learn to move your fingers up and down upon yourself and something beautiful comes out.
Her mother never minded she was there. Her mother knew that the music made her happy. And Clara knew that her mother was never happier herself than when she was playing the piano and Herr Bargiel was there and he was making her smile and Clara walked in and her mother was able to show her how music and love could speak as one.
That is why, on this day when her mother took her and together they left her father and neither told her where she was going or why, she knew why.
Zwickau
NOVEMBER 15, 1825
Man is a footnote in the book of Nature .
Jean Paul Richter
Robert was in mourning. Jean Paul was dead. He had died the day before in Bayreuth.
Robert sat on the bank of the River Mulde, as he did nearly every day until the snow came. He was Robert of the Mulde and preserved that name for all eternity on his first volume of poems, A Hodgepodge from the Pen of Robert of the Mulde , to which he added at least one poem a day as he sat here writing and dreaming and imagining his poems being read by all the girls who appeared in them. As they could recognize themselves in his music, surely they would be able to recognize themselves in his poetry.
Robert was two people. But which was real and which was the double: the writer or the musician?
Man is not a footnote in the book of Nature, he realized, but a question mark for himself to answer.
Robert wished he had been born in 1796, the year Jean Paul Richter had created the double in Siebenkäs . Another reason he wished he had been born that year was because that would make him the twin of Emilie, whose double he also was, the male part of her, as she was the female part of him, mixed together within both of them, for we are neither male nor female but a combination of both, and those who recognize this and live by this truth are the only humans who are allowed to, and are able to, live as gods on Earth.
Now, just before he died, Jean Paul had written at least a volume of a new work with an irresistible title, The Time of the Young . In it he had created his own twins, Walt and Vult, and the two of them were exactly who Robert was singly within himself, the gentle poet who dreamed his life away and the passionate artist who lived his life away.
When Robert wrote a poem, a great calm settled over him, his blood seemed almost to stop flowing, and time was suspended.
When Robert wrote music, or improvised, his whole being became agitated, his blood literally beat out the rhythm in his groin and in his head, and time was destroyed.
No one understood this like Jean Paul. And now he was dead.
When Robert had been still in love with Liddy Hempel, he wrote a poem that began:
I see you riding through the snow
and dream of things youâll never know.
If youâre superior to me
why canât you see the things I see?
But ever since Liddy had said that Jean Paul was corrupt in his thinking about doubles because God had made each of us unique and given each of us a destiny we could not alter, which was the reason she could not let Robert kiss her even if she had wanted to, and it didnât matter if he sent his double or his quadruple, she wouldnât kiss any of themâever since such apostasy, Robert had disdained her and, miraculously, as his vision of her as an ideal vanished, no longer pictured himself stretched out beneath her.
But he couldnât forget her, and so, because he had already written so many poems to her and about her, he wrote another:
The news has comeâJean Paul is dead!
But you donât care, you dunderhead.
No longer will you be my queen,
For youâve become a Philistine!
It was a strange feeling to have someone die. The only person who had ever died was his sister Laura, and she had died before he was born, which meant that while he had thought of her and dreamed of her and spoken to her and done everything he could to bring her to life
Her mother never minded she was there. Her mother knew that the music made her happy. And Clara knew that her mother was never happier herself than when she was playing the piano and Herr Bargiel was there and he was making her smile and Clara walked in and her mother was able to show her how music and love could speak as one.
That is why, on this day when her mother took her and together they left her father and neither told her where she was going or why, she knew why.
Zwickau
NOVEMBER 15, 1825
Man is a footnote in the book of Nature .
Jean Paul Richter
Robert was in mourning. Jean Paul was dead. He had died the day before in Bayreuth.
Robert sat on the bank of the River Mulde, as he did nearly every day until the snow came. He was Robert of the Mulde and preserved that name for all eternity on his first volume of poems, A Hodgepodge from the Pen of Robert of the Mulde , to which he added at least one poem a day as he sat here writing and dreaming and imagining his poems being read by all the girls who appeared in them. As they could recognize themselves in his music, surely they would be able to recognize themselves in his poetry.
Robert was two people. But which was real and which was the double: the writer or the musician?
Man is not a footnote in the book of Nature, he realized, but a question mark for himself to answer.
Robert wished he had been born in 1796, the year Jean Paul Richter had created the double in Siebenkäs . Another reason he wished he had been born that year was because that would make him the twin of Emilie, whose double he also was, the male part of her, as she was the female part of him, mixed together within both of them, for we are neither male nor female but a combination of both, and those who recognize this and live by this truth are the only humans who are allowed to, and are able to, live as gods on Earth.
Now, just before he died, Jean Paul had written at least a volume of a new work with an irresistible title, The Time of the Young . In it he had created his own twins, Walt and Vult, and the two of them were exactly who Robert was singly within himself, the gentle poet who dreamed his life away and the passionate artist who lived his life away.
When Robert wrote a poem, a great calm settled over him, his blood seemed almost to stop flowing, and time was suspended.
When Robert wrote music, or improvised, his whole being became agitated, his blood literally beat out the rhythm in his groin and in his head, and time was destroyed.
No one understood this like Jean Paul. And now he was dead.
When Robert had been still in love with Liddy Hempel, he wrote a poem that began:
I see you riding through the snow
and dream of things youâll never know.
If youâre superior to me
why canât you see the things I see?
But ever since Liddy had said that Jean Paul was corrupt in his thinking about doubles because God had made each of us unique and given each of us a destiny we could not alter, which was the reason she could not let Robert kiss her even if she had wanted to, and it didnât matter if he sent his double or his quadruple, she wouldnât kiss any of themâever since such apostasy, Robert had disdained her and, miraculously, as his vision of her as an ideal vanished, no longer pictured himself stretched out beneath her.
But he couldnât forget her, and so, because he had already written so many poems to her and about her, he wrote another:
The news has comeâJean Paul is dead!
But you donât care, you dunderhead.
No longer will you be my queen,
For youâve become a Philistine!
It was a strange feeling to have someone die. The only person who had ever died was his sister Laura, and she had died before he was born, which meant that while he had thought of her and dreamed of her and spoken to her and done everything he could to bring her to life
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