Einer Chansonette

(Th. D.)

In dir beschlossen sahen wir dich gehn!
Doch sprich, mit welchem Wunder ging es zu?
Die Buhn’ war du, der Walzer auch war du,
Und alles fand sein Schicksal und Geschehn

Um dein Couplet. Doch einsam war dein Stehn,
Allein dein Knix, dein Singen und die Ruh’
Des Leibs. Von dir und uns was wutest du?
In dir beschlossen sahen wir dich gehn!

Heb auf zur Deck’ die Augen, oder zieh
Die Worte lang und bebe mit dem Knie!
Du wirst es nie, dein Dichter nie verstehn.

Doch soll’s in Tränenstunden einst geschehn,
Da sich dein Wesen, wie’s im Ewigen liegt,
Als Falte mir um meine Lippe schmiegt.

To a Chansonette

(Th. D.)

In your resolve to go on we saw you.
But tell us what miracle made you go?
The stage was you, the waltz was you as well,
And all things met their fate and befalling

Around your couplet. But you stood alone,
With your curtsy, your singing, and repose.
What did you know of yourself and of us?
In your resolve to go on we saw you.

Lift your eyes up to the ceiling or draw
The words out long and make your knees shake—
You won’t, will never understand your poet.

But it shall happen one day, in hours of tears,
That your person, as it lies eternal,
Will crease my lips as though it were a wrinkle.

[1910s]

Note: dedication, Th. D., i.e., Thea Degen (b. 1891), a German singer and dancer who performed at Prague’s Carbaret Lucerna between 1910’12. Franz Kafka was less impressed by her, at least for one performance, writing in his diary: “Thea Degen’s stupid dance, with flying will-o’-wisps, twigs, butterflies, death’s heads.” Line 3, waltz (Walzer) while the Viennese ballroom dance is often borrowed with the loan word, it can mean wilder stage variations, like the Hezentanz (witches’ dance) referred to by Kafka; line 5, couplet, an erotic cabaret song, typically sung by women for a male audience.

James Reidel | Hohe Gemeinschaft > High Company
Contents | Mudlark No. 69 (2020)