| The Silent Woman Part 2
Looking back in I950, Kurt Pinthus recalled a Visit to Kokoschka’s studio in Dresden: "On the sofa in Kokoschka’s living room, between the side wall and the long wall, behind the round table, there it sat - life-size, shimmering white, crowned with chestnut brown hair, a blue jacket round its shoulders: the doll, the fetish, the artificial woman, the ideal lover, the ideal Model." When Kokoschka was questioned on the matter of his fetish in I93I/32, he came straight to the point: I wanted to own a life-size replica of Alma! I sought out the best female artisan I could find, I saw to it that she was provided with all Alma's photographs and measurements so that she could create the doll I had in mind. I waited anxiously for it to be delivered. In order to dress it with an equal elegance to Alma's, I bought dresses and lingerie from the best Parisian houses. In those days I had an elderly butler working for me and a young maid named Hulda. The butler got so excited at the thought at setting eyes on this utterly incredible creature that on the day the trunk arrived and the two porters carefully began to unpack the doll, he had a stroke. When Hulda saw the Schweigsame Frau, the Silent Woman, however, she was in
seventh heaven, and as for me, I was enraptured! It was just as beautiful as Alma, even though its breasts and hips were stuffed with sawdust.” However, the artist denied that he had ever sat in a box at the opera with the doll and explained that it was not him but Hulda who was responsible for spreading all those wild stories. She would tell them to anyone who was willing to listen, because naturally everyone in Dresden was gossiping about my strange carryings-on with a doll. Finally, after I had drawn it and painted it over and over again, I decided to do away with it. It had managed to cure me completely of my Passion. So I gave a big champagne Party with chamber music, during which Hulda exhibited the doll in all its beautiful clothes for the last time. When dawn broke - I was quite drunk, as was everyone else - I beheaded it out in the garden and broke a bottle-of red wine over its head. The next day, a Police patrol happened to glance through the gates, and seeing what was apparently the body of a naked woman covered with blood, they burst into the house suspecting some crime of passion. And for that matter, that's what it was... because in that night I had killed Alma... In the grey morning light the refuse collectors removed Kokoschka’s dream of Eurydice's return. > back | |
