We would gather in the home of a young student, beautiful, somewhat dark browed and with even darker eyes that tended to shine in a scorching manner. It was her intelligence that scorched, it was her passion and a thrownness at life that could only be explained if one understood and accepted -- given that there was no other explanation -- that there lived in her a thirst that she would never sate, from which she would never free herself and whose power was uncertain and terrible: a pathos that could as much annihilate as give a transcendent sense to each of her days. She lived on the borders. She was named Hannah and it was Rainer who imposed her presence on me, which I accepted with delight.

Hannah had a secret. What is known as an open secret. Our distinguished Master had fixed his eyes on her, coveting her. It wasn't surprising, this attitude of the Master. He often gave himself to clandestine loves without noticeable discomfort. Rainer -- it was him who told me these things -- accepted without any problem these intricacies. He lamented that the majority of the elected were Jews. Or perhaps he was surprised by that. Given that, Heidegger's wife being an unconcealable anti-Semite (unconcealable, above all, because she didn't hide that hate), Rainer conjectured that her hatred would increase ad infinitum on discovering that the Master maintained loves behind her back, and behind, too, her convictions. That is, with Jews. Rainer, during those Marburg days, was understanding and warm with Jews, especially with Jews like Hannah, whom he considered Germans, Jews assimilated to our Kultur, Jews that deserved to be part in it having enriched it. I suspected above all that Rainer wanted above all not create any distance with Hannah, whom he admired and desired. And inevitably I inferred that he wanted to take her from the Professor or, at least, share her with him, a sublime way of receiving, through Hannah, everything of Heidegger that was in her. From here it was difficult to tell if Rainer loved Hannah or Heidegger, whom we all loved, although without the daring, even from a man like Rainer, refraining from picking one of his "Jewish daisies". However, Hannah was intimate with Rainer and spoke to him at length of her love for the Professor. Rainer, later, told me those stories -- with a somber or openly tortured tone -- that awoke in me only doubts, sadness or, more gravely even, alarming presumptions about his mental state.

Hannah never confided in me. Only, I saw day after day, the sadness that was winning over her eyes, putting out their shine, clouding them.

Labels: The Shadow of Heidegger

¶ 7:49 AM