Telegrams of the Soul

My Gmunden

You’re already making a long face reading this title.

Aha, yet another depiction in his matchless condensed manner of “seashores,” “evening atmospheres,” “water’s eternal newness,” we know all that. No, this time something else! In autumn I was once the last guest left of the summer season. One evening, a middle-aged baron and learned doctor of philosophy introduced himself, his family was native to these parts. He requested the honor of my acquaintance. Of course! He was very cultivated and very well bred. On the eighth day of our incipient acquaintance he said to me one evening in the course of a stroll:

“Why, pray tell, don’t you give up your criminal plans to take my life?!”

“Since I have no such plans, I cannot give them up!”

“I have nothing against you personally, you are merely the operative agent of a higher power to whom both you and I are beholden! Nevertheless, exceptionally, I enjoin you to cease and desist in this plot to bring about my annihilation, socially, and in all other senses!” From then on I let myself be drawn into this peculiar duel between a healthy spirit (my own) and a sick one in the naïve hope of making him realize through logical argument the folly of his delusion. Unfortunately, each acknowledgment that he’d been wrong about me made him all the more unhappy, desperate and, above all, dogged in his resolve! In his view, I was simply being shrewder, more cunning in my deception. For instance, he bought himself ten Egyptian cigarettes. Upon his emergence from the tobacconist’s, he said: “The cigarettes were poisoned on your orders!” I suggested he save them for me, said I’d smoke them all in front of his eyes from then till nightfall. Whereupon he hissed: “Swindler!”

One evening he said: “I hope your supper tastes particularly good this evening!” “Why?” “Because it’s your last!” Whereupon he pulled out a Browning revolver. He walked me home as usual. I switched on the light in my room, after ten minutes switched it off again, remained seated in the dark for a half hour, then I ventured down the street to see the mayor, Dr. Wolfsgruber. The old man lay sick in bed. Upon learning the name of the person in question the mayor passed word through his chambermaid: He’d receive me in his downstairs parlor, but without any lights on. He said to me: “You have my profound thanks on behalf of our little town! Don’t go to bed, take the earliest train out, unfortunately we thought he was harmless! Thanks again, and be assured of my prompt attention to all necessary actions that must, alas, be taken, in light of your report!”

It was, however, the opinion of the dear little town that “meshuganeh attract each other!”