ROSA LUXEMBURG
15
sings
for
those who know how to hear. At these moments I
think
of
you, and wish that I could pass on to you that
enchant~d
key, so that
you too might feel at all times the beauty and joy in life, so that you
too might live enchanted and walk through life as in a flowering field.
Far be it from me to offer you imaginary joys and preach asceticism.
What I wish for you
is
real and palpable joys. I would like to com–
municate to you too my own inexhaustible inner joy, so that I can be
at peace thinking of you, and that you may pass through life in a
mantle embroidered with stars, that will protect you from all that is
mean, trivial and agonizing in existence.
. . . Sonitschka, do you know "The Bewitched Fork" by Platen?
Could you send it or bring
it
to me? Karl once mentioned it, saying
that he had read it at home. The poems of George are very beautiful,
I remember now where the lines come from: "And in the rattling of
russet ears! . . . " that you used to like to recite as we walked in the
fields. Could you, when you have time, make me a copy of the "New
Amadis," I am so fond of that poem- which I know like so many
others through the music of Hugo Wolf-but I haven't it here. Are
you still reading the
Lessing-Legende?
I have gone back to Lange'S
H istory of Materialism,
which stimulates me and always refreshes my
spirit. I wish you would read it some day.
Ah! 'Sonia dear, I have just had an acutely painful experience.
In the courtyard where I take my walks there arrive every day wagons
chock full of fodder-bags, worn-out soldiers' coats and shirts that are
often blood-stained. . . . They unload them here, distribute them
among the cells, where the prisoners mend them, then come and take
them away. It was a few days ago, one of these wagons had just come
into the court. But this time it was being hauled by water buffaloes in–
stead of horses. It was the first time I had seen these animals close to.
They have a broader and more powerful build than our oxen, their
heads are flat and their horns exceedingly curved, which makes their
skull resemble that of our sheep. They have an entirely black face and
big soft eyes. The soldiers who drive the team say that these animals
come from Roumania, and are trophies of war.... It seems that it was
very hard to catch them- they were still running wild-and even
harder, after the freedom they had enjoyed, to turn them into beasts
of burden. They managed to break them in only by beating them,
until they had learned down to the very depths of their flesh the full
meaning of:
Vae victis!
...
There are now more than a hundred and
fifty of them in Breslau, and after the abundant pastures of Rouma–
nia, they have been reduced to the most scanty fodder, wholely inade–
quate rations. They are worked unsparingly, and dragging as they do
all kinds of loads they will soon die off.-Well, a few days ago one
