Letter from Edward Renouf to Anny Schey von Koromla

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Hügelhof, Pirchanger 437, Schwaz

27 July

Dear Annerl!

It’s infinitely lovely and homely here! Everything’s almost exactly as it was, and the rooms still smell so fresh, it’s almost as though you were staying here and that I need only wait for a ‘Yoo-hoo!’ as you come home from a walk in the woods. I can hear all the familiar noises outside: the scythes, the chickens, the farmers’ children. It’s strange not hearing your children running around in the garden! Their shouts . . . . . . how fantastic to think of them all grown up and back at this little house!

Hanni was very sorry to hear you wouldn’t be coming. Luisl, sooooo big and strong and healthy that you’d barely recognise her, came to pick me up from the station with my luggage. Sepl and Rosl gave me a very warm welcome, both of them unchanged. Hanni looks thinner and older, but not unwell. Loox greeted me with wagging tail, buried his cold nose in my hands and tried to wind his fat torso around my knees. This amazed Hanni because Loox didn’t make a sound, as though he wasn’t at all surprised to see me again. Hanni tells me Loox used to yap and growl and snap whenever the Herr Baron came, and despite all manner of nagging from Hanni and family, and despite the Herr Baron giving Loox sugar and treats, the beast simply refused to be placated for even a moment.

For lunch Hanni gave me a bowl of semolina soup and a generous pile of puffers, or whatever they’re called: dried pears wrapped in pastry and baked in a deep layer of lard, and a glass of milk. A perfect meal. This evening it’s fried potatoes with salad. I had to laugh when I remembered how Beaterl, thin and pale as she was back then, ate so much of that greasy stuff that she was fit to burst and had no appetite for Cilie’s delicious butter cakes. How I scolded her for it! And yet now she’s big and strong . . . . . . Tomorrow I start cooking for myself: milk, eggs and lots of vegetables.

Having given it some thought I’ve decided that the west window of your little room on the north side is the best place for me to work after all. The leathered desk is standing there with my typewriter on it now. Next to that is the sideboard table from the garden, for dictionaries, papers and so on. There are lots of people staying at Hügelhof, but it’s quiet here, like Robinson’s island. So I’ve also taken your washing table for my toothbrush and razor. And your bed to sleep in.

There’s just one thing bugging me now: where have I put Till Eulenspiegel? I couldn’t find it at the Hotel de Paris, and it wasn’t in my luggage either. Did I pack it in your suitcase with Timmermann without thinking? I may even have left it on the train from Lamballe. As far as my memory can help me, this book has disappeared without a trace!

My sister got a minor inflammation of the pleura after her operation, so she needs to stay in Berlin for the time being. It doesn’t look as though there’s going to be a wedding. Mother tells me the young fellow is absolutely charming and head over heels in love. But he’s unemployed. He’s been running around all over the place looking for a job, but he can’t find one. If my little sister were to get married, the new law says she wouldn’t be allowed to take a job. So who knows what will happen? Amor perhaps, the goddam god of love. Because if this chap has never even had a job, how can he dream of earning enough to feed a household of two people?!

From the window here I’m looking out on the Inn and the wide green valley. Everything’s just the same! Even the yellow tower of the church in Vomp. And the Bettelwurf shrouded in cloud! But on Abd-ru-shin’s plateau I can see a whole township of new red roofs. All the fine food and music has evidently done wonders for his burgeoning flock!

One hears nothing about politics here. But all the stations, churches and public buildings, including the castle of Herr Baron Minkus, are flying black flags for the murdered chancellor. If I believed the Swiss newspapers I might have thought we were on the brink of another world war, but everything seemed far less dramatic and dangerous once I’d arrived in Innsbruck and spoken to the dear old Austrians and read the Tiroler Anzeiger and watched the farmers at work for a while.

When I arrived in Austria, as a foreigner, as an American, and heard the language being spoken around me again and saw the warmth and humanity in people’s faces, cheerful as ever, I felt quite different, full of love and even a sense of being at home here, among these folk, in this country. I was so flattered when the people I was travelling with took me for a Viennese! Austria really is the loveliest land in the world. How long will it be, I wonder, before you Austrians come back to the fold?

I’m still a little dazed from the journey, from the spektacle, from the rattling train and the fleeting images of the passing landscape. Making mistakes, as you can see. Still very much under the spell of this ‘homecoming’. So that’s enough for today. Tomorrow I’ll write a birthday letter to Beaterl, and to my own sister. Sending greetings from Hügelhof to Surcouf. And to you, most gracious lady, a heartfelt hand-kiss. Anyone who writes to me will get a reply in no time at all.

— Etl

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