Soul of the Age (21 page)

I wish you all the best at the start of winter. It saddens me to hear you describing yourselves as old people who live mostly in the past. Compared to my own solitary, burrowlike existence, your lives are lively and varied, especially considering all the wonderful people you know. Of course, I have my life all to myself, and my motor runs smoothly, purring along amid tranquil days of uninterrupted work.

TO LUDWIG FINCKH

Montagnola, January 17, 1920

Dear Ugel,

Your questions about life here are so detailed that I have drawn you a sketch of the palazzo where I live, with its steep mountain garden and protruding conifers and palm trees. It's a very large, ostentatious house.

The family was wealthy at one time, but has come down in the world, and there are quite a few tenants living here. My windows are to the right. Each morning since October, a little old widow from the village has been coming to tidy up the place and do the cooking, mending, and washing. Natalina—that is her name—never disturbs me; she knows that I need peace and quiet and she respects that. But once a month I listen to her talking about Nino, her only son, who died a couple of years ago, at the age of around ten or eleven. She is always going to his grave. Nino behaved like a saint, drew like Michelangelo, sang like a nightingale, and impressed everybody. But he looks very different in the photographs she shows.

So that is what my life is like here, and contrary to your suggestion, I have no need of anybody else to set me laughing, crying, and so on.

You're wrong to think that I have disowned my previous work. It can stay the way it is. But I discovered one day that I couldn't continue in that vein. I have no idea whether my present work is more significant or not; I just know that I have to write like this. Yes, I realize that the language of my earlier efforts was highly cultivated and rather musical. But because of the war and everything else, I now realize that we were just turning ourselves and our potential into the stuff of popular literature.

I find the best consolation in painting. I have quite a few holes in my shoes and socks, the hole in my wallet is to blame for that, and hope I can earn a penny or two through my painting, since there is unfortunately no way one can make any money from literature in Switzerland. I'm having my debut: the art gallery in Basel (where I haven't set foot in fifteen years) is holding a small exhibition of my watercolors, and I shall know by the end of January whether the reviewers can abide me, or just want a good laugh, indeed whether there is any interest at all in my work. Hanging in one corner of my large study is a beautiful fifteenth-century Italian Madonna, which I cherish, having bought it in Brescia in the spring of 1914, that year of grace. My small pictures are the only other things on the wall, so I'm sitting here surrounded by my dreams. That can be quite nice.

We have been having summery weather for the past few days, the sun is extremely warm and there's a lukewarm breeze; I'm going out walking again today, sketchbook in hand, for a few hours. That allows me to wait until evening before lighting a fire, so I can save a lot of wood.

My dear friend, I can sense what you're going through, and there is one thing I would like to say to you: We tend to overemphasize the objects of our love; no matter what we choose, family, fatherland, or whatever, the objects themselves are of secondary importance. We are endowed with love so that we can love and suffer, and I myself feel a much greater, if rather uncomfortable affection for poor, defeated Germany, and feel more personally moved by its suffering, than I did when it was throwing its weight around. After all, I was being told at the time that I wasn't much good, that my previous work was unimpressive. Everybody was saying so, my friends at home, the newspapers, officialdom. I discovered there was no understanding in official circles for the ideals I was trying to uphold, a situation which hasn't changed one bit. But the experience has taught me to cherish those ideals all the more.

TO JOSEF BERNHARD LANG
142

Montagnola, January 26, 1920

Dear friend beyond the Gotthard!

I should indeed have written ages ago, and am glad that you were so kind as to think of me. I haven't been ill, but am feeling jaded and depleted, and my work on the new review
143
is rather mechanical. But I have also been doing some painting again—e.g., a picture of a small golden “ichthys,” an early Christian fish, which will hang on a wall in my lodgings. As you can see from the enclosure, I had an exhibition in Basel this month. I had vaguely hoped I might sell something, and although I didn't, I shall probably come to Zurich in the late spring for an exhibition.

