致一位青年詩人的信Letters to a Young Poet(4)

July 16, 1903

About ten days ago I left Paris, tired and quite sick, and traveled to this great northern plain, whose vastness and silence and sky ought to make me well again. But I arrived during a long period of rain; this is the first day it has begun to let up over the restlessly blowing landscape, and I am taking advantage of this moment of brightness to greet you, dear Sir.

My dear Mr. Kappus: I have left a letter from you unanswered for a long time; not because I had forgotten it - on the contrary: it is the kind that one reads again when one finds it among other letters, and I recognize you in it as if you were very near. It is your letter of May second, and I am sure you remember it. As I read it now, in the great silence of these distances, I am touched by your beautiful anxiety about life, even more than when I was in Paris, where everything echoes and fades away differently because of the excessive noise that makes Things tremble. Here, where I am surrounded by an enormous landscape, which the winds move across as they come from the seas, here I feel that there is no one anywhere who can answer for you those questions and feelings which, in their depths, have a life of their own; for even the most articulate people are unable to help, since what words point to is so very delicate, is almost unsayable. But even so, I think that you will not have to remain without a solution if you trust in Things that are like the ones my eyes are now resting upon. If you trust in Nature, in what is simple in Nature, in the small Things that hardly anyone sees and that can so suddenly become huge, immeasurable; if you have this love for what is humble and try very simply, as someone who serves, to win the confidence of what seems poor: then everything will become easier for you, more coherent and somehow more reconciling, not in your conscious mind perhaps, which stays behind, astonished, but in your innermost awareness, awakeness, and knowledge. You are so young, so much before all beginning, and I would like to beg you, dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer. Perhaps you do carry within you the possibility of creating and forming, as an especially blessed and pure way of living; train yourself for that but take whatever comes, with great trust, and as long as it comes out of your will, out of some need of your innermost self, then take it upon yourself, and don't hate anything. Sex is difficult; yes. But those tasks that have been entrusted to us are difficult; almost everything serious is difficult; and everything is serious. If you just recognize this and manage, out of yourself, out of your own talent and nature, out of your own experience and childhood and strength, to achieve a wholly individual relation to sex (one that is not influenced by convention and custom), then you will no longer have to be afraid of losing yourself and becoming unworthy of your dearest possession.

Bodily delight is a sensory experience, not any different from pure looking or the pure feeling with , which a beautiful fruit fills the tongue; it is a great, an infinite learning that is given to us, a knowledge of the world, the fullness and the splendor of all knowledge. And it is not our acceptance of it that is bad; what is bad is that most people misuse this learning and squander it and apply it as a stimulant on the tired places of their lives and as a distraction rather than as a way of gathering themselves for their highest moments. People have even made eating into something else: necessity on the one hand, excess on the other; have muddied the clarity of this need, and all the deep, simple needs in which life renews itself have become just as muddy. But the individual can make them clear for himself and live them clearly (not the individual who is dependent, but the solitary man). He can remember that all beauty in animals and plants is a silent, enduring form of love and yearning, and he can see the animal, as he sees plants, patiently and willingly uniting and multiplying and growing, not out of physical pleasure, not out of physical pain, but bowing to necessities that are greater than pleasure and pain, and more powerful than will and withstanding. If only human beings could more humbly receive this mystery which the world is filled with, even in its smallest Things, could bear it, endure it, more solemnly, feel how terribly heavy it is, instead of taking it lightly. If only they could be more reverent to ward their own fruitfulness, which is essentially one, whether it is manifested as mental or physical; for mental creation too arises from the physical, is of one nature with it and only like a softer, more enraptured and more eternal repetition of bodily delight. "The thought of being a creator, of engendering, of shaping" is nothing without its continuous great confirmation and embodiment in the world, nothing without the thousand-fold assent from Things and animals - and our enjoyment of it is so indescribably beautiful and rich only because it is full of inherited memories of the engendering and birthing of millions. In one creative thought a thousand forgotten nights of love come to life again and fill it with majesty and exaltation. And those who come together in the nights and are entwined in rocking delight perform a solemn task and gather sweetness, depth, and strength for the song of some future poet, who will appear in order to say ecstasies that are unsayable. And they call forth the future; and even if they have made a mistake and embrace blindly, the future comes anyway, a new human being arises, and on the foundation of the accident that seems to be accomplished here, there awakens the law by which a strong, determined seed forces its way through to the egg cell that openly advances to meet it. Don't be confused by surfaces; in the depths everything becomes law. And those who live the mystery falsely and badly (and they are very many) lose it only for themselves and nevertheless pass it on like a sealed letter, without knowing it. And don't be puzzled by how many names there are and how complex each life seems. Perhaps above them all there is a great motherhood, in the form of a communal yearning. The beauty of the girl, a being who (as you so beautifully say) "has not yet achieved anything," is motherhood that has a presentiment of itself and begins to prepare, becomes anxious, yearns. And the mother's beauty is motherhood that serves, and in the old woman there is a great remembering. And in the man too there is motherhood, it seems to me, physical and mental; his engendering is also a kind of birthing, and it is birthing when he creates out of his innermost fullness. And perhaps the sexes are more akin than people think, and the great renewal of the world will perhaps consist in one phenomenon: that man and woman, freed from all mistaken feelings and aversions, will seek each other not a opposites but as brother and sister, as neighbors, and will unite as human beings, in order to bear in common, simply, earnestly, and patiently, the heavy sex that has been laid upon them.

