Soul of the Age

by Hermann Hesse

  In the years between that first sketch and the time when I sat down to work in earnest—I was busy with two other projects—the book, which subsequently became The Glass Bead Game, hovered before me in ever-changing shapes, now solemn, now cheerful. I had come through a serious crisis in my life and was only tolerably well. Germany and Europe were recuperating from wartime fatigue and were discovering a new joie de vivre. Politically, I was alert and skeptical. I didn’t put much stock in the German Republic and the pacific intentions of the Germans, but the prevailing atmosphere of optimism and even contentment helped improve my spirits. I was living in Switzerland, only rarely visited Germany, and for quite some time found it hard to take the Hitler movement seriously. But that sense of contentment vanished when I found out more about the movement and the dangers it posed, after the appearance of the so-called Boxheim document and then when the movement actually came to power. The speeches of Hitler and his ministers, their newspapers and pamphlets, had risen up like poison gas, a wave of dirty tricks, lies, unbridled ambition—the atmosphere was putrid. Faced with all that poison gas, the desecration of the language, and the lack of respect for truth, I realized that I was confronted with an abyss similar to the one I had confronted during the war years; news of the massive atrocities only emerged years later. The atmosphere had again become poisonous; again life itself was at stake. I had to summon up all the positive forces in me; I also had to subject all my convictions to some scrutiny and strengthen them wherever necessary. This new phenomenon was a lot worse than the spectacle of the vain Kaiser and his semi-divine generals. It would presumably result in something worse than the kind of war to which we had grown accustomed. Amidst all these threats and dangers, which jeopardized the physical and intellectual existence of a German-language writer, I resorted to the artist’s favored method of escape: I became productive, and returned to that rather old plan, which underwent radical change under the pressure of the circumstances. Two things were important to me: first of all, I had to create an intellectual space, a refuge and a fortress, where I would be able to draw breath, and remain alive, no matter how poisonous the world had become; second, that space would have to convey the intellect’s resistance against those barbaric forces and strengthen the resistance and powers of endurance of my friends in Germany.

  To create that space, where I hoped to find shelter, strength, and endurance, I would have to do more than just conjure up some past era or other and describe it lovingly, as my earlier plan had more or less anticipated. I would have to defy the unpropitious present circumstances by making that intellectual realm extremely visible and unmistakable. My work could thus become a utopia, the picture was projected into the future, the evil present was relegated to a past that had been overcome. And, to my surprise, the world of Castalia came about as if of its own accord. It did not have to be thought out and constructed. It had taken shape within me, without my knowing it. And so the breathing space I sought was available to me.

  I also gave vent to my need to protest against the barbarity. In my first manuscript there were some passages, especially in the section dealing with the pre-history of Castalia, which passionately opposed the dictators and the rape of both life and mind. These combative statements, which were deleted for the most part in the final version, were secretly copied and distributed to others by my German friends. The work first appeared in Switzerland while the war was still on. In an attempt to get permission to publish it in Germany, my publisher there submitted to the German censors a copy in which the most glaring anti-Hitler passages had been deleted, but naturally his request was rejected. Later on, I lost interest in the combative-protest function of my book.

  Enough of that! I’ve simply been dwelling on some memories of the period when I wrote the book, which your letter resuscitated. Look kindly on them.

  TO HANS BAYER

  [July 1955]

  [ … ] My relationship to death hasn’t changed: I neither hate nor fear it. A closer look at the people I prefer to be around—aside from my wife and sons—would indicate that they’re all dead: dead musicians, writers, painters from many centuries. Their essence, condensed in their works, is more present and real to me than that of most of my contemporaries. And the same is true of those whom I have known, loved, and “lost”: my parents, sisters, the friends of my youth—they belong as much to me now as they did when alive; I think of them, dream of them, and feel they’re part of my everyday life.

  My relationship to death isn’t just a whim, a nice fantasy; it’s real and completely integral to my life. I fully understand the grief that the transience of life can arouse, and am often saddened by the sight of a wilting flower. But it’s a sadness without despair. That’s all I can say.

  TO THOMAS MANN

  Hotel Waldhaus, Sils Maria, the Engadine [August 2, 1955]

  Permit me a short visit to your sickbed. We have often been reminded of you up here, and were really shocked to learn of your illness. Your wife kindly gave us some detailed, reassuring information. I wish you a quick recovery and then a period of well-being, the kind that ensures that one hardly even regrets the attack from which one has recovered so completely.

  For us here, the last two days have been overshadowed by a death. Georg Reinhart463 in Winterthur and I were close friends; I loved him and prized him, for I knew him not just as a grand seigneur and a man of the world with splendid principles, but also intimately in his private, domestic life, when he was in his prime. He was a man with very unusual gifts, interests, and habits.

  So far my holiday reading here at Sils has consisted of the Letters of Lessing,464 a book I hadn’t looked at in decades. What a mind and what a poor, hard life! Just two years before his death, after the appearance of Nathan, he writes: “It’s possible that Nathan wouldn’t be very successful, even if somebody were to stage it, but that will probably never happen. It would be sufficient if it gets read with interest and if it causes even one person, among thousands of readers, to doubt the evidence of his religion.”

