(Above) Calw in the Black Forest, Hesse’s birthplace, where he spent the first three years of his life (until 1881), and to which he returned to attend school for three years (1886–89)
(Below) The Mission School in Basel, where the Hesse family lived from 1881 to 1886. Hesse spent his first school years here
Maulbronn, the background for many stories
You have spent a lot of money trying to implement your plans for my future. Wouldn’t you be interested in investing a little of that in my attempt to determine whether my plans are viable. To put the matter bluntly:
I would ask you to allow me freedom (rather than the 1,000 marks at the very minimum needed to prepare me for a career as a merchant or something similar), and this means helping me acquire the necessary papers, giving me money so I can get started, and permitting me to keep on turning to you in the immediate future for such things as laundry and shoe repair. If things go well for me, then so much the better! If they don’t, then my hopes will have proven worthless, and I shall never again lay claim to a will of my own—i.e., avoiding being confined to a lunatic asylum.
TO JOHANNES AND MARIE HESSE
Tübingen, October 18 to 20, 1895
Friday evening
I intended to write again on Sunday, still do, but who knows whether that’ll be possible? I shall be tired, have to wait in any case until Sunday before setting up my books, etc., since there simply isn’t enough time, and I’ve been invited to Aunt Elisabeth’s15 for Sunday afternoon. So I’m starting to write today, though I may not get very far.
I’m kind of fond of the town, especially since I live on the periphery and not in town. It is narrow, full of little nooks, medieval romanticism, with little Richter16-like scenes, yet it’s also rather malodorous and dirty. The castle is wonderful, especially the view from atop the castle mountain, and the avenues are truly splendid.
I can see the castle from my room. The widow of the Deacon is busy mothering me, always bringing butter, rolls, sausages, etc.; she must think I’m a spoiled glutton. It’s hard for me to get away from the table after lunch, since she so loves to talk. She knows everybody, people from Calw, Basel, Lapland, missionaries, and can talk about thousands of interesting deaths, engagements, illnesses, trips, and assorted pleasures of that ilk. I already know in great detail all about her husband’s death and shall soon be just as familiar with her childhood, engagement, marriage, life with her husband, all her joys and sorrows. She seems like a character from a Dickens novel: agile, merry, cheerful, solicitous, always bursting with stories old and new, as well as extremely kindhearted and loving. Today she implored my forgiveness for leaving a bottle of fresh cider in my room. She just had to, the cider was so good, although she had used more apples than usual, costing 6.50 a measure. She asked whether I would like to have a sausage or something in the evening, and I said I would prefer to have a cup of tea with some bread or rolls, if that wasn’t any bother. Well, she gives me tea and rolls for supper, and even puts out some butter, too. When I have eaten my fill, she clears the table. I’m just about to get up when a warm sausage with salad appears on the table. The widow of the Deacon bears a slight resemblance to Frieda Montigel, although she’s a far finer person than the latter. While she loves to talk, she would never dream of grilling me like an inquisitor. So I sit there enjoying the meal, listening to her talk, and feeling very cozy—through her lively exhortations she ensures that I eat enough and, what’s more, stay awake.
Saturday night
Marulla17 wants to enclose my letter tomorrow, so I’ll have to finish this by then.
The pace at work is like this too, hour by hour. I can imagine the sheer variety of tasks eventually sowing confusion in my mind. I already have the following regular duties: I sort all incoming packages, recount the money in the store’s cash register (between twenty and thirty marks) each morning, mail the magazines and keep a record of the books. Besides, I have to examine the secondhand books to ensure they’re complete (collation), also possibly go on errands, etc. It’s a very large enterprise; the main category is theology, also law and philology, not much medicine, art and music only as a sideline. Students may open their own accounts, and there are some unpaid bills that were incurred by gentlemen who have since vanished into thin air. That sort of thing seems to happen quite frequently. I respect all the gentlemen in the store for their education and knowledge, particularly the two eldest, Herr Hermes and Herr Straubing. Herr Sonnewald wears his hat and coat in the heated office, but takes them off when he goes out. He doesn’t talk, he murmurs. I have enormous respect for him.
