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19 October 1943
I used a one-day pass from my army outfit to leave the kaserne of Sargans at dawn to climb down into the valley and travel to Herisau.
Conversation with the medical director, who told me that Robert had responded to the news from Bern on September 28 of the death of his brother Karl with a dry "So!". He confirmed that Robert had changed to a sober realist, and wanted nothing to distinguish him from the other inmates, and he strictly avoided all emotional display. You'll see this syndrome in many schizophrenics: either feelings of joy or anger register only minimally, or a patient can have an explosive emotional outbreak, with catastrophic consequences. Robert seemed to be trying to distance himself from the world around him. Only the message about his sister Lisa's illness seem to have touched him. At first, he tried to subtly bring up items that concerned Robert or Karl, but eventually Robert grew angry and ostentatiously ignored the medical director. When he spoke to him about that: "We were friendlier before, Herr Walser!" Robert (flying off the handle): "Why do you burden me with this scribble? Can't you see that I'm not interested? Leave me in peace! That's all behind me now." Also, he didn't want to hear about this intestinal tumor. To a remark about this he replied in irritation: "Would you really have me sick? Isn't it good enough that I'm healthy? Why do you plague me with this trivia?"
Robert was waiting impatiently before the second wing in which he's been put up. He's hasn't replied to any of my letters or packages in the last six months. Now he appears lively and at his ease, even excited: "You smell like a soldier! Gun grease, leather, straw, sweat--that's nice. Isn't it wonderful to live with the people in such familiarity, shoulder to shoulder, like best friends?"
He inquired with great interest about everything I carried: the rolled up shelter half, the flashlight on my belt, the peaked cap, my PFC stripes. I told him I'd always been drawn to the simple life of a soldier. Robert said "That is a good thing. Excess can be so oppressive. The real beauty, the beauty of the ordinary displays itself most touchingly in poverty and simplicity."
That afternoon, at our farewell drink in the St. Gallen train station cafeteria, he spoke of age: "Only a few know how to enjoy age. It can give joy. People have learned that the world tries to return to its simple, elementary things. Its instincts prevent the exceptional from becoming dominant. The restless longing for the opposite sex has burned out and you seek the consolation of nature and beautiful realities that are accessible to anyone who wants them. Eventually one grows modest and content and rests in the quiet of age as in gentle sunlight [nebensonne == sun dogs].
That morning: As we strode quickly through the old quarter of Herisau by the kaserne on the way to St. Gallen, our conversation went from strange war news to people.
I say: "People don't want to rule themselves, they want to be ruled."
Robert agreed emphatically: "They even think tyrannies are lenient." He immediately added "You can't tell them that, or you're thought rude, and rather annoying. Basically, they're content with less freedom than one would think."
He justified the the behavior of petty bourgeoisie, who protect the civilization that they live in. Nothing has yet been created by those who roam about. Because the bourgeoisie in their suburban and village narrow-mindedness aren't interested in big-city literary creations, modern literature takes its revenge by making fun of them, and aiming its poison at them. It lacks the good-natured conciliatory humor of Carl Spitzweg, Wilhelm Raabe, Martin Usteri, or Gottfried Keller. These big-city brats today are unbearably arrogant, noisy, and overbearing. One hopes their art will never be like that. It must become part of the general order, and become a protector of this order just as the bourgeoisie is, whether they know it or not. As tiring as this dumbing-down is, the bourgoisie is not nearly as unbearable as the literary types who believe that they bear the duty to teach everyone what's what.
In Haggen, a farming suburb of St. Gallen, which we reached over the old and new Sittler bridges, Robert was glad to be able to show me the 18th century calligraphic inscriptions and the colorful fall foliage. He recommended a morning drink in the Schloessli pub. We admired the 17th century building, its chests, coats of arms, religious paintings, and engravings. Our waitress, who is from the Tessin, brings us strong applejuice. We chat with her a bit; when I asked her if she was homesick for the Tessin Robert answered for her: "No. That would be dumb."
We reached St. Gallen, in the fog, around noon. The fresh air and luxuriant fruit trees [sic: in October?] along the way energized Robert. During the meal at the Weinfalken, which we toasted with a tangy Maienfelder, we talked about Jeremias Gotthelf, whom Robert again attacked sharply. He could not read him with any pleasure. More and more he seemed to Robert a rapist of the people [Volksvergewaltiger], who had the audacity to pour his pastoral sauce over everything. He wanted no one near him. He wanted to push everyone in the ditch. Gottfried Keller and C. F. Meyer would have been like him [Da stünden ihm GK und CFM näher]. What could be more thought-provoking than Grüne Heinrich, which he finds "terribly beautiful!", and more beautiful with every year. Then he praises J. V. Widmann's man-of-the-world noblesse. Compared to him various contemporary feuilletonists were characterless, ambitious bean counters [Börsianer] without loyalty or love for honest written work.