  This makes one ashamed of one’s spoiled condition, and yet I do not feel that we are living in a better age.

  TO FANNY SCHILER

  Sils Maria [August 10, 1955]

  Thanks for your letter, which reached me in Sils at the same time as a letter from my cousin Wilhelm Gundert in the Black Forest, at Kappel. Ninon set off at a very early hour this morning on a short but arduous journey. A relative of hers, a member of the Romanian delegation at a conference of atomic physicists being held in Geneva, had asked her to meet him there. He never received her letter; the people from Eastern countries are kept under constant surveillance; she had to spend half the night on the telephone, etc., then left today at seven, will get to Geneva around five in the afternoon, be two hours there, then start the return trip immediately, spend the night in Zurich, and be back here with me tomorrow afternoon. I hope everything goes well. The trip will be a nervous strain for her; she has, of late, become very susceptible to stress.

  It’s very cold here, but occasionally quite beautiful. We’ve been to some festival-week concerts. And one of the performances was possibly among the best I have ever heard. The Collegium Musicum of Rome (chamber orchestra, very small, with harpsichord) played Vivaldi all evening, including some unknown pieces. Vivaldi is always splendid, but this performance was unbelievably flawless. I have never heard the likes of it from a string ensemble; compared to them that vain fellow in Stuttgart, Münchinger,465 is just a beginner. The first solo violin part was played by a different musician each time, so the composition of the group kept on changing somewhat. They were all first-class soloists; every instrument was splendid; the little orchestra was so exact, sensitive, and discriminating that it almost sounded like a single soloist.

  Enough. I’m having a difficult time, have a lot of mail, also the proofs of a book;466 there are also some acquaintances of ours in the hotel and surrounding area. One of them would interest your husband: a mathematician, Professor Weyl, who was for ma
ny years a close colleague and friend of A. Einstein’s. Adorno,467 too, is here—the musicologist who advised Thomas Mann on Faustus.

  TO KATIA MANN

  Sils Maria, August 1955

  Since receiving the terrible news,468 I have been thinking, wishing, and worrying about you and our dear, irreplaceable departed. On hearing the news of his death, I felt as empty and lonely as I did when the last of my sisters469 died a few years ago. I haven’t yet fully registered this loss; I never thought seriously that I would outlive him.

  My heart grieves to think of you. In my circles I have never encountered any lifelong companionship as intensive, faithful, and productive as yours.

  Everybody who loves him realizes with gratitude and sympathy that, without you, our loyal friend couldn’t have lived such an incredibly rich, courageous, great life to an advanced age.

  TO H.S.

  [Postmarked August 15, 1955]

  Thanks for your letter. Life is too short, however, for such disputes.470 Like many of my readers, you have often acknowledged my need for honesty, but as soon as that honesty begins to affect my readers personally, no matter how remotely, they take offense and become agitated.

  I never doubted your convictions or goodwill. But you failed to take kindly to my attempt to correct your rather clumsy expression. You momentarily confused quantity and quality—maybe it was just the actual phrasing; I wanted to rectify the error, but now regret having done so, since I have put you in a bad mood and can no longer express myself with any frankness.

  Apparently, you thought I didn’t know about the circulation, impact, print runs, etc., of my writings in Germany, and felt bound to enlighten me on such matters. But my information is far more precise than yours, and I am able to assess the print runs and newspaper headlines far more precisely than you can. You still think that quantity is a relevant issue. I’m telling you for the last time that this is not so. The booksellers in Germany may well recommend and promote me, so a lot of people buy my books, which accounts for the impressive statistics. But those figures say little about the actual impact of my writing. I have become famous, received prizes, honorary titles, and orders; such labels prove virtually irresistible to the public and the booksellers. It is ten times easier for the latter to sell a book by a Nobel and Goethe Prize winner than a possibly more talented work by a beginner who hasn’t yet acquired any such titles or orders.

  You’re utterly mistaken to assume that my works truly reached these numerous thousands of book buyers and readers, awakened their hearts and consciences, etc. In actual reality, only a very tiny minority of German readers are even remotely inclined to wake up and scrutinize themselves, etc., etc., and I’m in contact with a portion of this minority, through personal or open letters, privately printed material such as the “Letters from Readers,”471 etc. I’m trying to preserve and strengthen this tiny minority of truly awakened and affected readers, often at considerable cost to myself. The other readership, reflected in the figures you try to console me with, means absolutely nothing, either to me or objectively speaking; those people devour my books the way they devour best-sellers.

  I no longer have the time and energy for a correspondence of this kind. But I made the effort because I knew this would have to be my last letter to you.

