RAINER MARIA RILKE

NoTE 12, PAGE 23

It is time to speak of Rilke’s conception of solitude in a little
detail. He himself refers to it as his “solitude fanaticism”’.
Perhaps he first knew it as the sheer apartness of his boyhood,
this “boy who liked to keep himself apart™ as Horacek described
him ; it was then solitude into which one escaped from the
cruelty of one’s fellows. But even at that time he saw more in
solitude than that : it meant the possibility of meeting God. “If
God has given a commandment, it is this : Be solitary from time
to time. For he can come only to one man, or to two whom he
can no longer distinguish” (Journal Nov. 25th 1899). In solitude,

- too, one might learn to understand things, and draw near to

them. “Have you never yet noticed how despised and insig-
nificant things come to themselves if they fall into the ready,
tender hands of a solitary : They are like little birds to whom
warmth returns, they bestir themselves, awaken, and a heart
begins to beat in them, that rises and falls like the uttermost wave
of a mighty ocean in the hearkening hands” ( Journal Dec. 3rd-
4th 1899). Solitude was not arrived at numerically, but qualita-
tively—"Friends do not prevent our solitude, they only limit
our aloneness” (Journal Sept. 15th 1900). Real solitude might
bring a rich reward: “To the solitary there comes from time
to time something wonderfully beneficent. It is no sound, no
splendour, and also no voice. It is the smile of women who have
passed away, which, like the light of dead stars, is still on its
way to us” (Journal Sept. 13th 1900). Only in solitude could real
seeing be practised : “To everyone that gazes there comes some
time the longing to go into the wilderness. With little nourish-
ment, to sit upon a stone and to think difficult thoughts, so
difficult that they lie heavy on the eyelids. But so far all have
returned from the wilderness to those that once they left. And
they have wanted to teach solitude to the companionable ; thus
they grew tired, despaired of themselves and died the little
torturing death. But we must go out across the wilderness,
further, ever in one direction. Only one who succeeds in doing
that will know what lies beyond solitude and why we seek the
wilderness” (Journal April 7th 1900).

When Rilke went to Russia, the land that “borders on God”,

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