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Christmas 1954
For people who live outside a family circle the feeling of exclusion and loneliness is especially pressing at Christmastime. Robert and I spoke during our walk about the ethical value of building a family when he poked me in the side and gestured toward two approaching women. 'Have you noticed their contempt for us? As if we were a couple of no-gooders?" "Or [Stuendeler] who are always mulling over something” I replied, and Robert laughed: "Yes, for women we're rejects. We might find that either good or bad."
From Herisau we've turned toward the ruins of a castle high above the town. As if on command it had begun to snow just as I stepped from the train. My right foot hurts from a torn muscle, but I don't want to spoil Robert's Christmas walk.
Suddenly a beautiful collie races across a snowy field toward us, and leaps up on his hind legs, as if he had been waiting just for us. At first Robert tried to push him away—“Get away, you jerk”—but the dog in his freedom ignored him. He would race ahead of us, and back again, and eventually Robert grew used to him.
When I told him how nobly he was dressed, with a new gray coat and new shoes, he was silent. Then we talked for a long time about Heinrich von Kleist. I mentioned a lecture in which Thomas Mann had offered the idea that in the first act of the tragedy fragment Robert Guiskard Kleist had succeeded brilliantly, that he could no longer be outdone as a poet. Robert thought this incorrect. Guiskard was not a good piece. Kleist had given away too much too soon, and prematurely revealed the collapse [Zusammenbruch]. It would have been quite in order for Goethe to have disliked this shooting star. The world of harmony has a genuine right to reject disharmony.
When Robert asked about my Christmas experiences I told him about the time I rowed with a British missionary to the South Seas island of Malekula, where the natives were said to be cannibals: "When we reached the interior of the island, a number of wild-looking armed men, whose broad, flat noses were pierced by bamboo reeds, emerged from the bush. Except for a few leaves about their loins they were naked. They had unpleasant expressions on their faces, not at all in the Christmas spirit. The missionary had the humorous idea of taking out his false teeth, astounding the gullible islanders so that they stared dumbfounded at my companion and showed they had no bad intentions. In any case we didn't become their holiday roast."
"Frequently the so-called 'evil' are not nearly as bad as the so-called 'good.' A few days ago" I continued, "I took part in the Christmas celebration in the prison at Regensdorf. At dinner with the warden and several official guests I heard this story: In 1914 the warden told the prisoners at Sunday services that a prisoners' choir would be formed. Whoever wanted to join should report to director Ernst Honegger. Honegger would test every man for voice and ear, and send the 10 best to the warden, who, a shocked expression on his face, took Honegger aside and said 'With 10 murderers you want to make a choir?'"
Robert: "That wasn't a coincidence. Most murders occur in he heat of the moment. And what are artists but emotional creatures? And are not singers artists?"
After this observation I continued: "The warden told me later that he was frequently saddened to lose his best singers when their sentences ended. Once he had a powerful bass, who could have sung with the Don Cossacks. Another prisoner, who had murdered his mother and had been his best lyric tenor, had a musical career in Rome after his release."
Robert said: "You could write a novel or an opera around that: a warden loves a voice so much that he encourages its owner to commit a crime, so that he can have him in the prison choir."
He continues: "Frequently such gifts are transmitted over several generations. Thus, I'm not the only one in my family who has written poetry; my brothers Ernst and Hermann, even my sister-in-law Fridolina. Such romanticism can spread like an epidemic. [In the lifetime of the Schlegel brothers, Tiecks and Novalis] developed wonderful blossoms to which women as well as men have contributed."