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

whom I had to contend. If he needed money-usually toward the
end of the month-Tiny started to bang the doors from the moment
she came in and never stopped using the vacuum cleaner, a terror
to Lu when he was writing. Then he knew she would come and
demand more money. Being alone and in need of her services, he
always gave in. When we married, no one thought I would be able
to get on with her, in spite of all her good qualities. She was really
the neatestperson I ever had working for me, and she was a perfect
cook. I did not want to lose her.
But after a short time I found out she had been charging us quite
a bit of extra money for herhousehold shopping purchases, and I
very kindly advised her that in future I would help her (after all,
she had so much extra work now because of me) with the shopping.
I also told her I would try to get her off earlier in the afternoon
so she could have more of a homelife herself. She was so frail
and thin, so unattractive, that I could hardly imagine the relationship
between her and her lover. It must have been a one-sided
affair. When we were in New York, during the war, I tried to reach
her. I wanted to help, send her things she might need, but she had
disappeared. No one, not even the police, could find a trace of her.
Something terrible must have happened, and I still think of her
with great pity. She stayed with us until our last day in Geneva.
She even brought us to the bus that took us to France.
The evening after our marriage, when Lu and I took our first
dinner at home, Tiny, of course, was not in. We were both happy.
From the day of our marriage Lu was a changed person. Not that
he spoiled me with gifts or presents-he would not have known
how to do that-but he was so affectionate, so happy. Every little
thing I did was of interest to him. The world had changed for him.
He once told me: "You are like a kitten, so soft and tender. I only
hope you won't show the claws later on~" How often he had teased
me: "I hope you are not like so many women: Once they get that
certain little piece of paper, they give up." During our first months
together when we were invited out, he even chose the dress he
wanted me to wear that night. But slowly he convinced himself
that I would do no wrong and left the choice to me.
But there was one thing about him that I never understood and
still don't understand. From the day of our marriage he never
talked about our past. If I reminded him now and then of something,
he cut me short. It was as if he had put the past in a trunk,
stored it in the attic, and thrown away the key. In thirty-five years
of marriage he never, never-not with a single word-referred to
our life together during the thirteen years before our marriage. As
the past was part of my life, part of the person I became, I could
not forget. His silence about the past remains in my mind like a
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