Telegrams of the Soul

The New Romanticism

Heinrich Frauenlob, Walter von der Vogelweide, Hölty, Hölderlin, where are you tonight?!? Are your velvet doublets moth-eaten, are your locks all tousled by the storm?!

Here I stand, a seventeen-year-old, in the dead of night on the veranda of a country villa, with my nightgown open, ready to drop my comb so that you can press it against your lips and carry it around down darkened streets, your lips infused with silent songs.

Where are you?!? You dreamy ones?! Dreamers dreaming of us!?

Gentlemen, I danced this afternoon on the lawn in the melancholic old Herzogspark, held my dress with both hands and danced—.

Will you please dream of it tonight, dream of me dancing in the melancholic old Herzogspark holding my dress in both my hands??

Will nobody dream of it tonight?!?

Dream, will you please dream of it! You dreamless ones!

Listen up, gentlemen! I danced this afternoon on the lawn in the melancholic old Herzogspark naked as the day I was born; and I held no dress in my two hands, for I had none on and was naked!

Dream of it! You dreamless ones!

Oh you wretch, you wretch! You took me and used me—!

But dream of it! Dream of it, I beg you, at least this night and the next!

No, he did not dream of it, but slept soundly and deeply like a satiated beast—.