Soul of the Age (31 page)

I'm almost envious of your wonderful journey through Italy by car, even though I'm no longer all that curious and haven't traveled “for fun” since the war. Just imagine: I haven't been in Italy since 1914, except for the few occasions when I stepped a few feet across the border near the Ponte Tresa. Up to 1914, I used to visit Italy nearly every year; the last time was in the spring of 1914, at Lake Garda, in Brescia, Bergamo, etc., etc. Then the war broke out, and when it ended, I found out that I not only couldn't afford to travel but had lost much of my previous curiosity about countries and people, along with my belief in a better future. So I'm not very surprised when you say that a new world war is in the offing. I have thought so since 1919, and have seen many signs confirming this. I have confronted the issue frequently, warning about that very prospect not just in
Steppenwolf
but also in numerous essays, which the editors often considered ridiculously “pessimistic.”

Yes, there shall be more abominations, but I may never live to see them, which would actually suit me fine. I was very glad to get the two photos of the children. Of course, you know I'm very fond of your children, and these pictures are particularly charming. Regardless of whether the world is about to be destroyed or not, we want to go on enjoying those few great indestructible things in life: Mozart, Goethe, Giotto, also the Savior, St. Francis, etc., etc. They will live as long as there is a human heart who comes alive through them and can dance to their rhythm. If I'm still alive and can hum a bar from Bach or Haydn or Mozart, or recall lines from Hölderlin, then neither Mozart nor Hölderlin has perished yet. It's great, too, that there are such things as friendship, loyalty, some sunshine occasionally, the Engadine, and flowers. My dear friend, I greet all of you fondly, and Ninon also wishes you all the best.

TO THOMAS MANN

Baden, early December 1931

Your kind letter has reached me in Baden. I'm fatigued from the cure, have an eye condition as well, and can hardly keep up with my mail. So please excuse the brevity of this reply. The actual answer to your question will certainly not take up much space—it is no. But I should like to explain as fully as possible why I cannot accept the Academy's invitation, even though I'm receiving it from a man whom I love and respect. The more I think about it, the more complicated and metaphysical the matter becomes. Since I nevertheless have to give you some justification for my no, I shall have to resort to the excessively clear-cut and pointed formulations that such complicated matters often assume when it suddenly becomes necessary to articulate them in words.

Well, then: the ultimate reason why I cannot be part of any official German body is that I deeply mistrust the German Republic. This unprincipled and mindless state grew out of a vacuum, the general state of exhaustion at the end of the war. The few men who spearheaded the “revolution,” which was never anything of the sort, have been murdered with the approval of ninety-nine percent of the population. The courts are unjust, the civil servants indifferent, the people completely infantile. I was enthusiastic about the revolution in 1918, but my hopes for a German Republic that could be taken seriously were dashed long ago. Germany never managed to create a revolution of its own and develop its own political forms. It will be bolshevized, a prospect which isn't repellent to me but will make it lose its unique national potential. And unfortunately, a bloody wave of white terror will doubtlessly precede that event. I have been thinking along these lines for a long time, and even though I feel a lot of sympathy for the small minority of well-intentioned republicans, I believe they are utterly powerless, with no more future than the appealing ideology of Uhland and his friends in the Paulskirche in Frankfurt. Even today, nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a thousand Germans still refuse to acknowledge any guilt. They didn't wage war, never lost it, and didn't sign the Treaty of Versailles, which they consider a treacherous bolt from the blue.

In short, I am as alienated now from the prevalent German mentality as I was in 1914–18. I find the events I'm seeing absurd, and I have been driven miles to the left since 1914–18, whereas the German people have only taken one meager step in that direction. I cannot read a single German newspaper anymore.

Dear Thomas Mann, I do not expect you to share my convictions and opinions, but I hope you will respect them, out of sympathy for me. As for our plans for the winter, my wife is writing to yours. Please give my kind regards to Frau Mann and Mädi; we have grown fond of them both. And don't think ill of me, even if you are disappointed by my answer. I doubt if it will come as a surprise.

With undiminished affection and admiration

TO F. ABEL

Baden, December 1931

Thanks for your letter, which reached me in Baden; I had finished a cure and was just packing my suitcase. I shall be here in Zurich until the middle of January.

Over the years I have adopted the habit of ignoring the visible impact of my books—i. e., the responses and interpretations of readers and critics. I would characterize my attitude toward my readers more or less as follows: Although I realize that certain issues and experiences of mine are somehow related to those of a large segment of contemporary youth, I feel as if they haven't really understood me at all. Most readers want to find a leader, but they are not in the least bit prepared to submit themselves to intellectual principles and then to make some sacrifices on their behalf.

I would like to leave you to your own devices as much as possible, especially since there are other dissertations being written about me. A lady from Münster in Westphalia wrote to me recently saying she was doing a dissertation on “Hermann Hesse and Swabian Pietism.” I couldn't get myself to reply to her, such was the extent of my interest in the matter …

But you have made it easier for me to respond to your straightforward questions, which I shall try to answer briefly.

You are right to say that
Demian
introduces a new tone in my work. It's already present in some of the fairy tales. There was one turning point that affected me deeply. It had to do with the world war. Up until the war I had been leading a hermitlike existence, hadn't yet been at loggerheads with fatherland, government, public opinion, academic establishment, etc., even though I considered myself a democrat and was glad to participate in the opposition movement against the Kaiser and the Wilhelmian system. (Served as co-founder of
Simplicissimus,
and also co-founder of the democratic, anti-imperial
März,
etc.) I realized in the course of the war not only that the Kaiser, the Reichstag, the Chancellor, and also the newspapers and the parties did not amount to much, but also that the entire population enthusiastically supported the revolting display of coarse behavior, infractions against the law, etc., and that the professors and sundry other official intellectuals were among the most vociferous advocates of those policies. I also noticed that our modest attempts at opposition, criticism, democracy had amounted to nothing more than journalism, so that, even among us, there were very few people prepared to take matters seriously and give up their lives for the cause. The idols of the fatherland had been destroyed, and the idols of one's own imagination suffered a similar fate. I scrutinized our German intellectual life, our present-day use of language, our newspapers, our schools, our literature, and had to conclude that everything was mostly empty and bogus, and I'm including myself and my earlier work, even though it had been written in good faith.

