that you are still alive, and he will come for you, and, mounted
on a white palfrey, you shall again enter the palace as queen. All will
be expiated, all will be forgiven. You will be a friend to the people.
You know them, for you have lived and suffered with them--This thought
often seizes me and envelops me, as it were, in an enchanted net. I
cannot rid myself of it, and I seem to hear voices and trumpet tones,
calling me hence. I have not yet quieted the wild brood that dwells in
my soul.
*
Mysterious demons slumber within our souls. At the faintest call, they
raise their heads and crawl from their hiding-place. They have cunning
eyes and can readily change their shapes. They can appear as virtues,
and, borrowing priestly robes, can speak the language of sympathy:
"Have pity on yourself and others." They make a show of their power and
love of action, and say: "You can bestow happiness on one and on many.
You can do great and good service to one and to the multitude."
I annihilated them. I held the light up to their eyes, and they
vanished.
Thou livest, queen! Friend whom I have so deeply injured, thou livest!
I do not ask, nor do I wish to know, whether thou art dead.
Thou livest, and my only wish is that thou mightst know of the life of
repentance that I am now leading, and how little compassion I have for
myself.
*
The Greek drama, "Prometheus Bound," occurs to me. Prometheus was the
first anchorite. He was fettered from without; we fetter ourselves by
vows or the rules of an order.
I am neither a Prometheus, nor a nun.
*
There is but one thing, which the outer world might afford me, that I
still long for, and that is the music of a large orchestra.
Fortunately, I often hear it in my dreams. How strange! While sleeping,
my soul plays on all instruments, and performs great orchestral works
which I never entirely succeeded in committing to memory.
We lead a dual life after all.
*
Freedom and labor are the noblest prerogatives of man. Solitude and
industry constitute my all in all.
*
Walpurga has never referred to the warning she once gave me. With a
rude hand, she snatched me from the edge of the precipice and, in
return, I scolded and deceived her, while deceiving myself. She
represses everything that might r
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