“And what is mystical participation, if not just the opposite of a real one?”

Ulrich didn’t stop to consider his answer, but he did hesitate. Finally, he said with great resoluteness: “Look, one is at the same time full of love and empty of love. One loves everything and nothing in particular. One is unable to detach oneself from the most trivial little thing, and at the same time the totality has no importance at all. This is a complete contradiction; both can’t be real at the same time. And yet it is real; it would be pointless to deny it! So if I can’t ask you to conceive of mystical participation as some kind of religious sorcery, there remains only the assumption that there are two ways of experiencing reality that more or less force themselves upon us!”

Sometimes at a propitious moment, and in close association, there arise the answers to such questions that, sporadically and haltingly, have troubled the mind with shifting unrest. Sometimes this abridgement is deceptive; but it is always a preview. One such moment was that of Ulrich’s idea that there are two kinds of reality in the world, or rather that there are two kinds of worldly reality. Once that statement had been made, and before the siblings had persuaded themselves of its plausibility, there was no question in their life that had not been affected by this answer. The many unusual and boundlessly intertwined experiences and conjectures of the recent past, and the premonitory intimations of these at an earlier time, may not have found an explanation, but a refreshed confidence now pervaded them all. Thus a flame contracts darkly and holds its breath before flaring higher.

33

CONVERSATIONS ABOUT LOVE

Man, the speaking animal par excellence, is the only one that requires conversation even for his reproduction. And it is not only because he is talking in any case that he speaks while engaged in that activity, but apparently for him the delights of loving and those of talking are linked; and this in so profoundly mysterious a fashion that it almost calls to mind those ancients according to whose philosophy God, man, and things arose from the “Logos,” by which they variously understood the Holy Spirit, reason, and speech. Well, not even psychoanalysis and sociology have taught us anything substantial about this, even though these two youngest sciences might very well compete with Catholicism in having had something to say about all things human. So one must make one’s own rhyme and reason of the fact that in love, conversations play an almost greater role than anything else. Love is the most talkative of all feelings and consists to a large part entirely of loquacity. If the person is young, these all-encompassing conversations are symptoms of growth; in an adult, they form one’s peacock’s fan, which displays itself all the more vividly the later one starts, even if all it consists of are quills. The reason for this may be that contemplative thought is awakened by the emotions of love and forms lasting ties with them; but of course this would only displace the question, for even though the word “contemplation” is used almost as often as the word “love,” its meaning is by no means clearer.