The Tongue Set Free, page 20
Gustav Billeter, the Latin teacher, had a lot more individual peculiarity. His courage in facing the class day after day with his gigantic goiter fills me with admiration even today. He preferred staying in the left-hand corner of the classroom, turning the less apparent side of his goiter towards us, and keeping his left foot on a stool. He would then speak fluently, gently, and rather softly, with no excess excitement; if ever he grew angry, for which he sometimes had reasons, he never raised his voice, he only spoke somewhat faster. Elementary Latin, which he taught, must have bored him, and perhaps that was why he always acted so human. No one who knew little could feel pressured, much less destroyed, by him, and those who were good in Latin didn’t feel particularly important. His reactions could never be predicted, but you didn’t have to fear them either. A soft and brief ironical comment was really all he ever made to anyone, you didn’t always understand it, it was like a private witty remark which he made to himself. He devoured books, but I never heard anything about those he was occupied with, so I didn’t note a single title. Ellenbogen, whom he liked and enjoyed talking to, had—without his irony—the same superior unemotional way, and he did not overestimate the importance of the Latin that we learned from him. Billeter felt that my head start over the class was unfair, and he once told me as much very clearly: “You’re quicker than the others, the Swiss develop more slowly. But then they catch up. You’ll be amazed later on.” Yet he was by no means xenophobic, as I could see by his friendship with Ellenbogen. I sensed that Billeter was very open to people, his attitude was cosmopolitan, and I believe that he probably also wrote—not just for himself.
The variety among the teachers was astonishing; it is the first variety one is conscious of in life. Their standing so long in front of you, exposed in all their emotions, incessantly observed, the actual focus of interest hour after hour, and—since you cannot leave—always for the same, precisely demarcated time; their superiority, which you refuse to acknowledge once and for all, and which makes you keen-sighted and critical and malicious; the necessity of getting at them without making it too hard for yourself, for you still haven’t become a devoted, exclusive worker; even the mystery of their outside life, throughout the time that they don’t stand there in front of you, acting themselves; and then the alternation of their appearances, each one in turn appearing before you, in the same place, in the same role, with the same goal, thus eminently comparable—all those things, working together, form a very different school from the declared one, a school for the variety of human beings; and, if you take it halfway seriously, the first conscious school for the knowledge of human nature.
It would not be difficult, and it might be interesting, to scrutinize one’s later life in terms of which and how many of these teachers were encountered again under different names, which people were liked because of that, which people were dropped only because of an old grudge, which decisions were made because of such early knowledge, what would probably have been done differently without that knowledge. The early childhood typology, which is based on animals, and which always remains effective, is overlaid by a typology based on teachers. Every class has pupils who mimic the teachers particularly well and perform for their classmates; a class without such teacher-mimics would have something lifeless about it.
Now, as I let them pass before me, I am amazed at the variety, the peculiarity, the wealth of my Zurich teachers. I learned from many of them, as was their goal, and the gratitude I feel towards them after fifty years keeps growing from year to year, odd as it may sound. But even those from whom I learned little stand so clearly before me as people or as figures that I owe them something just for that. They were the first representatives of what I later took in as the intrinsic factor of the world, its population. They are non-interchangeable, one of the supreme qualities in the hierarchy; their having become figures as well takes nothing away from their personalities. The fluid boundary between individuals and types is a true concern of the real writer.
The Skull Dispute with an Officer
I was twelve when I got passionately interested in the Greek wars of liberation, and that same year, 1917, was the year of the Russian Revolution. Even before his journey in the sealed freight car, people were speaking about Lenin living in Zurich. Mother, who was filled with an insatiable hatred of the war, followed every event that might terminate it. She had no political ties, but Zurich had become a center for war opponents of the most diverse countries and tendencies. Once, when we were passing a coffeehouse, she pointed at the enormous skull of a man sitting near the window, a huge pile of newspapers lay next to him; he had seized one paper and held it close to his eyes. Suddenly, he threw back his head, turned to a man sitting at his side and fiercely spoke away at him. Mother said: “Take a good look at him. That’s Lenin. You’ll be hearing about him.” We had halted, she was slightly embarrassed about standing like that and staring (she would always reproach me for such impoliteness), but his sudden movement had struck into her, the energy of his jolting turn towards the other man had transmitted itself to her. I was amazed at the other man’s rich, black, curly hair, which so glaringly contradicted Lenin’s baldness right next to it; but I was even more astonished at Mother’s immobility. She said: “Come on, we can’t just stand here,” and she pulled me along.
A few short months later, she told me about Lenin’s arrival in Russia, and I began to understand that something important was happening. The Russians had had enough of the killing, she said, everyone had had enough of the killing, and soon it would be finished, whether with or against the governments. She never called the war anything but “the killing.” Since our arrival in Zurich, she had talked about it very openly to me; in Vienna, she had held back to prevent my having any conflicts at school. “You will never kill a person who hasn’t done anything to you,” she said beseechingly; and proud as she was of having three sons, I could sense how worried she was that we too might become such “killers” some day. Her hatred of war had something elemental to it: Once, when telling me the story of Faust, which she didn’t want me to read as yet, she disapproved of his pact with the devil. There was only one justification for such a pact: to put an end to war. You could even ally yourself with the devil for that, but not for anything else.
