February 1921
HAT-CHITTI
AS BOYS we all used to play a game that truth be told was utterly mean-spirited, nasty, and wicked, which we called hat-chitti (furious anger over a hat). A boy’s hat would be snatched off his head in the most devious way and thrown into the bushes. “I see!” he would say, “I’m not going to pick up that hat,” and he would walk home, or at least halfway home, next to the boy who had done him this small or large injustice, feeling chittious, or, as they say in proper English, furious. After he had walked for some time feeling good and angry, without saying a word, he would finally think better of it and turn around and go back to the place where his poor hat was lying, where he “preferred” to pick it up meekly and quietly “after all” and put it properly back on his head, during which proceedings his fury, stemming from wounded pride, knew absolutely no bounds. Now if he went back to that rascal the other boy, he would be horribly laughed at for his desperate, out-of-control rage or chitti, which so exacerbated the humiliation under which he was already suffering that he would practically break in two from chitti.
Oh, how terrible this chitti is! Grim inner hatred and deep quiet rage are very, very bad things. Not only boys can bear grudges against other boys in such a way, so too just as well can grown-ups against grown-ups, mature adults against mature adults, and, I would venture to say, nations against nations. A vengeance or revenge can collect in the heart of a nation due to self-regard that has been injured in various ways, and it grows and grows, without end, becomes more and more pressing, more and more painful, rises up like a high mountain no longer to be cleared away, obstructs any mutual understanding, inhibits warm, healthy, reasonable reciprocal communication, turns into twitching nervous fury, and is so tyrannical and degrading that it can one day no longer be reined in and cries out wildly for bloody conflict. That is how wars arise between nations that could have a wonderful friendship with each other if only the one nation could get over the humiliation it has received and the other refrain from reminding the first of the wound, humiliation, and insult it has been given. Yes, that is chitti, hat-chitti: unburied inner hatred; it will not be soothed, cannot be stilled, cannot sleep, and that, don’t you think, my dear fellow human beings, that is sad, that is wicked.
November 1915
THE ROWBOAT
I THINK I have already described this scene but I want to write it again. In a rowboat in the middle of a lake sit a man and a woman. The moon is high overhead in the dark sky. The night is still and warm, perfectly suited to this dreamy, amorous adventure. Is the man in the boat a kidnapper? Is the woman the happily captivated kidnappee? That we do not know; we see only how the two of them kiss each other. The dark mountain lies like a giant in the glittering water. A castle or manor house stands on the shore with one lit window. No noise, no sound. Everything is sheathed in sweet black silence. The stars flicker high in the sky and also up from far below in the sky that lies reflected in the water. The water is the moon’s lover, she has pulled it toward her and now they are kissing, the water and the moon, like lover and beloved. The beautiful moon has plunged into the water like a bold young prince into the thick of battle. It is reflected in the water the way a beautiful, loving heart is reflected in another heart longing greedily for love. It is magnificent, the way the moon is like a lover, drowning in pleasures, and the way the water is like the happy beloved, hugging and clasping the neck of her royal darling. The man and the woman in the boat are perfectly quiet. A long kiss holds them captive. The rudder sits carelessly on the water. Does it make them happy, will it make them happy, the two of them there in that boat, the two of them kissing, the two of them lit by the light of the moon, the two of them loving each other?
1914
ASCENT BY NIGHT
EVERYTHING seemed so strange, as though I had never seen it before and were seeing it now for the first time in my life. I was taking a train through the mountains. It was twilight and the sun was so beautiful. The mountains seemed so big and so powerful to me, and they were too. Hills and valleys make a country rich and great, they win it space. The mountainous nature struck me as extravagant, with its towering rock formations and beautiful dark forests soaring upward. I saw the narrow paths snaking around the mountains, so graceful, so rich in poetry. The sky was clear and high, and men and women were walking along the paths. The houses sat so still, so lovely on the hillsides. The whole thing seemed to me like a poem, a majestic old poem, passed down to posterity eternally new. Then it grew darker. Soon the stars were gleaming down into the deep dark chasms and a white shining moon had stepped forth into the sky. The road that ran through the valley was as white as snow. A deep joy took hold of me. I was happy to be in the mountains. And the pure, fresh, cold air. How splendid it was. I breathed it in with passion. And so the train rolled slowly on, and eventually I got off the train. I surrendered my things and continued on foot, up into the mountains. It was so bright and at the same time so black. The night was divine. Tall fir trees towered up before me and I heard springs gurgling and murmuring, it was such a precious melody, such a mysterious saying and singing. I myself sang a song into the night as I ascended ever higher on the bright road. The road came to a village, then went on through an absolutely dark forest. I bumped into roots and stones with my feet, and since I had lost the straight path I often banged my wanderer’s head into trees, hard. But I could only laugh about that. Oh, how magnificent it was, this first ascent by night! Everything so quiet. There was something holy about everything. The sight of the black fir trees made me deeply happy. It was midnight when I reached the little dark house up in the high valley; there was light in the window. Someone was waiting for me. How beautiful that is: to reach a desolate natural spot at high altitude in a silent rustling night, on foot, like a traveling, wildly racing journeyman, and to know that you are awaited by someone dear to you. I knocked. A dog started barking, so loud that it echoed far and wide. I heard someone hurry down the stairs. The door was opened. Someone held up the lamp or lantern in front of my face. I was recognized, oh how beautiful it was, it was so beautiful—
1914
ADVENTURE ON A TRAIN
ONCE I took a train trip where I was sitting all alone in a compartment, like a contemplative hermit in his silent, secluded cloister. The train stopped at some station, the doors were flung open with an abruptness befitting an official of the railways, and into the strange room on wheels where I was stepped a woman. It was no different for me than when sunshine enters a night-black carriage, so bright did this adorable feminine apparition seem to me, approaching as though especially to see me. She said a friendly good evening. Who was gladder to hear it than I? The train started moving again forthwith and out into the night and the unknown land was borne the chamber in which there were two persons sitting now, looking at each other with friendly gazes. A smile gave rise to a word, and while the wheels clattered industriously on and on I had already, like a rogue and a thief, perceived the proper opportunity and I sat at her side and put my arm around her enchanting figure. The wheels were busily working and regions I did not know flew past us two happy people, outside in the quiet dead of night. I was busily working with my lips upon hers, which were exquisite, like a child’s lips. One kiss unleashed the next, one kiss followed the last. I took my time with this sweet business and turned into an artist of kissing, an artist of caressing. Oh, how the dear, sweet woman smiled at me with her beautiful mouth and with her beautiful dark eyes, which, as they looked into mine, kissed me. Paradisiacal wantonness lay upon her lips, paradisiacal pleasure shone from her eyes. I, meanwhile, had already learned very well how to manage things so as to get the greatest excitement from a kiss and to put the highest pleasure into it. Beneath our lusty lovemaking, the wheels clattered ever onward, and the train hurtled through the land, and the two of us held each other in our arms like saints in the embrace of the supernatural spheres, cheek pressed to cheek and body against body, as though we had previously been two separate thoughts but were now one single one. How happy it made me that what I was doing made this sweet creature happy. To quench her blissful thirst for love made me the happiest of mortal creatures, made me a god. But now the train has stopped again, and the most ravishing of women has disembarked, while I had to keep riding.