vv: beings in the mirror are closer than they might appear! ::: rmr

[Lorentzen / Nicklaus]

 " ... i was still laughing while i disguised myself, and over that i completely 
forgot what i actually wanted to present. well, it was new and exciting to 
decide this not until later in front of the mirror. the face i tied on smelled 
peculiarily hollow, it superimposed my own tightly, but i could easily look 
through, and i chose only when the mask was already fitting a good deal of 
shawls, which i winded in a sort of turban around my head, so that the edge of 
the mask that below was reaching into a huge yellow coat was also above and at 
sides nearly completely covered. eventually, when i couldn't go on anymore, i 
considered myself to be sufficiently masked. else i picked up a large wand, i 
let, as far as my arm reached, walk at my side, and trailed like this, not 
without effort but, as it appeared to me, full of dignity, into the spare room 
on to the mirror. 

 now this was really great, above all expectation. the mirror reflected it also 
immediately, it was too convincing. it wouldn't have been necessary to move 
oneself much; this appearance was perfect, even though it did not do anything. 
but there was to experience what i may actually am, a-and so i turned around a 
little and, eventually, raised both of the arms: vast, as it were evoking 
movements, that was, as i already realized, the only right thing. but just in 
this solemn moment i heard, muffled by my mummery, pretty close to me a multiply 
compounded noise; very scared, i lost that being over there out of the eyes and 
was badly out of tune to realize that i had overthrown a small round table with 
heaven knows what for, probably very breakable things. i bended as well as i 
could and found my worst expectations confirmed: it looked as if everything was 
broken. both of the superfluous green-magenta porcelain parrots were of course, 
each in a different evil way, smashed. a box, out of which sweets were rolling 
that looked like silky pupated insects, had thrown far away its lid, one saw 
only its one half, the other was on the whole gone. but the most annoying was an 
into thousand tiny pieces shattered phial, out of which the rest of some old 
essence had spouted, which now was forming a stain of very repugnant 
physiognomy on the clear parquet. rapidly i dried it up with something, that was 
hanging down at me, but the stain only became more black and more uncomfortable. 
i was rather desperate. i lifted myself and looked for some thing with which i 
could turn everything to be alright. but none was found. also i was so 
handicapped in seeing and in every movement that rage came up in 
me against my senseless state i couldn't understand anymore. i pulled by 
everything, but it only closed at even narrower. the laces of the coat strangled 
me, and the stuff on my head pressed, as if there were still things coming 
along. thereby the air had gone cloudy and like steamed up with the oldish fumes 
of the spilled liquid.

 hot and furious i rushed in front of the mirror and looked laboriously 
through the mask to see my hands working. but for that he only had waited. the 
moment of retaliation had come for him. while i was, in boundlessly increasing 
constriction, struggeling to somehow get out of my mummery, he forced me, i do 
not know with what, to look up and dictated me a picture, no, a reality, a 
strange, inconceivable monstrous reality, with which i got filled against my 
will: 'cause now he was the stronger one, and i was the mirror. i stared at this 
big, terrible unknown in front of me, and it appeared awful to me to be 
with him alone. but in that same moment i thought this thought the most ultimate 
happened: me lost all sense, i simply fell out. for one second i had an 
undescribable, painful and fruitless yearning after myself, then there was 
only still him: there was nothing except for him.                

 i ran away, but now it was him who ran ..."


    (rainer maria rilke: "die aufzeichnungen des malte laurids brigge" [1910],  
    insel paperback edition, pp. 87-9: own translation)


kfl
 
                                    ps --- " ... and all of sudden, solitary,
                                             m i r r o r s: which recreate one's 
                                             streamed out beauty back to the own
                                             countenance." (die zweite elegie)