More traditional types of Austrian fantasy are represented by Peter Marginter, whose witty and sometimes grotesque inventions mark him out as the successor to Fritz von Herzmanovsky-Orlando. Peter von Tramin’s ‘The Sewermaster’ takes up the menacingly macabre atmosphere of Karl Hans Strobl. Michael Köhlmeier, who has had great success with his retelling of Greek myths, is represented by two stories from his amusing and inventive collection of pastiche folk tales.
A more modern variant of fantasy, science fiction, has also attracted Austrian authors. There are suggestions of it in the creation and repair of the human body by industrialised processes that form the background to Marianne Gruber’s ‘The Epidemic’ and Erich Fried’s ‘An Up-and-coming Concern’, though both use the futuristic setting to examine the age-old relations between the sexes. More straightforward science fiction, with a sardonic twist on time travel, comes from Martin Auer. Gerhard Amanshauser and Peter Daniel Wolfkind both use the appearance of a Quatermass-like alien growth to undermine the basis of what we accept as normal reality. Another strand of science fiction appears in Barbara Neuwirth’s miniature ‘In the Sand’, in which the traveller describes a strange unknown civilisation. H. C. Artmann’s ‘In the Gulf of Carpentaria’ appears to belong to the same genre, but is revealed as a resumé of a Hollywood film of that type, with, of course, a further twist at the end. The exuberance of Artmann’s imagination, which includes playing with genre in a wide variety of ways, could be called baroque, making him perhaps the best representative of traditional ‘Austrian’ characteristics carried into the post-war world.
Flowers
Arthur Schnitzler
I’ve just spent the whole afternoon wandering round the streets, with white snowflakes floating down, slowly, noiselessly, and now I’m back home, and the lamp is burning, and my cigar is lit, and my books are beside me, and everything is ready for me to enjoy a cosy evening … But it’s all to no avail, I can’t stop my thoughts continually coming back to the same thing.
She had long since been dead for me, hadn’t she? … Yes, dead, or even, as I put it to myself with the rather childish grandiloquence of the betrayed lover, ‘worse than dead’ … And now, since I learnt that she is not ‘worse than dead’, no, simply dead, like all the others out there, lying beneath the earth whenever spring is here, and whenever the sultry summer comes, and whenever the snow is falling as today … dead without any hope of returning – since then I have realised that she did not die for me a moment sooner than for everyone else. Grief? No. It’s only the usual frisson we feel when someone that once belonged to us sinks into the grave while their whole being is still quite fresh in our minds, down to the light in their eyes and the sound of their voice.
There was certainly much sadness when I discovered she had been unfaithful to me; … but how much else there was as well! My anger and sudden hatred and disgust with life and – yes, that too – my hurt pride. I only gradually came to realise I felt grief as well. But then I could relieve it with the comforting thought that she was suffering too. I still have them all, all those dozens of letters, sobbing, begging, pleading for forgiveness; I can read them whenever I want! And I can still see her in that dark English dress with the little straw hat, standing on the street corner in the twilight whenever I came out of the house … and watching me walk away … And I can remember her at that last meeting, standing there with her big, wondering eyes and round girlish face, that had become so pale and haggard … I didn’t even shake hands with her when she left, when she left for the last time. And I watched her from that window as far as the street corner and then she disappeared, for ever. Now she can never return…
It’s the purest chance I know about it at all. It could have been weeks, months before I heard. I haven’t seen her uncle for a good year now, he only rarely comes to Vienna, and I met him this morning! I had only spoken to him a few times before. The first time was that skittles evening when she and her mother had come along as well. And then the next summer; I was with a few friends in the garden of that restaurant in the Prater, the Csarda it was called. And her uncle was sitting at the next table with two or three other old gentlemen, in unbuttoned mood, almost merry, and he raised his glass to me. And before he left, he came over and told me, as if it were a great secret, that his niece had a crush on me! And in my half-tipsy state I found it odd and funny, piquant almost, that the old man should be telling me that there, to the sound of the cymbalom and the shrill violins – me, who knew it only too well, who still had the taste of her last kiss on my lips … And then this morning! I almost walked straight past him. I asked after his niece, more out of politeness than interest … I didn’t know what had become of her; the letters had stopped coming a long time ago; only flowers she still sent regularly, reminders of one of our most blissful days; once a month they came; no message with them, mute, humble flowers … And when I asked the old man, he was quite astonished: You didn’t know that the poor child died a week ago? It gave me quite a start. Then he told me more. That she had been ailing for some time but had been bed-ridden for scarcely a week … And what was wrong with her? … ‘Some emotional disorder … anaemia … The doctors never really know.’
