Excerpt from Where Silence Reigns

Excerpt from 'The Lay of the Love and Death of Cornet Christoph Rilke'

by Rainer Maria Rilke

Written 1899

From the collection Where Silence Reigns: Selected Prose

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The little Marquis says, "You are very young, Sir?"

And von Langenau, half in sorrow and half in defiance: "Eighteen." Then they are silent.

Later, the Frenchman asks: "Have you too a sweetheart at home, Herr Junker?"

"Have you?" retorts von Langenau.

"She is fair like you."

And they are silent again, until the German exclaims: "Then why, in the devil's name, do you sit in the saddle and ride through this cursed country to meet the Turkish dogs?"

The Marquis smiles. "So that I may return."

And von Langenau is sad. He is thinking of a fair-haired girl, with whom he used to play. Wild games. He longs to go home, for a moment only, only long enough to say the words: "Magdalena-forgive me that I was always like that!"

What- was? thinks the young officer.-And they have gone so far.