The Pete Quiñones Show - Pete Reads 'Blockade' by Anna Eisenmenger Part 8

Episode Date: June 7, 2024

36 MinutesPG-13Pete continues a reading and lite commentary on "Blockade: The Diary of an Austrian Middle-Class Woman 1914-1924."FoxnSons Coffee - Promo code "peter" for 18% off - https://www.foxnsons.com/VIP Summit 3-Truth To Freedom - Autonomy w/ Richard GroveSupport Pete on His WebsitePete's PatreonPete's Substack Pete's SubscribestarPete's GUMROADPete's VenmoPete's Buy Me a CoffeePete on FacebookPete on TwitterBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-pete-quinones-show--6071361/support.

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If you go to my site, Freemam Beyond the Wall.com forward slash movies. We've reviewed very recently the Catherine Bigelow classic Near Dark. And there are links to it there. And also we did Martin Scorsese's 1976 classic taxi driver. So links to both of those. there with more to come. All right, I'm going to get into this. We're at April 16th, 1919. I have a lozenge in my mouth because my nose, I've had real allergy problems trying to keep my nose clear. I apologize for any mouth noises. I think I should be able to keep them to a minimum.

All right? Let's get into the reading here. April 16, 1919, Lysbeth and Volfi are ever. home again. Today, Bacchling brought Lysbeth and Wolfey home. Wolfie greeted me with eager excitement and told me that he himself had driven a large part of the way. As there was no likelihood of a railway or steam connection, Backeling had got out his one-horse carriage and they had done the journey from Lins to Vienna by road. In order not to overtire the travelers or the horse, they had taken three days over the journey. Wolfie whispered to me mysteriously

that his uncle was with the carriage and that Kathy was to go down in order to bring up some supplies. Wolfie and Lysbeth had recovered their health splendidly. Their cheeks were burnt brown with the spring sun, and Lysbeth told me

that she had almost lost her cough, that she no longer gets high temperatures. Kathy brought us butter, eggs, household bread, and honey as a present from my my cousin's wife, so that Wolfie shall not miss the food to which he had grown

accustomed to in her house. Buckling put up the horse and carriage at an inn nearby and came back to us. He tried to persuade us to let Wolfie go back to him, go back with him to Linz. Although I feel that the child is better off with Buckling than with

us, I only protested half when Rudy declared that it was now the turn of Volfe's father to have a little of his company. We thanked Bulkling warmly for his kindness, and I promised him to use my influence so that Vofi shall soon pay another visit to Lengbuckle, where he had been so very happy. In the ensuing days, Volfi had only one subject of conversation, Langbuckle, and I can well believe him that everything is better there than here. both he finds in Ernie a patient listener and tells him proudly how he was allowed to go hunting and fishing with his uncle. Ernie

I believe the question whether there can be a platonic friendship or love, a purely spiritual relation between a man and a woman has often been debated. I mean a man and a woman within those age limits, which make it natural to presume the presence of erotic emotions. After Edith's engagement to Carl, a very true bond of brotherly affection had continued between her and Ernie. If a fine spiritual friendship can remain unimpaired between brother and sister, why should it be impossible between high-minded men and women unconnected by ties of blood? It is man's duty to be human always and everywhere to show himself different from the beasts even in his natural instincts. men who have given way to their animal nature and do not control their sexual impulses are more beastial than beasts, for they forget their humanity.

Since the revolution, since freedom, the eternal legendary, has once more become the catchword of the multitude, and men have sought to free themselves at one stroke from ancient, historical, and well-tried customs. One encounters everywhere that bogus freedom of interquartial, course between man and woman, in which the worst of the bargain invariably false to the woman. And that emancipation, which is so cunningly tricked out for the multitude with empty but resounding words, emancipation from sex hunger is the common catch word. We already hear and see with horror among the young people of today the influence of these suggestive and misleading exaggerations. All my three sons were fine young men, while developed in body and mind. I never noticed in any of them

