Memoirs of an Anti-Semite by Gregor Von Rezzori

the menacingly lowered horns and antlers of doe and stag and chamois all around us, the stuffed wood grouse with fanned-out tails, and the shiny razors of wild boar. Never before had I sensed the barbarity that dragged such Stone Age flaunting of power and ability into the twentieth century. At the time, of course, this was more a feeling than a thought I could verbalize. Nor did I have any chance to reflect upon it, for my friend Wolf had discovered Aunt Sophie’s grand piano, and he emitted an appreciative whistle through his teeth. “A genuine Bösendorfer! What’s it doing here?”
    He opened the lid and struck one or two chords; then, without turning around, he pulled the piano stool over with his foot, sat down, and began to play—with a virtuosity that took my breath away.
    Uncle Hubert apparently was not at home, and Geib had got hold of Aunt Sophie to call us wrongdoers to account. She entered, halted in the middle of the room, waited until the Wunderkind Goldmann had finished playing, then walked toward him, and said, “You do that very well. How long have you been playing and whom are you studying with?” She used an old-fashioned form of “you” which was generally reserved for inferiors.
    Wolf Goldmann did not even go to the trouble of turning his head toward her. “Chopin always makes an impression on laymen,” he said over his shoulder. “At the moment, I’m working on Brahms.”
    He struck a few measures, but paused, closed the lid, swung around on the revolving stool, and looked freely into Aunt Sophie’s eyes: “I smashed the windshield on your car.”
    â€œI know,” said Aunt Sophie. “But first, stand up and say good day properly; then we can go on with our conversation.”
    â€œFormalities,” said Wolf with a theatrical sigh, but he did get to his feet. And to my amazement, Aunt Sophie laughed and said, “You will have to learn them all the same. And now, answer my questions. How long have you been playing and whom are you studying with?”
    I was subsequently to make the acquaintance of a new feeling I had never known before: jealousy born of envy. It was ugly, it inspired all sorts of nasty thoughts and wishes, and, if it did not piercingly drive me to self-torment, it left me with an empty soul which was again invaded by that hazy and urgent yearning: skushno .
    Aunt Sophie developed a true passion for young Goldmann. He was in the house every day; no sooner had we finished our second breakfast than he was sitting at the grand piano in the salon, and he practiced all morning, during which time everyone—aside from myself—was busy elsewhere. At midday, he vanished but was back again in the early afternoon, and he played until Aunt Sophie had finished her daily rounds. Then, when she had changed for the evening and appeared in the salon with the glowing face of a woman happy in love, on went the stormy tumult of the notes. Occasionally she would intervene to demonstrate an interpretation of her own, but mostly she would drop her hands and say, “Of course, I’m completely out of practice!” It sounded pious, as if she were illuminated by the promise that this boy had outdistanced her in order to achieve far greater things than she could ever have done. Almost blushing, with the happy self-renunciation of a lover, she added, “I only wanted to show you how I’d heard Liszt play this when I was a girl.”
    It was obvious even to me, a thirteen-year-old, that all the wishes, dreams, and hopes of her youth, buried for a lifetime, had gained new, tangible, blood-warm life in this red-haired boy. And when Uncle Hubi’s eyes met mine or mine his, they clearly mirrored his regret at losing the familial unity and intimacy of our stirring national song soirées—losing them to something with a loftier status than our heartfelt musical bungling but which left us out entirely. Beyond