Soul of the Age (39 page)

It was still peacetime when I got to know your father;
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we were both working on
März.
It was through him that I met the Rosenfelds,
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with whom I became friends; we used occasionally to play billiards there together.

My life ever since has by no means been peaceful; I feel that there has been a war in progress since 1914, and very few of my colleagues and former intellectual peers have really passed that test, with the exception of Romain Rolland, whom I first got to know in 1914, and Thomas Mann, who joined us after the war. I lived alone for about twelve years, then got married again; nowadays life isn't exactly easy—the war years count twice, so I have become an old man, and no longer travel, take vacations, socialize, etc. As for the world war, I awoke from all sorts of soft illusions in 1914 and since then I see nothing but war in the world, and so I do not attach very much importance to it, since it's wrong to assume that gunpowder, poison gases, and generals are intellectual powerhouses, even though they can get up to a lot of mischief. In a world torn apart by constant wars, it has become harder and harder to ensure that one has some tranquillity and love in one's heart and occasionally transmits some of that through one's art, yet one must keep on trying.

Greetings to your dear esteemed mother, to your brother Robert, and fond regards to you yourself

TO ERNST MORGENTHALER

Montagnola, October 25, 1940

My dear friend,

[ … ] I believe that the present erosion of moral standards in governmental and political affairs cannot be halted, but am convinced that this hell will not last forever, and that the political behavior of the people and the conduct of nations will once again become tolerably humane. I don't think any nation or constitution in the world is so secure that it cannot be overturned and taken by force. The inferno of the totalitarian state is a phase in the decline of nationalism and will not last forever, but before it disintegrates, it will almost completely destroy the things that we believe in, which make our lives worth living. At times like this it is a good idea to have some direct connection in one's own life with those who are being persecuted and are suffering, such as having a Jewish wife, so that one doesn't go blindly past the abominations, but sees them with one's own eyes; the people who survive that experience will prove useful at a later date.

A few months ago the Russians moved into my wife's homeland.
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A cousin of hers, who wanted to move into that area from Romania because he preferred to become Russian rather than stay Romanian, was killed by the Romanians on his way there. Although the occupation began months ago, my wife's only sister wasn't able to send us a letter or card until a few days ago; there is no hope of her getting a passport so she can go abroad and see her sister again. We finally received a card, which the Russians must have let through; the language was exceedingly diplomatic, each word chosen with great care, and every statement was couched neutrally—like a cautious letter smuggled out of a German concentration camp.

[ … ] In the last few weeks my wife has had an old wish fulfilled; we came across a woman philologist, whom we invited to spend some time with us, and for two hours a day she reads Aeschylus with Ninon and reviews grammar. She has been here now for three or four weeks or so, a pleasant guest.

Regards to Sasha; I often think of her when I look at the shoots of a plant on the balcony of my studio. I remember putting some sprigs of that plant in my purse years ago at your house; now the oldest shoot is about two meters tall.

 

[
January 1941
]

I really have to tell you and Sasha about the plant you gave me three years ago at Easter; I took three sprigs with me in my purse and planted them in a pot here. Those three yielded a hundred or so little plants, and I have given some away to acquaintances. But only one of these plants—it's one of the oldest and probably one of the three originals—has developed fully. It grew quickly, and is now 265 centimeters tall, without taking into account the bends and curves in its stem, which is tied in several places to a stick. The stem, which is about the thickness of a child's finger, is wooden, very hard, and bare until it reaches two-thirds of its height, which is where those little branches begin, organized around the stem. The new little blossoms are always forming at their tips, then falling off and developing into new plants down below. Now it has entered a new and probably final stage in its development: Over the last few weeks, an umbel has formed at the very top, a little above the uppermost branches; it consists of four little bundles of six to ten pretty little calyciflorae, the majority of them are still buds, the ones that have opened up are cup-shaped and red, a wonderfully bright red.

It may be one of those plants that blossom only once in their lives and then die; in any case, I wanted to tell you about these things, so you know how your gift has fared.

There are some strange things growing on earth. Recently I found out about the final hours of a friend of mine
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whom I had been worrying about for some time and whose burdens I had often shared prior to that. He was Jewish, well off, came from the Sudetenland. He went off to war in 1914 as a fancy Austrian lieutenant, was captured, spent years in Siberia, returned to Bohemia on foot, subsequently took over his father's small factory. His workers regarded him as a comrade; some were on a first-name basis with him. He remained a bachelor for a very long time, was knowledgeable about Indian literature and the Kabbalah. We corresponded for years; he visited us here a number of times, once with a lady whom he married shortly afterward. He was hardly married when he began to see that the Germans would take over the Sudetenland, so he left his hometown and withdrew to Prague. The area did indeed become German, but he didn't get a penny for his factory. His lifestyle in Prague was elegant at first, then more and more modest, and finally he was in total poverty, and since Prague was in the hands of the Germans, he fought tenaciously, while remaining cool and patient nonetheless, to escape, to obtain an entry permit for some country. The most desirable countries were already ruled out; either they were hermetically sealed off, like ours, or they demanded huge bribes for a visa; he tried Peru, Bolivia, Shanghai, etc., etc., but to no avail. Finally, about six months ago, he boarded a ship filled with Jewish refugees, which was supposed to travel down the Danube through Romania to Palestine. I received the few last lines from him directly, asking me to do a few things, and I did whatever was possible. That was the last thing we received, and I have just heard the rest of his story. The ship arrived in Haifa all right, but the passengers were not allowed to disembark and were held in police custody. And one day they were attacked by planes, and the misery of the hundreds of half-starving people came to an end. Apparently, they identified the body of his wife, but never found that of my friend.

We were both in bed for a while with a cold, but now I can get up every day for a little.