any sign of the sex hunger of which so much is said nowadays in young people's lectures, meetings, and publications that they end by discovering it in themselves and brooding on it. I confess reluctantly that I had, with shame, come to believe that Carl, owing to the bad and undoubtedly unrestrained society into which he had fallen, had himself lost sexual restraint. But why should Ernie let his brotherly friendship for Edith give place to another feeling, could only mar the pleasant harmony of their relations. Yet I felt uneasy about him, and it was to part my, and it was to my grief that I found my anxiety justified when a few days ago I was sitting in the parlor, apparently unobserved

by Ernie. He accompanied Edith, who had written out some music for him to the door of the vestibule. I had been busy over my sewing without disturbing them, and as I was, sitting quite still in the armchair beside my work table when Ernie came back into the room. He seemed not to have noticed that I was there, for he groped his way to the piano where the music chest stood and caught hold of a little knitted jacket, which Edith always took off when she put on her outdoor coat. For a minute or two, he held this jacket in both hands carefully, as though he were afraid of crushing it. With his head bent slightly forward, he stooped as though he were hesitating,

breathing deeply. Then, as of succumbing to an impulse, he vainly sought to resist. He pressed the jacket to his face gently and tenderly, and as though smelling a bunch of roses, he inhaled deeply and audibly the scent, probably only perceptible to his super-sensitive nerves, which must have been the sense of Edith's tender body. Then with a groan of pain and almost in anger, he threw the jacket back onto the piano. He sat down and began one of his wonderfully, beautiful, improvisations, his music expressing all the unquiet of his tormented heart. He did not, however, stay long at the piano. He jumped up and went out of the room, giving me the opportunity to leave it also, unnoticed by him. He called for me outside, and I answered. He asked me

if he might go with him to church, which was quite near. The kindly priest of this church had given Ernie Lee to use the organ, and this was a very considerable help in the composition of his Requiem. When I asked if Edith were to fetch him away, as she had often done, he replied that there was no need for this, as he would ask the sexton to lead him across the street. He would send Wolfie back from the church door. For once, I was thankful that Ernie could not see the anxious glances I bent searchingly on his handsome face, his handsome, spiritual face with its poor dead eyes. I tried to force myself to say something about my discovery, but no words came to my lips. By the time Edith returned, I had made up my mind to keep what I noticed to myself, to be on the watch, and to help my poor boy as much as I could. For I am very afraid that he will be unequal to the great nervous strain, which an unhappy love affair would mean for one so grievously disappointed by life. There's so much rugby on Sports Exeter from Sky.

They've asked me to read the whole lad at the same speed I usually use for the legal bit at the end. Here goes. This winter sports extra is jam-packed with rugby. For the first time we've got every Champions Cup match exclusively live, plus action from the URC, the Challenge Cup, and much more. Thus the URC and all the best European rugby all in the same place. Get more exclusively live tournaments than ever before on Sports Extra. Jam-packed with rugby.

Phew, that is a lot of rugby. Get Sports Extra on Sky for 15 euro a month for 12 months. Search Sports Extra. New Sports Extra customers only. Standard Pressing applies after 12 months for the terms apply. Don't let foot pain or discomfort hold you back. At foot solutions, we specialize in high. quality supportive footwear. And use the latest scanning technology to custom-make orthotics,

designed for your unique feet. If you want to free your feet in joints from pain, improve balance or correct alignment, book a free foot assessment at footsolutions.i or pop-in store today. Foot Solutions, the first step towards pain-free feet. On the many days of Christmas, the Guinness Storehouse brings to thee, a visit filled with festivity. experience a story of Ireland's most iconic beer in a stunning Christmas setting at the Guinness Storehouse enjoy seven floors of interactive exhibitions and finish your visit with breathtaking views of Dublin City

from the home of Guinness. Live entertainment, great memories and the Gravity Bar. My goodness, it's Christmas at the Guinness Storehouse. Book now at ginnestorehouse.com. Get the facts, be drinkaware, visit drinkaware.com. I kind of knew that was coming. April 27, 1919. On April 25th, Lysbeth gave birth to a little daughter who weighed just over six pounds.

