Gertrude

by Hermann Hesse

  How could I ever hope to declare my love to a girl again, I thought! I should always have to stand outside, as at a dance, and look on, and never be taken seriously by girls, and if any were very friendly with me, it would be out of sympathy. Oh, I was more than sick of sympathy!

  As it was, I could not remain at home. My parents also suffered considerably as a result of my extreme melancholy and scarcely raised any objection when I asked permission to set off immediately on the long-planned journey that my father had promised me. Throughout my life my infirmity made trouble for me and destroyed my heart's wishes and hopes, but I never felt my weakness and deformity so keenly as I did then, when the sight of every healthy young man and every pretty woman depressed and hurt me. I slowly grew used to my stick and to the limp until it hardly bothered me any more, so that with the passing of years I had to accustom myself to bearing the awareness of my injury without bitterness, but with resignation and humor.

  Fortunately, I was able to travel alone and did not need to wait for anything. The thought of any companion would have been repugnant to me and would have disturbed my need for inner peace. I already felt better as I sat in the train and there was no one to look at me curiously and sympathetically. I traveled a day and night without stopping, with a feeling of really taking flight, and breathed a sigh of relief when, on the second day, I caught sight of high mountain peaks through steamed windows. I reached the last station as it was growing dark. I went wearily yet happily along dark lanes to the first inn of a compact little town. After a glass of deep red wine I slept for ten hours, throwing off the weariness of travel and also a good deal of the distress of mind with which I had come.

  The following morning I took a seat in the small mountain train that traveled through narrow valleys and past white sparkling streams toward the mountains. Then, from a small, remote station, I traveled by coach; by midday I was in one of the highest villages in the country.

  I stayed right into the autumn in the only small inn of the quiet little village, at times being the only guest. I had had it in mind to rest here for a short time and then travel farther through Switzerland and see some more of foreign parts and the world. But there was a wind at that height which blew air across that was so fresh and strong I felt I never wanted to leave it. One side of the steep valley was covered almost to the top with fir trees; the other slope was sheer rock. I spent my days here, by the sun-warmed rocks, or by the side of one of the swift, wild streams, the music of which could be heard during the night throughout the whole village. At the beginning I enjoyed the solitude like a cool, healing drink. No one bothered about me; no one showed any curiosity or sympathy toward me. I was alone and free like a bird in the air and I soon forgot my pain and unhealthy feelings of envy. At times I regretted being unable to go far into the mountains to see unknown valleys and peaks and to climb along dangerous paths. Yet I was not unhappy. After the events and excitement of the past months, the calm solitude surrounded me like a fortress. I found peace again and learned to accept my physical defect with resignation, although perhaps not with cheerfulness.

  The weeks up there were almost the most beautiful in my life. I breathed the pure, clear air, drank the icy water from streams and watched the herds of goats grazing on the steep slopes, guarded by dark-haired, musing goatherds. At times I heard storms resound through the valley and saw mists and clouds at unusually close quarters. In the clefts of rocks I observed the small, delicate, bright colored flowers and the many wonderful mosses, and on clear days I used to like to walk uphill for an hour until I could see the clearly outlined distant peaks of high mountains, their blue silhouettes, and white, sparkling snow fields across the other side of the hill. On one part of the footpath where a thin trickle of water from a small spring kept it damp, I found on every fine day a swarm of hundreds of small, blue butterflies drinking the water. They scarcely moved when I approached, and if I disturbed them, they whirled about with a fluttering of tiny, silky wings. After I made the discovery, I only went that way on sunny days, and each time the dense, blue swarm was there, and each time it was a holiday.

  When I consider it more closely, that period was not really as perfectly serene and sunny and joyous as it seems in retrospect. There were not only days when there was fog or rain, and even days when it snowed and was bitter cold; there were also days when it was stormy and inclement within me.

  I was not used to being alone, and after the first days of repose and delight had passed, I again felt the pain from which I had run away return suddenly, at times with dreadful intensity. Many a cold evening I sat in my tiny room with my traveling rug over my knees, wearily and unrestrainedly giving way to foolish thoughts. Everything that young blood desired and hoped for, parties and the gaiety of dancing, the love of women and adventure, the triumph of strength and love, lay on another distant shore, far removed and inaccessible to me forever. Even that wild, defiant period of half-forced gaiety, which had ended in my toboggan accident, then seemed in my memory to be beautiful and colored in a paradisiacal way, like a lost land of pleasure, the echo of which still came across to me with bacchanal intoxication from the distance. And at times, when storms passed over at night, when the continual sound of the cold, down-pouring rain was drowned by the strong, plaintive rustling through the storm-swept fir wood, and when a thousand inexplicable sounds of a sleepless summer night echoed through the girders of the roof of the frail house, I lay dreaming hopelessly and restlessly about life and the tumult of love, raging and reproaching God. I felt like a miserable poet and dreamer whose most beautiful dream was only a thin, colored soap bubble, while thousands of others in the world, happy in their youthful strength, stretched out joyous hands for all the prizes of life.

