Reading Rilke Read Online Free Page B

then—the rose and the mirror, the simple peasant and the simply plain—one might set down that of the lover and letter writer, a man drawn to women like a bee who, heavy with their honey, soon returns to his hive; or one might remark Rilke’s career as a social climber, as the accomplished cultivator of those who may prove to be of some assistance to Art—occasionally artists, critics, editors, and poets, but generally people of wealth, position, and comfortable estates; or take note of the life of “the inspired one,” who is attacked by the Muse from time to time the way storms lash rocky coasts—the same shores where the tides rise—with sudden stiff onslaughts of both poetry and prose. Above all, for the biographer, Rilke is the traveler who passes through places the way others pass their years.
    With a romantic naiveté for which we may feel some nostalgia now, and out of a precocity for personality as well as verse, Rilke struggled his entire life to be a poet—not a pure poet, but purely a poet—because he felt, against good advice and much experience to the contrary, that poetry could only be written by one who was already a poet: and a poet was above ordinary life (Villiers de L’Isle-Adam’s famous quip, “As for living, we shall have our servants do that for us,” described his attitude perfectly); the true poet dwelt in a realm devoted entirely to thespirit (yes, Rilke had “realms” in which he “dwelt”); the true poet was always “on the job”; the true poet never hankered for a flagon of wine or a leg of mutton or a leg of lady either (women were “the Muse,” to be courted through the post); nor did the true poet mop floors or dandle babies or masturbate or follow the horses or use the john; the true poet was an agent of transfiguration whose sole function was the almost magical movement of matter into mind.
    Rilke was eventually very convincing in his chosen role. This testimony, which I take from Edmond Jaloux, could be multiplied.
When I began talking with Rilke it seemed to me that it was the first time that I talked with a poet. I mean to say that all the other poets I have known, however great they were, were poets only in their minds; outside their work they lived in the same world as I, with the same creatures … but when Rilke began to talk he introduced me to a world that was his own and into which I could enter only by some sort of miracle. 9
    His poetic persona may have played well even in front of the French, but Rilke was only intermittently sure of his success. Facial hair, for instance, was a problem. His father had mutton-chops and a full mustache. Rilke’s beard always looked young, as if it hadn’t quite arrived yet, and his mustache tried to outdo itself, eventually drooping in a vaguely oriental manner. By the First World War it had lidded his mouth in the fashion of his eyes. During the years which followed, the beard disappeared, and the mustache gradually shortened itself. One could say he was wearing something conventional by the time he took up residence at Muzot, in Switzerland. But he kept the spirit well covered:long coat, hat, tie, vest, the shiny tips of his shoes showing beneath trousers bearing exclamatory creases.
    The course of life was consequently marked and marred by weakness, by giving in, by disappointment, as he ate, loved, schemed for advancement, groveled for money or employment, worried about a roof over his head, while trying to keep that head in the good clouds where it belonged. There were periods for Rilke when the world seemed to want him, and he acquiesced. But friends and lovers held him, like a restive balloon, near the earth; possessions were possessive, families were like closing fists; even historic cities, sunny seaside towns, famous spas, full of charm and bent on seduction, could pull the poet into their routines, dull the eye with undesirable familiarity, and, most of all, like the whole range of ordinary things, lay claim