1913 (37 page)

In September the first edition of the school magazine
Die Ernte
(40 hectographed copies, 15 Pfennigs) is published at the Königliches Realgymnasium in Augsburg. Most of the contributions are written by a pupil in class 6A called Bertolt Brecht. The rest is by Berthold Eugen. Eugen is Brecht’s third Christian name after Friedrich and Bertolt and the pseudonym of Bertolt Brecht. Under this name he also sends poems to the newspaper
Augsburger Neuste Nachrichten
. There they lay beneath a big pile on the arts editor’s desk. Brecht is fifteen. Marie Rose Amann is twelve. Unfortunately they haven’t yet met; he hasn’t yet held her in his arms like a lovely dream, as he will later write in ‘Memory of Marie A.’.

That day in September 1913, the only things Brecht is holding in his arms like a lovely dream are the first copies of his new school magazine, which he takes to the headmaster’s office.

On 10 September, while on a tour of South America, the dancer and choreographer Vaslav Nijinsky – who had a long relationship with Diaghilev, the director of the Ballets Russes, and celebrated the success of Stravinsky’s
Rite of Spring
with him – marries the dancer Romola de Pulszky out of the blue. Diaghilev suffers a shock and fires them both, with immediate effect.

Marcel Duchamp, who still doesn’t feel like making art, takes a piece of paper and writes down his thoughts on the question of what is still possible:

On 20 September Rudolf Steiner lays the foundation stone for the new Centre of Anthroposophy, the Goetheanum, in Dornach, near Basel. He writes a short text that is buried along with the stone: ‘Laid by the J. B. V. [Johannes Building Association] for anthroposophical work, on the 20th day of the month of September 1880 a.t.M.G. (after the Mystery of Golgotha), i.e. 1913 a. Chr. b.’ This is followed by the
position of the stars on that day: ‘With Mercury as the evening star in Libra.’ Mercury corresponds to the sound I, and the star sign Libra represents CH, so that the constellation of Mercury in Libra signifies the word ‘ICH’. Rudolf Steiner has clearly been waiting for the day when this cosmic rune would stand in the sky. And he has also chosen it because Mercury is the evening star that day. Mercury forms a conjunction with the sun, at a declination of 03° 26’ 45. (Not that it does much good: the place burns down ten years later.)

On 8 September, in the Café Imperial, the 39-year-old Karl Kraus, editor of
Die Fackel
and the sharpest-tongued author in Vienna, is introduced to 27-year-old Sidonie, Baroness Nádherný von Borutin, Rilke’s confidante. And it is about him that they immediately converse. They talk on and on, fascinated by one another. They stagger out into the night, they take a fiacre through the Praterallee, the stars are shining, and Karl says to her, ‘If one could only be where her eyes gaze.’ Then they are driven to a hotel bar, she tells him about the death of her brother, who has now joined their parents, about her depression, the spiritual wasteland in which she lives. And Karl Kraus, overwhelmed by Sidonie’s beauty, unmanned by her grief, takes her hand. He wants to lead her out of that wasteland. ‘He recognises my essence’, she thinks after their conversations in the Prater at night. And she even lets Kraus stroke Bobby, her Leonberger dog, which no one else is allowed to touch.

On Odd Fellows’ Day Louis Armstrong, who has just turned thirteen, makes his first public appearance as a jazz musician, with the band from the institution whose name, Municipal Boys’ Home, Colored Dept. Brass Band, is emblazoned on its big drum. Armstrong stands proudly beside the drum in the band photograph from that year, next to his first teacher, Peter Davis, who handed him the
instrument in January. And Armstrong is wearing a police uniform. It was traditional in New Orleans for police to pass on their discarded jackets and trousers to poor young people so that they could use them as band uniforms. The band moves through the city, playing as they go, with an enthusiastic Armstrong on trumpet, following the tunes, setting the note. Then, when the band comes back to the home in the evening, happy and exhausted, and all the others have handed their instruments back in at the music room, Louis Armstrong picks up his trumpet again and looks hopefully at his teacher. ‘All right, then,’ growls Peter Davis, ‘Just this once.’ It’s warm in his dormitory, the others are still outside, smoking in the hot summer night, dreaming about their new female sports teacher, and the sounds of the Odd Fellows’ Day festivities drift over from the distance. Armstrong takes off the old policeman’s uniform. And as he sits alone on his bed and a fly flows through the room, he tries to copy its flight with his notes, he follows it, buzzing, stopping, buzzing. And when the fly has found its way out of the window, he just keeps on playing. And never stops. Louis Armstrong is on his way to becoming the greatest jazz trumpeter in history.

A special case of family care: on 4 September in the town of Degerloch, Ernst August Wagner kills his wife and four children because he wants to spare them the consequences of his planned rampage. Then he cycles to Stuttgart, where he boards a train to Mühlhausen. When night has fallen over the city, he sets four houses on fire and waits until the people flee the smoke and flames. Then he shoots them with his rifle, killing twelve, seriously injuring eight more. He is finally overpowered by the police. His further plans for the night were to kill his sister and her family, then go to Ludwigsburg to set the castle ablaze and die in the duchess’s burning bed.

On 9 September Albert Einstein delivers a lecture in Frauenfeld to the ‘Swiss Society of Natural Research’, in which he explains his new approaches towards the theories of gravity and relativity.

On 9 September at about 7.00 p.m. the first Germany naval L1 Zeppelin plunges into the sea off Heligoland after being caught in a whirlwind.