On some evenings, friends of Mother’s gathered in our home, Bulgarian and Turkish Sephardim, whom the war had driven to Zurich. Most of them were married couples, who were middle-aged but seemed old to me; I didn’t particularly like them, they were too Oriental for me and spoke only about uninteresting things.
One man came alone, a widower, Herr Adjubel; he was different from the others. He carried himself erect and had opinions that he advocated with conviction, and he calmly and chivalrously let Mother’s vehemence, which afflicted him harshly, run off his back. He had fought in the Balkan War as a Bulgarian officer, had been seriously wounded, and left with an incurable ailment. People knew that he suffered awful pains, but he never so much as gave a hint. If the pains became unbearable, he would stand up, plead an urgent appointment, bow to Mother, and depart somewhat stiffly. Then the others would talk about him, discussing the nature of his sufferings in detail, praising and pitying him and doing the very thing that his pride wanted to avoid. I noticed that Mother made an effort to stop such conversations. She had been fighting with him until the very last moment, and since she could become very sharp and abusive in such debates, namely about war, she took everything upon herself and said: “Nonsense! He didn’t have any pains. He was insulted by me. He thinks that a woman who hasn’t gone through war has no right to talk about it. He’s right. But if none of you tells him your opinion, then I have to do it. He was insulted. But he just happens to be proud and he took his leave in the most cordial way.”
It could then happen that someone made an insolent joke and said: “You’ll see, Mathilde. He’s fallen in love with you and he’s going to ask for your hand!”
“Just let him dare!” she promptly said with wrathful nostrils. “I wouldn’t advise him to do so! I respect him because he’s a man, but that’s all.” This was a nasty jab at the other men present, who were all here with their wives. But it ended the insufferable conversations about Herr Adjubel’s sufferings.
I preferred him to stay till the last. From these arguments, I learned a lot of things that were new to me. Herr Adjubel was in a very difficult situation. He was devoted to the Bulgarian army, perhaps even more than to Bulgaria. He was filled with the traditional pro-Russian sentiments of the Bulgarians, who owed Russia their independence from the Turks. And he was now having a rough time of it because the Bulgarians were on the side of Russia’s enemies. He would certainly have fought under these circumstances too, but with a tortured conscience, so perhaps it was good that he couldn’t fight. Yet now the situation had gotten more complicated through the new turn of events in Russia. The fact that the Russians were leaving the war spelled, he thought, the destruction of the Central Powers. The infection, as he called it, would spread; first the Austrian and next the German soldiers would want to stop fighting. But then what would become of Bulgaria? Not only would they have to bear the mark of Cain—ingratitude—towards their liberators forever, but all the powers would pounce upon them as in the Second Balkan War and slice up the country among themselves. Finis Bulgariae!
One can imagine how Mother grabbed each point of his argument and tore it apart. Basically, she had everyone against her, for even though they welcomed a speedy end to the war, they regarded that end as a dangerous threat if brought by the activities of the Bolsheviks in Russia. They were all middle-class people, more or less well-to-do; those among them who came from Bulgaria feared that the revolution would spread there; those who came from Turkey saw the old Russian foe, albeit wearing a new garb, in Constantinople. Mother didn’t care one way or another. All that mattered for her was who truly wanted to end the war. She, who came from one of the wealthiest families in Bulgaria, defended Lenin. She couldn’t see a devil in him, as the others did, she saw a benefactor of mankind.
Herr Adjubel, with whom she actually fought, was the only one to understand her, for he had an opinion himself. He once asked her (it was the most dramatic moment of all these get-togethers): “And if I were a Russian officer, Madame, and I were determined to keep fighting with my men against the Germans—would you have me shot?” She didn’t even hesitate: “I would have any man shot if he opposed the end of the war. He would be an enemy of mankind.”
She was not discouraged by the horror of the others—compromising businessmen and their sentimental wives. Everyone spoke at once: “What? You would have the heart to do that? You would have the heart to shoot Herr Adjubel?”
“He’s no coward. He knows how to die, he’s not like the rest of you—isn’t that so, Herr Adjubel?”
He was the one who agreed with her. “Yes, Madame, from your point of view, you would be right. You have the intransigence of a man. And you are a true Arditti!” These last words, which were a tribute (to her family, whom, in contrast to my father’s, I didn’t like at all), appealed less to me; but, I have to say, despite the vehemence of those exchanges, I was never jealous of Herr Adjubel, and when he succumbed to his illness a short time later, we both mourned him, and Mother said; “It’s good that he didn’t live to see the collapse of Bulgaria.”