  Just as I seemed to see all the glorious beauty of the mountains, and everything that my senses enjoyed, as through a veil and from a great distance, so also did there arise between me and the frequent wild outbursts of grief a veil and a slight feeling of strangeness, and soon the brightness of the days and the grief of the nights were like external voices which I could listen to with a heart free of pain. I saw and felt myself like a mass of moving clouds, like a battlefield full of fighting troops, and whether I experienced pleasure and enjoyment, or grief and depression, both moods seemed clearer and more comprehensible to me. They freed themselves from my soul and approached me from the outside in the form of harmonies and a series of sounds that I heard as if in my sleep and that took possession of me against my will.

  It was in the quiet of one evening when I was returning from the rocky side of the valley that I understood it all clearly for the first time, and as I meditated upon it and found myself to be a riddle, it suddenly occurred to me what it all signified--that it was the return of those strange remote hours of which I had a premonition-filled foretaste when I was younger. And with this memory, that wonderful clarity returned, the almost glasslike brightness and transparency of feelings where everything appeared without a mask, where things were no longer labeled sorrow or happiness, but everything signified strength and sound and creative release. Music was arising from the turmoil, iridescence and conflict of my awakened sensibilities.

  I now viewed the bright days, the sunshine and the woods, the brown rocks and the distant snow-covered mountains with heightened feelings of happiness and joy, and with a new conception. During the dark hours I felt my sick heart expand and beat more furiously, and I no longer made any distinction between pleasure and pain, but one was similar to the other; both hurt and both were precious. Whether I felt pain or joy, my discovered strength stood peacefully outside looking on and knew that light and dark were closely related and that sorrow and peace were rhythm, part and spirit of the same great music.

  I could not write this music down; it was still strange to me and its territory was unfamiliar. But I could hear it. I could feel the world in its perfection within me, and I could also retain something of it, a small part and echo of it, reduced and translated. I thought about it and co
ncentrated on it for days. I found that it could be expressed with two violins and began in complete innocence, like a fledgling trying its wings, to write down my first sonata.

  As I played the first movement on my violin in my room one morning, I was aware of its weakness, incompleteness and faults, but every bar went through me like a heart tremor. I did not know whether this music was good, but I knew that it was my own music, born and experienced within me and never heard anywhere else before.

  Downstairs in the coffee room, motionless and with hair as white as snow, there sat year in year out the innkeeper's father, who was over eighty years old. He never said anything and only gazed around him attentively through peaceful-looking eyes. It was a mystery whether the solemn, silent man possessed more than human wisdom and stillness of spirit, or whether his mental powers had deserted him. I went down to that old man that morning, my violin under my arm, for I had observed that he always listened attentively to my playing and indeed to all music. As I found him alone, I stood before him, tuned my violin and played my first movement to him. The old man directed his peaceful-looking eyes, the whites of which were yellowish and the eyelids red, toward me and listened. Whenever I think of that music, I see the old man again, his immobile face and his serene eyes watching me. When I had finished, I nodded to him. He winked knowingly and seemed to understand everything. His yellowish eyes returned my glance; then he averted his gaze, lowered his head a little and returned to his former motionless state.

  Autumn began early at that height, and as I made my departure one morning, there was a thick mist which fell in fine drops as cold rain, but I took with me the sunshine of the good days and also, as a thankful remembrance, courage for my next path in life.

  Chapter Three

  DURING MY LAST TERM at the School of Music, I made the acquaintance of the singer Muoth, who had quite a creditable reputation in the town. He had finished his studies four years before and immediately obtained a position at the Opera House, where he was at present still taking lesser roles and, compared to older and better-liked singers, did not shine. Many people, however, considered him to be a future celebrity whose next step must lead him to fame. I had seen him on the stage in a number of roles and he had strongly impressed me, although not always favorably.

  We became acquainted in the following way. After my return to the School of Music, I took my violin sonata and two songs that I had composed to the teacher who had showed such kind sympathy toward me. He promised to look through the work and give me his opinion about it. It was a long time before he did so, and meantime I could detect a certain feeling of embarrassment on his part whenever I met him. Finally, he called me to his office one day and returned the manuscript to me.

  "Here is your work," he said, visibly uncomfortable. "I hope you have not built too many hopes upon it. There is something in it, without any doubt, and you may yet achieve something. To be quite honest, I thought you were already more mature and tranquil. I did not really credit you with such a passionate nature. I expected something quieter and more pleasing, something more technically correct which could have been judged technically. But your work is not good technically, so I can say little about that. It is an audacious attempt, the merit of which I am unable to judge, but as your teacher I cannot praise it. You have put both less and more in it than I expected and thus place me in an embarrassing position. I am too much of a schoolmaster to overlook stylistic mistakes, and whether you will be able to outweigh them with originality, I should not like to say. I will therefore wait until I see more of your work. I wish you luck. You will go on composing in any event. That much I have noticed."

  I then went away and did not know what to make of his verdict, which was no real criticism. It seemed to me that one should be able to look at a piece of work and see immediately whether it was done as a game and pastime, or whether it arose from necessity and the heart.