  TO HANS OPRECHT

  End of May 1956

  There is no such thing as a “Hesse Foundation for East German Students Fleeing to the West.” I have only assisted a small number of people—a few deserving individuals with convictions I consider decent; they have all been victimized by war or terror. Naturally, they include some intellectuals who have fled from the East. Over the past few years, there were four East German teachers and an East German student. The latter still gets 150 marks a month from me; he is in his final semesters. The same amount goes to a West German woman; she is studying Romance languages, is the highly talented daughter of a war widow without means, has studied in Tübingen, Paris, and Munich, and passed all her exams with distinction. So I always have some protégés.

  TO PETER SUHRKAMP

  [End of August 1956]

  My dear friend,

  When I heard the news of Brecht’s death,472 I thought of you right away. I realize what Brecht has meant to you. I didn’t know him, or rather only met him once, in 1933, at the beginning of his period in exile. He and several other refugees from Germany spent an afternoon here;473 we talked, among other things, about the book burnings. As a writer, he wasn’t as close to me as he was to you, since I have hardly any affinity for drama. But I always loved and admired his poems and stories, from the very beginning until today, and so his death is also a painful loss for me. He was the only real poet among the German Communists, the only one who still had a thorough grounding in literature.[ … ]

  TO ERNST MORGENTHALER

  [December 12, 1956]

  My dear friend,

  I was surprised and rather depressed to hear of the death of your Bern friend. I never met him, although we did exchange a few letters recently. Of course, I have often heard his wife singing.

  Saying goodbye to people and then burying them, part of the burden of old age, gradually increases our intimacy with death. Your note arrived during a week when we have with us the widow of a dear friend; he died suddenly at the age of fifty, was robust and in bloom. But the death of Hans Bodmer was the worst loss of all in this year full of losses.474 It was strange. We had known each other for decades; it was he who built this house, and I have only lived here as his guest, but we never became intimate friends. He was hampered by a certain awkwardness toward the older, famous person and, in spite of his cordiality, I felt somewhat constrained by his lordly manner and considerable wealth. Then, during our last get-together in the summer of 1955, those constraints vanished completely. I was a guest for three days at his country house, and we became such good friends that I even suggested we call each other Du. I haven’t celebrated friendship in such a fashion for decades. At the time Ninon was about to go to Frankfurt to accept the Peace Prize on my behalf. Since I was somewhat anxious about her, I asked my friend whether he would like to accompany her, and he accepted right away, with obvious delight. So he and his wife assisted Ninon in the Paulskirche and at the receptions, etc. They enjoyed the festivities and were still beaming when they returned, even though my friend was already beginning to feel sick at nighttime. Soon thereafter, the illness took a turn for the worse, and he had to endure months of intense suffering. He died at the end of May.

  I’m glad you came across my story in a recent Zürcher Zeitung.475 It’s something completely new, the only worthwhile piece I have done this year. Apart from that—insofar as I’m at all capable of working—I’m being worn out by the daily bustle with which the world honors and devours its famous people.

  We’re having warm, springlike days, a light foehn is blowing, and a brimstone butterfly occasionally hovers brightly amidst the muted pink and violet of the landscape.

  TO CARL SEELIG

  [January 1957]

  I’m finding it increasingly difficult to wield a pen, otherwise I would have written to you immediately after hearing about the death of dear Robert Walser.476 I would at least like to take this opportunity to say that you have been on my mind frequently these past few days. All who loved Walser have cause to be grateful to you, but not all will say so. I’m grateful to you for having lit up his solitary life over the course of many years with joy and a glimmer of companionship, for taking care of his work, and for helping to preserve his memory. I’m also grateful for the obituary in the National-Zeitung.477

  POSTCARD TO J. J. SCH.

  January 30/31, 1957

  I dislike the useless dissection of poetry in the schools. If I haven’t managed to express myself adequately in my poem, how could I possibly do any better in countless letters to students and teachers?

  Let me say the following about “Steps:”478 The poem is part of The Glass Bead Game, a book in which the religions and philosophies of
India and China play a certain role. In that part of the world, people generally believe in the reincarnation of all beings rather than in the Christian hereafter, with its paradise, purgatory, and hell. I’m quite conversant with that idea, and so is Josef Knecht, the fictive author of the poem. I was indeed thinking of an afterlife or new beginning after death, even though I do not believe in reincarnation in a crude, material form. The religions and mythologies represent an attempt on the part of mankind to convey those inimitable truths in pictures, and your attempt to translate the poem into flat, rational terms will be futile.

  TO PETER SUHRKAMP

  Sunday [July 11, 1957]

  My dear friend,

  Your kind, lengthy letter-cum-report arrived yesterday.479 I’m utterly amazed by everything you have undertaken and accomplished in the past few days. Quod Deus bene vertat!480

  We celebrated July 2 way up on the Gotthard, with sons, daughters-in-law, and grandchildren; we had hired a taxi for the day and were back home shortly after 8 p.m. Our wonderful secretary481 had already sorted out the newly arrived packages and letters, opened some and glanced at them, and all the rooms were full of flowers. We’ve been battling through the piles of presents and letters ever since; a week later there are still more than 1,000 letters waiting to be read.