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bullet had traversed my tormented brain! 12
    An ill-fated year, 1892! It began gloomily in the seminary, followed by some blissful weeks in Boll, disappointment in love, then the abrupt conclusion! And now I’ve lost everything: home, parents, love, faith, hope, myself even. Quite frankly, I can see and admire the sacrifices you’re making, but actual love? No—! For me Stetten is like hell. If life were worth throwing away, if life weren’t a delusion, sometimes merry, sometimes somber—I’d like to bash my skull against these walls, which divide me from myself. And then a dismal fall and a virtually black winter. Yes, yes, fall is here, fall in nature and fall in the heart: the blossoms are dropping off, ah, and beauty flees, leaving only an icy chill. There are several hundred dehumanized lunatics here, but I’m the only one with this emotion. I almost wish I were mad. How utterly sweet it must be, a drowsy forgetfulness about absolutely everything, all the joy and the sorrow, the life and the pain, the love and the hatred!
    However, I’ve been chatting for too long. Miserable, no, cold is what I want to be, ice-cold toward everybody, absolutely everybody. But you are my jailors, so I cannot address these complaints to you. Farewell, farewell. I wish to be alone; I’m in dread of these people. Don’t tell anybody how deathly tired I am, how unhappy! Either let me croak here, a rabid dog, or behave like parents! I cannot possibly be a son right now; I’m having to battle and defy my own misfortune; again, behave like parents but—why not kill me off more quickly instead?
    I cannot write any more. I would have to cry, and what I most want is to be dead and cold. Adieu!
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    Stetten, September 11, 1892
    I was about to play something on the violin. I took up the instrument, looked out on the sunny day, when all of a sudden, and quite involuntarily, Schumann’s “Reverie” began gliding along the strings. I felt a mixture of well-being, sadness, and languor. The soft, undulating notes matched my mood. Listening to the chords, I got lost in dreams of distant, better times, those beautiful, happy days I spent in Boll. Then—all of a sudden there was a bang, a shrill discordant note: a string had snapped. I woke up from the dream and was back—in Stetten. Only one of the strings had broken, but the others were out of tune.
    That’s how things stand with me. I have left behind me in Boll all my best qualities, love, faith, and hope. And there’s such a contrast between the two places:
    In Boll, I used to play billiards in a beautiful salon with my dear, kind friends. The ivory balls roll softly, one can hear the squeaking of chalk, laughter, jokes. Or I’m sitting on a comfortable sofa, playing a game of checkers while the majestic chords of a Beethoven sonata rustle past.

    Hesse at four

    The Hesse family in 1889. Left to right: Hermann, his father, Marulla, his mother, Adele, and Hans
    And here: I’m sitting in the room, the organ close by is producing a drowsy sound, and downstairs some retarded people are singing a children’s song in their nasal voices.
    But the most crucial difference lies within. In Boll there was a calm happiness or trembling passion; here only a dead, desolate void. I could escape from here, manage to get expelled, quietly hang myself, or get up to something else, but why bother? Fortune is clearly not on my side. Anyhow, Papa is even more enraged than he was when he threw me out of the house. And the doctor either makes unfavorable comments or says nothing at all. Well, to hell with that kind of thing, what good can come of it? If fatally ill, I would be utterly calm. It’s quite clear to me that I cannot stay here in Stetten, and if people are trying to make a pessimist of me by dint of force and sacrifices, then I must say that nobody needs to intervene to ensure that I am that way and remain so. If there can