We have our own well-equipped bindery, large rooms, a store, offices, a warehouse, a cellar (known as Hades), two conveyor belts (caterpillars).
There are some framed pictures on the wall, one of which is actually quite pretty (Columbus). There’s a large, colored picture of King Charles above the bed, and a holy picture hangs over the high desk. I’m fully equipped, only need some towels, which we apparently have to supply ourselves. I have two or three; please send me the others whenever you can. I would be delighted if you could include a few sheets of cheap blotting paper or something along those lines, since I don’t have a desk pad here.
Daily schedule
Rise: 6:40 a.m.
Coffee: after 7 o’clock
Bookstore opens: 7:30
Lunch: 12 or 12:15 p.m.
Back in bookstore: 1:15 or 1:30
Arrive home: 7:30 to 7:45
Bedtime: between 9:45 and 10:15
We have afternoon tea at work.
The doors on the right and left are always closed and have curtains. NB: The furniture should appear much larger in relation to the rest of the room. (As I’m drawing this, the maid interrupts me to ask whether I like herring salad.)
TO KARL ISENBERG18
Tübingen [December 10, 1895]
Many thanks for your kind letter! I want to try to finish these lines, and that won’t be easy, since I don’t get home until 8 or 8:15, and have to go to bed early if I want to be in a moderately good mood the following morning.19 You’re right, we have to steal the time to write letters, but there is no way we can steal the freshness and concentration that writing also requires.[ … ]
I don’t spend much time thinking about matters of great import, my phase as a genius has evaporated, and I’m becoming a philistine; I’m actually becoming quite respectable, since I never go near the pub, and spend my few free hours gazing at the garden of my poetic ideals—it has become a lot narrower—and occasionally I come up with some other earth-shattering things. There is no lack of reading material, and my Sundays too are quiet and go by quickly. When I feel tired and have had more than my fill of new books, Father Goethe drops by to keep me company; I really enjoy him, a bit uncritically actually, since I focus on specific, beautifully carved pillars or arabesques in his marblelike prose rather than on things of his that don’t affect me much.
I see no point in boring you with all the details about my profession. There is certainly no shortage of irritation, headaches, and other such delights, but I had certain goals in mind in becoming a bookseller, and nobody is going to talk me out of it. I’m glad to see that my knowledge of literature, including modern, is not nearly as defective as I had feared, and also that my little system for studying the subject was not mistaken. I’m beginning to understand the implications of the underlying factors, and am still hoping to achieve an understanding, insofar as this is at all possible, of the essence and history of European literature. I realize that I’m quite reactionary when it comes to literature; indeed, if one didn’t have strong principles and a radical disposition, it would scarcely be possible to profit from a study of the new literature, including the most recent publications. One symptom of the rickety current situation is that, even in satire, the one area that could yield something of lasting value, nothing of any real value has surfaced. I view things aesthetically, and so I’m disturbed to see that this is an era in which even those wi
th talent and genius come into the world equipped with sick, twitching nerves and then destroy themselves, especially the poets. And in the theater, which has become the center of artistic creation, these twitching nerves have to entertain a populace that has declined both morally and aesthetically. The sick way those “psychological” dramas and novels wallow in the dirt and dissect everything often horrifies me. This summer in Calw, in our good old Schilda,20 a group of traveling players put on plays by Sudermann! And Sudermann is one of the best of them.21
If these are the buds of the promised spring, the first glimmerings of an expected era of “new art,” then woe to the age when there will be no champions of the “old school” left, and the “new art” will unfurl itself and take power. I cannot detect in these dusky red lights any signs of a coming morning; all I see are the torches lighting up the wanton orgies of an age that has sunk low artistically. And, when all is said and done, none of the moderns has advanced any further in his very own genre than Goethe did in Werther and the Elective Affinities. Maybe the historians who see Faust as the finest blossom of the present age and of the coming era are right after all, even though I still find it hard to believe that the epigrammatic curse in Faust cannot be averted.22 Or are we approaching an era in which art and poetry will lose their special status and end up as equal or perhaps even inferior “branches” of the book trade? That almost seems likely, and the only way we literary people shall prevail is by keeping our faith against all odds and clinging to our idealistic tenets, no matter how bad the situation gets. If ordinary people would only remain pure, if the good old customs and songs were not being forgotten, were not being killed off by the air in the factories and the nonpoetry of the writers in Grünewald.23
You’re probably laughing at my excessive zeal; well, I have just reached the one area that really matters to me. No offense intended!