Reading Day and Night The Life of Gifts
Perhaps it was because of the altered circumstances in the household that we didn’t continue the old literary evenings. Until the three of us were in bed, Mother simply had no time. She went about her new duties with a grim determination. Everything she did was put into words; without a reflecting commentary, such chores would have overly bored her. She imagined that everything would have to run like clockwork, although that was not her nature; so she sought and found the clockwork in her words: “Let’s get organized, children!” she would tell us. “Organized!” And she kept reiterating that word so often that we found it comical and repeated it in chorus. But she took that problem of organization very seriously and forbade our making fun of it. “You’ll see, when you’re on your own. If you don’t get organized, you’ll never get anywhere!” What she meant by this was doing everything in turn; and in the simple things that were concerned, nothing was simpler or easier. But the word egged her on, she had a word for everything, and perhaps the fact that everything was spoken about made up the brightness of our home life.
But in reality, she lived for the evening, when we were in bed and she finally had a chance to read. It was the time of her great Strindberg readings. I lay awake in bed, watching the shimmer of light under the door from the living room. She was kneeling on her chair, her elbows on the table, her head propped on her right fist, the tall stack of yellow Strindberg volumes in front of her. At every birthday and Christmas, a volume was added; that was what she wanted from us. It was particularly exciting for me that I wasn’t allowed to read these volumes. I never made any attempt at peering into one; I loved the prohibition. The yellow volumes had a charisma that I can only ascribe to that prohibition, and there was nothing that made me happier than handing her a new volume, of which I only knew the title. When we had eaten supper, and the table was cleared, when the little brothers had been put to bed, I carried the stack of yellow volumes to the table for her and piled it up in the right spot. We then spoke a little, I sensed her impatience; since I had the stack before my eyes, I understood her impatience, and I went to bed quietly without tormenting her. I shut the living-room door behind me, and while undressing, I heard her walking to and fro a bit. I lay down and listened to the grating of the chair as she climbed upon it, then I felt her taking the volume into her hand, and when I was certain she had opened it, I turned my eyes to the shimmer of light under the door. Now I knew that she wouldn’t stand up again for anything in the world; I switched on my tiny flashlight and read my own book under the blanket. That was my secret, which no one must know about, and it stood for the secret of her books.
She read until deep into the night. I had to economize with the battery of the flashlight, which I paid for out of my modest allowance, out of a fraction of the allowance, for most of it was tenaciously saved for presents for Mother. Thus, I could seldom read for more than a quarter hour. When I was finally found out, there was a big tumult; Mother could stand deception less than anything. I did succeed in replacing the confiscated flashlight; but, to make sure, she had appointed the little brothers as guards; they were terribly eager to suddenly snatch the blanket away from my body. If they awoke, they could easily tell from their beds whether my head was under the blanket. They would then sneak over without a sound, preferably together; and from under the blanket, I heard nothing and was defenseless. Suddenly, I lay there uncovered. I scarcely knew what had happened to me, and already the howl of triumph was booming in my ears. Mother, furious at the disturbance, stood up from her chair, found the line to destroy me with—“So I have no one in the world I can trust!”—and confiscated the book for a week.
The punishment was harsh, for it was Dickens. That was the author she gave me at that time, and I had never read any writer with greater passion. She started with Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby, and especially the latter book, which told about contemporary conditions at English schools, so utterly entranced me that I just couldn’t put it down. Once I finished, I began all over again, reading it through from start to finish. That happened three or four times, probably more often. “Why, you already know it,” she said, “wouldn’t you rather read something else?” But the better I got to know it, the more I wanted to reread it. She considered this a bad juvenile habit on my part and blamed it on the early books that I had gotten from Father and sometimes reread forty times, even though I already knew them by heart. She tried to break me of this habit by alluringly describing new books; fortunately, there were a lot by Dickens. David Copperfield, which was her favorite and which she regarded as his literary best, was to be the last one for me. She powerfully intensified my eagerness for it, hoping that this bait would wean me off from eternally rereading the other novels. I was torn between love for what I knew well and curiosity, which she enflamed in every way. “Let’s not talk about it anymore,” she said in annoyance and gave me an unspeakably bored look, “we’ve already talked about it. Do you want me to repeat the same thing to you? I’m not like you. Let’s talk about the next one now!” Since my conversations with her were still the most important thing in my life, since I couldn’t stand not discussing every detail of a wonderful book with her, since I noticed that she didn’t want to say anything more and that my stubborness was really beginning to bore her, I gradually gave in and limited myself to reading each Dickens book only twice. I bitterly regretted giving up a Dickens once and for all and perhaps taking it back myself to the lending library where she had borrowed it. (We had left everything in Vienna, the furniture and the library had been put in storage, and so, for most books, she depended on the Hottingen Reading Circle.) But the prospect of talking with her about the new Dickens was stronger, and so it was she herself to whom I owe all the wonders and who brought me away from my obstinacy, my best quality in these things.
Sometimes she got scared of the passions she stoked in me, and she then tried diverting me to other authors. Her biggest setback in this area was Walter Scott. Perhaps she hadn’t worked up enough ardor when she first spoke about him, perhaps he really is as vapid as he seemed at the time. Not only didn’t I reread him, but after two or three novels, I refused to take anything of his in my hand again, and I rebelled so intensely that she was delighted at the resolute direction of my taste and said the highest thing that I could hear from her: “You are my son, after all. I never liked him either. I thought you were so interested in history.”
