Soul of the Age (33 page)

Caro amico,

So you were mad at me? No harm in that. Somebody once asked me: “What's the point in having friends? They're never there in a real emergency, and the rest of the time we could get on fine without them.” I said: “We have friends so that there will be somebody there to get mad at us. Others may like us, and occasionally poke fun at us, but it takes friends to get really mad at us, become peevish, and hold grudges over trifles, and that is what they're for. Getting mad is an expression of male tenderness, a kind of substitute for big words and expansive gestures, and it's no doubt better than nothing.”

It's news to me that I was in Zurich over New Year's. My friend Dr. Lang spent a few days with me in Montagnola over New Year's. I was at the spa in Baden for a short while in November, and thought of getting in touch, but never plucked up the courage, because I wasn't well enough to go and visit you (all my Zurich friends seem to believe that an old man having sulphur baths would do wonders for his health by traveling frequently to Zurich, which would, of course, mean standing around in drafty railway stations, etc., etc.), and didn't have the nerve to ask you to visit me in Baden. When I naïvely suggested as much to my friends, I was told that this was out of the question. And yet some people did visit me in Baden, another reason why I didn't write to you. One day Morgenthaler arrived with Sasha,
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and I assumed that if he knew I was in Baden, you would too. Yes, that's more or less what happened, and besides, as usual, I had to spend three or four hours a day reading my mail and writing letters, since that has to be done all year round, even during visits to the spa and vacations. I hope I have convinced you that I wasn't being uncivil when I failed to get in touch with you. On the way back, I wanted to hear music again after six months' abstinence, so I spent two nights in Zurich with the Bodmers, but I was too exhausted after the spa and didn't go out. I only got to hear Haydn's
Creation.

We shall soon be into February, which used to be my favorite month for skiing in the mountains. My days as a skier are numbered, and now it seems as if I shan't even get to use the remainder, since my friend Englert, who used to help pay for the skiing trip, cannot anymore. I haven't published a book for years, apart from
The Journey to the East,
which is not much of a breadwinner. I'm staying at home and saving up my pennies so I can go see my oculist in March. (I don't expect much from him, but am cooperating, since the examination will reassure my wife, who does have some faith in doctors.) [ … ]

Apart from that, it's life as usual here in my feudal house, but I'm beginning to feel fed up with this sort of life, which I find constricting. I have been planning a new literary work for a year and a half now, but haven't managed to write a single line, for several reasons: I'm getting too old, my life here is too comfortable, each day the mail, etc., etc., forces me to assume the role of the overworked famous man. Something similar happened to the elderly Tolstoy, who, just before he died, got up and left, so that as he breathed his last, he could at least feel the presence of country roads, freedom, fresh air, and open spaces.

I shall probably arrange things differently, and may even write the projected book. But the whole thing isn't that much fun anymore. Few people notice the fine points. I would actually prefer to go skiing now. But as soon as it gets warmer, I shall have to start shoveling snow again. So,
tanti saluti!

TO ANDRÉ GIDE

[
March 20, 1933
]

I was extremely pleased to receive your kind and unexpected letter,
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which has arrived on the very day when my guest bed is expecting the first refugee, who is fleeing from the fists and revolvers of those right-wing zealots in Germany.

A student in high school loves and admires a somewhat older peer so much that he wouldn't dream of approaching him. He fears his idol is about to disappear for good, but just then the older student, who is close to graduation, looks at the younger one, smiles at him, and beckons. That is more or less what your greetings mean to me.

