Hesse described his experience in Baden (explicitly naming the place of his cure) in the short novel
Der Kurgast (
A Guest at the Spa), originally called
Psychologia Balnearia (Latin for ‘Psychology of a Cure’), published shortly before his marriage to his second wife, the singer Ruth Wenger, in Basel on January 11, 1924. He speaks about his illness and its physical and psychological symptoms with the precision of clinical observations by the first-person narrator, who even introduces himself as “the spa guest Hesse”
1See Martijn C. Briët, Joost Haan, and Ad A. Kaptein, “Hermann Hesse and L: Two Narratives of Sciatica,” Clinical Neurology and Neurosurgery 114, no. 1 (2012): 9–11.: A narrative method Hesse had already used in some earlier short stories, emphasizing their autobiographical character. Arguably, Hesse’s first-person narrators allow more explicit autobiographical insights and a more intense identification with the storyteller. The spa guest as a first-person narrator takes up a double perspective: keeping an eye on his own inner feelings and moods, but also on the surrounding world, on the sick people around him. He realizes that some patients even enjoy the treatment and exhibit visible and even ridiculous forms of self-pity, whereas others show more (individually or culturally determined) stoicism and self-discipline. The dominant feeling seems to be sympathy (German
Mitleid), the consolation of
socios habere malorum, that is, the conviction that any malady is tolerable if it is shared with others. The narrator’s reflections include both the ironic observations of his fellow sufferers, and reflective introspection—the latter being Hesse’s favorite narrative means and a characteristic feature of the majority of his texts. Self-reflection or introspection arguably allows the reflecting person (in our case, the first-person narrator), to reveal his emotions, insights, and perceptions, offering the reader the possibility to take part in a (psychological) journey into an interior world. On the other hand, these introspective revelations allow the narrator himself to become conscious of his own psyche, its hidden contents, and dynamic energies. Self-reflection—“reflection” meaning in Latin “mirroring,” as in medieval mysticism and the scholastics, i.e., reflecting God’s light in the individual—can be very useful in modern psychological terms: it helps understand unconscious contents, affects and emotions, moods and manifestations, etc. by turning them into conscious elements. Once revealed, unconscious or subconscious psychological contents become understandable and manageable. Self-reflection, shedding the light of consciousness upon the shadows of the unconscious, offers a sort of therapy that can have healing effects on the suffering or depressive person. Indeed, Hesse’s spa guest, as a self-reflecting psychological subject and object at the same time, is not completely abandoned to his suffering and self-destruction, as he possesses a means of self-healing, of finding his own way towards mental health. This, in turn, can lead to physical recovery according to the psychosomatic principle.
2See Giovanni A. Fava and Nicoletta Sonino, “Psychosomatic Medicine: Emerging Trends and Perspectives,” Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics 69 (2000): 184–97. Mental healing can even appear or be perceived as a sudden event, as a miraculous moment: the whole situation with the moaning guests, the complete spa with its eating and drinking ceremonies, its cups and plates, wine and bread, its servants running around the tables suddenly becomes ridiculous. Humor and irony, similar to that in Jean Paul Richter’s prose, which Hesse was reading at that time, turn out to be effective means of overcoming depression and desperation.
3Especially Jean Paul’s Dr. Katzenbergers Badereise seems to be thematically and stylistically akin to Hesse’s A Guest at the Spa. The spa guest Hesse relinquishes his pessimistic view of the world and of his own misery and adopts a new perspective, veering away from the theme of the “spa guest and sciatic Hesse” and steering back towards the “hermit and eccentric Hesse.” Taking up again his old perspective of a “wanderer and poet, the friend of butterflies and lizards” who used to be fond of old books and religions, the former Hesse now looks at the present, sick Hesse with pity and irony, revealing to him his ludicrous behavior.