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30 September 1954
On the leisurely stroll through meadow and forest to St. Gallen I told Robert about my trip to Venice and about the detour with Max Picard to the lagoon island of Torcello, in whose cathedral are a Romanesque colonnade church and early medieval mosaics.
Then like a butterfly in flight Robert touched on associations from everywhere: Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, Goldoni, Casanova, Stendahl, Richard Wagner. Long discussion about tragic fates of sons of famous fathers who, Robert said, would have been better off if they had been sent to boarding school: "There they could develop themselves in peace, undisturbed by toadies and status-seeking by their fathers. I wasn't exactly pulled out of the depths by a famous father. Quietly and modestly going your own way is the surest way to happiness that we can expect."
He mentioned that a Pushkin was a Soviet diplomat in Berlin. He looked fat and cruel, like a malicious caricature of the poet, for whom even the Bolshevik chieftain Lenin showed respect.
I in turn mentioned in jest that he should show me a bit of respect, since the Zurich city council had selected me for the Literature Committee. He doubled up with laughter and started me laughing too: "So that’s why you look so city-councilish and bland as Roebeli Faesi [Robert Faesi (1883-1972) was a writer and Germanist from Zurich]! You've made it to the top!"
We scrambled over an electric fence and wound up in a deep ravine, from which Robert called “Escape from hell! How can someone get lost like this?" As we climbed out he kept shaking his head. I remarked, concerned, that he looked exhausted. He waved me off: "Enough of that. We're not talking about my health."
Finally we reached the summit of "Solitude," a lookout 872 meters above St. Gallen. Longingly I point out the pub below us, but Robert would hear nothing of it—he wanted to hike all the way back to St. Gallen.
He said that in 1895 or 1896 when he lived in Stuttgart and worked for the German Publishers' Institute and Cotta [a publisher], he had often visited the rococo summer residence called "Solitude" in which the Karlsschule, made famous by Schiller, had been established. Also, a freelance writer at the time, he had spent a few weeks in Munich with Alfred Kuben around Oktoberfest. He had originally been introduced to Kubin by the worldly Franz Blei.