# 24. “Russian Journey” by Hermann Bahr

*E. Piersons Verlag, Dresden 1891*

Hermann Bahr's books are always interesting. Lively experience, outlandish views, observations gathered from all over the world are grotesquely shaped into literary creations that chase the reader through all kinds of contradictory feelings and thoughts. Nevertheless, one comes home from this chase completely unscathed. For Hermann Bahr's writings have none of the seriousness that makes reading many a German book such hard work. I prefer to read them when I'm longing for cozy peace and quiet, lying on the sofa, smoking cigarettes. Then I think I see Hermann Bahr's feelings and thoughts embodied in the rising clouds of smoke. Just as a mass of smoke forms, quickly dissolves and is replaced by another, so those forms appear before my mental horizon, disappear, and others can quickly take their place. This is probably also due to the fact that Hermann Bahr rarely takes anything completely seriously. He even plays with idealism, an area in which the German otherwise knows no jokes. In the present book, for example, he constructs the idea of a highly refined sensuality that no longer finds pleasure in the satisfaction of ordinary sensual passions, but experiences the highest lust already in the dark sensation of the sensual relationship. This relationship itself is not even sought. Immediately afterwards, Bahr asks himself: yes, but is that something other than high school love? In this way, the mood of the previous moment is always immediately overcome. This is why Bahr calls himself an "acrobat of moods". He describes his life as "nervous gymnastics". This character soon becomes bored with every environment; his addiction to making quite fantastic emotional contortions always needs new situations in life; his nerves cannot tolerate one and the same impression for long, they always need new food. That is why Hermann Bahr travels a lot. And his travelogues differ from others in that he primarily describes the impressions of the places he visits on his nerves, that he shows us the hitherto unknown nuances of feeling that have enriched his life. But this makes the places that Bahr describes come alive for the reader. And rarely has the wretchedness of Russian life, the slavish attitude of the majority of the people, the emptiness of thought, the sensuality of Russian women and the like stood so clearly before my mind as while reading this "Russian Journey". There was little to be gained for Bahr's emotional tightrope walking in Russia, as he himself admits. However, this was not only due to the country and its people - who seem more likely to lead to despair over their spiritual barrenness than to a variety of impressions - but also to the fact that Bahr fell in love with a "little lady", a member of an acting company, on the outward journey, against all the rules of his manly nature, and idealistically wasted many an hour. The description of this "little lady" is so exquisite that it even becomes dangerous for the reader, because one wants to fall in love with this charming creature. We wish the book, to which we ourselves owe much clever and much crazy pleasure, many readers, even apart from Bahr's benevolent friends, of whom he says at the end: "There are many a good soul among them, and they cannot help their stupidity." The interwoven characterization of the Italian actress Duse, who was a guest in St. Petersburg during Bahr's presence, is masterly in form - I cannot judge the content because I have never seen Duse.