Telegrams of the Soul

A Real True Relationship

She sat by the immense ground floor window that almost reached down to the ground of the dusty, gray, miserable country lane, and sewed blouses on a lovely, glittering sewing machine from morning to night. Her eyes wore an expression of despair. But she herself was not aware of it. She sewed, sewed and sewed.

She was very slender, not made for the storm of life that shakes and sweeps away souls and bodies. In the evening she ate the cold vegetables from her midday meal. All this I saw through the immense ground floor window and she saw that I saw it all.

One evening she stood leaning against the front door of the house. And she said to me: “I’ve taken a job in a blouse factory in Mariahilf, so I won’t have to work on my own any longer in this lonely room.”

And I thought: “Country lane, country lane, you’ve lost your sparkle, you’ve lost your riches.

“A person’s got to get ahead in life, isn’t that so?” she said, “and by the way, I’ve always watched you walk by my window, three times a day. Three times a day you walked by, that’s right. But in Mariahilf there’ll be forty girls, and we’ll be able to chatter and work like in an anthill—.”

“Listen, Miss, I’ll still walk three times past your window when you won’t be seated there anymore—.”

“Will you really?!? Well, then in a way I’ll still be there too, I’ll be back home just like before—.”

“Maybe you could leave your glittering little sewing machine at the window and with it one of your unfinished blouses—.”

“Sure, why not, I will—.”

That was the only real true relationship I ever had with a female soul in my entire uneventful life—.

Country lane, gray, dusty country lane, so now you’ve lost your sparkle, you’ve lost your riches—. And she, she’s going to work now, going out into the world—!