My Years with Ludwig von Mises.pdf - The Ludwig von Mises Institute

especially tense while driving. As I mentioned in an earlier chapter,
he was never a good driver, and I never felt safe with him. I
offered to take the wheel, but he would not let me. Half an hour
later, near Saugerties, when he saw a truck coming towards us, he
lost control of the car. We crashed into a tree. I was thrown out of
the car, after my head had gone through the windshield. For a
moment I was unconscious. Lu apparently was unharmed. In no
time a doctor was there, giving me an injection. 1 was taken by
ambulance to the hospital in Saugerties. I remember the first words
I spoke to Lu as the doctor took care of me: "I'll never drive with
you again."
My cheekbone was broken. I was operated on, and when I was
brought to my room, Lu was sitting quietly next to the bed. He was
terribly pale and did not move. When he got up I noticed the
difficulties it caused him. I asked him whether anything was
wrong, but he brushed my questions aside. I was almost certain
that something had happened to him, and I asked the doctor to
examine him. We discovered that Lu had broken five ribs. He must
have suffered terrible pains. But he would not say a word, and as
usual, he never complained and never left my side.
I kept my word: I did not ride with him again. He often asked
me to let him drive. I told him he would have to drive alone, and as
he never likedto drive alone, he had to give it up.
I was rather depressed the first weeks after the accident. I had a
big scar on my face; the car was smashed and would never be safe
again, even if we had it thoroughly repaired. But then came another
surprise. Philip Cortney called: "Margit, you and Lu need a
car. I don't want you to drive a car that is not absolutely safe. There
is a Tempest waiting for you at the Pontiac garage; see whether
you like it. It's yours." He understood Lu so well. He wanted to
help him overcome his self-reproaches, and he wanted to lift me
out of my "blues."
It took me quite a while to feel ready to drive again. But I loved
the car, and every Sunday we went into the country, usually taking
some friends along. Until they left New York to live in Switzerland,
Dr. and Mrs. Rudi Klein often came with us. Rudi had been a
student of Lu's in Vienna. He and his wife, Lilo, lived in our
neighborhood and were good companions and close friends of
ours, especially as they loved hiking as much as we did. Rudi had a
wonderful memory, and he remembered conversations with Lu
decades earlier. Once he reminded me of an afternoon shortly after
America had entered the war in 1941, when he and Lilo had tea
with us in our apartment. Another guest was a son of the famous
Italian economist, Luigi Einaudi. The younger Einaudi was
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