Summer with Tucholsky – spring is not

In the morning they went into the fields. Yesterday’s thunderstorm had cooled down, the first autumn days came. The wind blew heavily. When they approached him, he sang like complaining … the leaves foamed on the ways. Milk -white light incorporated the fields evenly. The sun was behind the storming clouds; Sometimes she came out, then it was red and frozen in the rough, strong autumn air. An empty path was in front of them, swept in by the wind – and it was bliss to push over it; Young Linden lined up endlessly, and it was lucky to keep the gripping trunk aside. The breath went deep and the shoulders rose. They went into a step.

Longing – longing for fulfillment! Here was everything (he felt), autumn, the clarifying, clear autumn, claire, everything – and yet it moved on, the foot was striving forward, somewhere there was a goal to never reach!

Much, almost everything in the world was to be satisfied, almost every longing was to be fulfilled – only this not. What was a lover from above? – a fool. When the beloved heart opened up, he was silent, full and satisfied. Whole literatures would not be, the girls locked their doors … A amoroso was satisfied, give him the woman he desires and the tinting mouth is silent. What is there to silence us? We have nothing to hide anymore, we know about all secrecy of the body … also about all of the soul? – There are words that should never be said, otherwise they die … but we don’t want to go into these depths of the treasury, we have each other completely and yet we long. What is it that continues to us, further, higher, forward? – Spring is not; Because it is in all seasons, it is not adolescence; Because we feel it in all ages, it is not the claire, we feel it anyway.

Now they came through a windless Hain young birch.

Can hug all of this, not because it is good or beautiful, but because it is there because the cloud benches are white and stored because we live!

Be happy, but never satisfied. Don’t let the fire wipe out, never, never! In a round hole, sluggish black, rotten water circulated. Everything else is a prelude: advertising, the grant, enjoying. Then it starts and never stops. What can be before? Busy with the simple question: yes? – No? – Do not see the essentials, not the real. Dress down your desires of your desires, to own them, put them in your room, wishful, alone, think, you have everything you want … Do you stay? Can she promise more than curls? – Can she give? Not everyone can withstand the stress test. It is not anxious for nothing that you do not keep the last one when you don’t know that it is the most precious thing you have to give. Conquest in which the stimulus only conquered. But we want to own.

And there is no deeper longing than this: the longing for fulfillment. It cannot be satisfied …

“Wolves! Hello! ”She had run far ahead and picked white ice berries in the bush, put her on the floor in a circle and cracked her with the foot.

“Why are you doing it?”

“Do you have no sense of beauty? Do you feel that this is satisfied, redeemed, as freed from pressure when the berry – finally – cracks up? – Ban break! “

The grasses shone in the light, a thick beetle pulled over the Chaussee, flew open, a wind stroked over the way, continued with him, did he want to go there? – Well, he would be happy there too …

A flock of sheep climbed through the dubbed fields; They wanted to avoid, but it was too late, the German Shepherd had barked a long row, they were in the middle of them, the sheep rewoted them, the claire fluctuated back and forth in the sea.

“Wolves when the animals eat me?”

“Don’t you, Miss, it shouldn’t be worth it.”

Finally they crawled out, covered with dust, laughing.

“That you found out there, wolf!”

They were in the open field, shiny green grasses in the wind, the air was in strong movement, but the country was calm, if it might blow and drive it, the earth remained firm.

They stood on a small hill, the country was waving far away, the strong air tore on the hair. Can hug all of this, not because it is good or beautiful, but because it is there because the cloud benches are white and stored because we live! Power! Power of youth! …

»Claire?«

»That?«

And was packed and carried away like a wrap child, down the slope to the floral hollow.

This is an excerpt from Kurt Tucholsky’s novella “Rheinsberg: A picture book for lovers” (1912): A progressive, intellectual Berlin student couple goes to the Brandenburg excursion location for a few days, crashes into the provincial and Wilhelmine stubborne of the village, escapes into a playful permanent mockery and his love. With this early autumn, we end our series »Summer with Tucholsky«.