Soul of the Age (52 page)

An open journal

Before my eyes.

I see it says

Your birthday is here.

Best wishes for many years

And a sunny life still

From a very ordinary man

With nothing else to give.

It was quite a while before the convalescent car pulled up outside, and by then we were very much looking forward to the things we had promised ourselves from this trip: a little mountain air, shade, a cool spot. Ninon was undaunted and drove with gusto up the many steep curves; a splendid, fresh breeze was already blowing in our direction from San Giacomo, and soon we were lying in the shade under fir trees. We read as much of that anthology of letters
440
as we desired, and I would have liked to respond immediately to each of these friends, to thank them, say something nice, and give them an account of our day. This circular letter will have to act as a substitute.

Goodbye, friends, thank you and best regards, yours

TO INA SEIDEL
441

[
Summer 1953
]

It's nice to be able to exchange a few presents from time to time. I felt that your kind letter, the two fine, contemplative poems, and the fine, sad picture addressed me clearly, as a colleague, and I wish to thank you for them. I have also been reading some of H. W. Seidel's letters.
442
And I intend to read more.

Oh no, so you too are having problems with your hands! I have an advanced form of arthritis, and even though Irgapyrin and vitamins are keeping it in check, it's often unbearable.

This hasn't been a great year for us so far. My wife got back from her third, very strenuous, trip to Hellas in the fall of 1952, but she hasn't fully recovered yet; our household and daily existence are in a bit of a shambles. There are some distractions to lessen our discomfort for a while. A very young fellow from America was here recently; he works in a factory, took a year off to study and learn German, has read many of my things in German, and told us that he translated
Siddhartha
into English. We were taken aback and informed him that an English edition had appeared long ago, but he just laughed and said it didn't matter, he had translated it for his own amusement.

We want to go to the Engadine as soon as possible, even if we have to freeze. But my wife has always recuperated best in the mountains, the higher the better.

Goodbye. I hope the summer brings some fine, delightful experiences your way. That is just what we need, since conditions are as you describe them in your poem “Das Gedicht.”
443

TO A FRIEND
444

End of September 1953

Thanks for your letter and Lehmann's new poem.

Those are certainly two characteristic models of new and old-fashioned poems. Now, that contrast would be all very natural if Lehmann were forty years younger than I, but he's only five or six years my junior.

Your comments about the poem
445
touch on the central issue: Why do we allow an old-fashioned and rather senile poem to take liberties that wouldn't be acceptable in the poem of a younger person? Why aren't the words of this poem marked, to any appreciable extent, by the devaluation that has afflicted poetic language of this kind over the last two generations?

None of us—neither you, I, nor our friends—can resolve that question. We wouldn't be capable of reading my verse as though I hadn't penned it, as if there weren't a long life and a sizable body of work behind it. But I fear and suspect the following: If we were capable of that, or handed my verse to some reader who is receptive to poetry but never came across my work, then he would judge the poems to be well intentioned, but reactionary and ineffective. They really fail to live up to what is demanded of poetry nowadays, and for a person without any parti pris my words would seem more like inflated money than gold.

Well, we don't have to resolve the issue. What would happen to us, and indeed to philosophy, if instead of striving for truth, we were actually in possession of it?

Writing the last line, I realized that I wasn't saying anything new or original, but simply varying a classical saying of Lessing's. It seems as if I can never escape from the hallowed values and sayings. We just have to accept that …

TO H. SADECKI

[
Fall 1953
]

I cannot say much by way of response, even though I read your letter with the utmost care and sympathy. Thinking of my own experience, I feel that readers have a right to appropriate—or indeed reject—a book as they see fit, a case in point being the varied reactions to
Goldmund.
I received more letters about it than about any other book of mine, with the possible exception of
The Glass Bead Game.
The letters ranged all the way from extreme irritation and annoyance to utterly uncritical enthusiasm. I hadn't looked at the book in some twenty years, but read it recently for a new edition. I describe this renewed acquaintance in a little piece, “Events in the Engadine,” which I'm sending to you. It starts on page 31. So, as you can see, my impression upon rereading it was very different from yours. I very much agreed with it. Your opinion differs from mine in one crucial respect: You're a Christian in the sense that, for you, Christianity is unique and represents the only path to salvation. You feel that those who believe in other religions ought to be pitied, since they do not have a Savior and Redeemer. But, in my opinion at least, and judging from what I have seen, this certainly isn't true. The life and death of a Japanese Buddhist monk or of a Hindu who believes in Krishna are as pious, trustful, and confident as those of a Christian. And, moreover, those Eastern religions have something else in their favor: They never produced any Crusades, burnings of heretics, or pogroms against the Jews; that was a specialty of Christianity and Islam. Even a Hitler or a Stalin couldn't surpass the brutality and murderous self-righteousness of certain lines Luther wrote about the Jews. Of course, Jesus isn't to blame for that. But one can love Jesus, yet acknowledge nevertheless that the other paths to salvation, which God has shown to man, are perfectly valid. Enough. I can rarely afford to devote so much time and energy to a single letter.