So I can respond to your kind words with heartfelt sincerity. I first got to know your books when
Strait Is the Gate
and
The Immoralist
appeared in German for the first time, long before the war. Ever since then, you have been the contemporary French author in whom I have been most absorbed and for whom I feel most affection.
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TO ARTHUR STOLL
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Montagnola, March 24, 1933

I only sent a card recently to thank you for your wonderful present; that was the best I could manage at the time. Well, I very much hope that you have recovered from the bout of illness and are now feeling better. The sun often smiles at us here, and even though the warm alpine winds can be oppressive, the spring has been rather agreeable. A refugee from Germany is sleeping in our guest bed. The Berlin newspapers, and the Swiss ones as well, have been cowed amazingly quickly by the threats emanating from Berlin, and are now very mealymouthed. Over in Germany, they are conducting a really vicious pogrom against intellectuals: people are being imprisoned, fired from their jobs, deprived of their livelihoods; there have been rapes, assassinations, and the victims are not loudmouths and troublemakers, but mostly retiring scholars, peace-loving civil servants, diligent artists, etc., etc. I'm expecting Thomas Mann here today. He is number one on the blacklist.

In the midst of these depressing circumstances, which also affect me deeply in many ways, I unexpectedly received a pleasant surprise: a note from André Gide, copy enclosed. Not that it's anything special in itself, but I admire A. Gide a lot; aside from Hamsun, he is perhaps the only world-famous author whom I respect and love. So it was a revelation when this colleague of mine—he is a few years older than I—wrote to me in that vein.

 

Montagnola, beginning of April 1933

So you have turned up once again like a friendly, helpful magician. Thank you very much for your kind letters and gifts. The gift is very welcome and I shall use it, exactly as you wished, to provide hospitality for the exiles and émigrés.

The first guest, from Leipzig, left for Italy the day before yesterday. These people are all in bad shape financially. The editors of the leftist German press, and all the contributors as well, have suddenly lost their livelihoods. Many were in mortal danger, or might have been imprisoned, so they had to flee—e.g., my guest, whose wife stayed behind to give notice and pack their things, and if possible collect a payment owed them. But the editorial offices of the papers in question have been closed down, the printing works are in chaos, some have even been demolished, all the employees have been sacked and are now unemployed. For the socialist press alone, that amounts to some 80,000 to 100,000 people all over the Reich.

Another of my German acquaintances and colleagues will be here tomorrow. Thomas Mann and his wife have been here quite frequently, and I'm glad to see that he is slowly recovering from an initially severe depression. We have spent half days together on several occasions. He doesn't have any material worries, and is in good shape for now. But he has no idea what will become of his house and children in Munich. His passport is going to expire in the next few days, and no German consulate is willing to grant him even a provisional renewal; so he is going to ask the League of Nations for a passport. Th. Mann's statement of his allegiance to the socially progressive Republic appeared in Berlin just before Hitler came to power (I'm enclosing a reprint, which is somewhat condensed).
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Since then he has been number one on the terrorists' blacklist. I have not had any problems so far; I received a couple of letters from worried readers warning me to keep my mouth shut and act cautiously, since there have already been threats to boycott my books and confiscate my German royalties. That may happen, but in such matters there is no such thing as certainty. I'm expecting my publisher here on Monday; he wants to discuss the situation with me on his way through to Italy (to visit Gerhart Hauptmann). The founder and the owners of my publishers are Jews, and so there is also danger lurking there.

But I think the present situation is so unbelievably crazy that it can hardly last very long. Hitler's terrorism will certainly prevail for a long time (until he stumbles into a war and loses it, or the economy goes bankrupt). But aggressive, pathological phenomena such as Minister Göring, who makes those sadistic speeches (he is apparently a morphine addict), will hardly survive that long. Unfortunately, Germany will become increasingly corrupt, and some people with big names will join the bandwagon. I wouldn't be surprised if, for example, Hauptmann capitulated and started kowtowing to them. But, ultimately, the crucial element is the minority of people who hold genuine convictions, and they certainly exist.[ … ]

 

Montagnola, September 17, 1933

Thank you once again for your various kind gifts. The package with Allisatin and calcium, your order for a manuscript, and the wonderful letter. I was delighted with everything, and am sending you the manuscript
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today; I tried to do a particularly attractive job on yours. Could you please deposit the money in my account rather than send it by mail (Schweizer Kreditanstalt, Lugano)? And if you get a chance to draw attention to my manuscripts, please do so by all means. A time may come when I shall have virtually no income.

