We can only imagine Hesse’s garden in Bern. He left no precise description of it in his letters or drawings, possibly because this area was already designed and considered completed, as Volker Michels observes, meaning that Hesse preserved rather than created this garden.
1Volker Michels, “Nachwort,” in Freude am Garten, 228–29. However, it may possibly also be attributed to the fact that shortly after he settled in Bern, the First World War broke out, and at the same time Maria Bernoulli began a slow descent into a mental health crisis and was plagued with anxiety. Hesse’s focus trained on the tragic events that shook the world and the unhappy events within his own family. He dedicated the fairy tale “Iris” (1916) to his wife; this sensitive work is named after the magical blue flower that seems to symbolize Maria’s fragility and yet also embodies the very essence of German Romanticism.
Hesse lived in the house in Bern from the period immediately preceding the First World War until its end. In 1919 he left the German-speaking area of Switzerland and moved further south, alone, to Montagnola in the Canton of Ticino, where he lived at Casa Camuzzi, a strange, eclectically styled building, decorated with gables and turrets. In the interim, having a garden had become a necessary element of his life. Surrounding the house there were many magnificent old trees, and around their trunks luscious climbing plants wound their way up them, aided by the mild climate. There were two trees that Hesse particularly loved—a big magnolia tree with its wonderful white blossoms, and an ancient Judas tree (
cercis siliquastrum), which had enchanting colors, turning pink in the spring and to purple shades in the autumn.
2Hesse described these in Klingsor’s Last Summer. “Above the blackness of the trees, the large tinny leaves of the summer magnolias shimmered pale, huge snow-white blossoms half-closed among them, large as human heads, pale as moon and ivory, from which an intimate lemon smell came over, penetrating and elating.” Hermann Hesse, Klingsor’s Last Summer, trans. Tim Newcomb ([no place]: Lvraria Press, 2023), 123. Many years later he would movingly recall its death. The tree fell during a terrible storm one night, its massive trunk shattered, and the roots left a gaping wound in the earth.
3Hermann Hesse, “Klage um einen alten Baum,” in Freude am Garten, 85. Only a few days before, Hesse’s very good friend, Hugo Ball, had died. Hesse had paid his last respects to his friend at the cemetery on a grey and rain-filled day. The death of his friend was followed by the death of this tree, the latter of which seemed far worse and far more unnatural to him than the former. He thought to himself that his friend had found peace after the trials and tribulations of life, and perhaps for him death signified the realization of a dark desire, whereas the tree certainly did not want to die. It stood there, strong, full of vitality, ready to bloom for the hundredth time. There was no peace for it, rather just decomposition and a nothingness.
Hesse saw himself reflected in this tree. He was a lonely man following the collapse of his marriage, but perhaps also from an earlier point than that. Trees, he claimed, were like lonely people: “In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfill themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves.”
4Hermann Hesse, “Bäume,” in Freude am Garten, 57.Fulfilling one’s destiny is a solitary task. It is alone that we seek out our inclinations, it is alone we pursue them, planting our feet on the ground; our senses attuned to nature, we build our own lives. Like a tree this carries within it the power to complete its own circle. And if we stray from our paths, lose confidence, the sight of the tree reminds us that salvation does not come from others, but from within ourselves, that our home is not just any place in this world but within ourselves. When we are sad and discouraged and no longer know which way to turn, a tree can speak to us in this way: “Be still, be quiet! Look at me! Life is not easy; life is not hard. … Home is neither here nor there. Home is either within you, or it is nowhere at all.”
5Hesse, “Bäume,” 58–59.Hesse was eventually able to build his own house in Montagnola, thanks to Hans Bodmer, his Zurich friend and admirer. He lived there from the beginning of the 1930s until his death. In the interim Hesse had become a recognized author, and with that his home began to reflect his growing literary and intellectual significance. The house boasted a beautiful view, which stretched out over the village and up into the surrounding hills. It came with a spacious plot of land, over a hectare in size, that sloped downwards into the valley below. This plot of land was quickly turned into the garden of his lifetime. Hesse maintained it with real care, and it proved to be the mainstay of his physical and mental health. He began by treating the stony ground with nutrient-rich compost and manure. He tapped into a spring, defined paths, built low walls and, for a decidedly rural pastime, set up a bowling green in the shade of the chestnut trees on the edge of the woods.