Telegrams of the Soul

Subjectivity

She said: “Ever since they demolished my dear old ‘Bösendorfer Hall’ (a concert hall in Vienna), I’ve been an unhappy person. I grant you that there are more pressing problems and tragedies in this World War, but for me, the most wretched soul alive, there are, alas — or thank God! — no others. So many heroes fall and I mourn my ‘Bösendorfer Hall.’ Should I, therefore, be ashamed to admit it? It was my all. When I sat there I forgot the world. I forgot the present, the future. Later, at the dinner table, I had no idea what I ate. That will never happen again. I know the other concert halls. But I don’t forget the present in them or the future. Am I ‘musical’!? Who knows! In the Bösendorfer Hall I was. Must one, can one possibly be it everywhere?! They’re definitely ‘geniuses,’ the ones that can be musical everywhere. People like me are terribly attached to just one place. In that one place he revives his spirit, there he thrives, there he comes to be himself! No, more than himself. For my sake alone they couldn’t very well leave the building standing, that’s clear. Just once I lost my cool. Someone said to me: ‘Its acoustics weren’t even particularly good!’ And I thought to myself: ‘If I were a tigress, I’d leap at him and tear out his throat with my claws!’ But unfortunately, I’m no tigress.”