Furuborg, Jonsered, in Sweden

November 4, 1904

My dear Mr. Kappus,

During this time that has passed without a letter, I have been partly traveling, partly so busy that I couldn't write. And even today writing is difficult for me, because I have already had to write so many letters that my hand is tired. If I could dictate, I would have much more to say to you, but as it is, please accept these few words as an answer to your long letter.

I think of you often, dear Mr. Kappus, and with such concentrated good wishes that somehow they ought to help you. Whether my letters really are a help, I often doubt. Don't say, "Yes, they are." Just accept them calmly and without many thanks, and let us wait for what wants to come.

There is probably no point in my going into your questions now; for what I could say about your tendency to doubt or about your inability to bring your outer and inner lives into harmony or about all the other things that oppress you-: is just what I have already said: just the wish that you may find in yourself enough patience to endure and enough simplicity to have faith; that you may gain more and more confidence in what is difficult and in your solitude among other people. And as for the rest, let life happen to you. Believe me: life is in the right, always.

And about feelings: All feelings that concentrate you and lift you up are pure; only that feeling is impure which grasps just one side of your being and thus distorts you. Everything you can think of as you face your childhood, is good. Everything that makes more of you than you have ever been, even in your best hours, is right. Every intensification is good, if it is in your entire blood, if it isn't intoxication or muddiness, but joy which you can see into, clear to the bottom. Do you understand what I mean?

And your doubt can become a good quality if you train it. It must become knowing, it must become criticism. Ask it, whenever it wants to spoil something for you, why something is ugly, demand proofs from it, test it, and you will find it perhaps bewildered and embarrassed, perhaps also protesting. But don't give in, insist on arguments, and act in this way, attentive and persistent, every single time, and the day will come when, instead of being a destroyer, it will become one of your best workers - perhaps the most intelligent of all the ones that are building your life.

That is all, dear Mr. Kappus, that I am able to tell you today. But I am sending you, along with this letter, the reprint of a small poem that has just appeared in the Prague German Labor. In it I speak to you further of life and death and of how both are great and glorious.

Yours,

Rainer Maria Rilke

親愛的開普斯先生：

這段時間沒有給您寫一封信，原因是我一半的時間都在旅游，一半是因為太忙，以至于無法提筆寫信。即使今天提筆，也很艱難，因為我已經寫了太多的信，手都累了。如果我能夠口授的話，我將有更多的東西要和您說，但是請接受這短短的幾句話作為對您的長信的回答吧。

我常常想到您，親愛的開普斯先生，帶著最美好的希望，它們應該有時會對您有所幫助的。我的信是否真的給過您幫助，我常常懷疑。別說，"是的，它們確實給過我幫助。"只要接受它們，無須任何感謝，讓我們看看迎接我們的是什么。或許當我在談論您的問題時沒有要點;因為我能說的--您的懷疑傾向，您的無法使內在生命與外在環境變得和諧時的無能感，或所有那些壓迫您的其他事情--是我已經說過的：僅僅希望您有足夠的耐心去忍耐，懷著樸素的心情去希望。您或許能在那些挫折和人群里的孤獨中獲取越來越多的信心。另外，讓生活從您身上流過去。相信我：生活是正確的，總是正確的。

有關感情：所有使您集中精力并使您升華的感情是純潔的;只有那種僅僅抓住您的一面并歪曲您本身的感情是不純潔的。您在思考的每一件事情如果正如面對自己的童年，那是好的。每一件使您超越以往、甚至超越您最好的時光的事情是正確的。每一個強烈的對比都是好的，如果它在您的全部血液里，如果它沒有陶醉或者渾濁不清，而是清澈見底。您明白我的意思嗎?

如果您訓練自己的疑惑，它將成為一種好的品質。它必須成為了解，必須成為批評。問它，什么時候它想為您破壞一些東西，為什么有些事情是丑惡的，需要它來證明，考驗它，然后或許您將發現您迷惑或者尷尬了，或許還在抗議。但是不要屈服，堅持爭論，用這種方式，專心地，持之以恒地，在任何時刻，那一天就將來臨了。不是作為一個破壞者，而是您最好的品質之一--或許是您賴以建設生活的最優秀的品質。

親愛的開普斯先生，今天我能同你說的也就是這些了。但是我將隨函送給您一首發表在布拉格《德國勞動者》上的小詩。在詩里我將繼續向您闡述生命和死亡以及兩者的偉大和輝煌。

您的，

瑞那.瑪里亞.李爾克

瑞典


 

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