TO WERNER HASSENPFLUG
446

October 1953

Thanks for your letter, which I enjoyed. I'm not “accusing” most Germans—actually, I find their behavior incomprehensible—because certain youthful circles displayed such enthusiasm for an inherently rather good idea promulgated by young National Socialism, but because of what subsequently happened to that idea. One should no longer have to remind Germany that it murdered, raped, and destroyed as a result of the young generation's decision to cast its lot with the Nazis. Even with all the goodwill in the world, one would still have to fault the young generation for failing to see through the diabolic and porcine antics of Hitler, Goebbels, Rosenberg, Streicher, etc., and for tolerating Hitler's stupid, flat speeches and hysterical screeching. After seeing Hitler once and listening to a portion of one of his radio speeches, I figured out what was happening. Obviously, I find nationalism, the hubris of any artificially aroused patriotism, just as silly and dangerous when nations other than the Germans engage in it. But my home is in the German world and the German language, the only place where I could ever have had any impact, since I wasn't allotted the task of preaching to the Americans or Argentinians. Those events haven't been as totally discarded as you seem to think. The ruling class in Bavaria—the ones who raised Hitler and spoiled him—are as cheekily anti-Semitic as ever. Nationalism is certainly “over,” which also applies, for instance, to capitalism, but these observations are based on the philosophy of history rather than on history itself—i.e., naked reality. The Nazis still control Bavaria, and the communist nations have to work and starve to feed their bloated commissars, even though capitalism is “over.”

I have no desire to start a conflict or become self-righteous; I'm just jotting down the ideas that occurred to me as I read your letter. The letter was worthwhile, I enjoyed it, thank you.

TO ELSY AND HANS CONRAD BODMER

December 25, 1953

My dear friends,

We celebrated Christmas yesterday with our guest, Frau Anni Carlsson;
447
it's morning now and soon our midday guests will be arriving: Emmy Ball's daughter with two big children. We're going to serve them goose and a glass of Girsberger '47, and we shall be thinking fondly and gratefully of you, as we did yesterday evening. I thank you heartfeltly for your good, kind presents, for the good wine and the delightful surprise, that anonymous little book by Jacob Burckhardt,
448
which also deeply impressed Frau Carlsson.

A messenger arrived yesterday evening bearing carnations from a flower shop and a letter from the donor, a Munich reader previously unknown to me. We read it today and, among other things, learned of a grotesque incident: Her first, unhappy marriage was to a lecturer in philosophy. In 1922, she arrived in Lugano with him, as a very young woman, and found out that the writer H. lived in the vicinity. She asked her husband to accompany her to Montagnola. He came along, but then insisted that he had to visit the poet alone, since Hesse obviously couldn't be expected to receive a young woman. And so the silly philosopher sat at my place for half an hour trying to be clever, while his poor wife waited outside, feeling bitter. There are still many professors like that. But now I have to fetch the wine and prepare things for the guests. Regards and thanks from an old and yet ever new friend

TO THE EDITORS OF “DAS VOLK,” OLTEN

January 13, 1954

Dear Herr Kräuchli,

I received your package and the letter. There isn't much I can say. If I had answered every attack and insult to which I have ever been subjected by the right and the left, I wouldn't be here now. Moreover, I don't see any way I could possibly respond to the tone adopted by these belligerent Christians of various persuasions. The poem
449
was written in 1929 and has been included in each printing of the collected edition. That should show you the extent to which I stand behind the poem, even though I wouldn't write it today as an old man.

What all my attackers fail to recognize, partly out of stupidity and partly for tactical reasons, is that I myself don't speak in the poem, but lend my voice to the poor and oppressed, for whom I have always had great sympathy and love.

But I have to say a word about your printing of the poem. You know just as well as I do that there is such a thing as intellectual property, which is internationally recognized and protected by law. You printed my poem, the work of a still living author, whom you could easily have contacted, without securing permission or even indicating the source, and have thus committed an offense in both legal and moral terms. If you had asked me for permission to print it—only the price of a postcard—I would have refused permission, since I am aware of the way Catholics and Protestants react to this kind of poetry, and have no desire for scandal and polemics.

TO A GERMAN STUDENT

Excerpt from a letter by a German student to Hesse:

…
And now I'm coming to the basic reason for writing to you. The first time I read a book of yours (it was
Demian
), I came across many things that I had already experienced myself, more or less unconsciously
 …
Naturally, I became more and more interested in your works and read everything I could lay my hands on. I liked
The Glass Bead Game
most of all. Recently, I discussed your works with a good acquaintance of mine, a professor of theology. Naturally, being a representative of the Catholic Church, he took exception to your insistence that one's conscience affords the only guideline for individual behavior. He singled out
Demian
for special condemnation. You write as follows: “One ought not rule out or feel anxious about anything our soul desires. Everybody has to find out for himself what is permissible and what is forbidden—forbidden for him
…”
The theologian considered this a very dangerous approach, since it “would justify a form of self-idolatry.” Of course, I sprang enthusiastically to your defense, but was unable to convince him. Finally, he said—and I don't know whether he was trying to calm me down or excuse you in his own eyes—that he loves your work nonetheless, and, besides, that you yourself had once stated quite clearly that you didn't stand behind your figures (and their opinions), that you had never agreed with these ideas, and, just like Gertrud von Le Fort,
450
had only wished to create a merciless likeness of modern man while remaining mockingly aloof yourself. Naturally, I didn't believe a word of this, but my acquaintance kept on reiterating that you had once said so yourself.

Dear Herr Hesse, I just cannot—and don't want to—believe that! If your works are not a product of your own inner experience, then that must be even more true in the case of other writers. I entreat you—unless my letter happens to end up in your wastepaper basket—to confirm my convictions
 …
I am very confident that I shall hear from you
 …

 

March 1954

Dear Fräulein,

Well, you have answered your own question, and I must agree with you. If your acquaintance were right, you would be better off laying my books aside for good. I have no reason to doubt his honesty; it's quite possible that I was objecting in some letter or essay to being pegged for the rest of my life to a single utterance of mine. The professor may have come across a passage like that and drawn false conclusions from it. As a representative of his church, he is certainly entitled to reject my ideas and fight against them. I admit that these ideas could be dangerous under certain circumstances. I know it's possible that they might occasionally mislead some weak persons and even lead them to suicide. But the harm caused by my writings and those in a similar vein pales when compared with the impact of the harsh regime in conventional schools, which has caused so many weak young people to fail.