ABSTRACT

Shortly before Erika Mann asked me to join the Peppermill for its engagement in the U. S. A. – actually during my time with the Liberated Theater in 1935 – friends of mine asked me to come with them to the countryside outside Prague to visit an amazing woman: a middle-aged peasant who could neither read nor write and who lived with her children in great poverty in a hut outside the city. There was also a pig and a goat. And maybe a husband. My friends had been told that she was a fortune teller of amazing power. None of us took that seriously, but just for a lark one afternoon we travelled to her little village. She was not in, but one of her children was, a hungry-looking little girl, about six years old, who told us in Czech (which my friends spoke and translated to me), that her mother was in the field to dig potatoes. She did not know when she would be back. Then the girl vanished into a dark corner, where she remained during our entire visit. The whole house was really nothing more than one room which obviously served as kitchen, bedroom and living space for the entire family. It also was in unbelievable disorder. Everywhere there were pots and pillows, broken toys and firewood and tools and dirty dishes. After a long time the woman arrived from the field with a sack of potatoes slung over her shoulders, obviously annoyed to find strangers in her house. My friends translated some of the heated conversation. She was not in the mood, she said at first. Eventually she gave in and, after asking for the money in advance and telling us to be silent, it all began. She was a short sturdy woman with a wrinkled, tired, really old face and big dirty hands. The first thing she did was to get herself into a trance. She crouched down on the floor, her head bent and her hands tightly clasped. After a while she started trembling and grinding her teeth. She threw her head back, her eyes rolled, and out of her strangely distorted lips came the weirdest gurgling and pecking sounds. This lasted perhaps three or four minutes, when suddenly she totally relaxed in a manner that I can only call miraculous. Her old worn-out peasant’s wrinkled face became that of a young and even beautiful country girl, like what you may see at a folk dance or at a fair. Her cheeks were slightly blushing; her eyes were now almost closed. She got up from the floor, totally relaxed, and in a soft and pleasant and almost dreamy voice, she asked me to walk a few steps, then turn and walk back. Several times: back and forth, back and forth. Maybe ten times. Then she said, “Lottinka, you are a dancer. But you dance in an unusual way. You will go to America. There you will have big success. But be careful. You are too modest. That is not good. I will help you. I shall look over your left shoulder and warn you. I will always be there.”