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24 July 1944
Wanderung to the Bodensee. Robert arrived agitated and excused himself many times for his late arrival at our meeting place. My phone call this morning had not been passed along: “Probably some kind of malice by subordinates! Frustrated people in servile positions take the opportunity to get others in their power. Their joy is in schadenfreude, a tool of their own desire for revenge."
It’s a rainy, grey, ill-tempered day in which the green of the fruit trees seemed that much deeper. It was hard to keep to the right path: we followed rows of trees, meadow paths, ravines. Our shoes grew more and more laden with mud. We are both pleased and chat excitedly in [raufbereiten Wind].
Robert mocks several new publishers “in short pants and stylish neckwear” who see themselves as pioneers of literature. “For a Schiller blown in by the storm, they’d have only a smile.” He was excited by the humorous mastery of Charles Dickens and Gottfried Keller, with whom one never quite knew whether to laugh or cry: this was clearly a sign of genius. I interjected: “That’s frequently the case with your books.” He stopped with a jerk in the middle of the road, and said with utmost seriousness “No, No! I implore you never to mention my name in connection with such masters, not even in a whisper. I simply cannot be named in their company."
Alluding to the novelist and travel writer Paul Morand who has become the French ambassador in Bern, Robert said “A Swiss novelist could never be elevated to such a position. We lack the sense of proportion and tradition and enjoy our feelings of inferiority. Either we’re gruff and cheeky or too modest. Neither is good for diplomacy.” He believed that for the most part social life is poison for an artist. It dulls him, and forces compromises.
Nietzsche seemed to him a diabolical status seeker with an unrestrained and ambitious character. “He had the power to bewitch that belongs to a genius. But he had long since toadied to the devil, that is, the loser, because he sees himself as the underdog. He wasn’t a [Sonnenmensch]. Because of his cramped servant’s way of life he's arrogant and stubborn. For women, his male ethic [Herrenmoral] is the most offensive that can be imagined; the sneaky revenge of an unloved man. Basel had a role in forming Nietzsche. Incidentally, when I was 18 and a bank clerk in Basel my brother Oskar invited me to Luzern. And you know what’s stayed in my memory about that trip? The sunny yellow of the crème that we had for dessert at his pensione. Doesn’t that suggest van Gogh?”
As we reached the church of Arbon the air-raid alert sounded, and from the far shore of the Bodensee [probably Friedrichshafen] we heard antiaircraft fire. Robert grew quiet. We disappeared in a confectioner’s to try the cheese-rhubarb pastries. Later, a fish dinner in a restaurant by the lake. In an adjoining room some interned American fliers were being fed; they were robust, broad-shouldered boys.
We went swimming in the baths, where we were the only customers. Robert with his skinny thighs climbed up to the high board, but then climbed down. “We’re not so bold” he said. “These days I have to pass up such leaps. I used to swim by myself day and night in lonely inlets near Wadenswil and Biel. Now I hardly ever swim. You can easily overdo health and fitness."
Returned via Rorschach to St. Gallen where we stayed until the evening, enjoying a few beers.