Peter Camenzind (10 page)

I went to see a doctor, brought a record of my ailments, and tried to describe my suffering to him. He read my notes, questioned me, and then examined me.

“I envy you your good health,” he said. “There's nothing wrong with you physically. Try to cheer yourself up with books and music.”

“I read new books every day. It happens to be part of my job.”

“In any case, you ought to get out in the open more often.”

“I take three- or four-hour walks each day, and when I'm on holiday I walk twice that much.”

“Then you should force yourself to be with other people. You're in danger of becoming a recluse.”

“What does that matter?”

“It matters a great deal. The less you tend to seek out other people, the more you should force yourself to. Your condition can't yet be diagnosed as an illness. It does not seem serious to me, but if you don't lead a more active social life, you might lose your equilibrium one of these days.”

The doctor was a sympathetic, well-intentioned man. He felt sorry for me. He introduced me to a scholar whose house was the center of many gatherings and of a certain literary and intellectual life. I went there. People knew my name, they were friendly, almost kind, and I began to frequent the house.

Once I went on a cold evening in late fall. A young historian and a slim, dark-haired girl were there; no one else. The girl served tea, did the talking, and was snide toward the historian. Afterward she played the piano. Then she told me she had read my satirical pieces but had not enjoyed them. She seemed clever, too clever, and I soon went home.

Eventually people found out that I spent much of my time in bars, that actually I was a drunkard. It hardly surprised me that they should have made this discovery, for rumors flourish readily in academic circles. Yet this shameful piece of information had no untoward effect on my visits. In fact it made me more desirable, for temperance happened to be the rage and most of the ladies and gentlemen belonged to one of several temperance societies. They rejoiced over each sinner who fell into their clutches. One day, the first polite attack was launched against my habit. The disgrace of frequenting bars, the curse of alcoholism—all this viewed from the hygienic, ethical, and social standpoint—were impressed on me in no uncertain terms and I was asked to attend one of the temperance-society evenings. I was startled. I had only a faint notion of the existence of these clubs and their endeavors. The meeting, with its music and religious overtones, struck me as painfully comic and I made no attempt to conceal my feelings. For weeks afterward I was importuned—in the friendliest possible manner, to be sure—until the subject began to bore me. One evening, when the same routine started all over again—all of them sincerely hoping for my conversion—I got desperate and insisted that they spare me this gibberish from now on. The dark, slim girl was present, listened attentively to me, and applauded at the end. But I was too annoyed to pay attention to her.

Once I was delighted to witness a slightly humorous incident that followed an important temperance rally. The society members and guests had dined at headquarters; there were speeches, friendships were struck up, hymns were sung, and the progress of the great cause was celebrated with much hue and cry, but one of the ushers who served as banner-bearer found the alcohol-free speeches too tedious and sneaked off to a nearby tavern. When the solemn demonstration started through the streets, the reprobates lining the sidewalks had a delightful spectacle to jeer at: a gaily inebriated leader at the head of the enthusiastic assemblage, the flag with the blue cross swaying in his arms like the mast of a foundering ship.

Though the drunken usher was whisked away, the mass of petty vanities, jealousies, and intrigues flourishing between the various competing clubs and commissions remained. The movement split. A few overly ambitious members claimed all credit for themselves and would loudly curse every drunken reprobate not reclaimed in their name. Many noble and selfless coworkers were callously exploited, and those with an inside view of these affairs saw how easily human frailties could thrive under the cover of idealism. I heard about these incidents through secondhand sources and derived a quiet satisfaction from them. On many occasions, returning from one of my nightly bouts, I told myself that, wild as we were, we drunkards were better and more honest persons than the reformers.

In my little room with its unhampered view of the Rhine, I studied and pondered at great length. I was disconsolate that life seemed to pass me by, that no strong current took hold of me, no great passion inflamed me or pulled me out of this stupefying trance. Besides my regular work, I was preparing a book on the lives of the early Minorites, yet this was not creative work but a patient and modest assembling of information. It did not satisfy my longing.

