Soul of the Age (12 page)

Unfortunately, you were wrong to assume that I am or have been a student. I have never been a student and have never felt at all attracted to student life. I usually abominate both the academically minded students and the boisterous set; I thought the whole university setup was ridiculous, and feel it's a pity so many young people think studying is the only decent career open to them. During my stay in Tübingen—I was there for a full four years and often lived with students—I got fed up with the whole thing. I've always loathed having to consort with students, professors, musicians, actors, and literati, but am fond of visual artists, especially painters, and tend to socialize almost exclusively with the latter. But I'm certainly no authority on the matter, since even though I believe I'm fairly unprejudiced in all matters of the intellect, I'm certainly a real oddball when it comes to my day-to-day relations with others. If the slightest formality attaches to any social occasion, I avoid it like the plague. I'm deathly afraid of everything that seems obligatory or compulsory, no matter whether it's a party, club, family visit, or friendship. Finckh is the only friend I have, and I've always been frightened of him.

As for my profession, I'm a secondhand bookseller—i.e., my job, for about 100 francs a month, is to buy, catalogue, and, if possible, resell the books of bygone eras. I spend my spare time outdoors, in wine bars or writing a novel; I've been playing around for more than a year with the novel, which at present seems little more than a mass of corrections, cuts, and variants. My goal is to have so much money someday that I can drop out of literary and social circles and enjoy the life of a peaceful wanderer, strolling all alone through the beautiful countryside. My paper has run out, and I enclose most cordial greetings, yours

TO HIS FAMILY IN CALW

Florence, April 8, 1903

My dear loved ones,

Now that I have a bit of peace at last, I can fill you in a bit. Here's why I'm in Florence.

An artist friend of mine, Fräulein Gundrun, was about to leave Basel recently to go to Italy for good, and she invited all sorts of acquaintances and friends to travel with her to Florence for Easter. I wasn't thinking of going, until the very last day, when another artist, Fräulein Bernoulli,
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got very excited about the idea and persuaded me to go along. I had barely enough time to change, pack some clothes, and leave with them. That was eight days ago today: 6 o'clock on Wednesday evening. The trip to Milan lasted the whole night. Since none of the three of us has any money and we're all traveling third-class, we were rather worn out when we arrived, yet spent all of Thursday running around Milan, viewing things like the Certosa di Pavia, which I'd already seen two years ago. We were on a nonstop train to Florence (via Bologna) from 7 o'clock on Friday morning to 6 o'clock in the evening. Now we're sitting around—i.e., running about energetically—in these beautiful surroundings. It was very strange how much at home I again felt, from the very first moment. I know every nook and cranny here, and had the feeling I was just returning after a short absence. We found a splendid old chamber for the two girls in a large sixteenth-century palace, ridiculously cheap; Since I don't want to strain my eyes, I hardly ever go to the galleries, and hang around instead in the alleys, squares, markets, taverns, and eating houses. I love watching the townspeople, and am also taking advantage of the inexpensive, fine cuisine. Unfortunately, Fräulein Bernoulli has to leave early on Sunday.

So much for today, my time is up. We wish to go to San Lorenzo and later on to a divine service with music in the Annunziata.

TO STEFAN ZWEIG

Calw, October 11, 1903

Strange! Yesterday I thought of you, decided I would write to you soon, then your nice card arrives today. Thanks very much! I fear a second reading of my
Rundschau
novel (it will appear later on as a book)
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won't give you as much pleasure as the first, because it's unfortunately rather ponderous and crude.

It was just as well you didn't look me up in Basel. I left the city and have been back for a short while in my old home in the Black Forest, where I intend to remain for the entire winter at least. My little old room, which looks out on the setting of my childhood pranks, is all set up, and it makes quite a diligent and scholarly impression with its desk and books, and already smells of tobacco. Hanging on the wall are my fishing rod, pictures of my mother and my sweetheart, who is still in Basel, a couple of pipes, and a map of Italy, which I sometimes pore over. How far away that all seems now!

