A high pitched shriek of laughter
broke him from his reverie, causing him to shrink away from the window. The source of the unwelcome disturbance was
from a young woman and her companion across the lake. Scowling, Arie cursed his older brother,
Theodor, for opening the family manor to the public. Theodor had done this hoping to recuperate
the family fortune, which had been squandered by the previous generation. Arie dreaded the intruders - a virus that
spread through the estate, gradually taking it over and sucking it dry.
Leaving his dilapidated
groundkeeper’s hut, through its splintered wooden door, Arie strode out into
the grounds before the manor house. As
groundskeeper, a job he volunteered himself for, Arie rarely set foot in the
house, though it held many happy childhood memories, preferring to keep to
himself. Pausing for a moment longer to
study the old façade, he was reminded of a Rilke Lullaby his mother whispered
to him as a child:
When it happens that I lose
you,
will you find that you can
sleep
without my whispering over
you
like the rustling linden
tree?
Without my lying awake beside
you
and letting my words
fall upon your breast, your
limbs,
your mouth, like petals of a
rose?
Without my letting you be
cradled
alone with what is yours,
like a garden abundant
with lavender and lemon balm.
As a
child, he remembered this lullaby to be soothing and quieting, but now, after
finding it in the Records, it had no effect on him, though it did cause him to
wonder why his mother would send him to sleep by a story of pain and loss.
Letters to a Young
Poet: The Capacity to Be Alone Rome, 23 December, 1903
Could
there be a solitude that had no value to it?
There is only one solitude; it is vast and hard to bear. How often do we gladly exchange it for any
kind of sociability, however trivial and cheap, or trade it for the appearance
of agreement, however small, with the first person who comes along. But those may be the very moments when your
solitude can grow; its growing is painful as the growing of boys and sad as the
beginning of spring. But don’t be
confused. All that is needed is the
capacity to be alone with yourself, to go into yourself and meet with no one
for hours – that is what you need to achieve.
To be alone, the way you were as a child, when the grown-ups walked
around so busy and distracted by matters that seemed important because they
were beyond your comprehension.
