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Today’s letter from Helene in Vienna to her children in San Francisco follows the one we saw on November 10. The previous letter was numbered #59 and this one is 59a - perhaps they were sent in the same envelope.
Vienna, 14 November 1940
My little bunnies!
We have California in Vienna. It is 27 degrees or more in the sun and in November -- isn’t that amazing? We have to thank God that we have not yet forgotten how to be happy. Papa invited me to take a walk and since around here there wasn’t any salt to be found (that is table salt, not the Attic salt, of which we have plenty). We went to Köberl & Pientock. We could’ve bumped into anybody on Kärntnerstrasse - it was so teeming with people and soldiers. The moon does not take the people walking around into account and doesn’t rise in the sky until we don’t need it anymore. In the dark, it is hard to do business, especially when the window coverings have been lowered even before it got dark and the doors which are just as dark are difficult to find. So, we went on to the next streetcar stop and sank down tiredly into two seats that we were lucky to find. Was it the spring-like temperature or perhaps the human spawning which we took part in without even wanting to; in any case we were exhausted as if we had taken a hike all the way to the Rax. I thought of a school song: Everything is so pregnant outside (pardon, it supposed to be splendid) and I’m doing so well, etc, etc. We came home and I had a feeling there would be a letter from you. That was not the case but I knew it’s likely one will come tomorrow. So, what is this masquerade about all this spring, when that which means spring for us is not to be found?
So Harry discovered the teacher from the forest school in Alpl in California? i met him many gray years ago, during an even grayer, rainy summer in his home town in the Semmering area and I learned to love him. While I am not usually that crazy about dialect poetry, I read his vivid descriptions with great pleasure, maybe just because my interactions with shepherd boys (the shepherd boy of Pinkenkogel was my special friend) and of the rural population near Steinhaus were always very pleasant.
I just opened up the window in the next room to let in some of the delicious evening air and I am quite fascinated by the splendor of the stars in the sky, which looks almost like the summer. Jupiter and Saturn seem to be glowing pretty brightly rather than the other planets. The constellation of these two is said to be only like this every few centuries. Papa told me very proudly that this exact situation happened in 1648 with those two planets coming so close to the earth. He says he still remembers it quite well.
Your father is coming with scissors to cut off a piece of the paper, because he thought he might have to pay more postage if the paper were bigger and he can’t stand that. So please don’t worry about the operation the paper just underwent because I really don’t have anything important to say.
I kiss you, Paul and the rest of the family and I remain your
Helen
A few thoughts and notes on today’s letter:
· Although I could not find information about the business, I found a telephone book listing for Köberl & Pientock. It was about a mile walk from their home on Seidlgasse.
· The Free Dictionary has a definition for “Attic wit”: “A shrewd, cutting, or subtle humor or wit. Also referred to as ‘Attic salt.’ He lays on the Attic wit a bit too often for my taste; I can never tell when he's being serious.”
· Helene makes a pun of an old folksong called Drauss' ist alles so prächtig. My grandmother wasn’t the only one to play with the lyrics — I found a COVID-inspired version of the song which makes me long to be fluent in German.
· Alpl is a ski resort about 75 miles southwest of Vienna, in the region of Styria. Not far away are Stemmering and Pinkenkogel:
· It is interesting to see what a small world it was, even then – so many of the people they knew in Vienna made their way to California – like opera singers (see October 30th post) and alpine resort instructors! Helene mentioned the Semmering area in the August 20th post.
Helene was a woman ahead of her time. She had an insatiable curiosity and longed to be a published author. She was not eager to marry, living happily as a single woman in Vienna, earning her own way working at a stationery store and spending her free time in the cafes reading newspapers and having conversations with other well-read friends. When I was growing up, my mother said that Helene always wanted children, but wasn’t certain she wanted to be married. Apparently, she had a fantasy of getting pregnant with some man in the country and raising the child on her own, but met Vitali and changed her mind. I wonder whether she was thinking fondly of the shepherd boys of her youth?