My brother-in-law looked at me anxiously and somewhat reproachfully. They realized that I was going mad. I thought quickly and picked up the lamp again. My sister came over to me, quietly, with pleading eyes, so full of fear and love that I thought my heart would break. I could say nothing. I could only stretch out my hand and wave her away, to ward her off, and I thought: Just leave me alone! Just leave me alone! You certainly can’t know how I feel, how much everything hurts, how terribly much it hurts. And again: Just leave me alone! Just leave me alone!
The reddish light of the lamp flowed dimly through the large room. Outside the trees sighed in the wind. For a moment I believed I felt and saw the night outside deep within me. Wind and wetness, autumn, bitter smell of foliage, scattered leaves of the elm tree. Autumn! Autumn! And once more, for a moment, I was not myself but saw myself like a picture: I was a pale, lean musician with flickering eyes, and my name was Hugo Wolf, and on this evening I was on the verge of going insane.
Meanwhile I had to continue searching, hopelessly searching and lifting the heavy lamp on the round table onto the chair, onto the heap of books. And I had to protect myself with imploring gestures when my sister looked at me again sadly and considerately, sought to console me, to be near me, and to help me. The sadness in me grew and filled me to the point of bursting, and the images all around me were impressive and eloquent in their clarity, much clearer than reality is otherwise. A few autumn flowers in a glass of water, a dark red-brown dahlia among them, glowed in such painful, beautiful loneliness, each thing, even the shining brass base of the lamp, was enchantingly beautiful and infused with a fateful loneliness, as in the pictures by the great painters.
I sensed my fate clearly. Yet another shadow in this sadness, another look from my sister, another look from the flowers, from the beautiful spiritual flowers — then it would overflow, and I would sink into madness. Leave me alone! You certainly don’t know! On the polished side of the piano a ray of sunlight was reflected in the black wood, so beautiful, so mysterious, so filled with melancholy!
Now my sister stood up again and went over to the piano. I wanted to beg, ward her off with all my might, but I couldn’t. No power whatsoever emanated from my loneliness that was sufficient to reach her. Oh, I knew what had to happen now I knew the melody that now had to express itself and had to say everything and destroy everything. Enormous tension compressed my heart, and while the first hot tears sprang from my eyes, I threw my head and hands across the table and listened and felt with all my senses and with new senses as well, the text and melody at the same time, Wolf’s melody and the verses.
With this song, the world glided apart before me and within me, sank away in tears and tones. Impossible to say how it all poured out, how it flowed, how good and painful it was! Oh tears, oh sweet collapse, blissful melting away! All the books of the world full of thoughts and poems are nothing in comparison to a minute of sobbing, when feeling surges in waves, the soul feels itself profoundly and finds itself. Tears are the melting ice of snow. All angels are close to the crying person.
Forgetting all causes and reasons, I wept my way down from the heights of unbearable tension into the mild twilight of everyday feelings, without thoughts, without witnesses. In between images fluttered: a coffin in which a person was lying, someone very dear and important to me, but I did not know who it was. Perhaps it’s you yourself, I thought. Then another image came to me from a far pale distance. Hadn’t I at one time, many years ago or in an earlier life, glimpsed a wonderful sight? A group of girls living in the air, nebulous and weightless, beautiful and blissful, swaying as light as air and as melodious as string music.
Years flew between, pushing me gently and firmly away from the picture. Oh, perhaps the meaning of my entire life had only been to see these noble floating girls, to approach them, to become like them! But now they vanished in the distance, unreachable, uncomprehended, unredeemed, tired, and surrounded by the fluttering of despairing nostalgia.
Years fell to the ground like snowflakes, and the world changed. Distressed, I wandered toward a small house. I was feeling very miserable, and a dreadful sensation in my mouth seized hold of me. Anxiously I touched a loose tooth with my tongue. Immediately it moved sideways and fell out. Then the next one fell out as well! A very young doctor was there. I complained to him, I held the tooth up to him imploringly with my fingers! He laughed cheerfully, waved me off with a deadly professional gesture, and shook his young head — it’s nothing, quite harmless, happens every day. Dear God, I thought. But he continued and pointed to my left knee: That’s the problem. That’s something else and not a joking matter. I grabbed my knee terribly fast — there it was. There was a hole into which I could thrust my finger, and instead of skin and flesh, there was nothing to touch but an insensitive, soft loose mass, light and stringy like a wilted plant. Oh, my God, this was decay, this was death and putrefaction! “There’s nothing more you can do?” I asked, trying to be friendly.
“Nothing more,” the young doctor said, and he was gone.
Exhausted, I walked toward the little house, but I was not as desperate as I should have been. Indeed, I was almost indifferent. I had to go into the little house where my mother was expecting me — hadn’t I already heard her voice? Seen her face? Steps led up to the house, crazy steps, high and smooth without railings, each one a mountain, a peak, a glacier. It was certainly too late — she had perhaps left already, perhaps she was already dead? Hadn’t I just heard her call again? Silently I coped with the steep mountain of steps, falling and crushed, wild and sobbing, I climbed and pushed onward, supporting myself on my breaking arms and knees, and was on top, was at the gate, and the steps were again small and pretty and lined by box trees. Each one of my steps was sticky and heavy as though I were going through slime and glue, barely moving forward. The gate stood open, and inside my mother was walking about in a gray dress, a little basket on her arm, silent and steeped in thought. Oh, her dark, slightly gray hair in a little net! And her gait, the small figure! And the dress, the gray dress! Had I completely lost her image all these many, many years, not really thought about her at all? There she was. There she stood and walked. She could be seen only from behind, exactly as she was, completely clear and beautiful, pure love, pure thoughts of love!
Feeling lame, I furiously waded through the sticky air. Weeds wrapped themselves around me more and more like thin strong ropes. Hostile obstacles everywhere. There was no moving forward! “Mother,” I called — but I had no voice.… There was no sound. There was glass between her and me.
My mother walked on slowly, without looking back, quietly absorbed in beautiful caring thoughts. She brushed an invisible thread from the dress with her hand that I knew so well. She bent over her little basket of sewing material. Oh, the little basket! She had hidden Easter eggs in it one time. I screamed in despair, unable to make a sound. I ran and could not leave the spot! Tenderness and rage tugged at me.