Reflecting on the time I had spent in Zurich and Paris, I tried to clarify for myself the real desires, passions, and ideals of my contemporaries. One of them had set himself the task of persuading people to discard outmoded furniture, wallpaper, and fashions, introducing them to freer and more beautiful surroundings; another devoted his efforts to popularizing Haeckel's monism. Others strove for universal peace. Still another acquaintance was fighting for the impoverished lower classes, and another collected funds and lectured in behalf of building theaters and museums for the public. And here in Basel people combated alcoholism.

All these endeavors were imbued with vigor and movement; yet none of them mattered to me. It would have made no difference to me or the kind of life I led if any or all of these objectives had been achieved. Unhappy, I sank back into my chair, pushed papers and books away, and reflected. I could hear the Rhine surging past and the wind rustling. I listened intently to this great melancholy language that seemed to suffuse everything with sadness and longing. I saw pale clouds swoop like frightened birds through the night sky, heard the Rhine coursing, and thought of my mother's death, of St. Francis, of my homeland and the snowcapped mountains, and of my friend Richard, who had drowned. I saw myself scaling precipices to pick “Alpine roses” for Rösi Girtanner, animated by music and conversation in Zurich, rowing with Erminia Aglietti in the evening; I saw myself despairing over Richard's death, voyaging and returning, convalescing and becoming miserable once more. To what purpose? Why? Oh, God, had all of it been a mere game, mere chance, a mirage? Hadn't I struggled and suffered agonies for friendship and beauty and truth? Did not the wave of longing and love still well up fiercely within me?

Then I would be all set to go out and drink. I blew out my lamp, groped my way down the steep, winding staircase, and went into one of the wine-halls. Being a steady customer, I was received with respect, though I was usually cantankerous and sometimes unspeakably rude. I read the satirical magazine
Simplicissimus,
which never failed to infuriate me, drank my wine, and waited for it to soothe me. When the kind god touched me with his gentle hands, my limbs would become pleasantly weary and my soul would enter the land of dreams.

At times it surprised me that I treated people so boorishly and derived pleasure from snapping at them. The waitresses at wine-halls I frequented feared me and cursed me as a roughneck for always finding fault with them. When I happened to enter into conversation with the other guests, I was rude or mocked them, and naturally they replied in kind. Still, I managed to latch on to several drinking companions, all of them aging, incurable alcoholics. We spent some evenings on fairly tolerable terms. Among them was an old ruffian, designer by trade, a misogynist and foul-mouthed drunk of the first order. If I happened on him in some tavern, a night-long bout of drinking invariably ensued. We would start by bantering jokes back and forth, slowly finishing our first bottle of red wine. Drinking as such gradually began to predominate, and the conversation petered out. We sat facing each other, quietly drawing on our cigars, emptying our respective bottles. We were evenly matched, refilled our bottles at the same time, and watched each other drink, half respectfully, half with malicious glee. At grape-harvest time in the late fall we once hiked through some vine-growing villages in the Markgräferland and at the Stag in Kirchen the old buzzard told me his life's story. I only remember that it was interesting and unusual; I've forgotten all the details.

One thing I do remember is his description of a drinking bout in the later part of his life. He was out in the country somewhere at a village festival, and being seated at the table of honor, he toasted the pastor and mayor so often that they became drunk very quickly. The pastor, however, had to give a speech. After much effort was exerted to maneuver him onto the platform, he made a number of outrageous statements and was bundled off in disgrace, whereupon the mayor tried to fill the breach. He held forth in a bold and impressive manner at first, but the suddenness of the event had made him unwell and his impromptu speech ended in an unusual and indelicate manner.

I would gladly have heard this story and others repeated by my drinking companion, but as a result of a quarrel at a shooting match, we became irreconcilable enemies. Now both of us sat in the same tavern, each at his own table, as enemies. But out of habit we watched each other, drank at the same rate, and sat there until, the last guests, we were finally asked to move on. We were never friends again.

