Letter from Edward Renouf to Anny Schey von Koromla

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Schwaz

Tuesday, 5 (?) September

Dear Annerl!

I’m sitting here at the table behind the stable, with the red parasol stretched out over my typewriter (to achieve this delightful little artifice I’ve brought one of the red chairs from the terrace and I’m sitting opposite the stable wall). And my naked back is soaking up the sun like a thirsty sponge, because it hasn’t stopped raining or at least drizzling since we arrived, and we’re all chilled to the bone. From today, though, the barometer and the general sense of optimism is promising the most wonderful autumn weather, so I’ll still have a chance to get a good country suntan before I head back to the city.

My plans have changed as a result of a letter from Heinzl. He wrote to say that the married couple who have been living with him over the winter with their Pekinese dog Kiki will be moving out on 30 September; that he’ll have to pay for his apartment whether he lives there alone or together with me; that in his free time he’s taking on ‘certain’ jobs for a publisher that I could well help him with; and that I’d be sure to find some casual work to tide me over without me having to give up my writing. I’ve already written back saying I’m very keen to take up his offer and that I’ll get back to New York at the earliest opportunity. So be it! ‘Earliest opportunity’ probably means some time around the end of October. I’ve also written to Hamburg to find out whether I can work my way back on a cargo ship. If that doesn’t work, mama wants to lend me enough money for the crossing (and she’d give it to me if only I’d be good enough to accept it!)

I think you’ll get to your London flat well before I sell my first novella, so you’re set to win our wager of three-hundred francs with a SIEG HEIL! I re-read the first novella I wrote here and didn’t like it. Ever since mama arrived I’ve been feeling so oppressed by our problematic, aimless, rootless existence that I just can’t seem to make any more progress. If I do ever manage to make anything of myself it will be in spite of the psychological inheritance that mama has left us, and only once I’ve vanquished it completely. In everything that has any bearing on everyday life – sociability, ambition, being practical and ready to act – and, in a more subtle sense, being kind to others, having the courage to stand up and not give in to fate, the will to actively assert oneself and, at the same time, the ability to adapt to others in a positive way – in all these things our mama is chained by a thousand prejudices and inhibitions and psychologically saturated with a negativity that overwhelms almost all else. And that’s how she brought us up. I can well remember (around the time when Heinzl and I were still at high school) the reaction of almost bitter disappointment when mama heard that neither Heinzl nor I wanted to stay at the Waldfrieden hermitage and wrest our daily bread from the stony soil there (the agricultural potential at Waldfrieden isn’t half as good as it is at Hügelhof!). And this at a time when it was generally acknowledged that the agrarian economy of New Hampshire could no longer compete with that of the West, when the oldest, most capable farming families were upping sticks and moving to the cities to look for factory work! That’s ‘Gwadl through and through’! Or perhaps in another sense it’s ‘Munich through and through’. For when I look at all mama’s ‘old friends’ from Munich, it’s only then that I realise that our Gwadl remains one of the more robust and enterprising among them, while the others are still just weepy old maids.

With your generosity, positivity and joviality, Annerl, you and your children have given me more than I can say. And you’ve all (en masse!) done a fabulous job of resisting the negative spirits in me. So wherever I might be and whatever I do, I will always keep you beside me as the dearest guardian angels that fate could ever have given me!

But onto practical matters now:

(1) The post office telephoned to say that there’s an outstanding charge of 31 schillings and 50 groschen for the telephone from the second half of 1932 and that the telephone will have to be disconnected (removed?) if it isn’t paid soon. What shall I tell them?

(2) I told the bank they should let you know what you still have in your account.

(3) I didn’t leave the inventory to my ‘womenfolk’ but counted up myself everything in the cupboard, the laundry and in use. I’ve also reorganised the cupboard, typed it all up in a list on the typewriter and stuck the list on the cupboard door, next to yours.

(4) Until now we’ve only used paper napkin, but if we do take any from the cupboard we’ll use the ones with the red markings.

(5) The table and chairs are on the terrace, so as soon as it stops raining we’ll eat outside and really make the most of it. Each night I put the umbrella and the chairs under the roof and I tip the table on its side, as you always used to do.

(6) I also brought the lounger out of storage, though it hasn’t been used yet because my little sister almost always spends the morning in bed (she’s still not completely recovered), and when the sun shines she likes to lie on the bench on her balcony. Mama has never known how to put her feet up and will never learn – she is and always has been more comfortable perched on the edge of a stool than reclining on a lounger.

