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Helene wrote this letter just 3 days before she and Vitali were to have boarded a ship in Lisbon for the United States. Her happiness and hope of a few weeks earlier are gone (see May 29 post), replaced with a fatalism and unease. She writes to Hilda in English, but not with the fluency we see in her letters sent from Istanbul 5 years later. I have edited today’s letter a bit for clarity.
Vienna, July 12. 1941
Dearest Hilda!
I was philanthropical enough to advertise this dangerous letter to you in the last one to the children. Hoping to have plentiful chats with you very soon, I deferred the answer to your charming letter from 12 April. Your letters gave me a great enjoyment, and feeling myself unable to write to you in the same manner, I waited, waited and waited. Indeed, I believed I would have occasion to embrace you in a short time, but our joy was premature. The Lord takes care that trees don’t grow into the heaven. My fatalism entreats of God to be a good man, and the idea that we all are marionettes only, helps us to let things slide. I gave up the eruptions of my temperament at such opportunities and remain silent. Of course, this silence is external but inside, the volcano bubbles. For some weeks, we have lived in a room which has more resemblance to a removal business than to a sitting-room. A pillar, shaped by our luggage, is the most remarkable furniture. No wonder that the scene in my dreams always is of the station or a waiting room in the station, but I never saw the railway in my recent dreams. I feel the inconvenience of a great voyage with insufficient possibilities. My neck and legs become stiff and I have a foretaste of the dreams of future. The most disagreeable thing is that I only dream this unpleasantness. I should prefer the reality of tired extremities and a transient Genickstarre [stiff neck] as a reward for being united with my children, and seeing you and all I want to see again and those I don’t know personally but wishing to know them. Once I read a story of a Schlemiel, who had never fallen in love, but he always dreamed about accidents. He became a father of an illegitimate child - in the dream of course - he gets condemned on account of permitting an abortion -- the poor fellow never had had a sweetheart. With similar feelings I am awakening.
Vitali has compassion for me and advised to write to you in German. What a glorious idea! But for the next time. This letter must leave. Too much softening of the brain it has caused. Forgive me, darling, that always you must be my victim. But I know that my children, including Paul, are for the most part with you and therefore you know most about us.
I love you more than you can imagine, and I am happy at the thought of seeing you. For now, I am sitting at the station, waiting for railroad, not knowing what to do with my arms and legs. I kiss you. Please send Nathan my best wishes for you both. Vitali just now is hunting for food. I wait for him with impatience and a great deal of hunger. Wishing you a good repast, I remain your crazy, foolish, mad, silly, idiotic, weak-minded, imbecile (I am sorry, I didn’t find more synonyms in my dictionary) loving
Helen
I found this quotation attributed to Carl Jung:
“No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell.”