But everything that may someday be possible for many people, the solitary man can now, already, prepare and build with his own hands, which make fewer mistakes. Therefore, dear Sir, love your solitude and try to sing out with the pain it causes you. For those who are near you are far away, you write, and this shows that the space around you is beginning to grow vast. And if what is near you is far away, then your vastness is already among the stars and is very great; be happy about your growth, in which of course you can't take anyone with you, and be gentle with those who stay behind; be confident and calm in front of them and don't torment them with your doubts and don't frighten them with your faith or joy, which they wouldn't be able to comprehend. Seek out some simple and true feeling of what you have in common with them, which doesn't necessarily have to alter when you yourself change again and again; when you see them, love life in a form that is not your own and be indulgent toward those who are growing old, who are afraid of the aloneness that you trust. Avoid providing material for the drama, that is always stretched tight between parent and children; it uses up much of the children's strength and wastes the love of the elders, which acts and warms even if it doesn't comprehend Don't ask for any advice from them and don't expect any understanding; but believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it.

It is good that you will soon be entering a profession that will make you independent and will put you completely on your own, in every sense. Wait patiently to see whether your innermost life feels hemmed in by the form this profession imposes. I myself consider it a very difficult and very exacting one, since it is burdened with enormous conventions and leaves very little room for a personal interpretation of its duties. But your solitude will be a support and a home for you, even in the midst of very unfamiliar circumstances, and from it you will find all your paths. All my good wishes are ready to accompany you, and my faith is with you.

Yours,

Rainer Maria Rilke

大概在十天前我離開了巴黎，又累又虛弱，旅行到這個(gè)偉大的北方平原，這平原的廣闊、寂靜和它的天空應(yīng)該讓我恢復(fù)健康吧。我是在長長的雨季里到的，今天是那無休止的風(fēng)吹之后的第一個(gè)爽朗的天，我便趁此明亮的時(shí)刻向您致以問候，親愛的先生。

