He bought himself a small villa with garden in Hietzing, on the High Street, and installed his seamstress there. She planted herself a bed of roses and carnations and was pleased that her dainty lovely little fingers no longer had to suffer from all the sewing. She even nursed them now with malatine and honey glycerin to make up for those awful torturous years. One day the family decided that my tall, handsome, slender uncle with the pug nose ought to make a “match.” “Alright,” he said, “à la bonheur. But what will become of Anna?” Anna was married off to a man who had been terribly fond of her since childhood and had only lacked “nervus rerum” to make her—pardon, himself, happy! Anna went along with everything, since it is better to go along with things when not to go along with them is of little use. So my uncle married and added another floor to the villa in Hietzing. A gardener was engaged to tend to the rose and carnation beds planted by Anna. One day my newlywed aunt said to my tall, handsome, slender uncle: “Say, who was that Anna anyway after whom these lovely well-kept carnations are named?” My uncle peered down at the speckled carnations and could not fathom why this Anna still mattered.
My uncle has been dead and gone for seven years now and my aunt is a grand-mamma. The only thing that hasn’t changed is the lovely bed of speckled Anna-Carnations in the garden of the Hietzing villa.
My uncle Emmerich had no heart. He speculated on copies of old paintings billed as originals, which, in some cases, later actually turned out to be originals. But finally he went bankrupt. We boys were present at the dinner table on the eve of the “Economic Capitulation in the House of Emmerich,” at which my uncle argued, based on irrefutable evidence in Silberer’s Sports News, his bible, that “Quick Four” was bound to win at the big race on Sunday. Aside from which, he got private tips to that effect from the stable. All of a sudden he looked up and noticed that his wife and daughter were quietly weeping. “Will somebody please tell me why in heaven’s name these dames have started bawling?” he said. Of course they started bawling because of the lost money. What else do women bawl seriously about? Quick Four didn’t win either, neither Quick nor Four, nor in any combination, and my uncle drove home deep in thought on the upper level of the elegant English double-decker sports omnibus (at ten Crowns a seat), armed with the very same binoculars likewise employed by Count Niki Esterhazy. “There goes the dowry of our poor daughters!” my aunt kept weeping. “Teach your child not to need a dowry!” said my uncle. When he auctioned off his collection of paintings, for which he had been derided all his life by the family, it turned out that it had been worth more than all the money he’d squandered otherwise. Henceforth, the family, which had previously called him a dimwit, called him a remarkable man. And my aunt said: “Emmerich, in your heart of hearts you’re a good man after all!”
I have an aunt. My first memory of her is as follows: My uncle offered a toast at the wedding dinner. At that very moment I had in my mouth two candied strawberries, a chocolate praline with coffee filling, a hazelnut pâte and a pineapple fondant complete with paper wrapping. Then my father said: “You see . . . !?” He was referring to the quote from Goethe with which the toast concluded. You see how nice it is when you know something, you’re heaped with honors and on top of it all you even get a bride.
In truth, I saw that such knowledge could get you a rather skinny and not very good looking bride. At the end of the dinner I saw my uncle standing with her beside a yellow silk damask curtain, probably saying to her: “Let me conclude with the wise words of Goethe .
1 comment