  I put the manuscript away and decided to forget all about it for the time being and work really hard during my last few months of study.

  One day I received an invitation from a family with strong musical interests. They were friends of my parents and I used to visit them once or twice a year. It was one of the usual evening gatherings except that there were one or two well-known people from the Opera House there whom I knew by sight. The singer Muoth was also there. He interested me most of all and it was the first time I had seen him at such close quarters. He was tall and handsome, a dark, imposing-looking man with a confident and perhaps already somewhat pampered manner. One could see that women liked him. Apart from his manner, he seemed neither pleased nor proud and there was something in his look and countenance that expressed much seeking and discontent. When I was introduced to him, he acknowledged me with a short stiff bow, without saying anything to me. After a while he suddenly came up to me and said: "Isn't your name Kuhn? Then I already know you a little. Professor S. has shown me your work. You must not hold it against him; he was not indiscreet. I came up just as he was looking at it, and as there was a song there, I looked at it with his permission."

  I was surprised and embarrassed. "Why are you telling me about it?" I asked. "I believe the professor didn't like it."

  "Does that hurt you? Well, I liked the song very much. I could sing it if I had the accompaniment. I should like you to let me have it."

  "You liked it? Can it be sung then?"

  "Of course--although it would not be suitable for every kind of concert. I should like to have it for my own use at home."

  "I will write it out for you. But why do you want to have it?"

  "Because it interests me. There is real music in that song. You know it yourself."

  He looked at me, and his way of looking made me feel uncomfortable: he looked me straight in the face, studying me with complete calmness, and his eyes were full of curiosity.

  "You are younger than I thought. You must have already suffered a great deal."

  "Yes," I said, "but I cannot talk about it."

  "You don't need to. I won't ask you any questions."

  His look disturbed me. After all, he was quite a well-known man and I was still a student, so that although I did not at all like his way of asking questions, I could only defend myself weakly and timidly. He was not arrogant but somehow he inspired my sense of modesty and I could only put up a slight resistance, for I felt no real antagonism toward him. I had a feeling that he was unhappy and that he had an instinctive, powerful way of seizing on people as if he wanted to snatch something from them that would console him. His dark, searching eyes were as sad as they were bold and the expression on his face made him look much older than he really was.

  Soon afterward, while his remarks were still occupying my thoughts, I saw him chatting politely and merrily to the host's daughter, who was listening to him with delight and gazed at him as if he were a creature out of a fairy tale.

  I had lived such a lonely life since my accident that I thought about this meeting for many days, and it disturbed me. I was too unsure of myself not to stand in awe of this superior man, and too lonely and in need of someone not to be flattered by his approach. Finally, I thought he had forgotten me and his whims of that evening. Then, to my confusion, he visited me at my rooms.

  It was on a December evening and it was already dark. The singer knocked at the door and came in as if there were nothing remarkable about his visit, and without any introduction and superficialities he immediately entered into conversation with me. I had to let him have the song, and as he saw my hired piano in the room, he wanted to sing it at once. I had to sit down and accompany him and so I heard my song sung properly for the first time. It was sad and moved me against my will, for he did not sing it at full singing strength but softly, as if to himself. The text, which I had read in a magazine the previous year and had copied, was as follows:

  When the south wind blows

  The avalanche tumbles

  And death's dirge rumbles.

  Is that God's will?
>
  Through the lands of men

  I wander alone,

  Ungreeted and unknown.

  Is that God's will?

  Pain is my lot,

  My heart is like lead.

  I fear God is dead.

  --Shall I then live?

  From the way he sang it, I could tell that he liked the song.

  We were silent for a short time; then I asked him if he could point out any mistakes and suggest any corrections.

  Muoth gave me one of his keen looks and shook his head.

  "There is nothing to correct," he said. "I don't know whether the composition is good or not. I don't understand anything about that. There is experience and feeling in the song, and because I don't write poetry myself, or compose, I am glad when I find something that seems individual and that I want to sing."

  "But the text is not mine," I exclaimed.

  "Isn't it? Well, it doesn't matter; the text is of secondary importance. You must have experienced it, otherwise you could not have written the music."

  I offered him the copy which I had had ready for some days. He took it, rolled it up and pushed it into his coat pocket.

  "Come and visit me sometime, if you want," he said and gave me his hand. "I know you lead a quiet life. I don't want to disturb it, but now and then one is glad to look a good fellow in the face."

  When he had gone, his last words and his smile remained with me. They were in keeping with the song he had sung and with everything that I knew of the man. The longer I pondered upon it, the clearer it became to me, and in the end I felt I understood this man. I understood why he had come to me, why he liked my song, why he almost presumptuously intruded upon me, and why he seemed half shy, half bold to me. He was unhappy, an inward pain gnawed at him, and his loneliness had become intolerable to him. This unhappy man had been proud and had tasted solitude. He could no longer endure it; he was searching for people, for a kind look and a little understanding, and he was ready to sacrifice himself for them. That is what I thought at the time.