Soul of the Age

by Hermann Hesse

  I have naturally given up hope of seeing my work brought together, not to mention the prospect of ever living from the proceeds again. If only Suhrkamp at least could get something out of it! But I fear his share will not amount to much either.

  It’s almost ideal for us old people that one gets sick of the world after a certain amount of time, and this makes parting easy.

  TO JOACHIM MAASS

  Montagnola, March 23, 1946

  Dear Herr Maass,

  Thanks for your letter. I accept my lack of fertility and increasing inability to work in much the same spirit as you do; in old age, when one’s physical powers go on strike, one immediately needs to think in terms of years rather than weeks and months. The work on The Glass Bead Game, the stay in Castalia, and my belief in the meaningfulness of that absorbing task helped me to survive the Hitler years and the war up to the spring of 1942, when I wrote those final few pages about Knecht’s death. That is now exactly four years ago, and ever since then I have been without any refuge, comfort, and meaning. So as to give myself a chance to experience that kind of thing again, at least for a few hours, I wrote the Rigi booklet or “The Stolen Suitcase”356 and two or three other trifles. The mail is consuming my time and energy, and has become extremely cumbersome; I no longer have a publisher, and Ninon is only able to help in a limited way (as a housewife, correspondent, courier for letters, etc., for émigrés in every country, she is more harried than I). My friends and relatives in Germany are starving; I sell privately printed pieces in exchange for contributions; the rich refuse, the poor donate. Since December I was able to send off packets worth 1,000 francs, and have invited four people to come and recuperate over here, and that requires a lot of correspondence, etc., with the authorities—two are sisters of mine. I shall not go into cases in my own circle, similar to that of your dear Lampe;357 we have been up to our necks for years in that sort of misery and absurdity. Here in Europe life has lost the substance it once had. Well, in a way that is good, since the world always elicits a sense of wonder; it always thrills young people and makes parting easier for those who are seasoned.

  Spring is here for the time being, and at least the blue, white, and yellow flowers in the meadow and forest are still the same as ever.

  Fond regards from Ninon and myself. We shall keep our fingers crossed for you and your book,358 and we’re very fond of the magical year.

  The January edition of the Rundschau359 arrived recently.

  TO GEORG REINHART

  June 1946

  I was glad to get your letter. It’s enviable that you receive only a limited quantity of personal mail and can answer almost all of it by hand. Having a famous name is often a nuisance, and, moreover, I live in Switzerland. Half my family and friends are in Germany, the other half are émigrés abroad, so I have had a heavy burden ever since 1933 doing the correspondence, passing on news, etc., etc. And there is a big disappointment at the close of my life: my work has been destroyed, a wall the height of a tower has been erected between me and my real sphere of influence, and all of this is plaguing me in strange ways. People in Germany are always asking me to see to it that my books are again made available or simply requesting the books as presents.

  Some of them scold me very naïvely and accuse me of reneging on my obligations toward my readers, etc. Those impatient readers don’t seem to realize that the elimination of my books, of my ability to communicate, and of my material income creates far greater difficulties for me than for them. And that only represents a small, insignificant portion of my mail. Another portion deals with hunger; then there are the very numerous letters about the POWs, of whom there are hundreds of thousands, cut off for years and half crazy by now, sitting behind barbed wire in Egypt, Morocco, Syria, etc. The letters about hunger and the POWs are not at all intellectual or literary; it’s a question of providing immediate material help, and unfortunately the machinery of the Red Cross, etc., has been of no great use. So I have had to assume personal responsibility for these matters. I have taken over the task of supplying the prisoners with as much good reading, etc., as possible, and have sent hundreds of volumes to selected addresses; the response has been extremely gratifying. And on top of that, I have taken it upon myself to ensure that a small number of worthwhile people in Germany, whom I regard highly, do not go hungry, more than a dozen. That in itself calls for considerable effort and an unbelievable amount of work, since on each such occasion I have to raise the necessary funds in small amounts, through the sale of privately printed pieces or manuscripts, and the pillaging of my library, etc. But that’s enough. I just wanted to suggest the situation that gave rise to such pieces as the “Letter to Germany.” By the way, it was originally addressed to an individual who, like my publisher, had been imprisoned for a long time and could have faced death.[ … ]

