Love Letters
Franz Liszt to Marie d’Agoult
Thursday morning [1834]
My heart overflows with emotion and joy! I do not know what heavenly languor, what infinite pleasure permeates it and burns me up. It is as if I had never loved!!! Tell me whence these uncanny disturbances spring, these inexpressible foretastes of delight, these divine tremors of love. Oh! all this can spring only from you, sister, angel, woman, Marie! . . . All this can only be, is surely nothing less than a gentle ray streaming from your fiery soul, or else which some secret poignant teardrop which you have long since left in my breast.
My God, my God, never force us apart, take pity on us! But what am I saying? Forgive my weakness, how couldst Thou divide us! Thou wouldst have nothing but pity for us . . . No, no! . . . It is not in vain that our flesh and our souls quicken and become immortal through Thy Word, which cries out deep within us Father, Father . . . it is not in vain that Thou callest us, that Thou reachest out Thine hand to us, that our broken hearts seek refuge in Thee . . . O! we thank, bless, and praise Thee, O God, for all that Thou hast given us, and all that Thou hast prepared for us.
This is to be – to be! *
Marie! Marie!
Oh let me repeat that name a hundred times, a thousand times; for three days now it has lived me within me, oppressed me, set me afire. I am not writing to you, no, I am close beside you. I see you, I hear you . . . . Eternity in your arms . . . Heaven, Hell, everything, all is within you, redoubled . . . Oh! Leave me free to rave in my delirium. Drab, tame, constricting reality is no longer enough for me. We must live our lives to the full, loving suffering to extremes! . . . .Oh! you believe me capable of self-sacrifice, chastity, temperance, and piety, do you not? But let no more be said of this . . . it is up to you to question, to draw conclusions, to save me as you see fit. Leave me free to rave in my delirium, since you can do nothing, nothing at all for me.
This to be – to be! *
[* Liszt wrote these words in English in the original letter.]
