Letters seal the Rilke/confidante bond

Rainer Maria Rilke
and Lou Andreas-Salomé:
The Correspondence

Translated by Edward Snow

and Michael Winkler

Norton. 424 pp. $39.95

Reviewed by Bernhardt Blumenthal

'The perpetual interruption by all the trifles the day brings, the worries about money, the chance occurrences and useless complaints, the doors, the smells, the hours that roll over and over and forever summon one to something... . " So the great poet Rainer Maria Rilke wrote to Lou Andreas-Salomé, his long-term confidante, who was also one of Europe's major female intellectuals, a former consort of Friedrich Nietzsche and a companion of Sigmund Freud.

In this wonderfully translated correspondence between the pair, we acquire a sense of what it is like for the artist - any artist - to balance creative genius with the intrusions of daily living. For almost 30 years this extraordinary pair, who were sometimes lovers, but more often mentor and pupil, sought in their relationship quiet interiors for their work, and retreat from the pressures of everyday living. Rilke learned from his onetime employer, the sculptor Auguste Rodin, that one must always work, and he lamented the intrusions of the external world on his inner space. Lou and "Old Rainer," as she affectionately called him, preferred to fill their letters with things that really mattered to them: the preservation of their solitude and freedom, evening walks, trees, birds, gardens, roses, planned trips, Paris, Russia, and descriptions of spaces, particularly those in remote castles and chateaus.

The correspondence illuminates Rilke's difficult journey toward the production of the great works at the end of his life, The Duino Elegies and The Sonnets to Orpheus. Much of it exposes his self-doubts, his struggle with both psychic and physical illnesses, and his fears. In this latter connection, his ability to call upon Lou is consoling: "I will sometimes lift myself to you, as to the saint of that far-off homeland that I cannot attain, moved that you, bright star, stand exactly over the place where I am darkest and most afraid." In dark times, apparently, she kindled the spark that enabled this frail figure, who balanced on the edge of existence, to probe the depths of the German language - in fact, language itself - and produce the purest tones of song, where life and death disappear into each other. This poet of a spiritless age, ravaged by war and the deflation of Western myths, sought to restore to Earth its lost glory by infusing it with the spirituality that had for centuries been attributed to transcendent heavens, and to find a dimension of being, a purely poetic space, where language and existence become one.

Rilke spent his life writing poetry and letters. He had more than 2,000 correspondents, almost all of them women. Countless poets-to-be found in Rilke their guide to purest singing, and innumerable women the father-confessor of their souls.

A careful reading of the Rilke/Andreas-Salomé correspondence suggests at least one major adjustment to the historical image of the poet and his sometimes motherly confidante/lover, who was 14 years his senior. The literature strongly endorses the notion that Rilke was the pupil in this relationship and Andreas-Salomé the teacher, the clarifier of life's torturous path. This conception is prompted by Rilke's lifelong praise of Andreas-Salomé as a guide in all matters. It becomes increasingly evident, however, that as the poet matured, as his vision of the world became more solid, he gradually took over the role of mentor, not only for her but for a wide audience of readers. His view, expressed so early - "As for ourselves: we are the ancestors of a god and with our deepest solitudes reach forward through the centuries to his very beginning" - eventually led the poet to become his art and attracted many readers who would look to him to find the path between reality and their souls.

This correspondence of the poet and his lover-companion brings wonderful interior landscapes to light. The translation of the original German text (Ernst Pfeiffer, Rainer Maria Rilke/Lou Andreas- Salomé/Briefwechsel - 1952 and 1975) has been accomplished with extraordinary flair and with a sense of justice for both languages. O, what a treasure!

Bernhardt Blumenthal is a professor of German at La Salle University and a poet. He may be reached at blumenth@lasalle.edu.