  Two months ago I invited my two sisters in Swabia to visit, and I have been waiting in vain for weeks and months for these two seventy-year-old sick women, who are now seriously malnourished, even with our few packages of foodstuffs. The Americans and French are introducing a system of harassment that is eliminating every vestige of humanity and rationality and may even be somewhat worse than the one under Hitler. A pity, because these victors, who a year ago were still being regarded as the champions of an idea dear to the whole world, have slipped into a disastrous role, not because there may be many rascals and gangsters among them but simply because they lack qualities like alertness, imagination, love, empathy, and the capacity for serious work, conscious of nuances.360 The English have long seemed the only ones who are behaving in a noble, humane manner, for which one can be grateful.

  It is sunny and hot today. The cuckoo has been calling all morning close by the house, and the drenched roses are beginning to release their fragrance.

  TO JOHANNA ATTENHOFER

  [July 1946]

  Thank you very much for your welcome gift and kind letter.

  You ask: What’s the point in being sad? Along the same lines, one could ask a dying person: What’s the point in suffering from pneumonia? There’s no answer to that.[ … ]

  I have had few positive experiences with large welfare machines such as the Red Cross, etc.; every initiative is crushed by the organization, which is too large and, to some extent, also badly managed. As for my two welfare areas, the hungry and the POWs, I’m taking care of them entirely on my own, and am constantly having to raise funds by selling special editions, manuscripts, etc., etc. It’s a lot of work and only partly successful. Nevertheless, I have been able to help a small number of splendid people whose lives are at risk keep their heads above water, and shall keep on doing so. I see the extremity of the hunger most clearly in those letters that try very hard to keep a lid on the matter rather than in those voicing complaints. And as for the POWs, since God has given you the gift of imagination, imagine a highly educated person who was drafted in 1939 or 1940, arrived in Africa, was captured there, has been kept two, three, four years in the desert in Egypt or Morocco, without knowing whether he will ever get back again and not knowing who is still alive at home, etc., etc. Well, I have to support quite a number of people like that with letters, books, etc., etc. I’m holding a rope, as on a mountain-climbing expedition, and a number of people who are at risk are hanging from it, and I know that, should everything become too much for me and I let go, they will all perish.

  But enough of that. After receiving your gift, I felt that I ought to let you know about this.

  TO H. C. BODMER

  [August 16, 1946]

  Bremgarten, on the day of the trip home

  [ … ] I have had to read a lot of derogatory letters from Germany again, because a Munich newspaper has printed the “Letter to Germany” (without ever asking or receiving permission).

  I was asked at the same time whether I would accept the Goethe Prize,361 for which I had been unanimously proposed. I was very opposed to the idea, but was persuaded to the contrary; I asked some extremely precise questions and a
scertained that the Prize Committee had acted courageously and irreproachably under Goebbels. By the way, the whole affair is a mere formality, since I shall, of course, not receive one cent of the prize money.

  For the past fourteen days, I have been trying to get some rest here, but without much success. I have the same daily work load as I have at home, and also the same frustrations and disappointments. I am tired and am not getting much fun out of life, literature, or the entire works, which I now find quite meaningless. The end is nigh.

  I wanted to let you know first about the prize. I would like to take this opportunity to assure you once again of my gratitude.

  TO WALTER KOLB, MAYOR OF FRANKFURT

  Montagnola near Lugano, September 30, 1946

  I received your letter of September 16 yesterday, and I wish to thank both the city of Frankfurt and you for the Goethe Prize. For several reasons, which I have described for myself and my friends in the enclosed thank-you note, I had to overcome some inner resistance and objections before accepting this prize, even though I certainly appreciate the honor. The fact that the prize is being awarded by the city of Frankfurt, which I knew well in the period before 1914, has greatly influenced my decision, since my ties to your city362 used to be very friendly and cordial, and I regarded Frankfurt as one of my favorite German cities. I think with great sadness of everything it has had to endure.

