There is no problem anywhere that Ganna can see.
Isn’t it just like the character in the fairy tale who builds castles in the air, converting a cartload of pottery into fabulous riches, till an unfortunate accident leaves everything a heap of shards?
It’s a psychological puzzle how people like Ganna are favoured by circumstances for so long till the tension between dream and reality bursts with a catastrophic bang. On closer inspection, the weakness of their construction is shown from the beginning by their divided motivation: there’s a doubloons of purpose, a having-your-cake-and-eating-it. They want to insure themselves both against failure and against the pricking of conscience by taking the declared purpose and beefing it up, reinforcing it with a remoter one, more impersonal. Instead of thus strengthening the purpose, which is their intention, they divide it, and as they try to keep their options open to all sides, they wreck them both. This was exactly Ganna’s case, when with her irresistible energy she set about not only designing an educational paradise for her children from scratch, but at the same time sought, with a grand speculative coup, to assure the future of her beloved husband against any threat from destiny. In the end, both projects failed, and both became mad.
THE FOUNDING OF THE SCHOOL AND EVERYTHING THAT IS INVOLVED WITH IT
Let’s accompany her on her next steps, which are as bold as they are technically adroit. She finds out that the meadow belongs to a Frau Nussberger, a little old lady, the widow of a vintner. She pays a call on the little old lady and tests the water. Her hope has not deceived her, the meadow can be bought. The price: 120,000. Ganna pretends she is acting on behalf of an interested consortium and begins to negotiate. She feels there is little to be done, but since the property has a 40,000 mortgage on it, the sum she needs to raise is reduced by 40,000. That same day she goes to her friend and admirer, the lawyer Dr Paul, one of the most sought-after lawyers in the city and a very influential fellow. She pitches him her project. He is very favourably impressed and promises to help. First question: how to get hold of the meadow? One thing Ganna knows: old Frau Nussberger needs money. Further conversations with the friendly old lady leave Ganna persuaded that she would be prepared to sell the property for a moderate down payment, so long as the balance was secured. Ganna applies her full charm and force of argument to keep the down payment as low as possible. Relatives turn up, daughters, grandchildren, sons-in-law, the whole Nussberger clan — they all need money, there’s endless back and forth. Finally Ganna manages to get the down payment to just 2,000 crowns. Only where is she going to get them from? From the bank account? Not possible. It’s our iron reserve. A source of funding must be found, some people who are willing to accept the risks for the sake of the enterprise as a whole. One is found. Dr Paul has persuaded a few of his acquaintances to form a board interested in founding a school. One of their number is talked into putting up the advance. How Ganna manages to get the meadow in her name, and not that of the association, is a masterstroke. She tried once to explain it to me, but I couldn’t understand it, these things are too complicated for me. I was astounded that Ganna could manage them so well; she must have a native aptitude for them, I concluded.
Things now start to move. The number of shareholders grows every day. They are all wealthy people. I am amazed at the number of parents there are who want to save their children the trials of a conventional education and offer them freedom, an unorthodox syllabus and modern principles. They must know a thing or two about life, and to them a modest parental contribution that can smooth the way for their unacademic heirs is a reasonable investment.
Much greater, though, is my amazement at Ganna’s indefatigable zeal and evident proficiency. Next to the meadow is a villa with a spacious garden. From the very beginning Ganna has had her tactician’s eye on it. It’s for rent; she rents it; later she means to acquire it for the school. In combination with the meadow, it will provide plenty of scope for the school, especially for boarders. Exciting negotiations are held. Usually in our house. I feel like a man who comes upon some kerfuffle on the street and anxiously asks what it’s all about. Ganna’s announcements are becoming harder and harder to follow. She doesn’t have time for a quiet conversation. Early in the morning she dashes off into the city, and late in the afternoon she turns up exhausted, out of breath, half-starved. Then the writing begins. She writes letters, dozens at a time, and brochures for the printer. Articles for newspapers, pedagogical essays, press releases on behalf of the school board, appeals to the Education Ministry, teaching plans, syllabuses, budgets. I am astounded by her stamina, her mastery, her versatility. Her room has turned into an office. The servants are left to their own devices. The children run wild. By day I flee the house. When I come home at night, the rooms are full of people I’ve never seen before. Lawyers, civil servants, teachers, journalists, enthusiastic ladies, chancres sniffing a job, all of them crammed into our three rooms, munching sandwiches, drinking vast quantities of beer, wine, schnapps and tea, engaged in loud debates and browsing nosily in my books and manuscripts. The telephone is continually manned, usually by Ganna herself. Telegrams rain in, windy pronouncements are read out, and a charter is drawn up for the civil servants to get to work on.
The school board is convened, the share capital is subscribed; and then the first rebellion breaks out. Ganna has exceeded her authority, or so at least it is claimed. She has violated agreements, apparently, meddled in other people’s areas, put the wrong people in important jobs — for instance appointing a nice-looking young man by the name of Borngräber as headmaster on the strength of a few vacuous recommendations and his own smooth manners. And then it transpires that the fellow is intriguing against her and is making a stink. I try and investigate but fail to get to the bottom of the thing. I am perforce left with Ganna’s version. With one of her typical unabashed clichés, she says: ‘I have given suck to a viper.’ But he’s not the only one to come out of the shrubbery. Every day there are fresh opponents, distractions, false reports, betrayals, conspiracies. Borngräber is forming a cabal. Ganna forms one of her own. Not the best thing for a school being founded. What’s the matter, I think, Ganna wouldn’t harm a fly, why is it that all these people are up in arms against her? I hear all sorts of complaints and accusations. I’m not sure what’s going on, and ask Ganna what this thing or the other is about. Ganna describes the events as if she were the victim of malice and envy, as if people were trying to twist the reins out of her hands. She asks me to get involved. If I put my foot down, she assures me, then no one will dare to rebel against her.
Now, I don’t exactly believe in my authority, but I’ll do anything to try and help her, because I too have the sense that she’s confronted by a wild rabble. She’s unhappy. She has sacrificed herself for a great idea and this is her recompense. It’s easy to see the female Don Quixote again, against the background of hostility. Something needs to happen. I talk to the teachers, to the perfidious Borngräber, to Dr Paul, to a respectable Court Councillor who is the titular chairman of the board and Ganna’s confidant. I get nowhere. I no longer know what’s what in all this turmoil. An embittered confusion of voices surrounds me. I’m not cut out to be a peacemaker, I can’t arbitrate between the warring parties. I am told that Ganna has misinformed me on certain significant matters. When Ganna senses my wavering, she flies off the handle. ‘What am I supposed to do, Ganna,’ I say desperately, ‘it’s like being set upon by a swarm of wasps.’ I visit the non-executive chairman, Imperial Councillor Schönpflug is his name. ‘Frau Herzog’s actions are not quite transparent,’ says this otherwise sympathetic man. I reply bluntly that I couldn’t permit the least doubt of the integrity of my wife. I tell her. She asks me to set down my views in a short memorandum to the board: that will gag her enemies. I can’t deny her this, I wouldn’t get any peace. On the other hand, I am in danger of myself being exposed, and perhaps even, who knows, perpetrating a lie; Ganna is terribly prone to self-deception — it may be that she is less innocent than she thinks she is. I write my deposition, convincingly affirming the integrity of her character and the ethical goodness of her actions. Then I run away, and spend a few weeks in peace in Ebenweiler.