262 Wien

GA 277d — 7 October 1923

To Rudolf Steiner in Dornach
Sunday, October 7, 1923

Vienna, October 7.

Dear E., so far everything has gone well;1I just couldn't find a moment on Saturday to write, as I was always on the move. Yesterday morning the telephone rang, it was an awfully long procedure with greetings from me and the waiter and shouts and questions from the operator, but the story didn't progress any further.

In Gmunden, everything was very well prepared and pretty. Zitkowsky2 was prudent and clever in every way. The cozy old theater was entirely at our disposal, the lighting excellent (like in Stuttgart; he spent two million on it), the people willing and nice. The hotel [Krone] close to the lake was bourgeois, clean and cozy, with excellent cuisine (Austrian - I had to think of you and sighed after such a relaxing time), the landlady and maid were humanly amiable and kind: she wouldn't have believed that something so beautiful even existed, the landlady said after the performance. The theater was sold out and the royal family (Duchess of Cumberland)3 present; Her Highness is said to have been very charmed, only the music for the four winds did not suit her.

Grunelius wired that he had secured the theater in Salzburg for Thursday evening; we sent him Frau v. Molnar4 with programs, which then came here and reported that the director is interested and will put a note in the newspaper every day. Hopefully everything goes well.

Salzburg, 9 October.

I wanted to write at length, but I soon had to stop because people kept coming to me. The second performance was just as warmly received as the first, with an attendance of almost three quarters. But the posters were very poorly displayed. Grunelius has prepared everything excellently here. The director is counting on a full house and suggests a second performance, or at the workers in Hallein. We will probably have to wait for the outcome of the first before deciding on a second. I am considering whether I should also use Grunelius' talents for Innsbruck, so that we can eventually play our way down to St. Gallen. But I am still wondering whether it is too bold. If we don't do it now, we'll hardly ever do it – but then we could also be very isolated.

Thanks for the telegrams, hope you are well, and hope Rietmann has invited you to give a lecture in St. Gallen too; otherwise he'll do it two months later; we had the rehearsal on Sunday morning, but without curtains! Pfeiffer5 must travel tonight and takes the letter.

Kind regards also to Mieta and the three young ladies6 Marie

  1. After the autumn event in Vienna (September 26 to October 1), Rudolf Steiner traveled to Dornach on October 4-5, and Marie Steiner continued with the eurythmy group to Gmunden, Vienna, Salzburg and St. Gallen. ↩

  2. Dr. Wilhelm von Zitkovszky (died 1942), in Gmunden on Lake Traun, Upper Austria, member since January 1913 in the Linz branch. ↩

  3. Thyra, born in 1853 as Princess of Denmark, married to Ernst August, formerly Crown Prince of Hanover, who lost his country to Prussia in 1866, lived in exile in Gmunden, where he died on November 14, 1923. ↩

  4. Helene (Ilona) v. Molnar (d. 1945), from Hungary, member since January 1920, eurythmist, She gave eurythmy courses for lay people in Gmunden. ↩

  5. Ehrenfried Pfeiffer (1899-1961), in Dornach since 1920, initially to develop stage lighting suitable for eurythmy. In his small research laboratory in Dornach, he carried out experiments with preparations for agriculture as early as 1922, according to Rudolf Steiner's indications, and developed the method of copper chloride crystallization to demonstrate etheric formative forces. Since 1938 in the USA. ↩

  6. The three household helpers: Helene Lehmann, Helene Dubach, Olga Zibell. ↩

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