The lament of existence? Or the lament of not appreciating one’s existence? The confusion of relationships, society’s mandates, and one’s own conflicting feelings about what’s real and what’s not? On reading the ten Duino Elegies at Jannie Dresser’s salon we were drawn into the complexity of Rainer Maria Rilke’s mind.
Though we were constantly reminded of mortality, in the “short hour” we called “life”—perhaps not quite so much as an hour…the most visible joy can only reveal itself to us when we’ve transformed it, within. (Seventh Elegy.) The astonishment one encounters when being touched by a lover for the very first time—when you’ve once withstood the startled first encounter, the window-longning, and that first walk, just once, through the garden together: Lovers, are you the same? (Second Elegy); Rilke is asking us to take note of changes and change our lives.
There were audible sighs after the last word was read. The afternoon was made heavy.
