Simon Wels - At the ‘Bernats’

6. Kapitel

Afterword

Prague, 1st November 1939

by Rudolf Wels

The year is 1939. Today is the first day of November. On this day, seventeen years ago, my father died.

I have finished copying out his reminiscences from those “tatters” as he himself described his notes. I am sorry he did not continue. I cannot complete his reminiscences. He would no doubt have found much more of interest in his simple and quiet surroundings, but death with its calm and inexorable hand drew a line between his life here on earth and life over there. Father used to sing: “da leg ich meinen Hobel hin, – und sag der Welt: Ade”. It was a pen, not a plane, he laid down before taking his leave. The Žanynka he loved above all others nursed him herself to the very end, until the moment when that life went out, peacefully and almost imperceptibly.

On the first page of his reminiscences ‒ or as he modestly called them, his “tittle-tattle” ‒ he noted that on 20th April 1853 he first saw the light “of a little oil-lamp”, which means that he lived 69 years, as that little oil-lamp went out quietly on 1st November 1922. He died of the insidious leukaemia that had tormented him for the previous thirteen years. He was treated by the selfsame Professor Münzer, of whom he writes approvingly on the last page of his memoirs, who gave him x-ray treatment and took enormous pains with him. They were great friends, those two men: the physician and the

patient, and they would often speak together about life’s futility and how one lives on in one’s children. Father wanted to record those conversations also but did not get round to it. He was extremely distressed by the news of the doctor’s suicide in 1918. He lamented that the world had lost a benefactor and himself a friend. In the course of those unrecorded and undescribed years from 1897 to 1922 Father experienced a great deal more. It is a pity he could not continue, as his opinions are golden grains of advice, common sense and sensibility. I am unable to fill the gap: at the time I lived with him only through our letters. And I have no wish to, either. I lack the skill; there would be none of his vivid “local colour” or the feel for the atmosphere of the times. He would undoubtedly have described the lives of myself and his other children during those twenty-five years, since throughout his reminiscences he would interweave his own life with the lives of his children. And much happened during those years, and he was well-informed.

In 1901 I was doing my military service in Prague and he was overjoyed to hear how well I withstood strenuous activity and how the fresh air and physical exertion were toughening me up. He was so extremely proud of my prowess that one day at home I was obliged to put on my uniform, gird on my sabre and feldbinde, don my parade helmet and go along with him to visit his old friend General Cipra von Cypressenburg. As we walked home, he repeated the old General’s words and laughed heartily over them: “Siehst Du, mein alter Freund, jetzt ist dein Sohn ein gemachter Mann!”. And to the General’s proud words he added: “And you’re still worth less than nothing, my poor Lieutenant!”. After resting a fortnight following the imperial manoeuvres I found employment with a builder in Prague called Richter and Father was once more pleased to see that I could already look after myself at the age of twenty.

When I put up Aninka and Ota in my apartment and paid for their board and lodging to help them save some of the money for their studies in Prague (Aninka was at commercial academy, Ota at Realschule), Father took it as a sign of satisfaction and gratitude for what he had done for me earlier.

Thus he interpreted things done as a matter of course as the magnanimity of the debtor. He could laugh heartily over my adventures when I was in practice in Mr Richter’s firm, such as the master builder’s astonishment that I could do perspective drawings “without strings”. And there was an occasion when that eternal human vanity aroused his merriment. The master builder was showing him my first architectural project ‒ the facade of a building at “Florenc”. I was standing close by them and criticised out loud the figure above the gateway, at which the boss called out, “Hey, I did all that work myself and don’t need any criticism from anyone!”. Later, he was very pleased when I passed my civil engineering exams at the age of twenty-five and applied for a place at the Polytechnic. We discussed whether that was in fact the right sort of technical and artistic training for someone who wanted to excel in the profession and he gave his blessing to my decision to go and study in Vienna at the Academy of Art under Professor Ohman. He was as proud of my “Rompreis” three years later as if he had won it himself and journeyed with me to Italy and England “on a voyage of discovery”, as he described it in a letter to me.

Thus we lived together through our letters. On two occasions, he visited me in Vienna and even met Adolf Loos. He managed to astonish Loos who found it hard to believe that an ordinary chap should have such a wide knowledge and experience.

Ida and I have just been re-reading his letters to me from the years 1914 – 1918. He describes how he bought a villa with a garden in Rokycany and how hard he found it to part with the little cottage he had rebuilt and where his children had been born, how he was sad to leave his parish of Osek where he had once brought his Žanynka. The distress of moving and the peace they found in town. He tells of the outbreak of war and letters by field post; fears for the lives of myself and my brother. Then he relates his strenuous work as chairman of the refugees’ welfare association, and tells about the lives of those poorest of the poor who had lost everything in their native Galicia and only managed to drag themselves empty-handed to Bohemia. He describes with humour the character of the refugees, including some of its less savoury aspects. On one occasion he was approached by a petitioner with the following appeal: “Hochgeerter Herr Presedent, jach bróche zu gebróchen sechs Hemden und sechs Ünterhojsen.” And apparently the reason he asked for so much was in the expectation of being knocked down to one shirt. There were a thousand and one stories like that. The end of the War, the return of both his sons, and the triumphal arrival in Prague of his beloved Tomáš Masaryk. What radiant, glorious and happy days they were for Father!

