Telegrams of the Soul Read Online Free PDF Page B

should have been your child! Yours, do you understand?! Yours and mine!”
    She said: “What would become of Rosita in your company, the both of you?! It’s a good thing we’re going away soon. All these changes. Passing her from hand to hand. It’s no good for children. Debauchery.”
    The two old men were embarrassed like schoolboys.
    Mr. Peter eyed the young woman: “Restless one! What are you missing? Always stern and measured in your manner. Never a whimsy.” Then he took the little silver spoon that had had the honor of being in Rosie’s mouth and pressed it to his lips.
    The grandfather got all flustered. People only understand their own poetry. The young woman smiled with glee: “You really are a madman. I’d like to be like you, Mr. Peter, a free-wheeling soul!”
    Rosie dreamed in the room next door: “Ohohoho! I was at a theater!”
    The old nanny thought: “How restlessly she sleeps. All these frivolities. Imagine, dragging her along to a theater, food for the heart. Children need order. Madame is sensible, not such a lunatic. But who bears the brunt of it all? Me.”

Saint Martin’s Island
    When the doctor gave her the news, that she stood balanced before the dark gates of Tuberculosis, she said: “No way, not at 18 years old, for cryin’ out loud!”
    And she hurried off to Gravosa, 1 and lay all by her lonesome on Saint Martin’s Island with her stock of provisions from 7 A.M. to 7 P.M ., and stretched out her arms, naked as the day she was born, to receive the healing energy of nature.
    She had her body rubbed with mentholated French brandy twice a day for a good half hour and swallowed a liter of cacao with six raw beaten egg yolks and copious amounts of saltwater fish filets.
    When she got well she was full of ambition and a lust for life and she found an engagement acting in a very small theater. Her first role was that of the French Countess Laborde-Vallais. She had no idea what to do with it, but a young gentleman sent his visiting card to her dressing room.
    She had bravely plucked herself from the jaws of death and soon realized that life wasn’t worth having struggled so mightily to save. She had eluded that peril “Death,”—and now had to face the greater peril “Life!” Sunbaths, cacao, beaten egg yolks, mentholated French brandy rubs were not enough to elude life!
    Later she happened to make the poet’s acquaintance. She didn’t understand what it meant to be a poet. You write books and you’re a poet. But what’s it all about and what good is it?
    But one day he said to her: “What was it like on Saint Martin’s Island? You lay there, gave yourself to God, and awaited the healing powers of meadow, forest and sunlight—.”
    And somebody said to her: “Enough already with your boring Saint Martin’s Island! That was then, this is now, thank God!”
    Then she peered at the poet with a look that begged for help and he flashed her a helpful look in reply—.
    That’s when she fathomed what a poet was and what he was good for.
    __________________
    * The harbor of Dubrovnik, in Croatia

The Kingfisher
    The kingfisher was already ever since childhood my favorite bird.
    This contrast between “delicate bird” and “stark winter chill”!
    On top of which he’s iridescently tinged blue-green like a hummingbird in the tropical forests! The winter hummingbird!
    His sharp pointed beak spears little fish out of the water; like harpoons spear whales!
    He sits on the lookout for days on end, perched on a tree stump beside a pond. Suddenly he shoots forward, dives under, and spears. An elegant killer.
    He robs the carp ponds clean of fish. Nobody would put it past him. For days on end he waits on a tree stump, tinged green-blue, his beak a lance, a sword, a dagger, a fatal needle!
    A “romantic retainer” decked out in blue-green