 
                         20060502.02


     A statement in a recent letter of yours, admitting some
interest in the epistemology of science, suggested to me that
it might be appropriate and useful for me to try to
recapitulate some of my ruminations on this interesting
topic, useful in part to sustain my illusory fantasy about
leaving behind an account that would some day be accessible
to my grandchildren if one of them developed an interest in
the topic, or for that matter, an interest in her or his
grandfather.

     It was in preparation for this project that I started to
reread 66 closely printed pages on the topics Subjekt and
Objekt in a voluminous Philosophisches Woerterbuch
(philosophy dictionary) published in 1922 by a "private"
Viennese scholar named Rudolf Eisler.  My fascination with
these terms has a history dating to my undergraduate days.
Vividly in my mind is a sunlit afternoon in the Yard, when I
was climbing the steps of Widener and met, going the other
way, my teacher and patron, Karl Vietor, a German emigre whom
Harvard had selected as its Kuno Francke Professor of German
Literature, - or something like that.  If ever there was a
teacher's pet, I was it.  (He autographed my copy of his
Goethe biography with the Goethe quotation: "Die hoechste
Wirkung des Geistes ist, den Geist hervorzurufen."  It has
never been clear to me whether I was to infer that Goethe's
spirit has evoked Vietor's, or whether it was Goethe's spirit
or Vietor's spirit that was to evoke mine.  The autograph was
dated November 1949. Two months later, Professor and Mrs.
Vietor paid a visit to my parents in Konnarock, - but that is
a tale for another occasion. On the steps of Widener that
afternoon, as usual, Professor Vietor stopped for a friendly
chat, in the course of which I mentioned to him my
fascination with the terms Subjekt and Objekt. He looked at
me disapprovingly, and even now I hear the censure in his
voice: "Wissen Sie, Herr Meyer, mit dergleichen Begriffen
habe ich nie meine Zeit vergeudet."  I realized later that he
was unconsciously or otherwise echoing or parroting Goethe
about whom he had just written the 1949 bicentennial
biography: "Wie hast du's nur so weit gebracht?""Mein Freund,
ich hab' es gut gemacht, Ich habe nie ueber das Denken
gedacht."  For better, or probably for worse, I disregarded
Vietor-Goethe's advice. Have been thinking about the subject-
object conundrum off and on ever since; more so since I
stumbled on Kierkegaard.

              =================================

     The visit to Konnarock came about as follows: Karl
Vietor had a guest professorship at Stanford for the 1950
spring semester. He owned a new 1950 DeSoto which he wanted
to drive out west, but was timid about negotiating the winter
weather out of Cambridge. So he asked me would I be willing
to drive his car to Georgia between semesters, - well, I said
it was Virginia where my parents lived, - he didn't see much
difference. I had just been home for Christmas but was eager
to go again. My life was in transition. I was in graduate
school in Comparative Literature, had decided that I would
never make it in the academic world and had just been
admitted to Harvard Medical School. My relationship with
Margaret, with whom I had been "going steady" for 6 months
had just passed through a stretch of high altitude
turbulence, and I was in a traveling mood. The deal was
closed. Professor Vietor gave me $25 for gas and the keys to
his car. I took three days for the trip. On the morning of
January 25, I had the final exam in Jean Seznec's course on
French literature.  I had been admitted to medical school and
was indifferent to my grade. So I baited Seznec with a eulogy
of the French romantics, whom he despised. He gave me a B-;
the lowest mark in any course during my four years in the
faculty of arts and sciences, (except for the initial midterm
calculus exam in 1946, which I flunked, inducing me to change
my major from physics-chemistry to history and literature.)
As soon as I got out of the exam, which if I remember
correctly was given in Sever Hall, I walked over to Vietor's
duplex on Shady Hill Square, picked up his car and drove to
St. Marks Place (near Greenwich Village) in downtown
Manhattan to see Margaret.  She was at the time teaching at
the Brearley School.  Together we drove to Baynton Street in
Germantown where her parents lived. I spent the night. The
following afternoon I drove Route 30, - the eastern section
of the Turnpike had not yet been built, - to visit my sister
who was living in Chambersburg. She had a room for me, and a
garage for Professor Vietor's car. I don't remember the
details.  The following morning, Friday January 27, 1950, I
drove Route 11 to Chilhowie, and thence across the mountain
to Konnarock. The Vietors arrived in Marion on Sunday
morming, January 29.

     To refresh my memory, I have reviewed my correspondence
with my parents and with Margaret, excerpts from which I have
reproduced below:

Cambridge am 16. Januar 1950

Liebe Mutti, lieber Papa,

- ....