The interminable probing of the causes of my melancholy and my inability to cope with life was fruitless and wearying. Still I did not feel worn out or exhausted but full of dark urges, convinced that I would yet succeed in creating something deep and good, in snatching a bit of luck from life. But would this lucky moment ever come? I thought with bitterness of those high-strung modern artists who drove themselves to the pitch of artistic creation with the help of artificial stimulants, whereas I allowed my resources to lie untapped within me. I tried to analyze what kind of block or demon was constraining my soul within this vigorous body. Too, I was possessed by the notion that I was someone unusual, someone whom life had mistreated and whose suffering was unknown to anyone, who was misunderstood.

The diabolical thing about melancholy is not that it makes you ill but that it makes you conceited and shortsighted; yes, almost arrogant. You lapse into bad taste, thinking of yourself as Heine's Atlas, whose shoulders support all the world's puzzles and agonies, as if thousands, lost in the same maze, did not endure the same agonies. In my state of isolation and estrangement I too failed to realize that the traits and peculiarities of character I took to be exclusively mine were in fact part of my family's heritage, my family's affliction, and proper to all Camenzinds.

Every few weeks I would drop in at the home of my hospitable scholar friend. Gradually I became acquainted with most of the people who went there; there were many young academicians, quite a few of them German, who worked in a wide variety of fields; a few painters and musicians, as well as some ordinary citizens, who brought their wives. Often I would gaze at these people with a kind of astonishment. I knew that they saw one another several times a week, and I did not understand how they could have anything left to say to each other. The majority of them were stereotyped examples of
homo socialis
and all of them seemed to have some affinity with one another, sharing a gregariousness and superficiality that I alone lacked. Among them were quite a few fine and distinguished people whose vigor and presence of mind seemed to be not at all, or only slightly, diminished by this constant socializing. I was only able to talk to one person at a time. Rushing from one to the other, stopping only for a brief moment, making a stab at complimenting one of the ladies while attending to a cup of tea, two conversations, and the piano playing, all at one and the same time, with a look of animated amusement—that I could not do. Worst of all was when I was forced to speak about literature and art. I observed that precious little thought was given to these subjects and that they only provided occasion for much lying and gabbing.

I lied along as well as I could, but it gave me no pleasure and I found this chitchat boring and humiliating. I much preferred to listen to a woman talking about her children or to tell about my trips or little things that had happened to me during the day or to talk about actual events. At these moments I could be almost friendly and glad. After one of these evenings, however, I usually stopped by a wine-hall and slaked my parched throat, drowning my unspeakable boredom in draughts of wine.

At one of these gatherings I saw the dark-haired girl again. There were many people present; there was music, and the chatter grew as loud and insufferable as usual. I was sitting in an out-of-the-way corner with a portfolio of sketches of Tuscany on my knees. These were not the usual hackneyed little sketches of the obvious sights; they were more intimate: landscapes sketched by traveling companions and friends who had given them to my host. I even discovered among them a drawing of a small stone house with narrow windows in the isolated valley of San Clemente, a house I recognized because I had taken many walks in that region. The valley lies close to Fiesole, but most tourists never set foot there because it is virtually devoid of antiquities. It is a valley of severe yet remarkable beauty, arid and almost uninhabited, hemmed in by stark, bare mountains; remote, melancholy, pristine.

The girl stepped up to me and looked over my shoulder.

“Why do you spend so much time by yourself, Herr Camenzind?”

I was annoyed. She feels neglected by the other men, I thought, and now she comes to me.

“Well, won't you give me an answer?”

“Excuse me. But what am I supposed to answer? I sit by myself because that's the way I like it.”

“Am I disturbing you then?”

“You're amusing.”

“Thanks, the feeling is mutual.” And she sat down. I made no attempt to put the portfolio away.