我親愛的開普斯先生：我已經(jīng)好長時(shí)間沒有給您回信了;不是因?yàn)槲彝浟怂?-正好相反：它是那種您能夠從眾多的信中拿起來再讀第二遍的，它讓我感覺您離我非常近。那是您5月2日的信，我知道您一定記得它。當(dāng)我現(xiàn)在讀它的時(shí)候，在這遠(yuǎn)方的無邊的寂靜里，您那對(duì)生活的美麗的渴望讓我感動(dòng)，比我在巴黎時(shí)感到的要強(qiáng)烈得多，在巴黎時(shí)所有的一切都隨那些擾亂事物的噪音而褪了色。而在這兒，當(dāng)我沉浸在一幅巨大的風(fēng)景畫里的時(shí)候，風(fēng)從海邊吹來，我感到，沒有人能夠回答您的那些問題和響應(yīng)您的感覺，在它們深處，它們有自己的生命;即使頭腦最清晰的人也無法幫助您，因?yàn)檠哉Z所到之處皆是微妙的，幾乎是不可言喻的。但即便如此，如果您相信事情正如您所目睹的，我想或許您將得到答案。如果您相信自然，相信自然的單純，那么渺小的東西將會(huì)突然變得無邊無際;如果您有這種謙卑的愛并單純地去嘗試，如過來人那樣去迎取看起來可憐的信心：那么每一件事都將變得輕而易舉，變得更加有條理，變得更加一致，或許不在您有意識(shí)的頭腦里，而是在潛意識(shí)中，奇妙地停在那里，在您的意識(shí)、悟性和知識(shí)深處。您還這么年輕，有這樣多的期待，我請(qǐng)求您，親愛的先生，還有盡我所能，對(duì)您心中沒有得到答案的問題報(bào)以耐心，并試著去愛那些問題本身，把它們當(dāng)作是鎖著的房間或用極陌生的語言所寫的書本。不要找尋答案，那些答案現(xiàn)在不能給您，因?yàn)槟鷮]有能力使它們活下來。而重要的是，讓每一樣?xùn)|西都活下來?，F(xiàn)在就讓問題們活下來吧。那么或許，在未知的某個(gè)日子里，您將逐漸地，甚至沒有注意到它，您已經(jīng)活在您的答案里了?；蛟S在您體內(nèi)的確持有創(chuàng)造和構(gòu)成答案的可能性，那種特別愉快而純潔的生存方式;那么就訓(xùn)練自己--順其自然，帶著極大的信任，只要它來自您的愿望，出于您內(nèi)在自我的需要，那么就發(fā)掘它，不要厭恨什么。性是難的;是的。但是所有那些賦予我們的工作都是難的;幾乎所有嚴(yán)肅的事情都是難的;而每件事都是嚴(yán)肅的。如果您恰恰認(rèn)識(shí)到了并控制它，超越自己，超越自己的才智和本性，超越自己的經(jīng)驗(yàn)、童年和力量，從而來達(dá)到和性的完整的統(tǒng)一(一個(gè)不受習(xí)俗和慣例影響的人)，那么您將不再害怕丟失您自己，不再害怕您最親密的感情變得無價(jià)值。

身體的愉悅是感官的體驗(yàn)，和純凈的長相或純潔的感覺沒有什么不同，在那里邊美麗的果實(shí)填滿了語言;它能給我們帶來偉大的、無限的認(rèn)知，它是有關(guān)世界的知識(shí)，是所有知識(shí)中最豐富和燦爛的那部分。并不是因?yàn)槲覀兘邮芰怂妥兊貌缓?不好的是大多數(shù)人濫用這種知識(shí)，揮霍它并用它來刺激無聊的生活，而不是通過那些情緒高漲的時(shí)刻整合自己。人們總是吃著碗里的看著鍋里的：一只手已滿，另一只手還豐余;他們把這種需求攪和得一塌糊涂，所有用來更新生活本身的深刻、簡單的需要都渾濁起來。但是個(gè)性能使它們?yōu)樽约憾宄翰⑦@樣存活下來(不是那些沒有獨(dú)立性的個(gè)性，而是孤獨(dú)的人。)他知道所有動(dòng)植物的美麗都是一種沉默、愛和渴望的永久形式，他看見動(dòng)物，還有植物耐心而欣然地結(jié)合、繁殖、成長，沒有身體的歡樂，沒有生理的疼痛，但是必要的服從卻比快樂和疼痛要偉大得多，這力量比意志和忍耐還要巨大。假如人們能夠乖吝地接受這神秘--它充斥著世界，即使最微小的事物--更莊嚴(yán)地忍受它，忍耐它，感受它的重要，而不是輕視它。假如人們能夠?qū)ψ约旱氖斋@稍微尊重一些，即那些本質(zhì)的東西，無論它們是以精神還是肉體的形式來表現(xiàn);因?yàn)榫駝?chuàng)作也來自肉體，是其本質(zhì)的一部分，只是比肉體的快樂更溫柔，更狂喜，更永恒。"成為創(chuàng)造者的那種思想，還有正在醞釀和形成的思想"如果沒有來自世界的持續(xù)而偉大的肯定以及具體化的表現(xiàn)，它將毫無意義，如果沒有來自事物和動(dòng)物的成千上萬的贊揚(yáng)，它將毫無意義--它給我們的快樂是那樣美麗而豐富，僅僅因?yàn)樗鼡碛袩o數(shù)有關(guān)妊娠和分娩的記憶。在一個(gè)富有創(chuàng)造力的思想里，一千個(gè)遺忘了的愛之夜晚重又回到生命里并賦予它肅穆和狂喜。那些隨夜晚而來的東西交錯(cuò)在搖蕩的歡喜中擔(dān)當(dāng)著神圣的使命，為未來的詩歌匯集著甜美、濃厚和意志，并將那難以名狀的欣喜呈現(xiàn)出來。它們呼喚著未來;即使犯了錯(cuò)誤，盲目地?fù)肀В磥磉€是來了，一個(gè)新的人產(chǎn)生了，在此之上那偶然事件似乎勝利了，一顆強(qiáng)壯的具有決定作用的種子探索著破殼而出，并將規(guī)律喚醒，坦然地向前去迎合它。不要被表面現(xiàn)象所迷惑，在其深處，每一樣?xùn)|西都有規(guī)律。而那些錯(cuò)誤地愚蠢地對(duì)待這神秘的人(有許多這樣的人)為了自己而丟失了它，就象從一封未開封的信身邊走過，卻一無所知。不要被它的許多名字和每個(gè)生命的復(fù)雜性所困惑?；蛟S在這些形式上邊只有一種偉大的母愛，以一種人所共知的渴望存在著。女孩的美麗，一個(gè)"一無所成"(如您這樣美麗地稱呼她)的人，在于其對(duì)母性的預(yù)知并為其準(zhǔn)備、焦慮和渴望。母親的美麗是母性本身賦予的，老婦人的美麗是無限的回憶。男人也是有母性的，對(duì)我來說，是肉體和精神的;他的妊娠也是一種誕生，當(dāng)他創(chuàng)造了豐富的內(nèi)在世界，他就得以新生。或許性比人們認(rèn)為的還要更加類似，世界的偉大復(fù)興或許只包含一個(gè)現(xiàn)象：男人和女人，當(dāng)他們從所有錯(cuò)誤的感覺和厭惡中解放出來，發(fā)現(xiàn)彼此不是對(duì)立的而是兄弟姐妹和鄰居，是一個(gè)完整的人類，他們將簡單地、認(rèn)真地，耐心地共同忍受那置于他們身上的沉重的性。