I, too, have often noticed the same phenomenon: those clever, sophisticated Germans who used to laugh at Hitler now take him ever so seriously. Here's my explanation: Since 1918, Germany has been ignoring reality completely, and hasn't recognized or acknowledged in any way its moral responsibility both for starting the war and for the consequences of losing it. Germany hardly participated in its own direly needed revolution, which was carried out by a tiny group of militant left-wing socialists. All of its governments were constituted without popular approval, and the people never had any confidence in them. The only political event in which the people really took part was the election of General Hindenburg (the old corporal who deserves much blame for present conditions). Now, all of a sudden, a party has won favor with the people, and the nation has regained its patriotism or self-confidence. Many Germans who love their own people fear that if this hope is unwarranted and the people are let down, everything will start falling to pieces. That is incorrect, or at most only half right, but it's an understandable reaction, and that may be why so many intellectually prominent people have offered their services to the present regime. If they can restore Germany's fortunes without waging war, and if they manage to stop the disgusting excesses of the current movement, that will please me. But I doubt that will happen; the situation is too wild, forced, demagogical, ignoble, also too dumb and anti-intellectual.

I am irritated by the frequent demand of some of my colleagues that I state publicly that I belong to the opposition against Hitler. I refuse to do so; I don't belong to any party, and even though I personally find communism more attractive than fascism, I am not willing to support it, or any other expression of the lust for power. I believe that poets and intellectuals ought to foster peace, not conflict.

I am glad to have my sister
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here for a visit. In the evening she reads from the diaries and letters of my mother, who mentions the battles of Solferino and Sedan!

TO HERMANN HUBACHER

[
Baden, December 1, 1933
]

Thank you for your kind greetings. Few people know how to read poetry seriously, and so I'm delighted to hear that kind of comment.

The poem
248
is by no means a “revelation,” the expression of a sudden, irrational insight. Like most of my poems, it came to me during a sleepless night, and it began as a sober and rather disciplined effort to evoke in words those beliefs I have made my own. Of course, the poem doesn't convey all my beliefs (which actually have somewhat more in common with religious, Christian convictions). It suggests their intellectual foundations, particularly in acknowledging the primacy of the intellect and the difference between the creator and his creation. But the “spirit” in my poem is not merely divine, it is God, and is not meant to be pantheistic.

I don't know much about the divisions developing now among Christians in Germany, but I have always felt that the Protestant tendency to conform and capitulate to the demands of the state was awfully repulsive. At first, after Germany silenced the Catholics and put them to sleep with a concordat,
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I felt the Protestant church movement was merely a brutal regression to barbaric, Teutonic customs. By now it is clear that, in addition to that marvelous Jew Buber, there is quite an impressive Protestant movement, which is waging war on stupidity and decadence and has some extremely courageous adherents. I received a letter recently from one of them, a Tübingen professor named Hauer,
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whom I have known for a long time.[ … ]

TO GUNTER BÖHMER
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Brief report from the garden, February 20, 1934

Caro amico!

We have been having warm weather for weeks, and except for some small spots near the woods, there is no trace left of the snow. Lorenzo has just finished cutting and binding the vines; there are some new, gleaming white posts, all properly aligned, and below that, amid the arid, almost colorless winter grasses, the cheerful smiles of countless tiny yellow primrose islands.

I have mercilessly weeded out the vines on the flower terrace—it's to the left of the path by the boccie field—where we had dahlias and azaleas last year, because they take sunlight away from the flowers. And I have been burning the leaves and branches continuously for the past ten days on the cleared terrace. Head gardener Vogel
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carts the stuff over from the paths, beds, etc. There are eighty to a hundred baskets of leaves on the boccie field alone, and I have already disposed of about fifty. At first, the piles of leaves seem very loose and dry. But after lifting the top part off, one can see that lower down they are damp and stick to the ground; to avoid destroying the field, I have to rake up the whole thing again and allow it to dry, then have to peel off the lower layers, virtually one leaf at a time.