Words from Dora about Rilke
as the beams of sun. Kindness of expression that could make evil vanish.
In my years as an art student from 1906-1910 in Paris, I have spent many unforgettable hours with Rilke. One of them
is most vivid in my memory.
Rue Cassette, a tiny hotel, a narrow staircase, at the top a door. I knock and enter. Rilke leaves his desk and greets me.
“I have worked well today,� he says, “listen.�
Out of deep silence, words seem to shape, to live, to gleam, to die. Rilke pauses, exhausted. The panther in the Jardin
des Plantes had come to life that day.
I have often heard him reciting, his eyes cloud as in prayer. Prayer and work to him were closely united.
Nothing in life lacked beauty to him, not even my studio with its damp and dingy walls. “How wonderful to sit and
read here after a day’s work.�
I never saw Rilke really tired. Even when exhausted after packing, hardly able to talk, I watched him at the Gare du
Nord in Paris, the ugliest of all stations I have known. “Look at that lovely misty air,� he said “and those
distant colorful lights. Like a cloak covered with beautiful gems.� And then he continued, “There are moments of
haste as the rush we are watching and yet beauty combined with this. Never forget that, always be receptive, the rest is
not for us.�
A string broke on God’s favorite instrument. God took it into His hand, soft beautiful sounds came louder and
louder and many souls seemed to join in a lovely chorus. But then God sadly put the instrument aside, the world had
ceased to listen, a string snapped, another, then all.
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