I stood there for a long time at the spot where the old man had left me; I was worn out, as if I had just made some great effort. And now I feel as if I should regard this day as marking the end of an era in my life. Why? – Why? It is not something that concerns me closely. I no longer had any feelings for her, I hardly ever thought of her any more. Writing all this down has done me good: I am calmer. I am starting to enjoy the comfort of my home. It’s pointless to go on tormenting myself with thinking about it … There’ll be someone, somewhere who has more cause for mourning today than I have.
I have been out for a walk. A fine winter’s day. The sky was so pale, so cold, so distant … and I am very calm. The old man I met yesterday … it seems as if it were weeks ago. And when I think of her, her image appears in my mind’s eye in strangely sharp, complete outline; only one thing is missing, the anger that until very recently accompanied the memory. It has not really sunk in that she is no longer in this world, that she is in a coffin, buried … I feel no pain at all. Today the world seemed quieter. At some point I realised that there is no such thing as joy or sorrow; no, we twist our faces in expressions of desire or grief, we laugh and cry and invite our souls to join in. Just now I could sit down and read profound, serious books and would soon penetrate all their wisdom. Or I could stand looking at old pictures that used to mean nothing to me, and I would respond to their dark beauty. And when I call to mind people who were dear to me and whom death has taken away, my heart does not ache as it usually does: death has turned into something pleasant; it walks among us and means us no harm.
Snow, white snow piled high in all the streets. Little Gretel came to see me and suggested it was time we finally went out for a sleigh ride. So there we were, out in the country, flying along the smooth bright tracks with a jingle of bells and a pale grey sky above us, flying along between gleaming white hills. And Gretel leant against my shoulder, watching the long road stretching out before us with bright eyes. We went to an inn that we knew well from the summer, when it was surrounded by greenery, and now looked so different, so lonely, so completely unrelated to the rest of the world, as if we had to discover it afresh. And the stove in the lounge was glowing so hot that we had to move the table well away because little Gretel’s left cheek and ear had gone quite red. I just had to kiss the paler cheek! Then the drive back, in the semidark already. How Gretel snuggled up to me and held both my hands in hers. Then she said, ‘Today I’ve got you back again.’ Without having to think about it at all, she had found the right words, and it made me happy. Perhaps the crisp, frosty air out in the country had relaxed my senses, for I felt freer and easier than I had during the last few days.
Once again recently, while I was lying half asleep on the sofa, a strange thought crept over me. I felt as if I was cold and hard. Like
someone standing without tears, without any capacity for feeling even, beside the grave into which a loved one had just been laid. Like someone who has become so hard that not even the shudder at an early death can placate him … Yes, implacable, that was it…
It has gone completely, completely. Life, pleasure and a little love has swept away all those silly ideas. I’m back amongst people once again. I like them, they’re harmless, they ramble on about all sorts of cheerful matters. And Gretel is an adorable, loving girl, and so beautiful when she stands there by the window with the sunbeams glistening in her blond hair.