The war opened my eyes, taught me a lot, and caused a radical change in everything that I wrote from 1915 onward. Afterward, I saw things a bit differently again. After a few years of not being able to abide my books, I began to realize that they contained all future developments in nuce
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and I occasionally felt fonder of the earlier works than of the later ones, partly because they reminded me of a more benign period, partly because I realized in retrospect that the moderate tone and evasion of the main problems constituted some kind of premonition, as if one had startled right before a rude awakening.

But I certainly stand behind what I said in my early books, and that applies also to the many mistakes and weaknesses in them.

But I wouldn't mind at all if you relegated the early books to a subordinate role and chose instead to rely on those works that seem to you to grapple most forcefully with the issue, especially
Demian.

Approach the topic as freely and personally as your method permits, trust your instincts, even when you cannot corroborate those instinctive judgments in a methodical manner.

And since you're no longer dependent on Thiess's contrary viewpoint, please treat my books as art rather than merely as a literary vehicle for expressing opinions. Please heed only that which strikes you as being genuinely artistic. The literati themselves aren't an easy target for criticism. They're always coming up with a multitude of ideas and making them sound wonderfully convincing. However, they look at things rationally, and the world always seems two-dimensional when viewed through the lens of reason. Art cannot promote ideas, no matter how hard it may try, since it only comes alive when it is genuine—in other words, when it creates symbols. I think Demian and his mother are actually symbols. Their range of meaning extends beyond that which is rationally comprehensible; they are magical incantations. You may express this differently, but you should let yourself be guided by the power of the symbols rather than by the program and literary attitudes that you derive rationally from my books.

I don't know whether I have made myself clear or not. I could certainly have expressed these matters better orally. Feel free to make use of those observations in my letter that you consider plausible and appealing, and feel free to discard the rest.

TO HEINRICH WIEGAND
234

February 29, 1932

Your kind letter arrived yesterday; we're packing today, and traveling to Zurich tomorrow. We had a going-away party two evenings ago at the house of the magician Jup,
235
a fellow guest here, and yesterday evening we invited Louis Moilliet (Louis the Cruel, the painter) and his wife. There will be no more of this wonderful mountain life this year, with its mixture of natural beauty, childlike sportiveness, plus the atmosphere and ridiculous luxuries of a racketeers' hotel. I only went on one skiing expedition, and that was last Wednesday with Louis. At Corviglia,
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we were at an altitude of about 3,100 meters, and had a breathtaking view of the Bernina Mountains and beyond; at midday, the sun was warm and everything was completely calm. The journey back was quite adventurous, since there isn't enough snow on the ground as one approaches the valley, so we had to ski over the alpine roses. Everything was very beautiful, but also very strenuous, and I haven't been feeling well since then, couldn't sleep, etc. Ninon's rather frayed nerves were also partly responsible, but on the whole we're grateful to be feeling in such good shape as we leave the mountains.

Your attitude toward the present-day German parties, etc., is quite right, I think. Since I'm not a politician, I naturally don't have to worry about how to adapt to current conditions, but rather about how to remain in touch intellectually with the future. Unlike the autarkists, etc., I cannot separate the future of Germany from that of the world at large; to me it is a country that has not yet completed its revolution, hasn't fully accepted its new form of government, and is game for all sorts of adventures. It fears rationality as much as the devil. Because of its position between the Soviets and the West, I feel Germany should try to discover new alternatives to capitalism and thus renew its stature and influence.

We shall remain in Zurich until the beginning of April, and shall get to hear one or two more Haydn concerts. I shall find it hard to leave this Zurich apartment,
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which was my winter refuge for six years. Quite a lot happened there, but now I'm married, and have a house, etc., and must try to keep the house, even though the immediate prospects look less than cheerful. I'm dependent on German money, a currency the rest of the world frowns on, and which is, in any case, subject to ruthless emergency decrees. So, once again, I have my back to the wall, and I wouldn't have done any of these things had I been able to foresee this. Well, I don't regret what I did. Nowadays life is more of an adventure, and a merry one at that, than it was before the war. Nevertheless, I find it embarrassing to be so dependent on the Reich, its currency, the situation there, etc., while living elsewhere and holding a different citizenship.[ … ]

TO FRITZ AND ALICE LEUTHOLD

[
April 17, 1932
]

My dear friends,

I went to
The Magic Flute
with Ninon on our last Sunday afternoon in Zurich. That brought back in a most beautiful, moving way the entire Zurich period, the time of
Steppenwolf,
when I spent a lot of time with Ruth, also with you. This was my way of saying goodbye to a phase in my life; it has faded, I must leave it behind, but still find that difficult, and am actually quite heartbroken.

My stays in Zurich over the last seven years were no doubt just as significant as the time I spent in Montagnola. During those Zurich winters, I wrote more than half of the work I have produced since 1925. If I hadn't been able to work in this hideout here in winter, and hadn't had friends like you, I wouldn't feel so grateful now about the time I spent here.

I have to go over to the Bodmers' in a half an hour. We're leaving at noon tomorrow, and I would like to use this final, peaceful moment to convey my sincere thanks for all your friendship, trust, and generosity during the years when I was your guest here. I shared with you so many of my joys and worries. I couldn't find the right words to say this yesterday, because I was too close to tears.