Gestern nachmittag war ich bei Vietor eingeladen, es war sehr anstrengend.
Geplant ist nun, dass ich ihn Sonntagsmorgens in Marion treffe, und dass
er gleich nach Sueden weiterfaehrt, weil er an demselben Tage noch bis
Knoxville kommen muss.  Nach Konnarock zu kommen scheint er keine grosse Lust
zu haben, obwohl er darauf besteht mich nach Hause zu fahren, wenn ich sonst
keine Moeglichkeit habe. Jedoch finde ich es nicht passend, dass ihr nach
Marion kaemt, dass machte ja fast den Eindruck als ob Euch daran laege ihn
zu sehen. Wenn er mich nun tatsaechlich nach Konnarock braechte, wuerde er
sicherlich guten Tag sagen, aber _er_ will unter allen Umstaenden um elf
abfahren, und _ich_ moechte unter keinen Umstaenden, dass Mutti irgendwelche
Anstalten zu einem Mittagessen macht.  _Bitte nicht._

            ====================================

Cambridge, January 22, 1950

Dear Margaret,

Before I start studying for my French examination I must write to tell you
of my plans which have changed somewhat.  I shall almost certainly leave
here about 1 p.m. on Wednesday and should get to New York by night, the
weather permitting. If you have no teaching duties on Thursday, it might
be nice if we drove to Philadelphia together that same night, and if I
stayed at your house. We could then spend the morning together, since I
would not have to leave for Chambersburg until mid-afternoon. If you would
rather stay in New York, then I would also stay overnight; Prof Vietor
has offered to pay for my hotel bill, since he would like his car left
in a garage overnight. You can tell me your decision whenever I get to
New York.  If the roads are poor or if for any other reason I expect to
arrive belatedly, I will call you from en route.

Vietor has been ill, but he hopes to be able to leave as planned.  So do I.
This afternoon I was invited to his home again; this time there were no
other visitors and we had a very fine conversation.  He is the only person
whom I know who appreciates my problems and who does not think my critical
attitude pathological (as do my parents) or hypocritical and immoral (as
you do). We spoke first about my coming examination, about positivism and
idealism in literary criticism, then about American attitudes toward
literature, American  attitudes toward education and finally about the
changes which are taking place in the culture of the occident.

He assured me that there was no hope in Germany for any rebirth of an
idealistically permeated way of life, and yet he always comes back to the
suggestion that I should go to Germany. Probably he is not aware of the
contradiction and finds it impossible to believe what he knows: that the
ideals of the Germany he loved are more dead than those of Ancient Greece.
We spoke of America; without mentioning names I spoke of some of my
experiences and impressions of your relatives, since I must tell someone
and he is the only person I know who takes me seriously. I told him about
what I thought was the vulgar emphasis on sexuality, particularly in
childhood. He agreed. He told me how thankful he was that he himself did
not have children to bring up, and he told me that if ever I had children
of my own, nothing I could do would make them different.  I agreed, and
in that instant I knew that everything of which I was convinced was true,
and I thought much, but said nothing, so that I became very much confused.

           =======================================

Konnarock, January 30, 1950, 1 a.m.

Dear Margaret,

Prof. Vietor and his wife were here for lunch.  Mother and father think
rather highly of them.  Frau Vietor was enchanted by mother and seems
determined to be treated by father, and her husband seemed to be pleasantly
surprised.  He has very low expectations of unknown people, probably that
is one reason why we get along so well.

For my part, I found it very strenuous to adjust myself to the changing
moods and situations, although I think I succeeded to everyones satisfaction.
I have managed to rewrite roughly one third of my paper for PMLA ...

        =============================================


     My narrative continues: Professor and Mrs Vietor took
sleeping-car accommodations on the night train, called the
Pelican - destination: New Orleans, - which left Washington
DC at 11:50 p.m. on January 28, 1950, and stopped at about
9:10 a.m.  at Marion VA, the county seat of Smyth County,
then a town of about 4500 souls, and the nearest railroad
station to Konnarock, 26 miles distant. To get from Marion to
Konnarock one drives about 11 miles on Route 11 (now
Interstate 81) to Chilhowie, a small unsightly trading post
of 1000 people, a one street town of cuboid undecorated
barracks-like buildings, too insignificant for the Pelican
to deign to stop, thence on an unpaved single lane,
serpentine road across Iron Mountain into the Konnarock
Valley.

     Vietor's professorial mind was intent on getting to
California. He was humane enough not to want to leave me
stranded 26 miles from home. For my part I understood, but
couldn't tell him, that he wouldn't be able to negotiate the
narrow mountain road. I didn't want my parents to accompany
me to meet the Vietors at the Marion station, because I
considered it undignified and humiliating.  The compromise on
which we agreed was that my father would wait for me with his
car in front of Greever's Drug Store in Chilhowie. I would
meet the Vietors at the train, drive them to Chilhowie,
switch to my father's car and send the Vietors down Route 11
(called the Lee Highway) on to Knoxville.  Everything went as
planned. In Chilhowie I pulled up behind my father's car.
Professor Vietor also alighted and exchanged a few words with
my father. He found the conversation interesting, and uttered
on this empty ugly treeless forsaken street on a Sunday
morning in the middle of winter, a sentence which I delight
to insert in my novels wherever there is an unanticipated
felicitous encounter. My characters have uttered it in
Harvard Square, on trail junctions on Mount Adams and in the
abandoned mining village of Bankhead, Alberta, when Jacob
Doehring encounters the music-loving hermit Albert. Karl
Vietor's gaze circled the empty Main Street of Chilhowie,
Virginia, and he asked with professorial assertiveness: "Kann
man sich denn hier nirgends hinsetzen?" - as if he were on
Berlin's Kurfuerstendamm looking for a congenial restaurant.
Indeed there wasn't. It didn't take Professor Vietor long to
change his mind. He thought it appropriate to come to
Konnarock after all. We left his car securely locked on Main
Street in Chilhowie.  Then my father drove us across the
mountain.

