Telegrams of the Soul

The Walking Stick

I admit it. I have a fanatic attachment to particularly striking walking sticks, it might even be the onset of an incipient mania in which one’s entire lust for life is henceforth linked to lovely walking sticks. Forest, lake, spring, winter, woman, art — all fade away, and there’s only one still thrilling thing left: your lovely walking stick! Even though, in my case, I do not suspect this insidious devolution of a predilection, every pet feeling in our nervous system can, alas, evolve, or realign itself into an idée fixe. The fact is, I know all the walking sticks for sale in Vienna, have my own special favorites in each establishment, sticks which, strange at it may seem, are the least likely to be bought by someone else. Does that surprise you, Peter Altenberg, you with your eccentric taste?! A young woman once gave me as a gift one of these passionately coveted walking sticks which stood for two years in the display case. It was made of light gray spayed goat horn and sugar cane. A remarkably successful product made in Vienna in the English style, it cost only eleven Crowns. The dear young donor sewed me a sheath of fine deer hide with brown silk for the handle.

But then they kidded in café and restaurant: “What’s wrong with your Sir Stick?! Did he catch a cold in inclement weather?!?”

Somebody said: “Peter Altenberg, you’re striking enough as is. Enough already with these forced efforts to make yourself ridiculous. The effect is self-evident!”

My walking stick was often knocked over. One time a man said: “Don’t look so reproachful, you think I did it on purpose?!”

“No,” I replied, “I don’t think so; for what reason would you have to deliberately knock down my poor walking stick?!”

“There, you see, just be a little sensible,” said the man and pardoned me.

As a consequence of these painful occurrences, I brought my beloved walking stick back each week to the little shop in which it had been bought and asked them to make good the damages through polishing etc., etc. The salesman always replied politely: “In two to three days! No charge for the repairs!” After a while I realized that he took me for a “walking stick nut” and never even thought of sending the stick back for repair. He always said: “That’s exactly how the stick came from the ‘factory’! It’s as if you’d divined it!” One time I noticed a tiny nick.

“But this nick is still there,” I humbly maintained.

“Yes, well, that’s an innate function of the organic structure of the goat horn cell tissue itself, even our factory can’t iron it out—.”

Then I thought: If they had seriously filed, grated, polished it down, there would be nothing left today of my wondrous spayed goat horn handle. How can I thank you enough for your considerate wisdom: “He’s a stick-nut! Better handle with kid gloves!”