“We didn’t do well”. Letters 1958–1972

“I want to be with you until the very end, and if you must leave me, never love again…”, wrote Max Frisch to Ingeborg Bachmann in October 1958. Love is at its peak yet foresees the abyss of a self-fulfilling prophecy. And to think that at the start, the passion seemed to know no end; this correspondence between the two, like a still distilling words, distils it for us—exciting yet hollow. 1959, F. again: “You, my woman, my friend (I hope) and my foot soldier, my most esteemed, my stranger, woman with hell within you, passer-by, you, there, clinging to resignation worth a billion, my inescapable one, ah, and my interchangeable one, my ‘you’ named Ingeborg, young lady and companion, my highly erudite blockhead and my consort, whom I take so seriously that I renounce myself, my gift and my madness, my missing part”.

Bachmann is a great writer but grappling with everyday life: “I don’t eat in the evenings any more, to get back to being slimmer”. Yet her descriptions of places—she has written an unforgettable account of Rome through a series of vignettes—are precise and incisive. Naples: “Mergellina, a small and charming station (…) Garibaldi station (or Central Station), which is huge and hideous”. She also remarks, “I could tell you plenty of funny stories about driving in Rome. On the first day, out of sheer desperation, I wanted to jump out of the car in Piazza del Popolo and leave it there.” And again: “Yesterday we gazed for hours, in this rain, at Lake Como, feeling frustrated and apathetic.” Her friendships are dizzying. B.: “Enzensberger has just phoned from Nuremberg; he’s very kind and is coming to see me next week.” “Böll is here; I’ll see him later,” she jots down, “Call Visconti. Call Calvino,” whilst Frish meets Feltrinelli.

Finally, one senses the estrangement that breaks the chain of romantic events which had been escalating up to this point. F.: “At the time, I had come here to live with you; now I am here alone, my situation is eerie and dangerous. (…) So, whilst Italy is suddenly crumbling beneath my feet, I am rather perplexed”. A letter dated 25 May 1963 reads like a division of assets, whilst he declares his intention to move “into Gisela Andersch’s studio – she is leaving – at 53b Via Margutta*, a single large, beautiful room, but without sunlight, with a north-facing window overlooking greenery, unfurnished”.
 Bachmann’s life is a marvellous and sad saga, not least as it appears in the recent publication of Gli ultimi giorni di Ingeborg (Adelphi), in which Fleur Jaeggy relives, with anguish and rage, the writer’s final days following the fire at her Roman home in Via Giulia in a deeply personal account.

   

Max Frisch and Ingeborg Bachmann, “Non
siamo stati bravi”. Letters 1958–1972
, Feltrinelli, 944 pp., 60 euros