Telegrams of the Soul Read Online Free PDF Page A

let this one go too up into the blue sky!”—
    She does so.
    She is given a third blue balloon.
    She goes over to the poor little girl on her own, gives this one to her, saying: “You let it go!”
    â€œNo,” says the poor little girl, peering enraptured at the balloon.
    In her room it flew up to the ceiling, stayed there for three days, got darker, shriveled up and fell down dead, a little black sack.
    Then the poor little girl thought to herself: “I should have let it go outside in the park, up into the blue sky, I’d’ve kept on looking after it, kept on looking—!”
    In the meantime, the rich little girl gets another ten balloons, and one time Uncle Karl even buys her all thirty balloons in one batch. Twenty of them she lets fly up into the sky and gives ten to poor children. From then on she had absolutely no more interest in balloons.
    â€œThe stupid balloons—,” she said.
    Whereupon Aunt Ida observed that she was rather advanced for her age!
    The poor little girl dreamed: “I should have let it go up into the blue sky, I’d’ve kept on looking and looking—!”

Marionette Theater
    The old man came home from the puppet theater with his granddaughter Rosita.
    He was crab-red. With his white hair on top of his head, it was really spring in winter.
    â€œWhat a shame not to have seen that—!” he said and gave a side- long glance at Rosita.
    â€œOf course I would’ve loved to have come along,” said the pale young mother, preparing potato salad with vinegar, holding up the two little yellow bottles to the light so as to tell them apart. Nobody in the world can tell oil and vinegar apart. Someone always says: “Well, what do you think, this must be vinegar.”—“That one?! No way,” one replies.
    â€œI’d’ve loved to have come along. Honestly I would. But you and Rosie, you’re like two love birds! And such exaltation! Incidentally, Rosie, how was it?”
    â€œI was at a theater—.”
    â€œYes, and—?!”
    â€œAnd I was at a theater!”
    â€œWhat a little ninny—!”
    Whereupon Peter A. replied to the lady: “I was at a theater! That says it all. Need anything more be said?! She expressed herself like a genius. My sweet! My precious! My gentle one! No more need be said: I was at a theater!”
    â€œGo to your Peter, he understands you,” said the lady, happy and proud, and let the child down from her lap. Then she cut the meat into little pieces for Rosita. “Do you want potato salad or green peas?”
    â€œFirst salad—.”
    â€œDidn’t she need to go?!” asked the lady.
    â€œNo,” replied the old man, “we took care of everything beforehand.”
    The lady sat there, both her arms hanging limp at her sides. She thought: “I saw him again this afternoon, the bane of my existence, Edgar! Oh, what a cad he is. That’s how absinthe must affectyou. It shatters the nervous system. It’s like an obsession of the soul. A symptom of derangement. Instead of being free, to be bound! That’s it. He creeps up on my life and binds it! I should have gone along with my child—.”
    The grandfather sat there, crab-red: “You should’ve seen Rosie today—! You’re such a fool, Hanny. Always worries, errands—.”
    The old man was beaming with love, drunk with love, the gift of youth, and nameless bliss, forgetting. He was like a minstrel playing the lute to the beautiful wonderful world full of many curling destinies liable to unravel at a gust of spring wind. He felt: “My daughter’s stuck in a mediocre marriage, always preoccupied, critical of everything. So what?! Rosita came out of it!”
    Rosie sat on Mr. Peter’s lap. He softly kissed her golden hair.
    â€œEljén!” she said and raised her glass to him.
    â€œWho always does that?!” said the