PID | https://hdl.handle.net/21.11115/0000-000E-C307-E |
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Author | Auden, W. H. Musulin, Elsa von |
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Publisher | Austrian Centre for Digital Humanities and Cultural Heritage, Vienna 2021 |
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Cite this Source (MLA 9th Edition) | Andorfer Peter, Elsner Daniel, Frühwirth Timo, Grigoriou Dimitra, Mayer Sandra, Mendelson Edward and Neundlinger Helmut. Auden Musulin Papers: A Digital Edition of W. H. Auden's Letters to Stella Musulin. Austrian Centre for Digital Humanities and Cultural Heritage, Austrian Academy of Sciences, 2022, amp.acdh.oeaw.ac.at . |
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Previous document: | Autograph Letter Signed W. H. Auden to Stella Musulin 1963-05-12 |
Next document: | Typed Letter Signed W. H. Auden to Stella Musulin with Typescript W. H. Auden "Joseph Weinheber" 1965-03-15 |
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mit Luft Post
Weinheber-Gedicht
Die Baronin
Stella Musulin
Osterreich
Wien IV
Neulinggasse 26/14
W H Auden
Berlin-Dahlem
Hubertusbaderstrasse 43
Deutschland·
Hubertusbaderstrasse 43 Dec 23rd
Dear Stella:
It was sweet of you to think of me at
Christmas ,especially since it's a little einsam here.
Am beginning to know some local inhabitants. Oddly enough,
the ones I can talk to most easily ar from Ost-Berlin,
The most awful thing about the Bifkes is that
they are so much nicer under a little Druck.
When they feel their oats they are so apt to become
uppish.
If I'd known,I'd have warned you about The
National Review. I once reviewed a Charles Williams
book for them - never again. Of course you're right
about the lib-labs ostrich attitude to those who
wish to destroy them, but one cannot let one's name
be associated with shits.
Torture is the iniquity which utterly bewilders me.
I know something about the evil in my own heart and
in the sort of people I meet, but I cannot conceive of myself
or them torturing anybody. Where do the torturers
come from? What class? Whom do they marry?
To what pubs do they go?
Wystan
Where do the torturers come from? What class? Whom do they marry? To what pubs do they go?
In her memoir "The Years in Austria" (14-15), Stella Musulin relates the lines "(In what bars are they welcome? / What girls marry them?)" in the version of W. H. Auden's poem "Joseph Weinheber" from 15 March 1965 to a passage ("Where do the torturers come from? What class? Whom do they marry? ) in the poet's To what pubs do they go?"letter to her from 23 December 1964: "When I told Chester about how Auden's letter to me had made its own infinitesimal contribution to English literature, Chester snapped: 'Wystan never wastes anything!'"
External Evidence: ph_023
Musulin, Elsa von
The handwriting has been identified as Elsa von Musulin's by her grandson Marko Musulin.
External Evidence: ph_027
It was sweet of you to think of me at Christmas
In her memoirs ("Auden in Kirchstetten" 210, "The Years in Austria" 14-15), Stella Musulin refers to her own previous letter to Berlin, in which she had mentioned Brian Bunting's non-fiction book The Rise of the South African Reich in relation to the issue of torture.
External Evidence: ph_007