D O C U M E N T 2 7 4 M A Y 1 9 2 6 2 8 9 I am pleased that you showed my letter to Alfred Kerr.[6] Even such a minor oc- currence is capable of triggering a certain pride in me. What did Kerr say about it, if, in fact, he actually said something about it? Could you describe him to me a bit? People whom one only knows from their works have something mysterious about them. When one knows them, they are probably suspiciously similar to the rest of mankind.— You said that Kerr writes somewhat bizarrely. By chance, I read some- thing that he wrote recently. It seemed somewhat bizarre to me as well. Somewhat choppy and unclear and difficult to understand. But [he] didn’t always write like that. Sometimes he even writes poems. He sometimes finds felicitous rhymes. He rhymes, without batting an eye: “omnes” with “verschwomm’nes.”[7] The motto to “The World in Drama” reads: Your expressive goal: The more concise! The content: Aude sapere![8] The following is also a very comical scene. It is the closing of a report about a theatrical performance. And, to be sure, it was Hofmannsthal’s adaptation of a bloody drama by Sophocles:— A small number ask for the author, And as the curtain halves give way, Sophocles comes,— no: Hofmannsthal And smiles courteously over corpses.—[9] As regards the summer holidays, it seems to me to be rather significant whether I can come with you to Geneva.[10] Because, in that case, we could leave from Geneva to go anywhere. For example, there are, in the vicinity, areas such as Lake Geneva, Valais, and the Bernese Oberland, all of which I only know from hearsay. My vacation begins on 10 July. It just occurred to me that there are still 10 weeks of school before this date. That’s a long time. That’s a very long time. Perhaps I will survive it perhaps I will perish from chronic boredom. Not from overwork, in any case. School time should be served only in small doses with large rest breaks in-between. That would be the only possibility for making it enjoyable. The thought of the time dawdled away in school would be unbearable if one didn’t know that one makes just as little use of free time. For all that, I don’t particularly mind going to school. I feel no hatred against it. It is ridiculous to hate school. Only idiots do so. The wise one smiles about it. To him, it is a comical monstrosity. He would even experience a certain affection for it were it not that he comes in such close contact with it. Besides, life must be filled somehow. School is well suited for that. It swallows up eons of time. Best wishes from your Teddy P.S. I’m sending you some more markedly pessimistic poems.[11]