Here I have found what I was looking for—real peace and solitude. Nobody around here reads books and writes verse, drinks tea and smokes cigarettes and knows everything, has been to Italy and Paris and speaks several languages, and I'm glad about that.

I hope to accomplish a lot of work this winter—at least a novel or something like that. At the moment I'm still spending most of my time preparing for winter—i.e., every day I carry home two small sacks full of fir cones, which I shall use later on for heating. I already have a large boxful, but need a lot more. So I get to see some wonderful things in the woods. The day before yesterday I eavesdropped on a large flock of partridges, today it was a hare, etc. It's altogether interesting, far more entertaining than city life.

But, unfortunately, I'm far away from my sweetheart and need a lot of stamps. I had hoped to get married this winter, but her father refused in a very rude manner, and we have no money, which is why I now have to work and earn something.
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Once I have scraped together what we need, there will be no more asking that thickhead for permission.

In the spring, at a time when these worries were still far away, I spent a month in Italy and in Venice, and guzzled quite a lot of inexpensive sweet Cypriot wine, also caught crabs, got into some quarrels, and visited a number of old palaces I had never seen before. Now it seems like a dream.

Literature affords me as little satisfaction as ever. I got another beautiful review of my poems recently, but not a soul is willing to buy them, and if the new novel doesn't work out, I shall get fed up with the whole thing, and try something else.[ … ]

 

Gaienhofen, September 11, 1904

So I can write again, now that you're back. I really enjoyed your wonderful, kind letter and all those cards from your travels. As for your last letter, there was a passage in it I found less pleasing. The affair about the pictures! Of course, I don't want to make a fuss, if nothing can be done about it. But I'd be incredibly happy if it were possible to prevent that newspaper from publishing that picture of me. Please!

Aside from that, I enjoyed hearing everything you said. I found it interesting you didn't like “Amstein.”
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I'm not a good judge of my own scribbles, and perhaps often value the breeziest stuff highest. I find literary criticism absolutely worthless, but am always glad when a friend tells me what he does and doesn't like. I wrote “Amstein” a year and a half ago, and haven't read it again since. The “Marble Works” was written last winter and spring.

So, since the beginning of August I have been living here, married, on Lake Constance, and I very much hope you will come and visit me sooner or later. Vienna seems more remote and less accessible now that I'm living in the country. Gaienhofen is a very small, beautiful village; it has no railway, no store, no industry, not even a pastor of its own, so this morning, I had to spend half an hour wading through fields in the most awful rain to get to the funeral of a neighbor. There is no running water, so I fetch all the water from the well; no tradesmen, so I have to do all the necessary repairs in the house myself; and no butcher, so I have to fetch the meat, sausages, etc., from the closest town in the Thurgau. But the place offers tranquillity, clean air and water, beautiful cattle, fabulous fruit, decent people. Apart from my wife and our cat, I don't have any company. I'm living in a little rented farmhouse, for which I pay a yearly rent of 150 marks.

Long live Peter Camenzind! Were it not for him, I wouldn't have been able to marry and move here. He earned me 2,500 marks, and if I stay here, I can survive on that for at least two years.

I used to look forward to being “famous,” but it's less fun than I had expected. Schoolteachers and clubs write to me in a businesslike style, asking for free copies of my book, etc. A journalist said he wanted to interview me for a book about “contemporaries.” I wrote back saying he should seek out a hydropathic establishment. All of that took place back in Calw; nobody comes over here to Gaienhofen; it's quite remote. In any case, the letters, etc., have subsided, and peace has returned to the countryside.

We rushed through with the wedding. My father-in-law is opposed to it, and refuses to have anything to do with me; so I turned up in Basel while he was out of town; then we hurried off
subitissimo
to the registry office. We can still hear the old man grumbling in the distance, but he seems to be calming down gradually.