There is one letter here that he wrote home to Aninka from Vienna when he and Mother were on a visit to my studio in the Neubaugasse, telling how I put them up in a space six square metres in area, how they both admired the splendours of Vienna with its buildings, monuments and parks, as well as all its museums and fine streets, how I took them out to restaurants and what marvellous things they ate. But how it was the theatre that enchanted them most of all! At the Hofopera they saw “Carmen” and “The Gypsy Baron” and at the Burgtheater “Julius Caesar” and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”. And all with his beloved Žanynka! Their joy knew no bounds!

Then there are letters in which he warned me to think everything over very carefully before getting married; admittedly I was over thirty but I ought to wait and see how things turned out after the war. There is a letter saying how much he liked Ida, but urging me to consider it from every angle none the less; then one giving his blessing and eventually his touching congratulations, a letter for our marriage, and a declaration of fatherly love for Ida. His subsequent letters recount his treatment at Karlovy Vary, where he stayed with us, as well as reminiscences and recollections of his own honeymoon to that town those many years before ‒ and how the town and everything had changed!; the enormous pleasure he derived from his

beautiful grandson Tomáš and his behaviour; his pride in his charming, incredibly clever and skilful daughter-in-law Idinka. One of those letters includes a description of us in fancy dress: Idinka as a knight in armour and Rudolf as an old witch. And so on!

On 1st November 1922, one of my office staff, Hruška, brought me a telegram home to the flat. I had just finished shaving. I opened it and read the words: “Father died peacefully this morning”. We both went to the funeral. Mother was quite well- prepared, as Father had been close to death for several weeks already. We stayed with them and then travelled to Prague for the cremation.

Thus the doors closed behind the departed leaving only written recollections and happy memories of that remarkable man. Our family grew once more with the arrival of a second son that Father was not to know ‒ Martin. But Mother had enormous pleasure from him and Tomáš in Karlovy Vary. She nicknamed Tom “the aristocrat” and Martin “the rebel”. Idinka now transferred all the love and attention she had shown Father ‒ in double measure ‒ to Mother who also loved her with all her heart, until Mother’s death on 5th September 1930. She died in terrible pain from stomach cancer. She was a good woman, kind to everyone, and beautiful to the end. She lived in her memories of the loyal husband she loved above all others. She deserved a better and easier end, poor thing!

Idinka saw that I was at a loss for what do with myself. I had been without work for five months. I had even finished my architectural drawings of Prague. The days weigh heavy on you when you get up in the morning and do not know why. “Sit down,” Idinka said, “here’s that packet of Father’s reminiscences. Sort them out. It’s bound to be worth it.”. I did as I was bid ‒ and it was worth it. Often I would forget about the time ‒ and the times ‒ for hours on end.

Editor’s note

by Gerry Turner

In a small English town not far from London, some friends of mine (a half-English, half-Czech family became acquainted by coincidence a coincidence that would take me too long to describe with the family of Mr Colin Wels. During one particular meeting, the conversation touched on the fact that the Welses had a family heirloom a manuscript book in Czech. For the Welses it was an incomprehensible language and they wondered whether the T…s (my friends) might like to take a look at it. A few months later, just before last Christmas they brought the manuscript from England and you are now holding the text of it in your hands in the shape of this book published in Prague.

The book had undergone an astonishing journey. From Prague to England and from England as a photocopy back to Prague almost fifty years later, where it was prepared for its first publication. It is not clear when or how the manuscript got to England in the first place. Rudolf Wels, who copied out the memoirs of his father Šimon Wels, had two sons, Tomáš and his younger brother Martin. Tomáš managed to escape the Nazis probably some time in August 1939 and travel to England via Poland. The rest of the family, it emerges from correspondence, was preparing to leave for America while waiting in vain for a visa. During the war, all of them i. e. Rudolf Wels, his wife Ida and their younger son Martin, would seem to have died.

After the War, Tomáš returned to Prague for a short visit, in a British military uniform. (He had served during the war in the Czech section of the Royal Air Force). On that occasion he took some family valuable away with him from Prague. I am not sure whether his father’s and grandfather’s manuscript was among them. Family tradition has it that the manuscript were received some time after the war with some other mementoes sent via America. Šimon Wels’ youngest son Otto had also taken refuge in England from the Nazis. He died there many years after the war in a traffic accident. It is now also unlikely that we will ever learn anything from Tomáš Wels about the previous history of the manuscript. As I write this afterword I expect he is still alive, but he is no longer able to speak or write as the result of a stroke.

