Spring Interlude

More scenes from Geneva

May 04, 2025

To the Wotrubas on April 3, 1940, Musil confessed that he had “begun something that artistically alone” was "almost beyond his powers, “and certainly beyond that of every other contemporary writer, precisely in the moment when the external circumstances are the most unfavorable.” A task such as this, he concluded, “is worth the effort, but as long as it is not resolved one must continually say that one is a poor fool!” To Hubert Decleva, an acquaintance in Yugoslavia with whom he once considered launching a German language journal, he wrote that he had been using the time in between publishers to “work backwards” from the planned volume and its continuation, because he had “found new difficulties, but no solutions...”. How it would continue, he could not tell, but if he were to survive, he wrote, it would probably find a fitting end sometime or other. He was still talking about (and intermittetently working on) the volume of aphorisms about the political situation—that were “very important” to him. [i] Six months later he would write to his friend, Walter Grossmann that he had “rewritten the story [of the novel] at least twenty times” since the [1938]“proofs,” until nothing was left but the bricks which now constitute the structure. It was, he added, “a spiritual trial.”

Following the invasion of Denmark and Norway on April 9^th, the Swiss immigration authorities came around again demanding a security deposit or a guarantee from Musil, which request heanswered with wishful thinking (or misrepresentation), claiming he had many readers in Europe and America who support him, that he earned money from the translation of his books, and that he was expecting, any day now, a sum of 3000 francs from a publisher.[ii] To the Churches on April 14^th he wrote that despite the “distance from the history of the world that he preached to himself and others before,” everytime something—like the “invasion of Denmark and the battle in the North Sea”—occured, he “flinches” sympathetically. He was not, he affirmed, a non-inteventionist, despite the fact that he had settled—“poeticizing instead of politicizing, between cherry and tulip trees and all sorts of familiar and exotic plants, which have held themselves shyly back with spring this year, afraid of the frost.” He brought up the old refrain of the aphorisms and the possibility of finding readers in America, “among the descendents of Emerson,” but admited he often was irritated when he saw how “mediocre and bad German authors have been able to carry on, despite the change of climate.” In case the Churches did not know of whom he spoke, he listed some of the “tools” with which God punished England: Emil Ludwig, Stefan Zweig, and others.

Despite the frosty spring, the trees in the Musils’ garden bloomed, and Robert and Martha went for daily walks when it was not raining or too windy or too sunny: “one walks between many walls, like in Italy, and then one gets another glimpse of the Mont Blanc and its smaller mountains, and on the other side, the Jura, also very beautiful.” Once in a while, the Musils saw acquaintances, but mostly they did not go out at night, since the connections were bad and they had to be up early in any case, since the stoker woke them at 6:30 a.m.[iii] Their relative solitude was, however, interrupted by a surprise visit from the Wotruba’s, who called from the train station to say they had arrived, by bicycle, from Laussane. At first, Robert and Martha were horrified, but it all turned out to be quite fun. They arranged a bed for them, and the men managed taking turns shaving: Wotruba shaved with a Gillette in three to five minutes, while Robert (characteristically) took about an hour, with a razor, that he complained was no good, even though it was new.[iv] After the Wotruba’s left, the Musils met up with Roda Roda, who lived in Geneva before emigrating to the United States. He was still wearing his trademark red vests, and Martha reported that he was “amusing with his stories, that he tells so splendidly.”[v] According to Roda Roda’s daughter, her father regularly met with Musil and Wotruba and others at his regular cafe on the Quai Ador, a sort of “Romanisches Cafe in exile,” but she did not think that he belonged to Musil’s inner circle, wondering: “Did[Musil] have one?” She had the impression that he, “at least in those days—kept shyly to himself and was somewhat unworldly.”[vi]

For just one moment, things were looking a bit better. In May, Frau Dr. Katzenstein paid the two missing months of aid and pledged to send 50 francs a month from now on. And the Wotruba’s, having fled Zug upon Hitler’s entry into Czechoslovakia, had come for a longer stay, until August, thankfully not in the Musil’s apartment, but close by in a small house in the Pouponniere, where Wotruba worked on a stone sculpture in the garden, which Musil watched come into being. When Wotruba was not working outside, Musil would pick him up every other day from from his sculpture studio—sometimes alone, sometimes with Martha. The return walk went through the “waist-high garden walls that surrounded the aristocratic parks and estates of the Genevan patricians. These walls were strangely haunting. Not at all monotonous, but filled with hidden surprises. They were the sort of walls that inspire creative qualities…” Sometimes after his walk with Wotruba, Musil would sit for hours watching the sculptor at work. Pastor Lejeune told their mutual friend, Keller, that it was good that Wotruba was now in Geneva, for he was a spiritual support: Musil let himself be told things by Wotruba that he would not have willingly heard from others.

On May 10^th the Germans attacked Holland and Belgium and on the 14^th Paris was taken without resistance. Wotruba had not responded to the Zurich German General Consulate’s call for military service and was living under threat of arrest, especially as the Nazis now were directly at the gates of Geneva. Switzerland was fully encircled by the troops of the Axis of Rome-Berlin, creating alarm for the for countless anti-Nazis and a few thousand refugees, many, but not all of whom were Jewish.[i] Even in Switzerland, one needed to be more cautious than ever, and the Musils were forced to refrain even from complaining about the noisy children: “in these times, one may not be at odds with people—and must not speak differently than others in the streets.”[ii]

[Fritz Wotruba]

Attempts to Find Robert Musil

Discussion about this post