Her labor was very difficult and protracted. The doctor had to use instruments and we went through hours of terrible agitation and anxiety. Rudy said afterwards, in his joking way, that he had experienced all the pains of childbirth and would take good care not to put himself in such a position again. The doctor insisted that Lysbeth had enough milk and must nurse the child herself. Rudy and I were a little skeptical about this, for Lisbeth's health does not seem to us to be as yet sufficiently established as to allow her to make effort of suckling without suffering serious injury. The doctor's opinion, however, and Lisbett's own urgent wish to nurse a child herself, naturally decided the question and relieved us of the very difficult task of feeding an infant artificially at a time when there was such a dearth of milk. Lysbeth had moved into Aunt Bertha's old room for her confinement, and as we have had a very wintry April, I have had trouble in keeping the room at the right temperature for the baby.

Volfie was ungallant enough to think his little sister, his little sister, who was the color of raw beefsteak, very ugly. Grannie, he said, when he was led up to the little bath in which the midwife was bathing the new arrival for the first time. Granny, Uncle Buckling's new baby pigs are much prettier, and when the child opened his toothless little mouth to scream, Fulfi turned away contemptuously. The baby pigs have nicer voices than little sister, he said. May 17, 1919, one trouble after another. In spite of all my pains, I did not succeed in procuring for Lisebeth the milk she needed. She was growing less and less able to nurse her baby, and as she had very very, little appetite she was losing weight, and my little granddaughter, too, was putting on less weight than we could wish. I tried to accustom the child to goat's milk mixed with a little water, but the result of my well-met attempt was a bad attack of diarrhea.

As the foreign missions distribute at most one-tint of milk a week, and the state supplies are constantly dwindling, the feeding of infants whose mothers cannot nurse them has become a problem whose gruesome results is they, the death or stunted growth of thousands and thousands of babies. Since little Lysol grew no better, I had to let her be taken to Professor Perkitt's Children's Clinic. I was shocked in the extreme when I paid my daily visits there to see the tragic effects of the hunger blockade on the little children of Vienna. Even the clinic can no longer supply the needs of these innocent little victims of the armistice. Here again, it is the private charity of the foreign missions which save many children's lives and checks rickets, scurvy, and tuberculosis, at least in some cases.

Lysol, who came into the world three weeks ago, has up to now put on only five and a half ounces. The tiny red morsel has become a pale, weekly baby, whom Volfi, however, now prefers Uncle Buckling's little pigs. After one week in the clinic, the child had so far recovered that I could take her home with me. As Lidesbeth was again beginning to run a temperature, the doctor recommended immediate test cure in a sanatorium. But where was she to go? Foreign countries were barred to us, and owing to the lack of food supplies, the Alon Clinic was closed down. The other public sanatorium in Austria had fallen into party hands and middle class patients,

would certainly not be received in it. There was nothing left for it but to encroach once more on the kindness of uncle and aunt Buckling. To my letter of inquiry, Buckling replied that he was ready to fetch Lisbeth away immediately. Lysbeth would have liked to take her children with her, but the doctor dissuaded her and even advised strongly that Volfi and Lysel should be separated from her. This recommendation made Lysbeth very unhappy in Volfi too, for he had been looking forward very much to Lengbuckle, and I had to console him for his disappointment with all sorts of promises. Rudy is an energetic father and leaves no stone unturned to procure for Lysol,

the quantity of milk which is vitally necessary for her, so that often I am able to feed the child almost normally. You see the attitude towards the middle class. If it reminds you of anything now, you'd be right. Here we have a long... Jump. November 191919. For six long, sad months, my diary has lain idle in my writing table drawer. I can no longer summon up the energy to record and that the new bolt dealt us by fate. On July 20th, my dear good Lysbeth died of general tuberculosis. She too was a victim of the war and its consequences. Soon after she went to Bucklings, her temperature began to rise. Her condition grew worse. She could no longer leave her bed, and the local doctor wished that I should be sent for

as Aunt Buckling was unable to do the necessary nursing. Rudy relieved me at the beginning of July when Lysbeth conditions seemed to be improving, but it was only the beginning of the end. Poor Lysbeth asked with tears for her children, but we dared not satisfy this wish. During my absence, Edith and Kathy looked after Ernie, Fulfi, Rudy, and Lysel. The three former were fairly well, but Lysel develops very slowly and with many setbacks. During these six months, the general position has grown alarmingly worse. The financial situation is no less than catastrophic. The crone is quoted in Zurich at 0.08 centimes. That is to say, the present-day crone is only worth the twelfth of a centime.

