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23 July 1950
Robert isn’t there when I arrive at Herisau on my usual train. I’m astounded: he’s always so punctual! I walk around the station for half an hour, and finally call the sanitarium. An attendant says Robert left long ago. He couldn’t say why we hadn’t met. More waiting. Eventually I set out for the sanitarium. I notice that a plaque there reads that construction was agreed on by the Landsgemeinde in 1906. The embroidery magnate Wilhelm Schiess spent 800,000 francs. His will says: “It’s a great privilege of the propertied and a noble duty of the wealthy to put a significant part of their earnings at the disposal of the public . . .”
I check in with the porter and light a cigarette as I wait on a shaded bench in the garden. Soon Dr. Hans Steiner, the deputy of the medical director, appears, and invites me into his apartment. Three sweet children, all barefoot, follow us in. Later the doctor’s wife appears, and, smiling, tells how I once described her in a newspaper article as "a gentle air-defense soldier." Dr. Steiner said that Robert was the unusual patient who always earned his pay. But usually he was one of the unsocial inmates: if you tried to talk about art with him he would immediately get sullen.
When the porter tells us that Robert had arrived I went to meet him. I see by the way he greets me—when I offer my hand he retreats, as if I were a porcupine--that he’s in a bad mood. He can’t understand why we didn’t meet. He’d been at the station on time, at 8 o’clock, but after a few minutes started walking to Gossau, thinking he had gone to the wrong place. From Gossau he ambled back to the sanitarium, and had been prepared to write off the day as a loss. I told him I was on the same train as always, but today we were delayed 15 minutes. He replied, quite bewildered: “So did I wait too little extra?” I nodded and suggested that, since it was already 1030, we should have a relaxed stroll into town and get something to eat. He won’t hear of it: he wants to get out of Herisau—to Schwellbrunn. All right.
We quickly find a topic of conversation, which agitates Robert during the Wanderung on the lonely paths snaking upward: Korea.
“You mean ‘Don Correa’?”
“No, I mean the war in Korea.”
“But isn’t Don Correa a thousand times more interesting? I’m sure you know Gottfried Keller’s charming tales of Portugese sea heroes in which the traditional easily mixes with the liberated.”
Then he raged, stronger and stronger, for half an hour against the American intervention in Korea. “Have you seen their hangmen's and gangsters' faces? Stupid, prideful, arrogant, thievish. What do Americans know about an ancient people’s fight for freedom? Of course, with their supermodern war machinery they'll smash everything and win. But how can we drive the beast of capitalism back into its cage? That’s another difficult question. In any case, the true picture doesn’t live in Washington.”
In the meantime it’s grown unbearably hot and humid. Our quick pace seems to have exhausted Robert—he suddenly grows silent and loses interest. His face is flushed. He passes his hands nervously across his forehead. While I’ve taken off my jacket and laid it over my shoulder he’s left his vest and coat buttoned. Finally I ask if we wouldn’t want to rest in the shade a bit. He interrupts and says brusquely: “Don’t worry about me. C’est mon affair. Everyone should look out for himself.”
Drive on! Up hill and down, through woods and fields, and finally on the highway. Robert slows the tempo and occasionally stops altogether, annoyed. I’m afraid he’ll have a heart attack.
Then it starts to rain. Gently at first, its wind blows the dust about. Then pouring. We leave our umbrellas rolled up and stand as under a strong shower, with the water splashing off our faces.
Finally, in Schwallbrunn, we sit down to homefries, fried eggs, beer, and pastries. Robert throws me a conciliatory glance and smiles. He only thaws a little bit, however, and categorically refuses my suggestion for taking the bus back: “What do we have feet for?” Let’s go!
Fifteen minutes into our return the rain starts up again, even stronger than before, and despite our umbrellas we’re completely soaked. I see the bus coming behind us and repeat my suggestion. He grunts in agreement.
Finally, in the train station cafeteria in Herisau, he is enveloped by good humor. He is quite interested in my account of the death of Heinrich Mann, and lets me tell the story of the bombing of Dresden just as I heard it from Gerhart Hauptmann’s widow and her son, Bruno.
Long handshake at the train station.