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26 July 1936
Our connections led to several formal letters, with short, matter-of-fact questions and answers. I knew that Walser had been admitted as a mental patient to the Waldau Sanatorium in Bern, and had been a patient in the cantonal sanitarium of Appenzell-Ausserhoden in Herisau since June 1933. I wanted to do something for the publication of his work, as well as for him; he seemed to me to be the most distinctive personality among contemporary writers.
He allowed me to visit him. So, early this Sunday morning I went from Zurich to St. Gallen, strolled through the city to the Cathedral, and listened to the sermon on "The Waste of Talent." In Herisau the church bells chimed as I arrived. I reported to the chief physician of the sanitarium, Dr. Otto Hinrichsen, who allowed me to take a walk with Robert.
The 58-year-old writer arrived from an adjoining building accompanied by an attendant. I was astonished by his appearance. A round child's face, looking as though split with a lightning bolt [sic: wie durch einen Blitzschlag gespaltenes] with pink cheeks, blue eyes, and a short blond mustache. The hair at his temples was graying. His collar was frayed and his tie crooked; his teeth were not in the best condition. When Dr. Hinrichsen suggested that Robert close the top button of his vest, Robert declined: "No, it must stay open." He spoke in a melodious Bärndeutsch, as he must have spoken in his boyhood in Biel.
After a rather abrupt leavetaking from the doctor we strode off to the train station and thence to St. Gallen. It was a seasonally warm day. On the way we encountered many churchgoers, who greeted us cheerfully. Robert's older sister Lisa had told me that her brother was unusually mistrustful. What could I do? I remained silent, and so did he. The silence would be the narrow bridge on which we would meet. Sweating profusely, we wandered the countryside, a hilly, human-friendly forest- and meadow-land. Sometimes Robert stopped to light a "Maryland" cigarette and hold it under his nose, sniffing.
Lunch in Löchlibad. Our first thaw came over the blood-red Berneck wine, and beer: Robert said that, while in Zurich, before the turn of the century, he worked for the Schweizerischen Kreditanstalt and the Kantonalbank, though only part-time, so that he could write: a man could not serve two masters. It was at that time that his first book appeared: Fritz Kocher's Aufsätze, published in 1904 by Insel Verlag, with 12 drawings by his brother Karl. He never received any royalties for his work, which was quickly remaindered when sales were poor; he was also damaged financially by his abstention from literary cliques. And the Gothic style popular in many places made him ill: thus is the poet reduced to a shoeshine boy. His time was past, he thought, but that didn't bother him: when one approaches his sixties, he should consider a different life. He wrote his books just like a farmer who sowed and reaped, grafted, fed his animals and mucked out after them. From a sense of duty, and to have something to eat. "It was a job like any other."
The most productive time of his writing life had been the seven years in Berlin [1906-1913] and the following seven years in Biel, when no one pressured or controlled him. Everything had grown as quietly as an apple on the tree. In the human sense, the time after the First World War had been a time of shame for most writers. Their literature had taken on a poisonous, spiteful character. But literature should radiate love, it should be warm. It should not be driven by hate, which is an unproductive element. Back then, among those [sad orgies] the artistic descent would have begun . . . The literature prizes were given to false saviors or random schoolteachers. All right, there was nothing he could do about it. But as long as he lived he'd never bow down to anyone. The cliques and nepotists [Vetterliwesen] could take care of themselves.
This day's conversations also included admiring observations on Dostoyevsky's Idiot, Eichendorff's From the Life of a Good-for-Nothing, and Gottfried Kellers' bold poetry. Rilke, on the other hand, belongs on the nightstand of an old maid. He likes the Uli volumes of Jeremias Gotthelf; much of his other work is, for Robert's taste, too noisy and preachy.