time seems to rush on like a steam in full spate. All who were caught in the world when and failed to find the current, which will sweep them along on the surface or drawn pitilessly into the depths. Rudy, who has plunged into deepest grief by Lisbeth's death, was like me forced by the tyrannical demands of the present, and its thousand daily cares to go on fighting for the sake of the completely helpless members of our household, whose lives depended upon. our efforts. Blind Ernie, Wolfie, and tiny little Lysel would, without our help, inevitably have perished. When the earth had closed over Lysbeth in the little peaceful graveyard in the outskirts of Lins, Rudy stepped up to me, his eyes dimmed with tears. He gave me his good, strong man's hand, and mine gripped it. Not a word was spoken, but this silent handshake was our vow to the dead that we would never forsake her orphan children, but would take care of them always.

November 25, 1919. Rudy, having finished this commercial course, had obtained a post as French correspondent in a big bank. I've handed over my little fortune, now consisting entirely of industrial securities, to his management. If the face value of our crone was to be trusted, my fortune would no longer be as small as it used to be. fact, I might find myself a millionaire day. Rudy, who understood little of stocks and shares, but as a newly fledged bank clerk, naturally took a great interest in all banking business, brought me every day with the radiant face news of rises and stock exchange quotations. He was able at a lucky moment to exchange a few of my shares for others, and once more the

transaction yielded a not inconsiderable profit. I had through Edith, let Aunt Bertha's rent let aunt Bertha's rooms to a gentleman belonging to the American mission who pays me ten times as much for one room as the rent of the whole flat. This disproportion which bears so hard on house owners between the rent payable to landlords and the proceeds accruing to tenants from the letting of single rooms is due to the fact that during the Great War the government passed a rent restriction act, which in practice entirely deprives the home house. owners of their rights. They have not the right either to give notice to their tenants or, like other merchants, to adjust the price of their wares to the fall in the value of the crown. The result is

that tenants are paying their landlords one-twelfth hundredth part of what their rent was in pre-war days and can by letting rooms make their rent ten times over or more. Since the salaries of bank clerks are adjusted at the index of prices and the depreciation of the crown, Rudy can quite well contributes to household expenses so that for some time I have not had to sell any shares. It is evident that, with the depreciation of the currency, gambling on the stock exchange, has become the fashion. Everywhere one sees new banks opening and people who have succumbed to the lure of speculation stand in large groups before the list of quotations and discuss their chances. Market women with their fruit baskets rubbed shoulders with young men about town, shop girls and servant girls, elbow fashionable ladies. They all want to buy and sell shares because this seems for the moment the only

possible way to not only to avoid losing all one's money, but to add to it. The numerous new bankers are at the height of their prosperity and run no risk at present incurring reproaches if they advise their customers to make this or that investment since the quotations of all shares are rising. The flight from the Crone is the ruling factor in all economic transactions and naturally contributes to the constant depreciation of our money. Our government is apparently content to look unhelpless at all this and is powerless to guard fallen Austria from the vultures and jackals. Meanwhile, the large numbers of unemployed, their passions fermented by the communists are seething with disconsent. There has even been a big demonstration in front of the Parliament House accompanied by acts of violence.

The assembled mob attempted to set the Parliament House on fire. Mounted policemen were torn from their horses, which were slaughtered in the Rings trossa, and the warm bleeding flesh dragged away by the crowd. The police succeeded with difficulty in quelling the disturbance, but there were some casualties. The rioters clamored for bread and war. work, workman's processions and the Ringsstrasse, and demonstrations during which the windows of cafes and shops are broken, are not infrequent. The contrast between poor and rich is increasingly marked. Side by side would unprecedented want amongst the bulk of the population. There is a striking

display of luxury among those who are befitting by the benefiting by the inflation. This minority, which makes a profit out of the misery of our country, is giving us unwarranted appearance of prosperity and plenty to certain districts of the city of Vienna. New nightclubs are being opened, in spite of the lack of light and the difficulty of obtaining supplies, and the gains of their owners are so enormous that they are indifferent to the penalties often imposed on them by police.