對(duì)許多人來說，什么事都可能發(fā)生。孤獨(dú)的人現(xiàn)在已能開始營造，用自己的手，而且犯極少的錯(cuò)誤。因此，親愛的先生，熱愛您的孤獨(dú)并且試著去歌頌?zāi)莿?chuàng)造了您的痛苦。為了那些曾經(jīng)與您如此親密的東西的遠(yuǎn)離，您寫作，這表明您周圍的空間已經(jīng)開始長大了。如果曾經(jīng)與您親密過的東西遠(yuǎn)離了您，那么您廣闊的空間就已延伸到了星際，它太大了。為您自己的成長而感到高興吧。在這成長過程中別人是無法和您一起分享的，但您要溫柔地對(duì)待落后于您的人;在他們面前要自信和鎮(zhèn)定，不要讓他們因您的懷疑而感到苦惱，不要讓您的信念和快樂嚇壞他們，他們無法理解。找一些您能夠和他們分享的簡單而真實(shí)的感覺，那些不隨著您的變化一遍一遍地轉(zhuǎn)化的感覺;當(dāng)您看著他們，要愛那不是以您自己的形式而存在的生活，對(duì)那些逐漸變老的要保持寬容，他們害怕您所信賴的孤獨(dú)。避免為戲劇提供材料，它們總是在父母和孩子之間制造緊張氣氛，它耗干了孩子們的力量，浪費(fèi)了長輩的愛，但是，即使他們不能達(dá)成理解，這力量和愛依舊在起著作用，在溫暖著人們。不要征詢他們的意見，不要期待任何理解;但是相信有一種愛會(huì)象遺傳一樣聚集起來，相信這種愛的力量和祝福是如此強(qiáng)烈以至于您可以攜帶它旅行到天涯海角。

您要有一份職業(yè)了，這很好，您將獨(dú)立起來并成為完整的自己，從各個(gè)方面來說。耐心點(diǎn)等待，您將會(huì)知道那職業(yè)是否在多方面壓抑您的生活。我自己認(rèn)為這是個(gè)艱難但非常興奮的過程，因?yàn)樗?fù)載著太多的慣例，個(gè)人擁有的自由發(fā)揮的空間實(shí)在是微乎其微。但是您的孤獨(dú)將支持您，將成為您的家，甚至在那不甚熟悉的環(huán)境里，在那兒您將發(fā)現(xiàn)自己的道路。我所有良好的祝愿都時(shí)刻伴隨著您，還有我的信念。

您的，

瑞那.瑪里亞.李爾克

柏林附近的沃普斯維德