These poems, composed in the melancholy tone of farewell, signal in Heidegger’s letter not the end of the relationship but the attempt at a beginning. But what is beginning here? In March 1959 he writes: “Dear Frau Mascha Kaléko! The more often I read your poems, the more immediately the liberated world view that is hidden in them touches me. That is why I so want a greeting from you and a picture, because I will never forget your appearance. . . . But however that may be—I think of you—Yours, Martin Heidegger.”

In Mascha Kaléko’s papers there is a photograph of Heidegger. The picture of an elderly gentleman that likely accompanied this letter. His request that she for her part send him a picture is one Mascha Kaléko apparently complied with, since an undated billet of Heidegger’s runs: “Thank you. Dear M. K. Your presence in the picture is lovely, and it now speaks through the verses. The 'Somewhere. Sometime' of a reunion delights me. Yours, Martin Heidegger.”

P. 154

¶ 10:22 PM