These clubs have, of course, the further effect of greatly intensifying the class hatred of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie. But against this evil, but against this evil too, the government seems to be powerless. There's so much rugby on sports extra from Sky, they've asked me to read the whole lad at the same speed

I usually use for the legal bit at the end. Here goes. This winter sports extra is jam-packed with rugby. For the first time we've met every Champions Cup match exclusively live, plus action from the URC, the Challenge Cup, and much more. Thus the URC and all the best European rugby all in the same place. Get more exclusively live tournaments

than ever before on Sports Extra. Jam-pack with rugby. Phew, that is a lot of rugby. Get Sports Extra on Sky for 15 euro a month for 12 months. Search Sports Extra. New Sports Extra customers only. Standard Pressing applies after 12 months for the terms apply. Don't let foot pain or discomfort hold you back.

At foot solutions, we specialize in high-quality supportive footwear. And use the latest scanning technology to custom-make orthotics, designed for your unique feet. If you want to free your feet in joints from pain, improve balance or correct alignment, book a free foot assessor. at footsolutions.I.E or pop-in store today. Foot Solutions, the first step towards pain-free feet.

On the many days of Christmas, the Guinness Storehouse brings to thee. A visit filled with festivity. Experience a story of Ireland's most iconic beer in a stunning Christmas setting at the Guinness Storehouse. Enjoy seven floors of interactive exhibitions and finish your visit with breathtaking views of Dublin City from the home of Guinness. Live entertainment, great memories and the Gravity Bar. My goodness is Christmas at the Guinness Storehouse. Book now at ginnestorehouse.com. Get the facts. Be Drinkaware.

Visit drinkaware.com. You have to wonder how many of the people who are benefiting or even from there. November 30th, 1919. Still no peace. Still no coal and food. The Entente has indeed ordered Czechoslovakia, as this lately found the state is called to deliver coal to Austria, but the effect of the order has not got beyond the paper on which it is written. Poor Czechoslovakia, oh, poor Czechoslovakia.

I have difficulty in heating even our sitting room, and from this, Ernie, who is working very hard at the piano, suffers in particular. I am always obliged to use thermophores and hot bottles for a little Lysol, as she could not stand the low temperature of the rooms. Cold rains not only in private houses, but also in the public hospitals, where the death of two newly born infants,

owing to insufficient heating, has just been announced. The health of a further number of children is seriously endangered since the temperature of the wards can barely be brought up to 13 degrees Celsius. When one reflects that all the infants in Vienna cannot be in the clinic, one realizes with horror how many of these poor, underfed babies perish of cold in their parents' homes.

Meanwhile, negotiations are still in progress, between the victors. Masses of paper are being accumulated in protocols and peace proposals while German and Austrian babies are freezing and starving. Fifty cases of scurvy and the lines workhouse are announced. This is a companion picture to that of the freezing, starving infants, a picture of helpless old men and women who, as a result of this post-war vindictiveness, perish for lack of vitamins in the place where they should be cared for and sheltered in their last years. The specter of a complete bread famine broods over Vienna, for the lack of coal renders impossible even the transport of the food supplies arranged for by the missions and Mr. Hoover.

The Viennese bakers cannot heat their ovens and want to give up baking. As a result of representations made to the untante by the foreign missions, Germany has been ordered to supply Austria with coal. This means that Germany, who no longer has to free control of her coal mines, is allowed to make a few deliveries of cold to Austria. Meanwhile, the devastation in the Vinerwald by the population of Vienna has assumed gigantic proportions. Entire slopes in the immediate neighborhood of the town have been stripped of their timber impassable. Entire slopes in the immediate neighborhood of the town have been stripped of their timber indiscriminately. The heavy snowfall and a sudden thaw have made the streets of Vienna almost impassable. Because the sweepers are not paid more than 50 kron in a

no one is to be found to sweep the streets. The monthly pension of an ex-privy consular is today still 50 Cronin. It is not surprising as such pensioners of whom there are hundreds in Vienna are neither are able to neither live nor to die. Every wooden object in the street or the squares, whether it be a bench or a paling or anything else, is recklessly broken up by the people who take the wood home and burn it. I am not surprised at these acts, which are prompted by the instinct of self-preservation at a time when, owing to the dirt of fuel, it is impossible either to cook or to heat. Our food control office has succeeded in ensuring a half ration of bread pert for next week. Every inhabitant of Vienna can count upon a half loaf of bread and four ounces of flour.

