8
PARTISAN REVIEW
In the summer of 1931 a friend had given me an introduction to
C-- in Baden Baden. At this time he was a man of 45. We went
for many walks together in the Black Forest, during which he talked
much of literature. He was the only teacher I had (for he was, in
effect, my teacher) who never lost sight of the direct connection be–
tween literature and living. It is difficult to define this, except to say
that he talked about every subject concretely, which made one feel
that one could grasp hold of and use it to enable one to live better
one's own life. Another of his characteristics as a teacher was his
clear grasp of what I could and could not learn. He never gave me
the feeling that I ought to be good at things of which I had no under–
standing. He gave me instead a sense of both my limitations and my
potentialities.
1
Shortly after I had first met him, C-- married. His wife had
formerly been his student. After this I used to go every year or so to
visit them, here at Bonn. He had an excellent library and many in–
teresting things. He lived well, liking good company, good food and
good wine. He and Frau C-- travelled much, particularly in
France, Italy and Spain. He had connections with the outstanding
writers and scholars of these countries and he was generally respected.
After Hitler's seizure of power it would have been easy for him
to leave Germany and go to Paris, Madrid, Rome, Oxford or Cam–
bridge. His position in Germany was made no easier by the fact that
he had, in 1932, published a book in which he violently and even
hysterically denounced the activities of the Nazis in the German
Universities. This book nevertheless was a defence of the German
tradition, written in a nationalist spirit. Besides attacking the Nazis, it
attacked the proletarianization of literature and it criticized the in–
fluence of Jewish ideas.
Since 1933, I have often wondered why C- - didn't leave
Germany. I think really the reason was a passion for continuity, a
rootedness in his environment which made him almost immovable.
He had modelled his life on the idea of that Goethe who boasted that
during the Napoleonic struggle he had been like a mighty cliff tower–
ing above and indifferent to the waters raging hundreds of feet beneath
him.
If
he always detested the Nazis he also had little sympathy for
the Left, and the movement to leave Germany was for the most part
a Leftwards one. Above all, he may have felt that it was his duty
as a non-political figure, to stay in Germany, in order to be an example
before the young people of the continuity of a wiser and greater Ger–
man tradition. In spite of everything, he was very German.
