This is how he expounded upon Anita, traced her back to that place where she came from, her youth!
The woman stood leaning, actually pressing against the white lacquered door, and a faint glimmer of what she had once been hovered over her brown golden hair.
She spoke. She stopped speaking. He spoke. He stopped speaking. She spoke. She stopped speaking—.
It was the second day of the fairy tale of the “stranger who becomes known.” The tartar lay in the heap of white pillows and smoked.
Then the woman spoke at greater length, with an exceptionally soft voice, saying: “What are we?! Firewood. Somebody sets us afire, we burn, we give warmth—. But actually we’re something that no one knows——trees!We’re a quiet entity unto ourselves, without any real purpose, like trees in the forest that nobody needs, adorned with leaves and blossoms—. We’re something that grows out into the world, into a forest no man has ever tread, a silent wood. The tree had to bend to attain the height that man requires of it, to make little cords of wood cut up for the fireplace. But later, at another time of life, we start to stand upright again and grow, like trees with rustling leaves and stirring branches. Nobody says ‘bravo.’ It’s a forest solitude. Something similar happens on that perfidious night on which nature, that frightful slaphappy force, twists us into a woman. Big, tall, upright, reaching to the heavens, we rear up in childhood and then again much later. Like forest trees that nobody needs with rustling leaves and blossoms—.”
She stopped speaking—. They stopped speaking.
And a hundred days went by—. The hundredth day dawned.
He stood up and gave her his hand: “Adieu—.”
“Adieu—,” said the woman.
She thought: “He looks just like a noble Tartar—.
I revealed my youth to him—! What for?! I made my confession before the fire goes out—.”
The little white lacquered hall wafted with the scent of women’s garments. The Tartar stood still. He peered down the curl of the black cast-iron stairway and saw at the bottom the wondrous pierced black cast-iron elevator cage, to which three black coils of wire were attached dangling down into an abyss.
He felt: “Anita—.” And again he became a mirror for his fellow man, soaking it all up and beaming it back!
And then he thought of the trees in a forest that nobody needs, that grow down into the earth and up into the sky with rustling leaves and blossoms.
And he thought of the people who are not somebody’s “pretty object,” but rather, like forest trees, great free entities unto themselves with rustling souls and spirit blossoms! And they wilt and sag, like forest trees, and collapse in upon themselves and become humus for the spring. This is how they beget — offspring, life springing off of them! They, the fall that feeds the spring. The tall freewheeling trees in the human forest, the sturdy trunks that won’t become chopped firewood, but grow down into the earth and up into the sky! Amen—.
Little Things
For a long time now I’ve judged people only according to minute details. I am, alas, unable to await the ‘great events’ in their life through which they will ‘disclose’ their true selves. I am obliged to predict these ‘disclosures’ in the little things of life. For instance, in the walking stick handle, the umbrella handle which he or she selects. In the necktie, in the cloth of a dress, in the hat, in the dog which he or she owns, in a thousand unlikely incidentals all the way down to the cufflinks, actually all the way up! For everything is an essay about the person who selected it and gladly dons it! He discloses himself to us! “He wrote a good book, but he wore uncouth, engraved, unnatural cufflinks!” That says everything about him. There’s something rotten somewhere in the “state of his soul!” That a beloved lady betray us is not the most important thing. For fate will surely punish her after the fact with profound disappointment! But her first coquettish, fire-kindling glance, that is the salient detail! I can compete with him who betrayed me, absolutely, but not with him who directed a desirous glance in her direction! Little things kill! Fulfillment can always be defeated, but never anticipation! Therefore I hold fast to the little things in life, to neckties, umbrella handles, walking stick handles, stray remarks, neglected gems, pearls of the soul that roll under the table and are picked up by no one! The significant things in life have absolutely no importance. They tell, they make known nothing more about being than we ourselves already know about it! Since when you get right down to it, everything works by and large the same way. But the important differences are only manifest in the details! For instance, which flowers you give to your beloved. Or which belt buckle you pick out for her among the hundred options. Which pear from France, which grapefruit from America you bring to her house, which speckled brown Canada apple you select for her among the hundreds on display; this attests to many more attachments than the orgies of so-called love! Aesthetics, understanding, love must ultimately form a triad. One must be inclined to allow a symphony of ordinary life to resound in the sum of the “little things”! One cannot wait for big events to happen! All the least consequential things are monumental! The squeak of a mouse caught in a trap is a terrible tragedy! Somebody once said to me: the most terrible thing is a young rabbit dragged into a fox hole. The little foxes gnaw at him alive, slowly, day and night, with their needle-sharp little teeth! These are the tragedies of our existence!
