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17 July 1946
After a night of thunderstorms: föhn, mackerel sky with bright blue. A shouting boy boards the train for his school trip.
Robert rejects my idea of taking the train to Urnäsch and then climbing the Hundwilerhöhe. "The whole way on foot!" he says, pointing to a green summit to the south. It looks much too far, but he must have his way. He sets a rapid pace. His pants are too long—he says they’re his brother Karl's. Down the ravine! It’s the former pack trail; to the right a cable descending steeply. I suggest a swim in the stream that lies moss-green below us; I wouldn't turn down a Znueni (soft drink), either. Robert rejects this idea with a gesture of horror, and emotes ironically in a grand way: "Who seeks to conquer, doesn't rest!" So—up the other side! He scrambles upwards like a cat. Then past isolated farmers' gardens, fragrant meadows, forest and more forest . . .
We have a long discussion on a subject that I brought up: The young attractive daughter of a couple whom I'm friendly with has fallen under the influence of the wrong sort of guy, with whom I happened to see her in a café. I've been told a lot bad things about this brutal and unkempt-looking kid, who seems to have some sort of hypnotic power over her. Supposedly he abused her in their youthful relations [? Beziehungen zur Jugend]. People have named names and want me to know that he's gotten my friend's daughter drunk and taken her, late at night, to unsavory places. The question is: do I tell the father (the mother is sick and should be protected) or should I remain silent?
Robert considers the matter thoroughly and asks attentively for details. "I advise you as a friend not to get involved. You would expose yourself to bad consequences. You’ll be accused of gossiping, envy, and petty snooping. What does this girl have to do with you? This love, even if it ends badly, is an educational experience for this naïve creature. You have to trust life and people, that their strength occurs when a crisis appears. Those who fall can rise again . . . No, no, in your place I would keep quiet!"
"Given: I'll get nothing good from an intervention. But that's not the most important thing; it’s the girl who's at risk from this louse. It seems to me that my duty as a friend requires that I tell the father."
"There's no 'duty as a friend.' There’s only a friendship, free and without requirements. Why get involved in matters for which only the mother and father are responsible?"
"I see it differently than you, plainly speaking. If in battle a friend falls next to me it's a given that I would care for him, whatever the circumstances."
"That’s also incorrect: you should only be concerned with victory, to keep moving forward and win the battle. One shouldn't forget the large goal out of concern for the private ones. If you want to win you must be able to accept casualties."
All the way up the hill Robert expanded on his unique thoughts on this problem. He told me about a beauty from Biel whom he occasionally met in Zurich. She had gone to pieces after an abortion, but with her charm she had made many men happy. There are lives that aren't "normal," but take side trails to odd destinies, and stumble into mysteries of nature.
Znueni on the Hundwilerhöhe, which Robert had visited with his sister, though via the easier route from the Zürchermühle. With shining eyes he enjoyed the dramatic lights and shadows about the towers of clouds and the light gray flakes that dance down from the Säntis massif. He talked about how Gerhardt Hauptmann had fallen into the hands of the Russians in Agnetendorf and died there a month and a half ago, probably from sorrow for the fate of his country. In Berlin Robert had met with him occasionally. Later, though, he had gotten the impression that his mind and his heart had fallen asleep on the "cushions of luxury." "Vigilant noble-mindedness always pays off in the long run. You just have to be able to wait for the payment."
When we left the pub the sky was black as ink. A few drops fell, heavy as lead. We head south on the ridge. A wonderful herd of cows is corralled on the Ochsenhöhe; everything there breathes quiet, satisfaction, contentment. To be so content just one time! Through forest and steeply down to the valley. It seems that the rain won't be permitted to catch us.
Just after midday we stand, mostly dry, on the road, from which it's not too far to Appenzell. However we set off toward Hundwil. We’re in the village within an hour. On the way Robert expresses amazement that Gottfried Keller wrote nothing after Martin Salander, whose first chapter he admires. Probably he was spiritually drained.
In the Bären we sit down to some grilled meat, noodles, beans, and a crème brûlée. Somewhere children from a summer camp gently sing "Im Aargaeu sind zweu Liebi" and in the street a couple of village children pass by cranking a hand organ. The smallest has a long bridal veil of St. Gall lace hanging down her back. We sit for almost two hours. A doctor comes and in the next room rinses out the ear of a guest with an inner ear infection as though this is far too much trouble for a füngliber (a coin worth approximately US $5).
I told Robert about a journalist who's the favorite parrot of a major editorial office: he babbles whatever they want to hear; a character without any intellectual character, stingy and spiritless. During the quietest theater and movie scenes he unwraps a sandwich and chews it laboriously. Although he comes from a well-off family, he hates to spend money even on the paper he writes for, and he scrounges his copy from the secretary. When his own father died he asked for the assignment of writing about the funeral. The editor gave him the assignment, but had enough of a sense of humor not to pay him for it. A character from a play by Moliere, dressed in a black work jacket [Burojoppe] as though he worked in a poor branch office. Robert: "Have you noticed that almost all cheapskates are old as the hills, as though death itself shrank from them?"
On the way back to Herisau we talked about a counter-critic [sic: Gegenkritik] who had launched a novelist with a newspaper review critical of me. Robert: "Laughter or silence is he best response in such a case. You have to be able to endure the stench."