 
                      20060414.00

     We are, once again, home in Konnarock.

    "Gluecklich wer, wohn er geht,
    stets auf der Heimat Boden steht."

     Blessed he, who is at home wherever he goes.
              Schubert: "Der Wanderer an den Mond"

     We arrived last evening after a not entirely uneventful
drive.

     Late Wednesday, on Interstate 81, about 5 miles south of
Frackville (what a bastard deutsch-francais name!)  PA, the
right rear tire blew out.  The car came to a smooth stop.
Never any loss of control.  Started to change the tire; must
have looked awfully old, because a youngish truck driver stopped
to help me change the tire. (With the previous flat tire, on
Route 128, about four years ago, a MA state trooper had
insisted on giving me his unsolicited help.)  Before long,
the damage was repaired, on our way again, driving slowly to
forestall another breakdown, waved to the Good Samaritan
trucker as he passed us, and on to the unassuming, somewhat
shabby, family operated Mountain View Motel, which we favor.
On the other side of US 22, I found a quaint auto-repair
shop, that sold new tires.  The waiting area for customers
was well stocked with religious tracts, even a complimentary
DVD disc describing, hypothetically, in anticipation of the
Last Judgment, a Jumbo-Jet trapped in a cloud of volcanic ash,
all four engines failing, and the occupants preparing to meet
their Maker.  An interesting superlative to the disaster
catalogue that you and I had been discussing, a catalogue,
incidentally, in which the blow-out on Interstate 81 also
deserves honorable mention.  I was interested in the poetic,
psychological and theological ramifications of my mechanics'
eschatological fantasies, decided, however, that I couldn't
afford the distraction, reined my curiosity, and limited my
attention to tire replacement and to the book about Mozart-DaPonte
Operas that I had brought along to read while I waited.  It
occurred to me, while two new tires were being mounted on
their wheels, and with threats of the Jumbo-Jet disaster
looming over my shoulder, how remarkable that in the Cosi
libretto, which DaPonte in his memoirs explicitly claimed
to have written for his mistress Adriana Ferrarese (as distinct
from having written it for Mozzart (sic)), not only had DaPonte
described his own experience, real or imagined, as Ferrando,
wooing another man's wife,

FIORDILIGI
E vero, e vero!
Tu vuoi tormi la pace.

FERRANDO
Ma per farti felice.

FIORDILIGI
It's true, it's true!
You would rob me of my peace.

FERRANDO
Only to make you happy.


     but when in 1790, Adriane Ferrarese stepped on to the
stage of the Burgtheater as Fiorodiligi, to enchant the
audience with the account of her capitulation to Ferrando,
she was singing about what she herself had, or might have,
experienced with Lorenzo, the author of her libretto.
How surreal can it get!

FIORDILIGI
Sorgi, sorgi...

FERRANDO
Invan lo credi.

FIORDILIGI
Per pieta, da me che chiedi?

FERRANDO
Il tuo cor, o la mia morte.

FIORDILIGI
Ah, non son, non son piu forte...

FERRANDO
Cedi, cara!
/(le prende la mano e gliela bacia)/

FIORDILIGI
Dei, consiglio!

FERRANDO
Volgi a me pietoso il ciglio:
In me sol trovar tu puoi
Sposo, amante, e piu se vuoi.
/(tenerissimamente)/
Idol mio, piu non tardar.

FIORDILIGI /(tremando)/
Giusto ciel!... Crudel... hai vinto,
Fa' di me quel che ti par.


         =============================

FIORDILIGI
Get up, I beg!

FERRANDO
It cannot be.

FIORDILIG1
In pity's name, what do you ask of me?

FERRANDO
Your heart or my death.

FIORDILIGI
My strength is giving out!

FERRANDO
Yield, my dearest!

FIORDILIGI
Heaven, direct me!

FERRANDO
Turn a merciful eye on me.
In me alone you'll find
Husband, lover and more, if you wish.
Delay no longer, my adored one.

FIORDILIGI
Merciful heaven! Cruel man, you've won!
Do with me what you will.

         =============================

     Anyway, my thoughts were far removed from the automotive
piety with which I found myself surrounded.  I wondered whether
my mechanic's religious orientation had teutonic roots;
but when the spelling of my first name elicited no comment,
I concluded, probably not.  In any case, a Cooper tire is a
Cooper tire, whether mounted in English or Pennsylvania Dutch,
in Mennonite, Lutheran, Catholic or Hebrew, and the mechanic's
religion doesn't matter, (or might it?)  What matters is that
the nuts are sufficiently tightened to hold the wheel in place,
but not so tight that I can't get them off next time the tire
blows out.

     So now we're in Konnarock. The weather is Elysian.  The
lilac bushes are budding, and the tips of the unshorn hemlock
hedge are swaying in the balmy breezes. Margaret is sitting
in the sun reading; and I am asking myself how much of this
sort of correspondence I can get away with, before betraying
myself as being nothing more than a garrulous old man.


                      * * * * *
Copyright 2006, Ernst Jochen Meyer