Something strange happened today … It’s the day she used to send me flowers every month … And the flowers arrived, as if … as if nothing had changed. They came with the early morning post in a long, slim, white box. It was still very early; my eyes and my brain were still drugged with sleep. I was already opening the box before I became fully aware of what it was … I almost jumped with fright … and there they were, tied up with a delicate gold thread, carnations and violets … They lay there as if they were in a coffin. And as I picked up the flowers, my heart shuddered. I know why they still came today. When she felt her illness coming on, perhaps even a presentiment of her approaching death, she sent her usual order to the florist’s. She did not want me to go without her tender gesture. Certainly that must be the explanation for the package; it’s quite natural, touching even … And yet, as I held them in my hand, the flowers, and as they seemed to tremble and droop, I could not help but feel, against all reason and determination, that there was something ghostly about them, as if they came from her, a greeting from her … as if she still wanted to tell me, even now, when she was dead, of her love and her -belated - fidelity. Oh, we do not understand death, we never understand it; creatures are only truly dead when everyone else has died who knew them … Today I handled the flowers in a different way than usual, more tenderly, as if I could hurt them if I held them too tight, as if their gentle souls might start to whimper softly. And looking at them now on the desk in front of me in their slender, dull green vase, I seem to see them bow their blossoms in melancholy thanks. With their fragrance I inhale the whole sorrow of a futile yearning, and I believe they could tell me something, if we could understand the language of all living, not just all speaking beings.
I refuse to fall under their influence. They are flowers, nothing more. Greetings from the other side, but not a call, not a call from the grave. They are flowers and some shop-assistant in some florist’s tied them up mechanically, wrapped a little cotton-wool round them, put them in the white box and posted them off. And here they are, what is the point of brooding over them?
I spend a lot of time in the open air, take long walks by myself. When I am with other people I feel no real relationship with them, the links have all torn. I even notice it when my dear, blond girl is sitting in my room chattering on about … that’s just it, I have no idea what she’s talking about. When she leaves, the very moment she has gone she is so distant from me; as if she were far away, as if she had been swept away for good by the current of humanity, as if she had disappeared without trace. It would hardly surprise me if she never came back.
The flowers are in their vase of shimmering green glass, their stalks reach down into the water and their fragrance fills the room. They still give off a scent, even though they have been in my room for a week and are slowly starting to wither. And I have come to understand all sorts of nonsense that I used to laugh at, I can understand people holding conversations with natural objects … I can understand people waiting for an answer when they talk to clouds and springs; here I am, staring at these flowers and waiting for them to start to speak … No, no, I know that they are speaking all the time … even now … that they are constantly speaking, sorrowing, and that I am close to understanding them.
How happy I am that the frozen winter is coming to an end. There is already a hint of the approach of spring floating in the air. Time passes in a strange way. I live my life as usual, and yet I sometimes feel as if the outlines of my existence were less sharply defined. Even yesterday is blurred, and everything that lies just a few days in the past takes on the character of a hazy dream. It keeps on happening when Gretel goes, and especially when I don’t see her for a couple of days, that I feel as if it were an affair that is long since over. When she comes it is from so far away! Of course, once she starts chattering on, everything is back to normal and I have a clear sense of immediacy, of life. And the words then are almost too loud, the colours too bright; and just as the darling girl vanishes into some indefinable distance the moment she leaves me, so abrupt, so fiery is her presence. Moments of brightness, of vibrancy used to leave an after-image, an echo within me; now sound and light die away at once, as if in a dim cave. And then I am alone with my flowers. They are already withered, quite withered. Their fragrance has gone. Up to now Gretel has ignored them; today for the first time her gaze rested on them a while, and I sensed the question rising within her. Then, suddenly, some hidden qualm seemed to stop her asking it; she said not a single word more, but took her leave of me and went.
They are slowly losing their petals. I never touch them; if I did they would crumble to dust between my fingers. I feel an inexpressible sadness that they have withered. Why I have not the strength to put an end to the ridiculous spell they cast, I don’t know. They are making me ill, these dead flowers. Sometimes I can’t stand it any more; I rush out. And then in the middle of the street a thought grips me, I have to come back, have to check that they are all right. And then I find them, tired and sad, in the same green vase I left them in. Yesterday I stood there and cried, as one would cry at a grave, and I wasn’t even thinking of the girl from whom they actually came. Perhaps I’m wrong, but it seems to me as if Gretel too feels the presence of something strange in my room. She has stopped laughing when she comes to visit me. She doesn’t talk so loud, not in that fresh, lively voice I was used to. Also I am tormented by a constant fear that she might ask me; I know that I would find any question intolerable.
