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3 November 1947
Dark, sooty sky. "Have you had breakfast?" "No. You?" "Me neither." "Well, first the body, then the other." At the gloomy train station cafeteria, no luck. The tall waitress regretted that she can give us no coffee; they were even out of milk. We walked through the quiet village. In a bakery I asked if we could get something to eat. It smelled like fresh bread; the baker was just then pushing a loaf into the oven on a long-handled paddle. No, he said, his wife was visiting relatives. Bad luck! The third try, a pub, succeeded. But the meal was bad and expensive, the owner's daughter sullen. Robert too.
A quiet tramp up the hill to the Oberberg castle. The honey-gold flames of the pear trees seemed to soothe Robert. We entered the 13th century castle which, since 1924, has belonged to a cooperative. Without our asking the maid opened the doors to the chapel, the weapons room, the torture chamber, and the bedroom, in which Robert tenderly stroked [fährt] the cotton curtains of the four-poster.
I took the kettle to the serving girl in the kitchen. Robert liked the warm dining room, but the owner’s young daughter played with matches at our table and made him nervous.
So we continued with our walk. It rained buckets, as though the sky wanted to flog the earth with water. Robert had his umbrella; I, a shabby coat. We zigzagged through the fields and forests, over a ravine and through Abtwil to Engelburg. Robert stopped a few times and stared, mumbling incomprehensibly, in the red fall foliage. At a villa crowned with a little tower I remarked "That could be the villa in Der Gehülfe." Surprised, he said "Well, it is the same style. That's how the Villa Abendstern in Wadenswil looked, where my apprenticeship began and ended."
Since it rained so heavily and we came to look like drowned cats I suggested that we take the tram to the edge of St. Gallen. Robert thought that we should push on. Oh, why not! Finally we arrive, dripping, in the third class buffet and creep into the corner so that no one could see the pond growing around us. They had hasenpfeffer. Robert smiled benignly. At dessert I mentioned that the Quakers got the Nobel peace prize. He asked "Did you know that their leader, the itinerant preacher William Penn, founded Pennsylvania three hundred years ago and dreamed of a league of nations? Zschokke told his story in a cute novella. Back in Zschokke's day, they still understood how to write gracious novels. Today novelists terrorize readers with their dense tediousness. It's not a good sign for these times that literature acts in such an aggressive way. It used to be modest and good-natured. Today it attracts the rulers. Das Volk are said to be its subject. That is not a healthy development."
Toward evening he wanted to walk back to Herisau. Then he realized that, as a waterfall he could arouse unpleasant reactions at the sanitarium, so we took the train. When we arrived in the coach I discovered the reason for his bad mood: from now on I should only visit on Sundays. On workdays he has a job like all the other patients. I said: "The Director told me explicitly: whenever, and as often as we like." Robert, serious and firm: "The Director! je m'en fiche! [I don't care!]. I can't report exclusively to the director, I also have to consider the other patients. Can't you understand that being a privileged one is an unpleasant role?"