TO JOACHIM MAASS
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[
End of July 1941
]

I should have written to you long ago and also to our friend Bermann, but I can't hold anything in my fingers, which are swollen and so incapacitated that all sorts of things—books, garden tools, occasionally even a spoon—are constantly dropping out of my hands. You will have to be patient with me.

Ninon was anxious to find out more about my condition, and my physician wanted to cover himself, so I spent a few days in the cantonal hospital in Zurich, where they examined me for traces of the favorite terminal ailments of elderly gentlemen. They must have taken at least twenty blood samples; I had to spend whole mornings lying with a tube in my stomach. I ended up paying almost four hundred francs for those three days. Ninon was quite happy, since they hadn't found cancer or anything like that. I found those few days tough going. Contemporary medicine is not even remotely capable of detecting early signs of such fatal illnesses. It is no more reliable than we ourselves can be—that is, if a person has a delicate, potent, well-developed sensibility. I had not been at all curious or worried, and found the bustling factorylike atmosphere in the hospital miserable. I was actually ashamed that I had gritted my teeth and obeyed the doctor and Ninon. Naturally enough, the elderly Tolstoy came to mind, the way he escaped from his house, the doctor, and his wife's caresses, etc., so that rather than end his days amid the machinery of health care, he might die in the woods or on the road.

Actually, those learned experts merely came up with the following: a few irregularities in blood composition, considerable weight loss, and, finally, the excruciating rheumatism in the joints that I have had to endure for the past nine months; they had little to say about the latter, and now I'm alone again with my illness. The latest news is that I have chosen a treatment consisting of injections with the poison from bee stings, and have had four injections, no effect yet.

Suhrkamp has written to me again after months of silence. He is depressed, conditions in the business are getting worse. Readers also tell me that a number of my books aren't available anywhere.

I have not heard anything from [Martin] Beheim-Schwarzbach
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for three months or so. His books are no longer available; I was able to procure a few for him, but that is no longer possible.

Please give my greetings to the Bermanns, and pass on the following: I received Tutti's vellum manuscript all right and immediately wrote a thank-you letter. Frau Fischer wrote to me from St. Monika, and I have also heard from Thomas Mann.

I stopped reading the news about the war quite some time ago. Ninon's sister is in Czernowitz; she and her husband
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managed to survive, but they are hungry and don't have a job, money, or prospects of either.

Suhrkamp has published a very beautiful book:
Rings of Glass
by Luise Rinser.
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Unfortunately, I didn't receive the book on Schubert by Annette Kolb,
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but I have seen some advertisements for it. My fingers are letting me down—as you can see from the mistakes. Lots of greetings from Ninon, we often think of you!

TO MAX WASSMER
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Baden, November 12, 1941

My dear friend Wassmer,

I'm writing today about an important matter and would like to ask for your help. We have been worrying for ages about my wife's only sister, whose life and liberty are currently at great risk. She is living in her homeland, Cernauti (formerly Cernowicz). She survived the Russian invasion, then the war and the recapture of that region by the Romanians, but now she is in danger every day because of the pogroms, deportation, concentration camps, etc. Finally, after much strenuous effort, we managed to get them a Cuban visa. The visas, made out for Dr. Heinz Kehlmann and Frau Lilly Kehlmann, both of Cernauti, are supposed to arrive today or tomorrow at the Cuban Consulate in Bern. When my wife receives the official written notification from the Consulate, she will forward it to you immediately. And I would entreat you, my dear friend, to help us out at this juncture. Once you have received that notification, could you bring it to the Confederate Alien Police in Bern and ask for a transit visa for the Kehlmanns? They need a permit to travel through Switzerland on the way to Cuba, and also permission to spend one month in Switzerland, for the following reason:

Given the present situation, they cannot travel from Cernauti to Berlin—the only Cuban Legation for Romanians is in Berlin—so they cannot pick up the visas in person. That is why we asked to have the visas sent to Bern. Moreover, my wife would like to spend a little time with her only sister and help her prepare for the long journey before she emigrates for good.

Another point: If this request is granted—as is only human and natural—the Swiss Consulate in Bucharest will have to write to the Kehlmanns in Cernauti, or better still, send them a cable (since they are in great danger of being deported), asking them to come to Bucharest to pick up the transit visa for Switzerland.

In the meantime, we shall be trying, with the help of a Ticino lawyer, to get a temporary permit from the canton so that they can come to Ticino. We know that Bern can only agree in principle and that we first have to secure permission from the canton.

Meanwhile, Ninon is also trying to procure Cuban visas for her oldest friend in Cernauti, and also her son and his wife. Although we would like to keep the two issues separate and attach a lot more importance to the first, we would nevertheless like to ask you whether there is any chance of securing permission for these three persons to travel through Switzerland; they would stay five or six days.

My wife is in Zurich, at H. C. Bodmer's, Bärengasse 22. But she is at my place in the Verenahof almost every afternoon from four o'clock onward.

Of course, I shall reimburse you right away for any costs incurred.

Addio, and God be with this letter. I hate to burden you with all of this, but have no alternative.

TO THOMAS MANN

Montagnola, April 26, 1942

Your kind letter of March 15 arrived three days ago, which is relatively quick. It was a pleasure to read, and that is saying something nowadays. I'm glad to hear that you have received my latest privately printed booklet—an enormous number have gone astray, especially in Germany. We were both delighted with the wonderful picture of you and Fridolin,
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who looks very much like your wife. I happen to have one of Heiner, my son in Zurich, and his daughter, and am enclosing it.

How wonderful that you finally have a house again and a proper study with a library, and that the climate is agreeable! I was also really delighted to hear that you're working with gusto on the fourth volume of Joseph.[ … ]