LiteraTEASER

(1) The Postoffice Girl (Intro / EN)

Excerpts from  (Gutenberg Projekt) 'Rausch der Verwandlung' (The Postoffice Girl) Stefan Zweig, Translated and read by BCYC.

A village post office in Austria differs little from the next; once you have seen one, you know them all.

Uniformly outfitted in the same Franz-Joseph era, furnished from the same frugal inventory, they exude everywhere the same sour scent of state-sanctioned discontent. Even in the most remote Alpine hamlets, beneath the breath of glaciers, they stubbornly cling to that unmistakable old-Austrian air—a blend of cold pipe smoke and the musty mildew of ancient, yellowed documents. The layout, too, is unchanging: a wooden wall, punctured with panes of glass, divides the room into two distinct worlds—this side and that side, the public domain and the precinct of duty.

The state’s indifference to any lingering stay of its citizens in the public area is made painfully plain by the absence of seating or any comfort whatsoever. A single trembling standing desk, its cracked oilcloth cover stained by countless ink drips, leans fearfully against the wall. Yet no one recalls a time when the inkwell held anything but a hardened, unusable crust. And if, by some miracle, a pen is discovered lying in the groove, it proves reliably broken and utterly unusable. Beauty is as absent as comfort in these miserly confines: since the Republic removed Franz Joseph's portrait, the only adornments are garish posters on dirty, crumbling walls, promoting long-forgotten exhibitions, lottery tickets, and, in some rooms where time has come to a halt, even war bonds. With this cheap covering and perhaps a faded sign forbidding smoking, the state's generosity to the public ends.

The domain beyond the official barrier, however, presents itself with a more austere respectability. Here, in the tightest of quarters, the state displays, symbolically, its indubitable signs of might and magnitude. In a guarded corner stands an iron safe, and the barred windows suggest it occasionally houses considerable wealth. On the counter, a Morse machine glints with freshly polished brass, while beside it, humbler and smaller, a telephone rests on its black nickel cradle. To these two alone is granted a certain space and regard, for they connect, through copper wires, the tiny and secluded village to the expanse of the Empire.

The other tools of postal traffic, however, must huddle and heap together—parcel scales and post sacks, books, files, ledgers, and the rattling, round postage tills; weights and balances, black, blue, and blood-red pencils; pins and paperclips, strings and sealing wax, damp sponges and blotters, gum arabic, knives, scissors, and bone folders—all the disparate devices of the postal service pile in a perilous tangle on the narrow desk surface. In countless drawers and cabinets, an incomprehensible accumulation of forms and papers is stowed.

But the seeming abundance is nothing but an illusion; for, in truth, the state counts every piece of its cheap supplies with relentless rigor. From the blunted pencil to the torn stamp, from the frayed blotter to the worn-out soap in the tin washbasin, from the dim light bulb that illuminates the office to the iron key that locks it tight—every item used or consumed must be accounted for.

Next to the iron stove hangs a typed, officially stamped, and barely signed inventory, denoting with mathematical precision the presence of every item, no matter how small or insignificant, within the post office. No object may remain in the service room if it is not on this list, and, conversely, everything once listed must be present and accounted for at all times. This is the law of the office, the order, and the righteousness.