Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
to buy just a silly old topic, a second-hand book for maybe fifty cents or
twenty cents or something like that, she chased us out very fast, etc., “Don't
roam around those topics,” and so on, and so forth.
Anyway, she was a very interesting lady because she bought the libraries
from defunct places, such as castles or monasteries, for very little money.
Now it happened that I have another uncle, by the name of Goldschmidt,
and this uncle was born a very rich boy. He was exactly the same age as
my uncle Erwin, and they went to school together. Now, my uncle
Goldschmidt,—his first name was Ernest, but nobody in Vienna called
him Ernest—he was called Emsterl. So Emsterl went to school with Erwin,
went through the gymnasium (this is high school in Austria), and he was at
that time already a very, very bright youngster. He was a very good student,
he knew everything; he could not be baffled, squeezed with questions, he
knew everything, while my uncle Erwin practically knew nothing. He never
learned the homework; he played soccer, that was his thing. But Emsterl
was fascinated with topics and read a lot, so he could really answer all the
questions.
He had rebelled against authority already when he was a kid, as all
my relatives always rebelled against authority. He had a particular way of
rebelling against authority because the authorities, the teachers, they
couldn't do anything with him, because he knew everything, he was a
straight-A guy. So he plagued them with other gimmicks.
For instance, in Austria pants are stitched together with the seams being
on the outside of the thigh. So you have, on the right part of the pants, the
seam of the right side, and the left is on the left side.
There is an Austrian command, “Hands to the pants' seams!” And that
means almost the same as “Attention”. The German expression is “Hände
an die Hosennaht,” “Hands on the seams of the pants!”
But British pants are stitched in a different way, their seams are on the
inside. So, the left side of the trousers has its seams on the right-hand side,
inside, and the other, right, on the left-hand. So, when the teachers com-
manded “Hände an die Hosennaht,” “Hands on the pants seams,” Emsterl
was fumbling around, looking for where the seams were, crossing the hands,
putting the right hand to the inside seam of the left and so on. Things of
that short he invented to really torment the teachers, who otherwise tried
to torment the kids. But not with Emsterl.
Emsterl developed into what he himself called a bookworm. He was fas-
cinated by all topics, wonderful editions, very nice bindings. His doctoral
dissertation when he was about twenty-four, twenty-three, was bindings, of
topics I think of the fifteenth century—incunabula—or maybe a little later
perhaps. He was the reference man for bindings and everybody had to
consult the Goldschmidt book on bindings.
He became very interested in all the libraries in Austria. Most of the
monasteries which were founded perhaps in the twelfth, thirteenth, four-
teenth, fifteenth centuries, had incunabula, had many other imprints, had of
Search WWH ::
Custom Search