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A Letter (1885) | Morton Marcus
for Wm. Grant
December 21, 1885
Markt-St. Florian,
Austria
Dear Sophie,
Bruckner, that great good man,
plumper than in the photographs, and shorter,
but with that famous nose fixed in his face
like the hooked beak of some prehistoric turtle,
returned through the early morning from a stroll
and entered the doorway of the farmhouse kitchen.
He brought the cold clear morning with him.
It swirled into the room like attending angels
smelling of milk and wood smoke. Bits of straw
stuck to his jacket, a rough black homespun.
His ears glowed from the sunlight behind him,
and snowy peaks were just visible in the distance
over his shoulders, as he steamed and stamped,
not saying a word when he found us here,
where we had been waiting unannounced.
He was so much an emissary of the landscape,
which hovered like a crystal cathedral at his back,
that we were breathless at his entrance
and could only mutter, "Maestro, Maestro,"
awkward and confused as schoolboys–
a captain of the guard, named Brunner; Richter, the conductor;
and my lowly self, who as district manager
was representing the firm, since Herr Gutmann
had taken ill the previous day. The Captain
handed Bruckner the scroll we had been sent to deliver.
Bruckner read it and frowned, still standing all ashimmer
from the outdoors, as if that instant he had stepped
from another world, and for a moment
I thought we had presented the document
to the wrong person, that this was not the house;
that all the hurried preparation in offices and streets,
all that clatter of horse-drawn carriages
and wooden wagon wheels jolting over clamorous cobbles,
that stiff snap of frozen leather and hammering hooves,
slapping harnesses and jouncing chains
over the ice-packed country roads–had brought us
to the wrong place. And what, after all,
could we have given this shy, good man
that would have been of any value to him,
that would have made him do anything but frown
as he did then, turning the parchment over,
as if the other side would somehow explain
what it all meant and who we were
seated in his kitchen so early in the day.
We must have looked a sight, our faces haggard from the trip
that at the Emperor’s bidding we had made without delay,
all night through fog and sleet and gusty winds,
and whose purpose we had quite forgotten
seeing Bruckner stout and steaming in the doorway,
even at that moment surrounded by a slight mist,
as if he had brushed against a column of heavenly masonry
just before re-entering the confines of our world.
What, really, could be said at such a moment,
except by the Captain, who stepped forward,
clicked his hee1s, and exclaimed, "The Emperor Franz Joseph
extends his greetings and invites you. . ." and stopped,
for Bruckner had smiled, shrugged, and opened his hands
as if he cou1dn’t comprehend the language, or was deaf,
and stood there meekly like a prisoner
who agreed to come a1ong without a fuss
although he didn’t understand the charges.
All this happened just as an icy wind sailed
through the doorway from the gothic mountains,
blowing the feathers of invisible angels into our faces.
I will tell you more of this when I return
from locating that wayward shipment of Chopin études
and Czerny lesson books in Salzburg, and settling
my semi-annual accounts in Steyr and Linz.
Until then, I remain,
Your respectful fiancé,
Wilhelm
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