Maybe it is also worth mentioning that the author’s surname so English-sounding to Czech ears had been adopted long before his descendants settled in England and become so Anglicised that they only vaguely suspected their Central European origins. What I have understood from the text of the reminiscences and from correspondence is that the author’s original name was Šimon Vedeles, and the family adopted the name of Wels in 1912.

But perhaps the most remarkable coincidence surrounding the book is after all the fact that the English Welses in a small town not far from London should just happen to make the acquaintance of some strangers who just happen to speak Czech and that that chance encounter was possibly what aroused their curiosity (they had never previously tried to peruse and decipher their family heirlooms) and led them to ask the T…s whether they might like to have a look at the manuscript. By chance this remarkable book of reminiscences has emerged from oblivion.

The text of the manuscript is published virtually unchanged. I am preserving its original form with all its stylistic and orthographic peculiarities, without attempting to distinguish between those peculiarities and spelling mistakes. I am at a loss how to. I have only corrected where I judged that the copyist made a slip of the pen. I have listed all these corrections.

18th July 1988 Zbynĕk Hejda

Das Hobellied

Die Jugend will halt stets mit Gwalt
In allem glücklich sein,
Doch wird man nur ein bisserl alt,
Da find man sich schon drein.
Oft zankt mein Weib mit mir, o Graus!
Das bringt mich nicht in Wut.
Da klopf ich meinen Hobel aus
Und denk, du brummst mir gut!

Zeigt sich der Tod einst, mit Verlaub,
Und zupft mich: Brüderl kumm!
Da stell ich mich am Anfang taub
Und schau mich gar nicht um.
Doch sagt er: Lieber Valentin!
Mach keine Umständ! Geh!
Da leg ich meinen Hobel hin
Und sag der Welt: Adje.

So people argue much about
the value of fortune,
and he who calls the other dumb,
and no-one knows a thing.
For one the poorest wretched man
is much too rich and proud:
And fate then cuts with planing knife
and planes them all alike.

The young want always forcefully
be lucky everywhere;
but if you then turn old a bit
you really don’t much care.
An when my wife does fight with me
that does not upset me;
I simply knock my planer clean
and think: you rumble well!

And death, when he knocks on my door
and begs me: “Brother, come!”,
at first I seem to be so deaf
and just don’t turn around.
But when he says: “Dear Valentin,
don’t fret now, let us go!”,
I have to put my planer down
and bid the world adieu.

Text: Ferdinad Raimund

Melody: Konradin Kreuzer

Translation: Michael Bednarek

Er spricht noch auß dem Grabe

Qwodlibet

Ich war / itzt ligt das weit /
der Flaccus meiner Zeit.
Ich war ein Mäntsch wie du /
itzt däkkt der Sand mich zu.
Kein Blühmckens blau und blaß
blühn mir mehr ümb den Parnass /
nie mehr spihgelt mir ein Born
Frau Lunens sanfftes Silber-Horn /
nie mehr glüzzert durch den Himmel
mir das schöne Stern-Gewimmel!
Aurorens Scharlach-Glantz /
der Kindgens-Drippel-Dantz /
die gold-bestirnte Wihsen /
auff die die Schäffer blihsen /
Amandgens Rohsen-Kuß /
die Welt in floribus ‒
daß ist nun alles hin /
weil ich erkaltet bin!
Du lebst und dir ist wohl /
dir pfeifft noch der Pirol.
Dir ferbt die bundte Au
noch Ambrosiner-Thau.
Du sizzt dich auff den grünen Rahsen
und hörst den sanfften Zefir blahsen /
derweil so summbt den Feld-Rain lang
der Bihngens leiser Sommer-Sang!
Ach / daß nicht jede Zeit
der Himmel Rohsen schneyt!
Daß alles / waß entsteht /
flinck wie ein Rauch zergeht!
Bald rändern schwartze Schatten
dir deine blancke Matten /
drauff Titan froh bestrahlt
waß kein Parrhasius mahlt!
Bald ligstu alt und kranck
auff Mortas Folter-Banck /
bald mustu dein zerstükktes Stammeln
in nichts alß Threnen-Krüge sammeln!
Die alte Odlers-Krafft
schwand dir dahin-gerafft /
und war auch alles dein ‒
zurlezzt scharrt man dich ein!
Die Welt-gepreisste Wunder /
wo sind sie nunitzunder?
Sälbst Salomo / der Weise /
ward schliesslich Schlangen-Speise!
Horch drümb / waß mein Staub dir spricht:
So vihl Gold hat Ophir nicht /
alß in ihrem Munde
die flüchtige Secunde. O Adame / o Eve /
Vita somnium breve!

Arno Holz