I hope to be able to write again when things are quieter and I would be delighted to hear from you. And now, God be with you, dear brother!
TO JOHANNES AND MARIE HESSE
[Written between January 28 and February 2, 1896]
My dears,
My sincere thanks for the laundry, which was eagerly awaited, for Theodor’s balm, and, above all, for the kind letter from Mother.
You already know I was at a concert.24 I was given a free ticket by a clerk in Osiander’s bookstore. The chorus and orchestra were quite remarkable. “Fall” and “Winter” were virtually perfect. The singer was also fine, especially in “Winter,” and the chorus was most impressive there, too. Unfortunately, I was very tired from having to be on my feet continuously from one-thirty until 11 o’clock, first at my desk, then in the concert hall.
I had already become acquainted with several of the Tübingen Olympians by the time I called on the idol of the Law Faculty, the famous teacher of criminal law, Professor Hugo von Meyer, to discuss a business matter. A tall, splendid person with a wonderful, long beard and handsome features, an idealized version of Jakob Staudenmaier. He was utterly charming, honored me with a handshake, and even got absorbed in a conversation about the durability of a certain type of paper. It’s fun getting such a close-up view of these gods; a few manage to retain their luster. Meyer, for instance. Yesterday, I spent some time with a person from Transylvania, and heard about the condition of secondary schools in his homeland; tomorrow, I’m going to the Wingolf fraternity house on a delicate mission (debts). At least I shall get to see it that way. I hope to visit some other houses—e. g., the dueling fraternities. Today, I ran into Hermann Nestle,25 who addressed me very formally, and didn’t seem to have any use for me. He looks good, nice, very clever—I occasionally see Herr Bucher, the Ephor;26 he now knows me by name, but I don’t know how he found out. He’s the very soul of amiability, when he has time; he’s awfully busy.
I haven’t yet paid any social calls; I usually spend Sunday afternoon at my dear aunt’s, so I can listen to the piano. I’ve been suffering for weeks from a shyness bordering on anxiety whenever I have to face people, including social gatherings, and though there is probably something to be said for that, it also messes things up quite a bit. I don’t ever feel timid, I just dislike the parties at Häring’s,27 especially talk, so I just listen, quiet as a mouse. I don’t know why I’m so smitten with melancholia. I just feel despondent and utterly miserable at the thought of having to do any socializing at all. I’m actually happiest when I’m alone, looking at some piece by Goethe28; those marbled sunrays and that sunraylike marble edify me. What makes Goethe so unique, the greatest of all, is his contribution to the solution of the puzzle confronting the modern age; fire and water have come together, by which I mean the Classical and Romantic elements in thought and poetry, Yes and No, Plato and Aristotle, thought and irony, Homer and Dante. For everybody other than Goethe, a yawning chasm exists between Iphigenia and Faust. He alone, among millions of thoughtful people born over the last hundred years, was completely unaffected by the French Revolution, because his vantage point was even loftier than that afforded by the great red sun of the modern era.
Forgive these literary and aesthetic excursions, but since my private studies overlap almost entirely with my profession (I’m currently poring over Gottschall,29 catalogues and journals), all of this thought and work is no longer sinful, mere skylarking, and has earned the right—also on external grounds—to lend fulfillment to my life. And there’s still room enough in my heart to think of you with love and gratitude, to feel glad for Mother on each warm day, and to meditate for a little while in the study as I’m preparing to mail the Calw papers.30
Friday
Another week will soon be over. On Sundays, I’d really prefer to stay at home altogether, and indeed I never do go out until afternoon. Yet, despite my weak appetite, it’s too long from 1 to 6:30 or 7, and if I’m not at Auntie’s, or, and this happens rarely enough, get to down some seminary coffee, I drink a glass of beer or wine. When away from Calw, what I always miss most of all is the afternoon coffee.
