Translation copyright 1958 by Hogarth Press Limited
(German first published in 1951)



Excerpts:

1. Marie Taxis to Rilke in Paris

Paris, Hôttel Liverpool,
Rue Castiglione
Friday (10. December 1909)

Dear Herr Rielke, [sic!]
   Forgive me for sending you these lines without knowing you, though actually I can hardly say ‘without knowing you’ to a poet whose works I admire so much - besides, we have a mutual friend, Dr Rudolf Kassner, who has often spoken to me about you. So I would be very happy to make your acquaintance and am asking whether you could come to see me at the Hotel Liverpool on Monday at five. The Comtesse Mathiew de Noajilles will be there too and would also be happy to meet you.
   So please let me know whether you can come.
      With best wishes
         Yours sincerely
            Princess v Thurn und Taxis-Hohenlohe

Paris, 77 Rue de Varenne,
Friday (10. December 1909)

Your Serene Highness,
   The generous surprise of your most kind letter awaited me when I came home. The wish to accept for Monday afternoon makes itself felt so imperiously and urgently that I regret not having been home so as to answer immediately.
   I have not seen anybody for months, but now I am looking forward to this rare respite from my work, which your kindness is intent on preparing for me - and I know beforehand that it will be more delightful than anything one can really earn.
   I am waiting with eagerness to assure you, Princess, of my deep respect and devotion.

      Rainer Maria Rilke

Paris, 77 Rue de Varenne,
Tuesday morning (14. December 1909)

Your Serene Highness,
   At the moment I am reproaching myself a hundred times for not having realized yesterday that I should not have disturbed you so long. But it was a real holiday that you granted me, Princess, and - as you know - holidays are always accompanied by the wish to prolong them and the dread that they might come to an end.
   Please forgive me in your great kindness and, if you can, remember only that it was such an extremely happy hour for me.
   The solitude in which I have lived so long makes me inclined to be clumsy in possessing myself of such occasions, although, if I am not deceived, I have learnt to retain and cherish what they add to my life by vitalizing and enriching it.
   Allow me, Your Serene Highness, to assure you of my devotion, which is - I feel it as if I had experienced it for a long time - so happy, thankful and confident.

      Rainer Maria Rilke

Tuesday (14. December 1909)

   No, dear Herr Rilke, you were quite mistaken in thinking that you stayed too long for me. On the contrary, I would have liked to have kept you a little longer.
   Your impressions of our charming poetess interested me enormously, and apart from this I have a feeling that we two could get on very well together.
   Unfortunately, life in Paris is so hectic - when one stays here for as short a time as I - that one cannot enjoy anything in peace. But I hope very much that our meeting yesterday was only a beginning, and I count on seeing you here - in Italy - or in Austria!
   A thousand thanks for the wonderful roses.

      Marie Taxis-Hohenlohe

Paris, 77 Rue de Varenne,
8th January, 1910

   My gracious Princess, I have been hoping - more than ever now, after reading your letter and its postscript - to write to you once more from here at length and in leisure: but yesterday was my last evening in my high, oval room, this is my last day here, and it does not seem as though it is going to give me the good, quiet hour which I had hoped to devote to you. So I employ the next best, this hour, disturbed and fragmentary as it is, at least to assure you of the significance, to me, of everything connected with that kindness in which you have made me believe. In being permitted to meet you, I have experienced one of those things which appear later as though they had been pre-ordained. Now I occasionally picture future days to myself, days, perhaps, in your ‘Castle by the Sea’, where I shall explain how wonderfully all this is interrelated: for I shall gain an ever-increasing understanding of the great and spacious protection I suddenly felt that evening. Like a man who leaves a sinister house and draws a deep breath under the stars, I found myself suddenly under the high vault of the open sky, and my oppressive loneliness had again - I hardly understand how - become that solitude I have loved since childhood, that always goes beyond, but never against me. And as though I were immediately to put that involuntary protection to the test, the little impetuous divinity appeared, with her attendant train of dangers, and I overcame them and looked at them calmly and curiously, as though nothing could happen to me. (The little manuscript is yours in every sense, Princess. I could imagine that the Countess Noailles might be pleased to have a copy, if for no other reason than because it comes from you.)
   Your ‘Castle by the Sea’ - I imagine it standing on a coast like that at Viareggio, to which I often used to escape in former years: much of the Stundenbuch came into being there, and I often thought there must be a castle somewhere near - but wherever it is, it will surely be the one I was seeking at that time.
   For the moment, my work summons me to Germany, to the InselVerlag, where I intend to dictate my new book from the manuscript. In April I hope to be back in Paris: for February and March I have unusual travel plans, in which I do not quite believe myself. But I am looking forward, nevertheless, to describing them to you one day, such as they are.
   It seems auspicious to take leave of this place, Princess, by writing my last letter from here to you. I am conscious of a sublime rule of order in the fact that it should happen like this: this hasty letter does not convey the feeling, but it has been entirely determined by it.
   In the most profound gratitude
      Your
         Rilke

[Victorgasse 5a, Vienna IV,]
23. January, 1910

...I believe you would like Duino - it is a dreamlike place - a kind of heroic landscape - et moi j'y trouve une paix divine....