Chapter 6 6. The fourth letter

Ten days ago I left Paris, tormented and weary, to a vast northern plain whose distance, silence, and sky should have restored my health.But I have entered into a rainy season, and until today there is no light shining on the windy field; so I use this first moment of light to greet you, dear sir. Dear Mr. Kappus: I haven't answered your letter for a long time, and I haven't forgotten it—on the contrary, it has often led me to read it again out of many letters, and I know you very kindly in your letters.It was your letter of the 2nd of May, which you must remember, and which moved me more than I had already felt in Paris, by your apprehension for the beauty of life, where everything was uttered because of the excessive noise The strange sound made everything tremble.Here are great fields all around, and the wind blows from the sea, and here I feel that questions and feelings have a life in their depths, and no one can answer you; for even the best words To lose their meaning, if they explain the most subtle, almost ineffable things.Although, I do believe you won't be resolved forever if you commit to something similar to the one that now makes my eyes new.

If you rely on nature, rely on the simplicity of nature, rely on the smallness that almost no one notices, this smallness will unconsciously become huge and immeasurable; if you have this kind of love for smallness, as a treat The devotee simply seeks to gain the confidence of something that seems poor: then everything is easier for you, more consistent, easier to reconcile, not perhaps in the intellect that astonishes and recedes, but in your deepest consciousness, Reconciled in awakening and understanding.You are so young and everything is beginning, dear sir, I want to ask you as much as I can, to be patient with all the doubts in your heart, to love these "problems themselves" like a lock A closed house, or a book written in another language.Now you don't go after answers that you don't have yet, because you don't yet experience them in your life.Everything has to be lived in person.Now you "live" with these problems.Or, if you don't pay much attention, gradually there will be that distant day when you live to the point where you can answer these questions.Perhaps within yourself there is the possibility: to organize, to form a way of life of particular bliss and purity; to which you are to cultivate—but whatever comes, you receive with great confidence; if It arises from your will, from any kind of inner embarrassment, so bear it well and hate nothing. ——“Sex” is very difficult.But our part is hard; indeed, all serious things are hard, and all are serious.If you know this layer and are willing to start from yourself, from your disposition, from your experience, from your childhood, from your vitality, you can get a completely own way (not influenced by tradition and custom) For "sex" relationships: then don't be afraid that you'll get confused, or sully your best.

Physical pleasure is a sensual experience, no different from the cleansing of sight, or the cleansing of a luscious fruit placed on our tongues; An understanding of the world is the richness and splendor of all understanding.It is not a bad thing that we feel the pleasure of the body; the bad thing is that almost everyone misuses and wastes this experience, putting it in the tired place of life as a stimulus, as a distraction, not as a way to the top of concentration.Even diet, there are many people who make it lose its original meaning: on the one hand, it is "insufficient", on the other hand, it is "excessive", which confuses the clarity of this need; also confuses all the deep and simple things that life uses to renew itself. needs.But a "individual" who can see clearly and live clearly (if because "individual" is conditional, then we say "lonely man"), he can remember that all beauty in animals and plants is a A quietly continuous form of love and longing; he can see animals as he sees plants, they combine, multiply, and grow patiently and docilely, not for physical pleasure or physical pain, but to obey the needs , this need is greater than pleasure and pain, more powerful than will and resistance.Ah, people should more humbly accept and more seriously bear the mystery of objects that fill the earth down to the smallest, and bear and feel how great and difficult it is, and don't take it too easily!Be in awe of the fruit that is only One, be it bodily or spiritual; for the spiritual creation is also derived from the physical creation, belongs to the same essence, and is only like a bodily pleasure. Lighter, more exciting, more permanent reproduction.As for what you said "that thought, to be the creator, to produce, to make".There must be no lack of constant proofs and realizations of his greatness in the world, no promises of promises from things and animals--and only because of this is his enjoyment so indescribably beautiful and rich, because He has memories inherited from millions of productions and productions.A thousand forgotten nights of love will revive in the mind of a creator, and they will fill this mind with sublime emotions.And the lovers who meet at night, united in carnival, are doing a serious work, gathering countless tenderness, preparing the poetry of any future poet with deep strength, to say the unspeakable joy.They call the "future"; even if they are confused and embrace blindly, the "future" is finally coming, a new person is growing, here is an accident, there is an eternal law awakening at the root of the accident, a rich heart The seeds of resistance break into the oncoming ovule according to this rule.Don't be fooled by the surface; deep down all becomes law.Those who lived this mystery falsely and wrongly (there are many such people) just lost it themselves and passed it on like a sealed letter without knowing its content.

Nor should he be fooled by the multitude of names and the complexity of things.Above all else may be a great "motherhood" as a common desire.The beauty of that girlish, "not yet" (you put it very well) nature is that it anticipates, prepares, dreads, longs for motherhood.The beauty of a mother is motherhood in action; a rich memory exists in an old woman.But I think that in man there is also motherhood, whether physical or spiritual; Most of the sexes are closer than people usually think, and perhaps the great innovation in this world lies in this: men and women are freed from all false feelings and suspicions, and instead of looking for each other as opposites, they are brothers and sisters Or neighbors, work together as a "human being" in order to simply, solemnly and patiently bear the difficult "sex" that is placed on their shoulders.

Anything that many people may realize one day in the future, now the lonely person can start to prepare and use his more precise hands to build.So love your solitude, my dear sir, and bear the pain it brings you with its melodious complaints.You say that everyone around you is alienated from you, but in fact this is the beginning of the expansion of your surroundings.If your intimacy is far away, then your emptiness has expanded under the starry sky; you should rejoice in your growth, but you can’t bring anyone in there, and treat those who are left behind well. Be steady before them, and trouble them not with your doubts, nor frighten them with your confidence or your joy, which they cannot understand.Find a simple and sincere harmony with them, this kind of harmony, no matter how you change in the future, you don't need to change; cherish their unfamiliar life, and forgive those who have entered the old age; Trusted solitude is feared.Avoid adding material to the drama that is often performed between parents and children; it takes the effort of many children, and eats away the love of many parents, even though their love does not understand them; what loves and warms us at all .Don't ask them advice, don't bother to understand; but trust in that love that has been preserved for you like an inheritance, trust that in that love there is power, there is a happiness from which there is no need to be separated from it to expand your world.

That's fine, you first enter a profession that makes you an independent person, and manages everything entirely by yourself. Wait patiently to see if your inner life is not restricted by the form of this profession.I think the profession is very difficult and difficult to deal with, because it is encumbered with a wide range of customs, and allows no individual opinion on its problems.But your solitude will be your foothold and home in the midst of these very strange ties, from which you will find all your paths. All my wishes are with you, I trust you. Yours: Rene Maria Rilke 1903, 7, 16; Bremen, Worpswede

① Kappus was appointed as an Austrian officer.