Telegrams of the Soul

January, on the Semmering

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January 25. The sun is trying to melt the snow. Here and there the snow fades to gray and dissolves, readying the way for spring. In Glognitz, Christmas roses poke through the snow. Everything, every thing else is buried under, silent. With the steel tip of my alpenstock I trace a girl’s name in the frosted glass of a shop window. Who’s name?! What do you care?! My soul is suffering. For four days now I’ve sheltered a little lady bug. It lives on the condensation under a glass. It even spreads its wings. I’ll buy it a bouquet of mimosa, yellow, sweet-scented blossoms with little gray-green leaves. How did it manage to weather the winter until now, to live through all of winter’s perils? I don’t know. The temperature already hit 18 degrees Celsius, without its protector P.A.?! How did I myself manage to endure it all?! I don’t know. I write a girl’s name in the frosted glass of a shop window on the main drag. Who’s name?! What do you care?! My soul is suffering, so it’s still alive, it’s still alive! The little lady-bug under the glass thinks: “Ha, ha, ha, it’s warm here but there’s not much to eat; we’ll just have to wait it out till February; we’re bound to find something then—.” Little creatures always find what they need.

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*A popular mountain resort in Austria