Saturday, February 11, 2006

A Living Chronicle

Sometimes I am compelled to write down everything that occurs in Salzburg so I may write it out a second time in a letter to tickle Wolfie. Katherl has told me a piece of gossip expressly for his ears.

Last Wednesday, when I was obliged to practise for a concert that evening, there was a handsome youth who was a guest of the Gilowsky’s for their afternoon shoot. He claimed to have an excellent eye for targets and boasted that he could hit the smallest spot from the furthest point. He challenged the party to come up with a suitable mark to test his excellence.

Katherl’s brother exclaimed: “Let’s not hang around for this. Let’s do it now.’
He found some ink and a quill in his travel case and painted a fly’s wing on a soldier’s hat, pinning it to a tree at twenty paces or thereabouts.
‘This,’ pronounced Gilowsky, ‘is the target.’
‘Very well,’ said our hero as he aimed and fired his arrow with a great squinting of one eye.

Oh, cruel fate. It fell wide of the mark and when Katherl turned to examine the handsome youth to see if he was crestfallen, she saw that his open eye was made of glass. N.

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