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everything, such as how to make cheese, how to prepare wine, how to make
Aeolian Harps, how to make a theatre illuminated, how to project pictures
on the wall, how to cut shadow things; anything, name it, and it was in
Wiegleb.
Master Abraham knew about Wiegleb's topics, and used them from time
to time, to inform himself about building an automaton and doing this and
that. So this was my side.
My cousin Martin, however, was fascinated with Tomcat Murr's autobi-
ography, and in his edition of the Kater Murr autobiography he made little
markings on the page so that he could read Tomcat Murr continuously,
without the interruption of this natural magician, Master Abraham.
We must have been about fourteen years old, when the next episode of
my story begins. This is now Chapter Two.
I have to tell you that my cousin Martin and I, in the summer, always
went to a place which belonged to an uncle, the first husband of my grand-
mother, Marie Lang. His name was Theodor Köchert. That is in English K-
o-e-c-h-e-r-t. Theodor Köchert was married to my grandmother Marie, first,
and they produced a son by the name of Erich. This was of course a half-
brother of my mother and my uncle Erwin. Uncle Erich inherited from his
Papa an incredibly beautiful place, out on one of these wonderful lakes
which are on the Salzkammergut, this is a region approximately east of
Salzburg, where there are several very, very lovely lakes. One lake is named
according to the river which flows through it, and the river's name is Traun.
T-r-a-u-n. Therefore the lake is called the Traun Lake, or the Traunsee.
Now, he owned a piece of land, perhaps about twenty or thirty acres,
directly on a little finger which is sticking out in the Traun Lake. Vis-à-vis
that place, on the other side of the lake, is a beautiful mountain which is
called the Traunstein, the Traun Stone, which is a big rocky mountain with
steep slopes to the west, and is about, I would say, two thousand meters, six
thousand feet in altitude. It is a tremendous view directly on the other side
of the lake.
We spent most of our summers at this property on the Traun Lake. The
place is called Hollereck. The place where the river Traun exits that lake is
called Gmunden. Gmunden and this whole region is an extraordinarily old
region. Directly south is Hallein, where the salt mines of Austria are
located, opened up in the stone age, where the salt was mined and brought
down through the valley and then shipped through the Danube, down to
the east, further into Hungary, Rumania, etc., etc. These are extraordinar-
ily old places and people settled there very, very early. Gmunden is a very
old city, and has many fascinating and interesting stores.
One of the stores is a second-hand bookstore. I wouldn't call it a second-
hand bookstore; maybe I could call it an old and rare bookstore. But it
called itself a years, she must have been sixty or something like that, at least
she appeared to us to be sixty. She was a little bit roundish, looked a bit
like a barrel, and was very, very stern. Whenever we entered that bookstore
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