So I'm now a married man; my gypsylike existence is aver, for the time being. But my little wife is nice and quite reasonable. Of course, she hasn't found out yet that I've just ordered a small barrel of white wine. The wine here is scandalously sour.

You're going to Paris for the winter, and your collection of novellas
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is coming out in February? You now want to begin a larger work? My dear sir, dear friend, would you please accept my best wishes! And do come to Lake Constance at some point! There won't be as many new things for you to see as there would be for me in Vienna, but I'd love to spend the afternoon out on the lake with you; and then in the evening we could sit on the bench by the oven in my farmhouse. I'll make sure the wine doesn't run out.

And, if at all possible, you'll leave my picture out of it, won't you? I've made fun of writer's portraits so often that I can't possibly do the same thing myself now. Of course, you're perfectly free to mention me by name in the text. Also, please think of me, and let me know how you and your work are faring. For instance, I would like to know the title of your dissertation.
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Yours faithfully and gratefully

TO LUDWIG THOMA
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Gaienhofen, January 30, 1907

It's certainly high time for me to thank you for your greetings. I was extremely impressed to learn that you're now forty; I have another ten years' worth of experience to digest before then.

I enjoyed the first two issues of
März,
the second in particular. What's more, I have since acquired another good piece: a novella by our dear friend W. Fischer in Graz.
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I sent it to Aram today, and we should definitely accept it.

I had the idea I'd publish a nice selection of old, unknown treasures at some later point, and so I've decided to translate some pieces from the splendid medieval Latin of old Caesarius of Heisterbach
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—that is, if I've enough time left over after the construction and other work.

The lake here has been mostly frozen, and we've been out ice-skating a lot. The alpine wind is blowing once again, there's a leak in the roof, and the ovens won't draw.

Finckh got married recently and he's still in the Black Forest. His animals (two donkeys, two St. Bernards, one cat, some trout) may be getting more company: some hens, ducks, and a nanny goat.

The page with Olaf's
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drawings gave us a good laugh.

A little while ago, when the ice was still here, we made a sail, went out on the lake in a sled, and raced about like a locomotive, causing numerous catastrophes. Our friend Bucherer
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is inventive, and it's handy having him around. We're busy building a large snowman to commemorate the return of Finckh.

TO JAKOB SCHAFFNER
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February 1908

We ought to learn from each other, and this time I learned something from you. Well, our Weltanschauungen are often at loggerheads, and I understand why you can't make heads or tails of mine, which is not in the least bit evolutionary. I'm pious in the old-fashioned sense, and thus not prepared to concede that there is any development—i.e., progress—in our lives and intellectual pursuits. Otherwise why would the world have needed a Hegel when it had already had a Plato, and if there is progress, how come the so-called land of thinkers is falling for those Jena world puzzles?
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But there is one form of progress I gladly concede: Today's bicycle is certainly better than the one manufactured in 1880, and a locomotive can certainly travel faster than a handcart. I like that change, but not nearly as much as you do, for the following reasons: Opportunities like this allow us to speed up a little, but don't allow us to conquer time. We're usually just as impatient in the express train as we were in the mail coach, assuming, of course, that we're in a hurry, and nowadays aren't we always in a hurry? People in the Orient also know how to live, and according to the elegant account given us recently by Professor Mez, the native population there has no qualms about letting the Europeans do all the railway construction.

But to the point! I wanted to tell you about my typewriter. My dear sir, you're to blame, since I bought it upon your recommendation and example. But I must say I'm really enjoying this tidy little machine, and I want to recite some of its advantages. Especially for one's wrist! After a hard day's work my hand used to ache all over. The pain may well have served as a warning: Don't overdo it! But after all, writing is our trade, and we should let our heads rather than our wrists protest against any excesses.

Moreover, speaking just for myself, when I wrote by hand, I put a great deal of effort, love, art, and sundry flourishes into the penning of individual letters and lines. I always regretted those wasted efforts when I saw the contrast between the sober printed version and the elaborate, delicate product of my fingers. No call for that anymore.