Little things in life supplant the “great events.” That is their value if you can fathom it!
Idyll
I have a steel-tipped pen rest made of long black bundled bristle set in a light blue shimmering opalized matte glass jar. Protection in an ideal mantel. I think of the Society for the Protection of Children. Something tender, useful, softly and tenderly preserved. I swaddle my ungrudging elastic Kuhn pen like a little child in its cradle, certain that nothing bad will befall it. It dries and rests. And the little glass jar in which the bristle holder sits is an iridescent blue, the color of waves breaking against the sun. And the steeltipped pen and pen rest return my love, my tenderness, quietly letting it be.
My Ideals
The adagios in the violin sonatas of Beethoven.
The voice and the laughter of Klara and Franzi Panhans.
Speckled tulips.
Franz Schubert.
Solo asparagus, spinach, new potatoes, Carolina rice, salt sticks.
Knut Hamsun.
The intelligence, the soul of Paula Sch.
The blue pen “Kuhn 201.”
The condiment: Ketchup.
My little room Number 33: Vienna, First District, Dorotheergasse, Graben Hotel.
The good looks of A.M.
Gmunder Lake, Wolfgang Lake.
The Vöslauer* Baths.
The Schneeberg † train.
Mondsee boxed cheese, fresh curdled.
Sole, perch, young hake, reinanken.
Money.
Hansy Klausecker, thirteen years old.
__________________
*Vöslau, a spa near Vienna
†Schneeberg, an Austrian mountain resort
Peter Altenberg as Collector
The International Collectors News features an interesting inquiry on the value of collecting in its recently published issue Number 13. The journal includes contributions by, among others, Minister of Education Count Stürgkh, Alfred Lichtwark, Alma Tadema, Harden, Paul Heyse, Max Kalbeck, Eduard Pötzel, Felix Salten, Balduin Groller, Ginzkey. In response to the question as to the why and wherefore of his passion for collecting, Peter Altenberg offered the following intriguing answer: “It’s a wonder you should turn to me of all people concerning this subject. Since you could not possibly know that I, a poor man, have for many years been an absolutely fanatic collector and have, just like the millionaires, managed through abundant sacrifices to amass a cherished, painstakingly selected, exquisite gallery of pictures: 1,500 postcards, 20 Hellers apiece, in two lovely Japanese cabinets, each with six compartments. They are exclusively photographic images of landscapes, women, children and animals. Some weeks ago I realized that the truly cultivated individual had to divest himself of his treasures so as to be able to experience while still alive that most profound, that peerless pleasure of ‘giving,’ of ‘bestowing’ a thing of value upon a ‘beneficiary.’ Consequently, I shipped both Japanese cabinets along with the 1,500 postcards collected since 1897 to a young woman in Hamburg, the only one among all women able to appreciate such a present. Since then I’ve been collecting all the more ardently, all the more passionately, so as to complete my lady friend’s collection. — Here then are two healthful deflections from the perilously leaden weight of one’s own self: first the pleasure of collecting in and of itself, second the pleasure of being able to do so on behalf of another equally discerning person! ‘Collecting’ means being able to concentrate on something situated outside the sphere of one’s own personality, yet something not quite so perilous and thankless as a beloved woman—.”