  As regards the material part of the prize, I would like to divide it up and present it to friends and relatives of mine in Germany.363 As soon as I hear that you are ready to distribute the funds, I shall send you the addresses and amounts.

  I would have liked to write at greater length, but have been overburdened for a long time; my exhaustion is such that I am going to close my house three weeks from now and spend some time in a sanatorium.

  TO FELIX LÜTZKENDORF364

  [October 25, 1946]

  I’m heading off tomorrow for a sanatorium, and my house will remain empty for several months at least. First, I want to thank you for your letter of October 10. It arrived at the same time as a letter from Thomas Mann, in which he says in his own way much the same things about the German mentality as I have been saying in mine, and your comments about your former colleagues in Germanistics provide further confirmation.

  No, on the whole I don’t expect anything good to come out of Germany, and never have. The rest of the world, which it had wanted to rape and dominate, is now finding Germany thoroughly indigestible, in intellectual terms as well. But I feel that the world is comprised not of nations but of people, and as far as people go, there are still many worthwhile individuals in your country. Even though I have been living outside Germany for thirty-four years now, I know a few dozen of them, and would rank them among the best anywhere. They are the ones who matter, it seems to me, especially their ability to work on the masses like salt and leaven and keep them under control. Here I am thinking far more of intellectual and moral life than actual political action.

  I have been less taken up with the denunciatory letters that have come my way over the past months than with the various honors. Hesse evenings are being held in a series of cities and towns, talks as well; I receive copies of the formal addresses. Then there was the Goethe Prize, and Calw, my hometown, is producing a Hesse selection in two volumes, just those writings dealing with Calw and Swabia. Almost all of this is a burden, I find, what with the new letters, questions, misunderstandings, often also respectful letters from people who just yesterday still believed in the opposite. And I regard my utter inability to relate to this whole business as a sign that I have lived differently from most people, and relied almost entirely on my own resources, had no fatherland, no like-minded souls around me, no sense of community. I had roots in a homeland, but it was not close by, or even in the present era; my fatherland was called Castalia, and I discerned my saints and kings in the old Indians and Chinese, etc.

  I shall feel disappointed and somewhat bitter as I die, but only in regard to my person, my private sphere, and the way I was embedded in the world. I have had to work for a people that reacts either with sentimentality and reverence or with animal-like brutality. Because of the language into which I was born, I have had to entrust my life’s work to that people, and now feel disappointed and cheated. But taken as a whole and in a higher sense, my life and work have certainly been meaningful, and whatever is left of my work will survive. So, to that extent, I am not ending in bankruptcy.

  My present relationship to the Germans is subject to all sorts of strange overlappings and sudden changes. For instance, some political friends of mine, who were proven martyrs under Hitler, have drifted away from me and I have been disappointed in them, whereas several former fellow travelers under Hitler have already won me over by means of a pure confession and repentance.

  My next address is: c/o Dr. O. Riggenbach in Marin near Neuchâtel. If possible, pass this on to Suhrkamp as well.

  Enough. I haven’t written this long a letter for months, and shall not be able to do so again for some time.

  NOTE TO HIS WIFE, NINON

  [Early November 1946]

  Monday morning

  I have just got up, and wish to add a greeting. I have not seen today’s mail yet; it’s lying in wait; my eyes are completely exhausted.

  Having this Stockholm thing365 hanging over my head is all I needed. If it comes about, then I would ask you to call Fretz right away and ask him if he would print something I could use to answer the new flood of letters, perhaps something on the lines of a postcard, with a picture of me on one side and a few words of thanks on the other. I would select the picture and write the text. To hell with the whole thing! Just in case, I shall write to the postal authorities today, saying that any telegrams which arrive should only be forwarded as letters.[ … ]

  TO ISA, HIS DAUGHTER-IN-LAW

  [November 1946]

  Thanks for your letter with the two wonderful drawings. I am in Marin near Neuchâtel, but don’t give anybody my address. The Nobel Prize has been quite a burden, and, of course, the peace I had been seeking here has been utterly shattered. There are still a few hundred letters from many countries lying around unopened, even though I have been working on the mail for fourteen days, and we must have spent some 200 francs on telegrams and phone calls. The Swiss Ambassador will represent me at the Nobel ceremony in Stockholm, but I still had to compose a little speech for the occasion.