Kübel’s brand-new work Christian Ethics (two volumes) appeared today, and I’ve already mailed off more than ten copies. Tomorrow, I’m going to the theological foundation to put a poster on the door, so that students get to hear about it too. Dozens of copies of Kübel’s Sermons have been sold, some to poor, humble tradesmen.
Sunday
I should actually write some more today, since I don’t know when I can get to it next week, with all the work. But it’s not possible. I’m absolutely exhausted, even though we’re still at the very beginning. So this will have to do, kisses from your
TO ERNST KAPFF31
Tübingen, February 7, 1896
Beatus ille, qui procul negotiis—!32 My work load is almost excessive this week, and that will remain the case until the Easter fair. The work is interesting, but quite strenuous! During the inventory, hundreds of books, all new titles published in 1895, pass through my hands and, if I want to derive any real literary benefit from them, I have to make inordinate demands on my memory.[ … ]
I’m producing very little, except for some poetic knickknacks and a few heartfelt sighs. I have mainly read Gottschall’s Nationalliteratur, which has left me little the wiser. He is best on Berlin Romanticism, Hegel, and perhaps Freytag as well, but I couldn’t get myself to read everything he says about Gutzkow, Prutz, and Jordan. In general, Gottschall drenches the epigones of Young Germany with his vinegar-and-oil dressing, and, oddly enough, he is serious when he says by way of farewell: “Cheers, enjoy the meal!” I don’t know Gottschall’s own writings. If I dabbled in literary history, I’d certainly approach it with a bit more cheekiness and boldness; I would, for instance, trace the malady of our literature, its paralyzed backbone, straight back to its only source, the Romantic element, Tieck and Brentano; that would certainly provide a regular framework, even though some things would get clipped at the edges. If I had time on my hands, if I were a person of independent means, and had no literary ambitions of my own, I would spend the day l
ying in the grass or playing billiards, wouldn’t give a damn about all those wee deities in between Varnhagen and Hauptmann, and would fill the evening hours with A Thousand and One Nights, Boccaccio, Cervantes, Fielding, and other idle fancies; I would cull passages from Heine’s poems and always save a bit of Goethe for dessert. I would maintain an orchestra and keep horses, but would banish bicycles and lending libraries from my realm, perhaps theatrical performances as well; I would favor love in the open over free love; my poems would be printed on vellum, etc., etc., etc. Although I would hardly support literature at all, I would provide funds each year so that some families could emigrate and thus improve the quality of the air.
Please excuse these idiocies; my work has left me mentally exhausted, and so the old saying applies:
Reason becomes folly, good deeds a calamity, etc.33
[ … ]I never cease longing for a healthy existence, for a simple culture and an authentic life, in other words for Brazil. I would love to escape from several things: X rays, the dubious science that tries to open buds by force, literature without rules, art without aesthetics. Like the sun weary after the day, I’m drawn westward, and like the sun, I would acquire a new red hue, once the ocean had washed the veneer and dust from my soul. Even souls that are intensely alive will soon age and grow weary of this bustling, frenetic, satiated life. “Give me a great idea so that I can come alive!” As far as those hothouse blossoms in our literature and historical writing, all that stargazing and digging for treasure, they are entirely appropriate as emblems for an age that considers itself unsatisfactory, for a life that is untrue, inflated, shadowy; our entire civilization is addicted to morphine. And I don’t want to live like a fleeting shadow, a consumptive, no, I want to live genuinely, with the true warmth and in full bloom. I want to be a gay worshipper in the temple of the Muses rather than a mere hunted prey. Each day I ask in my prayers for the ability to preserve my own inner world rather than become stifled, so that the sweet poison, which I see thousands of people sipping, may not consume me as well. I know of no verse of Heine’s more full of anguish and despair—of a kind I have no wish to experience myself—than the following:
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