thought I wouldn’t come . . . . . . and then the children mentioned Clarence, and how can I know that you won’t hire this Clarence as your chauffeur for the summer and that you’ll no longer need Etl at all? Do write to me! Quite irrespective of whether you might get in the way of my career, you’re the only person who could help me in my career. If you no longer have any use for me . . . . . . . . then I’d probably just look for some menial job here in New York and wouldn’t have the time or energy to keep writing. The agents have advised me to stop trying to make money from my writing. They tell me I should take time out to write a book, then I’d win the public over with one fell swoop. I need only be patient now, they say; later I’ll become a famous writer overnight. The agents are quite right to say something so obvious and banal so directly. Of course they are! But how will it ever happen if I’m traipsing around New York selling hair tonic or bad stocks, at night dreaming of profits and clients, banknotes and debts, while the typewriter stands idle, gathering dust in a dark closet? That’s the stratospheric career you’d be keeping me from if you were to write and tell me I should come. Whereas the only hope for my career as a writer is for you to write to me and for me to come to you. Staying at Waldfrieden much longer will be impossible because I’m intellectually starved here and because my dear mother gets upset when I’m stern with her and won’t allow her to disturb me. And I can only live in New York if I take a job there. But of course I don’t want to use these arguments to compel you to invite me to come to France. You should only do that if you need me. Do you? If you do, then I shall come with more gusto than you seem to think possible! Then, when the kids are in Erla, we can take a holiday, travel or live how and where you like, make new memories . . . . . . . . if you wanted to take it easy we could do some painting and writing on the way, forget our ambitions and responsibilities and just enjoy the sunny days and the starry nights, over mountains and lakes, new wines and new languages, flowers and forests, beaches and towns . . . . . . that’s what writers and painters and bons vivants do! Would we take the old Studebaker and the consecrated tent? Should I come via Germany and pick up the Studebaker from Munich? Or do you not need me? Perhaps I should stay in New York and sell hair tonic and bad stocks so that someday I can say I’ve got more money in the bank than X, Y or Z? That would be something!

Heinzl has just written to tell me that our grandfather wants him and me to go to Bermuda for one or two weeks in April. We’ll go, of course, because grandfather will cover all the costs for us, and as it happens I’ve never seen those islands and I should like to see the venerable old man once more before I set out on my travels again. But I could come after this trip to Bermuda. The girls tell me you’ll be staying at Cagnes until the middle of June. Should I wait until you’ve found a new place to stay? Or could I come earlier? Did you get my last long letter? I didn’t hear back from Gretl. It’s such a shame she came when she did and had to perform at such an unfortunate time. And in New York! Where people in the arts – be it dance, painting, music or literature – are now looking around for some explanatory symbol or key by which they might understand the powerful, profound, confused cultural currents of our civilisation, a symbol that might draw out and contain some part of that stream. With a symbolism as vital and temporal as the present day itself, dance is the one artform from which people here expect such profound presentness. Even without having seen Gretl on stage, one can clearly see that she and present-day New York are as different as two things, two souls, two artforms could possibly be. The Viennese waltz might be of historical interest, but it couldn’t possibly be of independent artistic interest in modern-day New York – even if Gretl had danced as beautifully as an angel fresh from heaven, as I imagine she probably did. And I’m awfully sorry to say it, because I’m such a huge fan of her work and only wish to see her perform in places where people will show her the greatest possible appreciation and admiration. Where is Gretl now? Is she touring America?

But look how long this letter has become now! And all I wanted to say was how distraught I was that you were upset, that you didn’t think I’d come or that you might even think I ought not come at all, for the sake of my ‘career’. Please write straight away to let me know whether I should move back to New York and become a mouthwash peddler or a stockings salesman, or whether I should come. And if I should come, I forbid you to be sad because then I’ll soon be coming! And because that will be the beginning of the happiest and most productive (?!) time for me and for us!

Yours –– !

Read more