The Vienna Melody by Ernst Lothar

Author:Ernst Lothar
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Europa Editions UK
Published: 2015-05-21T04:00:00+00:00

In this letter the censor had inserted the word “not” before the phrase “to serve as a target for these whistling beans.”

Since the arrival of this letter Henriette had not slept. His helpless cry for rescue had reverberated in the sweet green quiet of this summer holiday resort where people were holding tennis tournaments, going on afternoon outings, dancing in the Zauner restaurant in the Pfarrgasse, or else playing tarot on the terrace at the Café Walter. She had racked her brains until the idea came to her of sending the telegram, the answer to which she was now awaiting by a long-distance call from Vienna.

At last it came. Herr Simmerl announced that someone was calling madam, and Henriette heard the old man’s voice of Count Hoyos, who, when he was young, had travelled on her account to Pope Leo XIII: “Now then, lovely lady, everything has been set in motion in the right direction.” But when in a wave of joy she wanted to find out more about it, all he would say was, “Don’t be too impatient, lovely lady; a few days more or less are of no consequence. You will hear from me again! I kiss your hands!”

With that the telephone conversation and her wave of joy were summarily ended. In the few days which were of no consequence the word “not,” which the censor had so stupidly inserted in Hans’s letter, might long since have lost its meaning.

How does one bear it? she thought to herself once again. She went back to her bench in the garden and looked across to the modest yellow summer home with the green blinds. There lived the man on whom it depended. For a moment the thought Hashed through her mind: What if I went to him myself? I gave him back his son. Perhaps he will give me mine? But as swiftly as it had come it vanished again. That man down in the Imperial villa had not lifted a finger when little Pauline, who had disturbed his marriage ceremony, begged humbly for forgiveness; the chronicles of the house revealed that. He had not moved a muscle when he had put the question of his life to her; Henriette recalled that. He had maintained his impeccable attitude when the coffin of his murdered wife was sunk into the Capuchin crypt; she was there and saw it. He was not human.

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