     My mother had only a primary school education, but her
intelligence and empathy were such that she cast a charm over
all visitors to our apartment, and the Vietors were no
exception. We were then occupying the second floor of a large
renovated frame house, grandiosely named the Konnarock
Medical Center, which had originally been built as a palace
for Martin Hassinger, the Viceroy of Hassinger Lumber Company
when it ruled Konnarock and raped the mountains. Now,
reincarnate, this mansion contained on the first floor my
father's office and examining rooms, an X-ray suite, and two
"wardrooms" with beds for overnight patients, accomodations
which were never ever used, and a mini-kitchen, not even
large enough for inserting a can opener into a can of beans,
where no meal was ever cooked.  Undoubtedly the Vietors were
led through the premises, just like all other visitors, then
to our apartment upstairs, to have lunch after all. Frau
Professor and my mother found each other very congenial, to
put it conservatively, and exchanged letters for years
afterwards.  Professor Vietor was impressed by what remained
of my parents' library. I remember his commenting on the
German books; I remember especially his concession to my
parents, that theirs was a way of life that one might envy.
There was talk about Mrs.  Vietor's having a physical
examination; and this may indeed have occurred. When next we
are in Konnarock I will look into my father's medical
records. We have preserved everything; and he was so
conscientious that if an examination was performed, the
record will be there. I remember vividly, 18 months later,
when Professor Vietor had died of the hypernephroma (cancer)
with which he was almost certainly already afflicted at the
time, Mrs. Vietor saying to me: "Ach wenn sich mein Mann doch
nur von ihrem Vater haette untersuchen lassen, dann waere es
ja nicht passiert."  By that time, I was physician enough to
understand that an examination by my father, if he had
identified the disease, would have thrown Professor Vietor's
life into turmoil; but if not, would have burdened my father
with the onus of having "missed the diagnosis." So I have
always been relieved that that examination did _not_ take
place. Hypernephromas are notoriously malignant.  I don't
believe that by January 1950, Professor Vietor's cancer could
have been cured.

     The Vietors in fact did not stay very long. I drove them
back across the mountain to Chilhowie and sent them on their
way to Knoxville.  I'm sure they arrived on time. The
following year, Professor Vietor hired me part time as a
research assistant. It was a welcome distraction from medical
school. He had me read through the German newspaper and
periodical literature of the 1870's and 1880's for references
to Nietzsche and his writings. He was planning a book on the
subject.  In May 1951, the cancer had spread to his lungs.
Professor Siegfried Thannhauser, the emigre who was then
chief of medicine at New England Medical Center, where half a
century later Klemens was president of the medical staff, and
where Klemens still works, - Thannhauser was Professor
Vietor's physician.  Thannhauser never told his patient that
he was dying and left him believing to the end, that he was
afflicted merely with a virus disease from which he would
recover.  The last conversation we had, Professor Vietor
complained to me that he didn't understand how one could be
so sick from a virus.  On June 10, 1951, the cancer
asphyxiated him. Frau Vietor had him buried in Mt Auburn
Cemetery in a grave which I was unable to locate the last
time I looked, many years ago.

     When I learned of Professor Vietor's death, I went to
the Harvard Cooperative Society store to buy a black necktie
before paying a condolence visit to Frau Professor. Her first
name was Beatrice.  She was a devout Roman Catholic; I
believe she had been an actress or a singer.  She shared
neither her husband's intellectual acumen nor his enlightened
Protestantism.  After his death she made the rounds of
Cambridge bookstores to complain that the Harvard University
Press translation of his Goethe book was not on display.  I
think she was his second wife, and that they had no children;
but that Professor Vietor had a son from a previous marriage
who had a government job and lived in a Virginia suburb of
Washington. But I am stretching memory and perhaps imagination.

     In any event, the visit was notable for Frau Vietor's
emphatical expression of friendship for my mother, and by her
statement, previously quoted, that an examination in
Konnarock by my father 16 months previously might have saved
her husband's life. When I asked her to give me one of his
books, - I was familiar with his discreet style of
annotation, and longed for the opportunity to retrace his
thinking,- Frau Vietor became cool and distant. She knew that
I had the key to his office in Widener; it was, if I remember
#445 on the fourth floor. When I went there a day or two
later, to hold my own private personal memorial service for
him, my key no longer opened the door; one of the maintenance
men told me that Mrs.  Vietor had arranged for the lock to be
changed.  I think she feared I would steal her husband's books.

                      * * * * *
Copyright 2006, Ernst Jochen Meyer
