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put the best face on it. Make the most of this moment, Frau
Gödel!” I dressed before waking him with a kiss.
He had given me a free hand with the wedding. I was used
to that kind of decision making: “Take care of the details!” I
was logistics, and logistics I would remain. Kurt was deeply
absorbed in preparing his next course of lectures at Notre
Dame University in the United States. After teaching for a
year in Vienna, he had been given his university’s
permission to teach elsewhere. He’d accepted an invitation
from his friend Karl Menger in Indiana and another from
Abraham Flexner at Princeton. His departure had been
planned as far back as January, despite the uncertainties of
this chaotic time. Kurt didn’t seem to worry about it. After
a few months of euphoric concentration, reassured of
having recovered his ability to work, he looked forward
eagerly to leaving Austria.
Our sudden decision to marry surprised my own family and
the few close friends who knew about our affair. The
“festivities” would not strain our budget unduly: the civil
ceremony would be followed by a simple meal, attended by
my parents, my sisters, and Kurt’s brother, Rudolf. The
witnesses would be Karl Gödel, a cousin of Kurt’s father,
and Hermann Lortzing, an accountant friend. A person’s
absence can, in some cases, be more humiliating even than
their hostile presence: his mother declined our invitation.
His closest colleagues, for their part, had almost all left
Europe.