ROSA LUXEMBURG
9
ble-bees, than in a party congress. To you I can say all this, you won't
suspect me immediately of being a traitor to socialism. You know of
course that
in
spite of this I want to die at my post: in a street battle
or a penitentiary. But in my inner conscience I belong more to the
titmice than to my "comrades." And it is not that in nature, like so
many politicians who have gone inwardly bankrupt, I find peace, a
refuge. Quite the contrary, I find in nature, as among men, so much
cruelty everywhere that it causes me a great deal of suffering. For
example, the little episode that I am going to tell you refuses to leave
my mimI. It was last spring, I was coming back from a walk in the
fields, on a quiet and abandoned road, when suddenly I noticed a
little dClrk
spo~
on the ground. I bent down and was a witness to this
mute tragedy: a beetle was lying on his back, and, disabled, was de–
fending himseli with his legs while a whole heap of ants swarmed over
him and were eating him alive. I shuddered, got out my handkerchief,
and began chasing the little brutes away. They were rude and tena–
cious, so that I had to carry on a long struggle with them, and when I
had finally succeeded in freeing the poor martyr and had laid him
far away on the grass, two of his legs had already been eaten off.
I rushed away, obsessed by the painful feeling that after ail I had only
done the beetle a rather doubtful kindness.
Tht! long evenings are already here. How I used to love this time
of day. At Sudende there were a great many blackbirds. Here, I see
and hear none. All through the winter I fed a pair of them and now
they have vanished. At Sudende at this hour of the evening I used
to stroll i.n the streets; it was so beautiful when suddenly, in the last
violet glimmer of day, the rose-coloured gaS flames were lit, jumping
timidly as if they felt ill at ease in the dusk. In the street, the vague
silhouette of a housewife would rise up, bustling, or a servant would
dash to the grocery or the bakery to get something. The shoemaker's
children, friends of mine, used to go on playing outside in the dark,
until a brisk voice called them back into the house. At that hour there
was always a stray blackbird that couldn't find a resting-place, and
that suddenly, like an ill-bred child, would let out a little. cry or fly
abruptly from one branch to another. And there I was, in the middle
of the street, counting the first stars, and I had no desire to leave the
soft air and the dusk, where day and night were melting softly into
one another, and shut myself up in the house.
Sonitschka, I will write to you soon. Be calm and cheerful.
Everything will be all right, for Karl too. Goodbye until the next
letter.
I kiss you.
Yours,
ROSA