  There was something funny in the Gazette de Lausanne. They published a nice, humorous little essay about me, and there was a funny typo in it. They meant to say that I had grown up in a family of missionaries, but misspelled the word as “millionaires.”

  Ninon is here again for a few days and can be of some help. But the crazy, continuous pain in my eyes and the headaches, which often go on all night, force me to keep to myself most of the time.

  Fond regards to you and the children, your father, Hesse

  TO THOMAS MANN

  Marin près Neuchâtel, November 19, 1946

  I wish to thank you very heartfeltly for your congratulations and also for your role in bringing about the Stockholm decision;366 I wish I could do so in a letter worthy of you and the occasion. But for some time now, my little flame has been flickering, and often seems to have gone out completely, and so you will have to content yourself with this. This year has brought me several fine gifts I had been hoping for: In the summer my two sisters spent a few weeks with us, and we were able to feed, clothe, and comfort them until they had to go back to dark Germania. I was awarded the Goethe Prize. Then they hanged the most horrible and evil enemy I have ever had, Rosenberg by name, in Nürnberg. November saw the award of the Nobel Prize. The first of these events, the visit of my sisters, was truly wonderful, the only one that seemed truly real to me. The others have not penetrated through to me yet. I have always perceived and digested the setbacks more quickly than the successes, and it was almost a shock the way I was besieged by journalists from Sweden and elsewhere, who were skulking a
bout like real detectives—they had not been given my address. But, of course, I am gradually seeing the positive elements in this piece of good fortune, and my friends, and especially my wife, have taken a really childlike pleasure in the whole thing, which they have celebrated with champagne.367 My old friend Basler368 is also delighted, and many old readers of mine are perhaps glad to find out that their weak spot for me was more than just a vice. If my health eventually improves, all this will seem quite funny. I shake your hand, and think of the day long ago when I first met you in Munich, at the hotel where the Fischers were staying, in about 1904.

  I hope you have received the little book with my essays.369 They are harmless enough, but at least my point of view and attitude have always been the same.

  DUPLICATED TYPESCRIPT, ENCLOSED WITH SOME LETTERS TO FRIENDS

  On the 10th of December, the anniversary of Nobel’s death, the Nobel Prizes were awarded in Stockholm. We ought to have been in Stockholm, and Ninon decided that she definitely wanted to spend the day with me and celebrate it in some way or other. So we invited Dr. Riggenbach and his wife to a festive evening meal, either in Neuenburg or at some nice guesthouse in the area, whichever they preferred. They accepted, but on the eve of the occasion made a counterproposal, which involved postponing the meal we had planned and spending the evening of December 10 at their place. I agreed without suspecting anything; I thought the Riggenbachs were simply not keen on going out to celebrate. We arrived at their place, Ninon and I, on the evening of the 10th, and from the outset everything looked a little different and more festive than usual. They didn’t show us into the living room, as they usually do before dinner, but into one of the large, formal, tall-ceilinged rooms belonging to the management. There was a large fire burning in the fireplace, and we were seated on a sofa beside it, then Frau Doktor disappeared. We sat there on our own, and a small choir of about five women and girls and three men appeared, including the doctor and Trautwein, who had trained the choir. They sang the song “Often in the circle of beloved ones” in three parts. I sat there and was a little embarrassed, then I went over and shook hands with each singer and thanked them. We were barely seated again when one of the high doors at the other end of the room opened, and a four-year-old blond girl with red cheeks came in, behind her a second, somewhat bigger, and so on, each one a little bigger than the one before, six children, then two bigger ones at the end of the line, Monika and Christoph, the doctor’s children.