Recollections of Brecht

Extract

My association with Brecht, taxing as any such association with a reflective person always is, has lasted now for half a year, and the attempt simply to avoid such association is oftentimes not a trifling one.

It is Brecht who always telephones or who, always friendly in his dry and somewhat restrained manner, inquires on the street if one has an evening free. Brecht seeks out conversation wherever he can find it. For my part, I gain the least from our conversations when Brecht thwarts them with his dialectic. One is defeated but not convinced.

On my way home at night, reflecting on his sarcastic comments, I often lose myself in an exasperated monologue: What he says just doesn't all agree! It is only when I hear his verbal discharges again from my own mouth, in the third person, spoken in a similar manner, just as frivolously, often even as spitefully, that I feel the need to cycle back again to Herrliberg.