I should either start another serious artistic project or else go back to analysis, but that is something I, unfortunately, cannot do on my own. For a while, I was behaving like a blockhead, reading like crazy and writing mechanically for the new journal. I feel freer now, although I have frequent attacks of anxiety, and am not nearly as committed as I should be. Art cannot be created halfheartedly; a man who wants to write or paint has to catch fire everywhere. I myself am gradually becoming an old man, with some gray hairs and a constantly dripping, pointy nose—well, to hell with it! I'm still feeling the repercussions of those upheavals that occurred during the last few months. Fortunately, there was a lot of sunshine in January; I spent a lot of time outdoors, and didn't have to start a fire until the evening.

For now, I'm managing to make ends meet: a friend is helping a bit, but the situation is pretty ridiculous. If I work really well for a few days, I earn a hundred marks, for which I get eight francs. But somehow I'm surviving.

I'm hoping you can come to stay with me for a week in the spring. I can pay for the ticket so that you don't have any expenses, and I can probably offer you some fees for analysis. Think about it [ … ] Demian has begun to sink in. There are indications that the identity of the author may not be a secret for much longer. It will come out eventually, and that saddens me, since I would have preferred to remain anonymous. I would prefer to edit each new work under a new pseudonym. After all, I am not Hesse, but in the past have been Sinclair, Klingsor, Klein, etc., and there are others to come.[ … ]

I had a friend make small frames according to my specifications, and now there are paintings of mine hanging all over the apartment. I think I shall start playing my violin again in the evening, for the first time in many years. That will afford me a pleasant half hour, and I feel that I shall keep sending more flares up into the dull heavens of this world, thus affording my friends a little solace and pleasure.[ … ]

My dear friend, I often think of you fondly. Ultimately, both of us regard the entire world as a purely psychogenetic phenomenon and thus don't have to take things too seriously all the time.

TO GEORG REINHART

Montagnola, August 14, 1920

[ … ] Things have been going badly for months. I feel tired and irritable and am up to my neck in trouble.

Literature is thriving! Some people in Germania, including the very young and the revolutionaries, have begun to realize that I'm one of their few leading spirits. Unfortunately, as with all wishes fulfilled in life, this is happening too late for me to feel particularly exhilarated. This has always been true: I got everything in life that I desired and seriously pursued, only to find it losing its value right away, and slipping out of my hand to make way for some new striving. I had the same experience with literature, getting married, having a house and garden, children and marriage, journeys, successes, insights. Someday, art itself may lose the significance which I now attribute to it, so that there will be space for something new to unfold.

I feel no connection with Germany, the literature it produces, or the youth over there; the notes that I hear sound false and strange, even though they are also flattering. There was only one thing I really liked: In his
Travel Diary,
144
the cleverest German book in years, Keyserling recommends as an ideal for our future the doctrine of God-within-the-self, which I have been presenting under all sorts of guises for the past three years (
Demian, Zarathustra,
etc.). Keyserling's philosophy derives from India and from Bergson, and reaches conclusions virtually identical to mine. I think that is why books like
Demian
have a strong impact, even though few people understand them. Quite intuitively, progressive people sense the existence of the goal, which those books seek to evoke obliquely through language and other covert means.

I hope to be able to send you something new soon. But my big Indian work
145
isn't ready yet and may never be. I'm setting it aside for now, because I would have to depict next a phase of development that I have not yet fully experienced myself.[ … ]

I have to travel to Ascona soon to see my wife, who wants to find a job working in a household for the winter, and is having a hard time. The divorce didn't come through; all those efforts were in vain, since in order to get one, I would have had to put the children at risk.

TO LISA WENGER
146

Montagnola, February 10, 1921

[ … ] Yes, my relationship to India goes back quite far. My mother's father spoke nine or ten Indian languages, lived in India for decades, spoke Sanskrit with the Brahmans, my mother spent part of her life there, spoke three Indian languages, and my father was a missionary in India for a shorter period. As a boy, I started reading books about India, Buddha, etc., in my grandfather's enormous library; I also saw Indian pictures, occasionally some Hindus, and paid a brief visit to India myself.

