INTRODUCTION BY THE YOUNG POET

It was in the late autumn of 1902—1I was sitting in the park of the
Military Academy in Wiener-Neustadt, beneath some ancient chestnut
trees, and was reading a book. I was so engrossed in reading that I hardly
noticed how I was joined by the only non-officer among our professors,
the learned and kind-hearted parson of the Academy, Horalek. He took
the volume out of my hand, looked at the wrapper and shook his head.
“Poems by Rainer Maria Rilke ?” he asked meditatively. He turned
over the leaves here and there, glanced through a few verses, gazed
thoughtfully into the distance andfinally nodded. *“ So then the pupil
René Rilke has become a poet.’

And I learnt about the thin, pale-faced boy whom his parents had
sent to the Military Unterrealschule in Sankt-Polten more than
fifteen years previously, so that he might later become an officer. At
that time Horatek had been employed there as chaplain, and he still
remembered his former pupil distinctly. He depicted him as a quiet,
solemn, highly capable boy who liked to keep himself apart, bore the
restrictions of a boarder’s life patiently, and after his fourth year moved
on with the others to the Military Oberrealschule which was situated
in Mahrisch-Weisskirchen. There, however, his constitution proved
insufficiently resilient, and so his parents removed him from the institu-
tion and let him continue his studies at home in Prague. Horacek could
report no further on the course which his outward life had thereafter
taken.

After all this it may be easily understood that I resolved in that very
hour to send my poetical efforts to Rainer Maria Rilke and ask for his
opinion. Being not yet twenty years old and barely on the threshold of a
profession which I felt to be directly opposed to my inclinations, I hoped

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