Letter from Edward Renouf to Anny Schey von Koromla

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400 East 50th Street, New York

7 April

My dearest Annerl!

I’m now back in New York and so looking forward to coming to see you. The ship I’ll likely be taking departs from here next Wednesday, 12 April, and arrives in The Hague on 23 April. It’s a little freight ship that takes around eight to ten passengers, who eat with the captain and (apparently) get really nice cabins. I tried to make all the arrangements from Waldfrieden but grew impatient when my letters weren’t answered immediately. So I packed all my luggage, sent it here by train and caught a ride with the first friend who was driving to New York by car. I’ve been sleeping wherever there’s a bed available, with friends of Heinzl and Edda. Until now I’ve spent virtually all my time looking for positions on ships and steamers. For the only vacant position I would have had to have to waited until the middle of the summer, which was quite impossible given my lack of patience. The cheapest, earliest passage I can find is the one on this freight steamer. I’m getting my tickets tomorrow and then I’ll write to tell you the exact name of the ship and where and when it’s due to arrive at The Hague (I’ll send you a telegraph from the ship if necessary). I can hardly believe it, Annerl! It’s too wonderful! This ego, which knows no spatial limitations, is already long since there with you! And this body, which seems heavy and earthbound in its frenetic impatience, its longing is quicker, quicker even than the very idea of being there with you! It was good for me to spend the winter here, to see things from the American point of view, to get to know my own family again. But my return to you is better still. It was painful to see my mother standing there as she said goodbye to Edda and I, crying and helpless, left to her own devices, her own solitude, like an abandoned child, bravely trying to make jokes with us and laugh through the tears. But she’s known for a long time that I can’t stay at Waldfrieden. Unfortunately feelings are not so easily tamed by mental insight. Heinzl is a splendid chap, the most beloved of all men to me. I’ve been singing this little tune the whole time: parting hurts, but parting makes my heart sing! Because Annerl, if only you knew how glad I am to be coming back to you! My last few days here are going to be entirely taken up trying to contain myself during the long wait for our reunion. Through Heinzl I’ll be meeting lots of new people; I’ll wander around the museums again, climb the tower of the Empire State Building, enjoy the weekend with Edda and Heinzl, drink beer – which is now legally allowed again for the first time since 1917. Maybe we’ll also see a couple of shows at the theatre or the cinema. I’m relishing all the noises and smells of the city; they’re a marvellous stimulus after the stupefying isolation of Waldfrieden. Everything has its time. I put on weight while I was in the woods. I had rosy red cheeks and a full curly beard. Now I’m starting to get thinner and I don’t have so much as a moustache anymore. And I’m going pale, as one does in New York.

Will you still want me? Nothing matters if you don’t!

Etl ––– ! –––

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