For years, I believed in Buddhist doctrine, my sole source of consolation at that point, but gradually my attitude changed, and I'm no longer a Buddhist. I now feel far more attracted to the India of the gods and temples, and have just to grasp the deeper meaning of pantheism, etc. To my mind, the relationship between Buddhism and Brahmanism somewhat resembles that between the Reformation and Catholicism. I'm Protestant and, as a child, I believed in the value and meaning of the Reformation, and even heard a Punch-like figure such as King Gustav Adolf being praised as a hero and great mind. I only noticed later on that, while the Reformation was a good thing insofar as the conscientious behavior of the Protestants contrasted nobly with indulgence trading, etc., the Protestant church itself had nothing much to offer, and the various Protestant sects nurtured the cultivation of inferiority complexes. That is also more or less how I view Buddhism, which adopts a rational attitude toward the world without gods, and seeks redemption solely through the intellect. It's a beautiful form of puritanism, but it is also suffocatingly one-sided, and I have become increasingly disenchanted with it.

When Siddhartha dies, he will not wish for Nirvana, but will be content with his reincarnation, and begin the cycle anew.

My fond greetings again to all of you! I feel the true import of your remarks about Herr Wenger, know what this means for Ruth and you, and wish you the best from the bottom of my heart.

I'm glad to be off again on my travels in eight days' time, because I haven't felt at all well since my arrival here. I have been invited to give a lecture at the Psychological (i.e., Psychoanalytic) Club in Zurich. They agreed when I offered to read from my manuscripts instead, and the event will take place on February 19. I hope to meet some friends in Zurich and hear some music, then I have to go and see my boy in the vicinity of Frauenfeld.

Greetings to Ruth, I hope she leaps over her current inhibitions!

 

Montagnola, May 2, 1921

Thanks for your nice letter, which shows wonderful confidence in me. I want to get this off today, since I shall have to interrupt my usual routine tomorrow. I'm going to Locarno to discuss something with my wife. A few days later my sister is coming for a visit, and I may travel back with her to Zurich about the 20th of May. I shall stay a while in the hope of seeing Jung. If only he could squeeze me in! I haven't figured out yet how I'm going to pay for the analysis; Jung may refuse to accept payment, or perhaps there will be somebody in Zurich willing to help me out. I need some therapy so I can loosen up. I just cannot go on like this. I often feel paralyzed by the thought that our entire literature is worthless. Of course, I can always do some painting, which is peaceful and tranquil. Yet, although painting keeps me alive, it doesn't help me justify my life, either intellectually or materially.

You have your own inhibitions, and the following thought came to me as I was reading your letter. Wouldn't it be wonderful if Frau Wenger were as kind and considerate toward herself as she is toward others? After all, the Gospel doesn't say that you should “love your neighbor instead of yourself,” but rather “as you love yourself”!

Even though Herr Wenger is very practical, I consider him an introvert, who has been seeking in his work a substitute for certain unfulfilled spiritual needs. Childhood left him with a religious burden, and he also had a powerful father. I think it's wonderful that he is trying to delve into himself in spite of all his professional and social successes: I don't think he really needs analysis, it wouldn't necessarily do him much good. I think he is finding the right balance all by himself.

It's not easy to practice the Indian-Buddhist form of “meditation,” which you also mention in your letter. One cannot expect a sudden flash of insight. It's a discipline, an exercise to be repeated constantly, every day. Given the lives we lead, it's difficult to remember for more than a few seconds at a time that our physical, transitory self is absolutely insignificant; to live according to that knowledge, one would need the concentration of a monk. Christianity is no different: the ordinary rituals of every Christian denomination are emergency solutions, rather superficial adaptations to new circumstances, which can, if necessary, help people conduct their lives. Christianity has access to more serious and intellectual disciplines, practices and modes of redemption, but they have never been practiced in the “real world,” just by saints or aspirants to sainthood, monks. The old monasticism of Mount Sinai and Thebes is almost as sophisticated intellectually as Indian monasticism, to which it fundamentally bears a close relation.