The Snows of Yesteryear (42 page)

I was saved by an angel in the person of one of the local dwellers. No, no, I was quite right, these additional houses had not been there, only the ancient one in the middle, and all the rest had been added in the 1950s, a time of dire poverty in which more substantial constructions were out of the question. And yes, the horrible industrial installation had also been built then, and in great haste. And yes, indeed, the house had once had a glassed-in porch, and over there, where now there are those pre-fab row houses, that's where the stables had been, and the floors there were still always moist. Yes, over there, there indeed had been also some large cherry trees. And wouldn't I want to come into the house and see for myself that the premises still were the same, even though now they were occupied by three families?

The stone that fell from my heart sank heavily into my soul. What I had remembered from my boyhood had not been
all
phantasmagorical illusion or pure imagination. It was a great relief to be reassured on this account. But I had to pay a price. No longer could I ever think of that house of my mother's without its being superseded by the present ugly reality. The real house of my childhood had been spared this fate but instead had turned into irreality, haunted by a mythic quality that made me fear that I could never again believe in my own reality. So be it! It was indeed in the realm of the unbelievable and fabulous that my own Czernopol, the imagined counterpart of the factual Czernowitz, was located. The reality I had found in Chernovtsy threatened to destroy even this. I had to leave as quickly as possible. You must never undertake the search for time lost in the spirit of nostalgic tourism.

THIS IS A NEW YORK REVIEW BOOK

PUBLISHED BY THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS

435 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014

www.nyrb.com

Copyright © 1989 by Gregor von Rezzori

Translation copyright © 1989 by H. F. Broch de Rotherman

Introduction copyright © 2009 by John Banville

All rights reserved.

First published in Germany as
Blumen im Schnee
by

C. Bertalsmann Verlag, GmbH, Munich, 1989

Cover image: Heinrich Kühn,
Dämmerung,
, 1896; Albertina, Vienna

Cover design: Katy Homans

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Rezzori, Gregor von.

  [Blumen im Schnee. English]

  The snows of yesteryear / by Gregor von Rezzori ; introduction by John

Banville ; translated by H.F. Broch de Rothermann.

    p. cm.

  Originally published: New York : Knopf, 1989.

  ISBN 978-1-59017-281-0 (alk. paper)

1. Rezzori, Gregor von—Childhood and youth. 2. Authors,

Austrian—20th century—Biography. I. Title.

  PT2635.E98Z46413 2008

  833'.912—dc22

2008020240

ebook ISBN 978-1-59017-653-5
v1.0

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper.

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