She often brings some needlework, and when I am working at my books, she sits quietly at the table, sewing or crocheting, patiently waiting for me to put the books away, stand up, come over to her and take her needlework out of her hands. Then I take the green shade off the lamp she was sitting by, and the whole room is flooded with warm, soft light. I don’t like it when it’s dark in the corners.
Spring! My window is wide open. Late in the evening I was looking down into the street with Gretel. The air around was soft and warm. And when I looked towards the street corner, where the lamp casts a faint light, there was suddenly a shadow. I could see it and I couldn’t see it … I knew I was not seeing it … I closed my eyes. And suddenly I could see through my closed lids; there was the wretched figure, standing in the faint light of the lamp, and I could see her face with an eerie clarity, as if it were illuminated by a yellow sun, and I saw her pale, careworn face with her large, wondering eyes … Then I walked slowly away from the window and sat down at my desk; the candle was flickering in a breath of wind that came from outside. And I sat there motionless; for I knew that the poor creature was standing, waiting at the street corner; and if I had dared to touch the dead flowers, I would have picked them out of the vase and taken them to her … Those were my thoughts, perfectly lucid thoughts, and yet at the same time I knew they were irrational. Then Gretel too came away from the window and stood for a moment behind my chair, and brushed my hair with her lips. Then she went, leaving me alone…
I stared at the flowers. They are hardly flowers any more, just bare stalks, thin and pathetic … They are making me ill, driving me mad. And it must be plain to see; otherwise Gretel would have asked me; but she feels it too, she sometimes flees as if there were ghosts in the room. Ghosts! They exist, they do exist! Dead things playing at life. And if flowers smell of decay as they wither, it is only a memory of the time when they were blooming and fragrant. And dead people return as long as we
do not forget them. What does it matter if she can no longer speak – I can still hear her! She doesn’t appear any more but I can still see her! And the spring outside, and the bright sun streaming over the carpet, and the scent of fresh lilac coming from the nearby park, and the people walking past below who are no concern of mine, is that life? I can close the curtains, and the sun is dead. I can ignore all those people, and they are dead. I close the window, the fragrance of the lilacs is not wafting around me any more, and the spring is dead. I am more powerful than the sun and the people and spring. But memory is more powerful than I am, it comes when it will and there is no escape. And these brittle stalks in the vase are more powerful than all the lilac scent and spring.
I was bent over these pages when Gretel came in. She has never come so early before. I was surprised, amazed almost. For a few seconds she stood in the doorway; I looked at her without saying hello. Then she smiled and came closer. She had a bunch of fresh flowers in her hand. Without a word she came up to the desk and laid the flowers before me. The next moment she grasped the withered ones in the green vase. It felt as if someone were squeezing my heart, but I was incapable of saying anything; and as I was about to stand up to grab the girl by the arm, she looked at me with a laugh. Holding her arm aloft as she carried the withered flowers, she rushed round the desk to the window and simply threw them out into the street. I felt as if I ought to follow them … But there was the girl, leaning against the window-sill, her face towards me. And the sun was streaming over her blond hair, the warm, living sun … And a rich scent of lilac coming from across the road. I looked at the empty green vase standing on the desk; I was not sure how I felt; freer, I think, much freer than before. Then Gretel came over, took her little bouquet and held it up to my face: cool, white lilac … such a healthy, fresh scent, so soft, so cool, I wanted to bury my face in it. Laughing, white, kissing blooms: I knew the spell was broken. Gretel was standing behind me running her hands wildly through my hair. You fool, you darling fool, she said. Did she know what she had done? I took her hands and kissed them … And in the evening we went out into the open air, out into the spring. I have just come back with her. I lit the candle; we had a long walk and Gretel was so tired she has nodded off in the armchair by the stove. She is very beautiful as she smiles in her sleep.
The Dedalus Book of Austrian Fantasy;1890-2000 Page 3