On 9 June 1904
by W. G. Sebald
according to the Julian
calendar, 22 June
according to our own,
Anton Pavolich and
Olga Leonardovna reach
the spa at Badenweiler.
The tariff is sixteen maks
for board and lodging
at the Villa Friedericke
but the spelt porridge
and creamy cocoa
bring no improvement.
Suffering from emphesema
he spends all day
in a reclining chair
in the garden marveling
again and again at how
oddly quiet it is indoors.
Later in the month the weather
is unusually hot, not
a breath of wind, the woods
on the hills utterly still,
the distant river valley
in a milky haze.
On the 28th Olga travels
to Frieberg specially
to buy a light flannel
suit. At the Angelus hour
the following day
he has his first attack, the
second the following night.
The dying man, already
buried deep in his pillows,
mutters that German
women have such
abominable taste in clothing.
As dawn breaks
the doctor, placing
ice on his heart,
prescribes morphine
and a glass of champagne.
He is thinking of returning
home with Austrian
Lloyd vie Marseilles
and Odessa. Instead
they will have him transferred
in a green, refrigerated
freight car marked
FOR OYSTERS
in big letters. Thus
has he fallen among dead
mollusks, like them packed
in a box, dumbly rolling
across the continent.
When the corpse arrives
at Nikolayevsky Station
in Moscow a band
is playing a Janissary
piece in front of
General Keller's
coffin, also newly
arrived from Manchuria,
and the poet's relatives
and friends, a small
circle of mourners
which from a distance
resembles a black
velvet caterpillar,
move off, as many
recalled, to the strains
of a slow march
in the wrong direction.
W. G. Sebald (German, 1944-2001) spent most of his adult life in England where he taught at the University of East Anglia. He has been widely acclaimed for his innovative four novels, which are part historical analysis, part travelog, part memoir. A collection of of his poetry, Across the Land and Water: Selected Poems 1964-2001, translated by Ian Galbraith, has just come out and includes this poem about the death of the great Russian writer and physician Anton Chekhov.
by W. G. Sebald
according to the Julian
calendar, 22 June
according to our own,
Anton Pavolich and
Olga Leonardovna reach
the spa at Badenweiler.
The tariff is sixteen maks
for board and lodging
at the Villa Friedericke
but the spelt porridge
and creamy cocoa
bring no improvement.
Suffering from emphesema
he spends all day
in a reclining chair
in the garden marveling
again and again at how
oddly quiet it is indoors.
Later in the month the weather
is unusually hot, not
a breath of wind, the woods
on the hills utterly still,
the distant river valley
in a milky haze.
On the 28th Olga travels
to Frieberg specially
to buy a light flannel
suit. At the Angelus hour
the following day
he has his first attack, the
second the following night.
The dying man, already
buried deep in his pillows,
mutters that German
women have such
abominable taste in clothing.
As dawn breaks
the doctor, placing
ice on his heart,
prescribes morphine
and a glass of champagne.
He is thinking of returning
home with Austrian
Lloyd vie Marseilles
and Odessa. Instead
they will have him transferred
in a green, refrigerated
freight car marked
FOR OYSTERS
in big letters. Thus
has he fallen among dead
mollusks, like them packed
in a box, dumbly rolling
across the continent.
When the corpse arrives
at Nikolayevsky Station
in Moscow a band
is playing a Janissary
piece in front of
General Keller's
coffin, also newly
arrived from Manchuria,
and the poet's relatives
and friends, a small
circle of mourners
which from a distance
resembles a black
velvet caterpillar,
move off, as many
recalled, to the strains
of a slow march
in the wrong direction.
W. G. Sebald (German, 1944-2001) spent most of his adult life in England where he taught at the University of East Anglia. He has been widely acclaimed for his innovative four novels, which are part historical analysis, part travelog, part memoir. A collection of of his poetry, Across the Land and Water: Selected Poems 1964-2001, translated by Ian Galbraith, has just come out and includes this poem about the death of the great Russian writer and physician Anton Chekhov.