December 2, 1919. The Bolshevik government in Hungary has been defeated. Horthy, who took over the provisional government, would willingly help Austria with food, but, But the Romanians who came to liberate Hungary from the Bolsheviks have carried all the Hungarian food supplies away with them on their return home. The districts between the Thais and the Danube are now entirely dependent upon foreign help. The events in Hungary caused my thoughts to dwell on my son, Carl, of whom we have heard nothing since he disappeared from Vienna. How glad I should be to know he was happy and contented. but how can he be so in essentially alien surroundings among people with whom he can never really have any intimate ties of affection? Today, after one year of armistice, the little state of Austria with its big towns of Vienna is like one of the thousands of starving and rickety children with their stunted limbs and their unwieldy heads.

Today, one year after the beginning of the armistice, we inhabitants of Austria are penned up behind prison doors and completely, dependent on the charity of foreign philanthropists. It seems that this long, painful truce which the victor has imposed between the cessation of hostilities and the final peace, is to be used for crushing our last remnant of vital force and power of resistance in order that we may submit to any peace terms that may be dictated to us. Not only deaths by the thousands, but the loss of many years of life and the premature old age and infirmity of future generations will be the inevitable results of the terrible undernourishment from which the vast bulk of the population are suffering. The victors must not be surprised if the people, rendered desperate by the oppressive terms of the armistice

and by the hunger blockade, give ear to the siren strains of Bolshevism. The same inability to secure food supplies experienced by our government is evident today in every little household. The food minister and the housewife, both alike, must beg for bread that they may not starve. The new customs barriers existing today, which entirely throttle the previous free trade and traffic between Vienna and Brune, Vienna and Budapest, Vienna and Prague, will ruin all Central Europe if they are permanently maintained. They will prove that the old monarchy of the Danube was no arbitrary structure, arbitrary structure, but of a conception of empire, but was a national economic necessity. What is happening in Europe now seems to me like the work of an unscrupulous surgeon

using his knife in systematic but senseless rage on the body of a patient entrusted to his care. Ostensibly, he wishes to restore him to help, but his operations are deadlier than the disease. Everyone in Vienna complains of the selfishness of our Austrian peasants who part with their provisions they can spare only at extortionate prices or in exchange for goods of far higher value. I have no cause for complaint against my Luxembourg friends, for they surprised me only last week, quite unasked with some potatoes and flour, for which I was actually allowed to pay in money, a favor which I very much appreciated,

for I prefer to part with bad money rather than valuable goods. Rudy was informed at the bank that the government had passed a law providing for a capital levy of 65%. But does this not, together with the Rent Restriction Act, smack a little of the much-abused Bolshevism? So far, however, I have seen no signs of the famous socialistic liberty, equality, and fraternity. December 15, 1919, the crown quoted at 0.02 in Zurich, Ernie, and Edith. After we had all conceived it, almost impossible that the crone should depreciate yet further, the downward movement of the exchange rate in Zurich had made fresh progress and our impoverishment continues day by day. On the other hand, the value of my industrial investments is rising to an extent, which seems to me incomprehensible and almost makes me uneasy.

Rudy laughs at me and swears that I was never so well advised is when I bought these shares. But what can they buy? And the only reason they're going up is because of inflation. just like a boomer's house that he bought in 1975 for $10,000. Ernie. All my daily cares and sorrows, in particular, Lisbeth's illness and death, and the new anxiety about little Lysol's help hindered me from continuing to watch Ernie and Edith. Owing to the hours, which had to be devoted every day to painful efforts to procure necessities for my household,

