Conditions in German universities had always been different, I suppose, from conditions in British universities in that one arranged one's own accommodation and could go to what lectures one liked; one could move from discipline to discipline and could work (or not) in one's own time. I got a room with a family who were acquaintances of my father, but I spent as little time with them as I could. I wanted to be on my own. I thought — But what is this
extraordinary condition in which one wants to be alone, and yet is always making arrangements so that one is not.
This was a time when student life in German universities was still dominated by what were called 'corporations' or 'fraternities'. There were nationalist fraternities, socialist fraternities, liberal fraternities, Catholic fraternities: inside each a boy might feel he was at home. Members of one fraternity were distinguished from those of another by the coloured ribbons they wore round their caps; otherwise the style of each was much the same. Members put up barriers against others to feel protected; but they did not feel seriously threatened because they knew that others were doing the same. The conventions were that members of fraternities should strut about carrying sticks and flaunt themselves during the day; then at night they should meet in beer-halls and drink and sing till they passed out. In this way they could imagine that they had asserted themselves without having incurred the dangers or indeed the responsibilities of self-assertion.
There were no such organisations for women. Girls to some extent felt themselves above such things; yet they were apt to hang about the boys' fraternities as if they were casual labourers waiting to be picked by gang bosses.
I thought — Of course I feel myself superior: but am I then hanging about on street corners in order to start a revolution?
There was a boy at Freiburg called Franz who was a member of the most elite of all fraternities, which was called The Corps (fraternities were graded strictly in terms of caste: members of one fraternity could properly have social contact only with their fellow members or with those of a fraternity immediately above or below it). Franz seemed to be aloof from even his elite fraternity. I understood that he was some sort of aristocrat; that he would have had to make no special effort to have become a member even of this elite fraternity; that he would have been included perhaps without even his wishing to be included. (I wondered — Does this make him more arrogant or less than other members of fraternities?) Franz would sit with other members of The Corps in the cellars of beer-halls in the evenings and he would drink and sometimes join in the songs, but for the most part would recline with his chair tilted back and his cap on the back of his head and smoking a pipe as if he were on a tightrope. I thought — He is like one of those people who show off by pretending to carry on normal life when on a tightrope. He was a tall thin boy with fair hair. His pipe was one of those long
curly things that went down to a bowl like a stove with a lid on. The other boys at their long narrow table would all be yelling and banging their beer mugs up and down and becoming red in the face and sweating: Franz, balanced, seemed to be keeping his head just above water — or perhaps above fire, his pipe going down like some sort of lifeline. The other boys seemed to be in awe of Franz and yet to pay little attention to him. I thought — It is as if he were some sort of god, yes: and they are so hot and sweating because it is as if they are some sort of offering in cooking pots to him.
I wanted to get to know Franz. I did not feel about him in the way I had felt about Trixie or even Bruno, but I thought — He is on his own: there is that sort of glow about him as there was about — who? Rosa Luxemburg? That fair-haired waiter?
Then — Or perhaps he is like my father?
There was a girl student I was quite fond of at the time called Minna. Minna was a nature-worshipper: she would sit in the sun whenever she could and take off her clothes. Minna was a bit in love with Franz. She and I and a few other girls would go into beer-cellars in the evenings and sit and watch the boys sizzling and bubbling as if in their cauldrons. Franz remained impervious, like a salamander. Towards the end of the evening many boys had to be carried out vomiting or unconscious.
I thought — Well of course women don't want to be like this: we do not want now even to carry off their bodies to Valhalla.
I said to Minna 'Perhaps they need help.'
Minna said 'They don't need help, they need to be sacrificed.'
I said 'Sacrificed to what?'
Minna said 'To Akhenaton the son of the great sun.'
Minna had huge blue eyes that were like the empty spaces between stars.
I thought — Oh but in the end I want someone with whom I do not have to struggle to feel at home with!
I took to following Franz when I came across him in the street. I found out where his lodgings were, and to what lectures he was going. He seemed to be studying both philosophy and physics. I thought — I can bump into him and say 'I am interested in your opinion on the connections between philosophy and physics' -
Then — In this I would be treating him like my father!
The philosophy in fashion at that time was that of Husserl, who was Professor of Philosophy at Freiburg. Husserl taught that there could be no certain knowledge of a so-called 'objective' world: what
were called 'objects' were always structured by the operation of ideas. What there could be certain knowledge about was the mechanisms of these ideas; the mind could be turned scientifically to investigate itself; there were operations of ideas that were common to all humanity.
I did not find it difficult to feel that I understood this: was it not to do with that vision of which my father and I had seen the possibilities as well as the limitations — the image of people looking at just the backs of their own heads? As my father used to say 'But once you see this, what worlds open up together with people who see the same!'
But could I come across Franz as if unexpectedly on some corner and say 'We might have a lot in common, you and I, looking down from such a lofty height on what we know are the ideas in our own heads!'
I had once said to my father 'But there would still be no certainty.' He had said 'Oh no, but what a thing to want, certainty!'
After lectures Franz would sometimes walk up into the hills at the back of the town. He would carry a satchel which I imagined contained books. I did not think it would be difficult to follow him: there were just one or two paths that went zig-zagging up the hill. If he stopped, I could myself stop and smile; or I could carry on past him.
I thought — There is some image in my mind here of a rock, a fork in the pathway, a gate: a road along which a traveller might go for ever.
There was a day when I followed Franz into the hills. He went on a path which, in fact, I had been on before: it did come, yes, to an outcrop of rock where the path doubled back on one of its zigzags. But there had also been, when I had been here before, a faint track through the trees across pine-needles. I had followed this track and had come to a cave: I had thought — It might be Aladdin's cave: there were the signs of a fire in front of it, as if someone had recently camped there. But further inside the cave there had seemed to be bats, so I had not gone in.
Franz was on a level of the zig-zag path above me; I caught glimpses of him as he moved between trees. I thought — If he stops, why in fact should I not come up to him and say 'I am interested in the connections between philosophy and physics?' I had an image of Franz as Moses going up into the mountain to talk to God: in his satchel he might carry his tablets or whatever. Or was he, as Minna