(7) I haven’t yet been tempted to take a swim at the swimming school because it’s been so cold the whole time, but I’ll certainly do so when we have a warm spell.

Edda is so tender and womanly and in love and at ease – more so than I’ve ever seen her before. She’s sewing herself nightgowns and bed jackets, in sky blue and rose red, with lace and all the trimmings, in the most charming Viennese manner. The rather hard aloofness and cool independence of her character, because she received so little love and tenderness from mama throughout her entire childhood, have now completely disappeared; they seem to have dissolved in Kurt’s ardent devotion. There’s something poetic and intimate emerging in her character now; she is ambitious for Kurt and no longer for herself. She’s become a real woman, and it’s quite hard to imagine anything more enchanting! She’s getting married on 12 October, and mama is putting on a proper party for her: a church wedding with a reception for both sides of the family. I myself will be giving her away, in a rented top-hat and new gloves, one heroic member of a society positively bristling with minor nobility and military titles. And in all likelihood I’ll be hanging around in worker’s overalls at the port of Hamburg the very next day, looking for a job on a cargo ship! The very idea seems positively romantic to me!

Mama and Edda are leaving this Friday to visit some relatives in Munich. I’ll then follow them up to Berlin around the end of the first week in October. Our family reunion here in Schwaz was a very strange one, for me at least. Somehow I felt as though it was a meeting of two opposed atmospheres. For the first couple of days in particular there was a heavy, tragi-pathetic mood in the air; mama was smoking like a chimney and playing solitaire the whole time, ‘to keep unpleasant thoughts at bay’. Eventually Edda took the playing cards off her. That lightened the mood. We started talking to one another and making jokes. Hanni borrowed a guitar for us from her young friend Erich (a nice chap, and a possible candidate for Luisl????), and we sang all the old songs. The alpine atmosphere very much reminded mama of her childhood and her youth, and she told us some hilarious stories, some about her own upbringing. It must have been awful, though. It’s a burden that still weighs down on her like a mountain even now, and she’s sixty years old! The intolerance, the meanness of spirit, the lack of understanding and the sheer cruelty of that older generation, their dogmatic self-satisfaction . . . pah! . . . They almost needed the war to come and wash it all away and prepare the ground for a new humanity. Mama told us, for example, that when she was fifteen and still had no idea about such things, she fell in love with a young lad, but she was shy and kept it a secret, couldn’t bring herself to speak to him even when she met him in public. Yet she raved about him in her diary. When her mother discovered this she grabbed her by the ear and took her to see her father, where she had to get down on her knees, sobbing and pleading, and beg forgiveness for her sinful thoughts! To me the murder and manslaughter of war seem less ignoble than such poisoning of the soul! The damage done by this poison takes generations to heal. The sins of the fathers . . . . . ! ! ! I wonder how we’ll bring up our children? I’m sure the way you’ve raised yours is the only way to do it.

But despite the often ‘problematic’ atmosphere, you mustn’t think that we haven’t had some fun as well. My two womenfolk cook me perfect dinners, and after midday coffee we always sit together, three chirping blackbirds, singing and laughing for all the neighbourhood to hear. Mama raves about the landscape until it brings her to the point tears. We entertain ourselves with a thousand amusing episodes from childhood. Edda is almost always cheery, but sometimes gets lost in happy thoughts and dreams of an infinitely promising future. And me? I too laugh out loud every now and then, and I feel warmth in my heart, especially when I think of you and the kids. But my fate is still shrouded in mist and fog, the sails are slack and flapping, there’s neither compass nor rudder. Where to and wherefore? Who knows?

I won’t be able to visit London this autumn of course. I need to have had something published before I come. By that point you lot will already be proper Londoners and you’ll be able to show me around like it’s a new home. I’m looking forward to it already. And to that visit to New York that you promised me so long ago!

A few days ago I sent Beate a long critique of her philosophical essay. I’m slightly concerned that she won’t take it all that well. But if I’m to be of any use to her at all as correspondent, it can’t just be as someone she likes and admires; it needs to be as someone of more mature mind who knows more than she does. Mathematics is merciless. And metaphysics can’t just be felt and fawned over; it has to be clearly thought through.

Now I still want to write to Ingerl about a walk I took to Hintertux with Hanni, Sepl, the two Meiers and neighbour Hans. Bye for now, and kisses all round!

Etl

PS Did you receive Edda’s letter? My Eulenspiegel hasn’t arrived yet.

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