I could spare very little special attention for Ernie. Edith had once mentioned to me casually that he seemed to be out of humor and to become very reserved with her. She almost complained of it and was afraid that she had unknowingly done something to vex him. I reassured her telling her that he was in any case rather overworked as his recram was nearing its end and the conditions in which he had to work were strained on his nerves. I was obliged, in fact, to leave Lysol in the sitting room in her perambulator during the day, as no other room in the house was warm enough for her. She was, on the whole, a quiet child and did not cry much,

but all the same she did disturb Ernie now and then, though Edith always promptly put an end to these little interruptions by taking the child out of her perambulator and nursing and hushing her. Edith told me of the following incident. Ernie was just placed in the notes in his box and was deep in the composition of his recrium when Lysel began to cry. I will let Edith speak for herself. I went quickly to the perambulator, picked up the screaming Lysel, and sat down with her in the armchair, for I knew she would calm down if I nursed her.

She did stop crying at once, and I went on holding her in my arms, sitting quite so, quite still so as not to disturb Ernie. Then he asked me if the child wore my lap, and I said she was. He came up to us and groped first for Lysel's little head. Then as though by accident, he passed his hand very lightly over my face. For a moment he stood thoughtfully in front of us. Then he went to the piano and played the last part of his requiem, which enraptured me with its exquisite harmonies, at first stormy and agitated, then quiet and mournful. Lysel had fallen asleep, and Ernie, when he had finished playing, still sat at the piano. He did not speak, and I put the child back in her perambulator and left the room, feeling strangely moved. This is all I heard of Ernie and Edith

during these trouble, anxious months. With me, Ernie was always affectionate and patient. He was evidently thinking about the operation on his eyes, for he asked me when we were to go and see the professor. Volfey, poor little fellow, who was during his short life scene, two women he loved go down to the grave, clings the more lovingly to us all. He takes care of Ernie, and already with a comic air of superiority, he plays the part of a chivalrous elder brother to Little Lysel. December 20th, 1919. A gloomy Christmas. Ernie, who often plays the organ in the neighboring parish church, has been asked by the parish priest who is a fine musician himself. and so has a just appreciation of Ernie's great musical gifts to play the prelude in the carol at the Christmas midnight Mass.

Ernie agreed with very great pleasure and had begged Edith to manage the stops of the organ for him. They are, in consequence, oftener together than usual in the organ loft, and Ernie is always inventing new modulations in the preludes of the beautiful old Christmas hymn, Shonacht, Heelichnach. He tells Edith what stops he wants for the different passages, and it seems as though this active collaboration would make the Christmas Eve a particularly beautiful one for the two young people. Although Ernie is at pains to appear always uniformly cheerful and calm with me, I have noticed small but unmistakable signs that he often has to fight against a deep inward depression.

I become convinced that he loves Edith, but anxiously hides his love his love from her. as he asked me more and more frequently, if I believe in the success of the operation on his eyes, I have come to the conclusion that he will never venture to open his heart to Edith while he is blind. But as I may have formed all of these hypotheses merely because I cannot look at the matter objectively, but only with a mother's exaggerated sympathy, and as a sequel may prove them to be mistaken, I have not yet dared to speak either to Ernie or to Edith, but have resolved to abide by the old preceptive. not metal with other people's love affairs. Moreover, my daily household cares make exacting demands on me, and this year's Christmas

festival will be far more gloomy and sad even than the last, since our position has undergone no improvement, but is in many respects worse. The gaps which death has made in our little circle are particularly evident at such festivals. I confess that I dread this Christmas Eve, and would prefer to confine our celebration of it to the midnight mass. Rudy took a load off my heart when he made this very proposal, and we have decided accordingly that we will merely give Wolfie his presence and otherwise keep Christmas together in church. I'm going to stop right there. Well, yeah, this is being done to them. Just remember that when people want to bring up the reaction in Germany and Austria and

Austria basically opening the gates and saying, come in. Remember. Remember what they did. Remember what they continued to do. All right. If you want to support the show, free man beyondthe wall.com forward slash support. You can support me right there on the website.

Subscribe star, substack, gumroad, Patreon. You get the episodes early and ad-free. You can get access to the television. group and support the show. It's great. And I always appreciate it. And I appreciate each and every one of you no matter what if you're just listening to. All right. Thank you very much. See you in a couple of days with part nine.