How often did he have his nose rubbed in his lack of success! Wherever he was invited to dine, or in whatever high-spirited salon he found himself, he was given advice--in shouts or whispers, well-intentioned or patronizing--that he should write in such-and-such a style to make a career. Originality was not valued in these circles. From Goethe up to Eichendorff and Rudolf Herzog many writers were suggested as models, even by Max Slevogt, who with his Bavarian gravity made fun of his unsuccessful books. Even his publisher, Bruno Cassirer, recommended he take Gottfried Keller's novella style as a model. Failure can certainly be like a wicked, dangerous serpent: it mercilessly tries to strangle the honest and the original in an artist.
Once the publisher of the magazine Die Woche asked him to send in a novel, for which they would send him a royalty payment. He submitted The Apprentice and requested 8,000 marks. Two days later the manuscript was returned without a reply. Robert at this point set out angrily to the publisher's to discover what this mute reply might mean. When the editor officiously began to mock the royalty Robert had requested, he cheekily replied "A camel [sic] like you has no understanding of literature" and, slamming the door behind him, left the room without a farewell. Shortly thereafter Cassirer published the novel.
Robert borrowed the 200-year-old Caribbean seafaring novel Die Abenteuer des Roderick Randoms from the sanitarium library. Its author, the Scottish ship's doctor Tobias Smollett, who was married to a hot-blooded creole, had been strongly influenced by Lesage and Cervantes through his translations of Gil Blas and Don Quixote. But his keen storyteller's gift, though it sometimes lapses into a sort of genial caricature, makes for entertaining reading.
Robert believes that mediocre books have given him as many interesting hours of reading as have the first-rank books. It's perhaps similar for the great majority of readers: They instinctively avoid genius: "Thus, second- and third-rate talent is quicker to succeed than the first-rate. The genius is not a warm and comfortable sort of person, and people love the warm and comfortable."
Robert encouraged me to tell him about my last conversation with this brother Karl. "That was at the end of June, in his studio on the Stampfenbachstraße. We sat on the terrace, with a view on the Limmat (river) and on the Platzspitz (a park in Zurich). Karl said he could only paint frescoes in the city. In the country he would walk, fish, or loaf, but never paint. The two years he spent in Twann on the Bielersee had inspired in him nothing but a couple of small pictures. All that green bothered him, for he never painted direct from nature. Pointing to his forehead he continued "You must have nature inside you, like poetry. The Impressionists could sit among meadows, flowers and trees; for them elves and fairies were real. But in our time? A city dweller just can't surround himself with nature. He has to create it himself."
Painting frescoes is very strenuous. To relieve a lung inflammation he was dosed with too much Cibazol (an antibiotic). That weakened his heart and he had to quit smoking and drinking. He thus grudgingly degenerated to an altar boy, and couldn't paint any more frescoes. That would mean his death. But he'd rather die than fail to carry out the assignment he promised to the Bern Stadttheater.
When I told him I liked the busts that Hermann Haller and Hermann Hubacher had made of him he said "So?. That surprises me. Haller in particular had worked very hard. Two dozen sittings, which I resisted, like a bull being weighed. "I am not a three-dimensional artist, but painterly, elusive."
In Berlin he once received an inquiry from an art academy in Hamburg, asking if he would like to be an assistant professor in stage design. "In the provinces?" He replied. "Out of the question!" Max Pechstein turned down the same offer, which he now regrets: after 10 years in the job he would have received a good pension, which would be good to have now."
Robert asked how his brother adapted to Hitler. "Like the book illustrator E. R. Weiss of whom Karl said: when told that Hitler was in power he grunted 'Well, he can kiss my ass.' He was arrested shortly thereafter, but was soon released."
"But do you know" I asked Robert "How things went for your brother in Vienna? When he returned to Switzerland from Berlin he lived for a while in Sankt Peters in the Bielersee, a place you like. Then came an offer from the millionaire C. to paint his house in Vienna."
"Wonderful," said Karl. "My wife and I went there. C. lived in a gilded palace. I was led into a great, splendid hall, into which a little man rushed and embraced me, and cried 'How good of you to come, Meister'. That was C., the racketeer himself. His mistress at the time was a well-known novelist, in whose bedroom stood a diamond-studded golden Buddha. Dreadful--in those days, dozens of people starved to death in Vienna every day. Eventually the novelist couldn't tolerate this flashy joint any longer and escaped quietly. In her place C. found a 15-year-old from the streets who lied to him at every opportunity. He died of jealousy shortly thereafter, with a heart attack."
Karl: "My wife and I almost starved in his golden palace. Expensive silver settings, but nothing to put on them. When C. and I had made our deal, he told me he'd have the best apples, pâté, and poultry sent to me, but the chief cook gave it all to some fat bible-thumper. I should have boxed her ears for her."
Out in the market we bought Robert some ripe pears, visited the Konditorei Pfund, and sat down to a farewell drink at the train station cafeteria.
Robert: "You don't take my criticism of Jeremias Gotthelf the wrong way, I hope. In spite of everything he remains a great phenomenon. But my whole being opposes his eternal grumbling and negativity [vernütigen]. I like the world just as it is, with all its virtues and corruption."