At all events, I know this--that at the present moment everything
impure and vulgar fills me with positive disgust."
It was at this moment, disgusted with those common illusions
miscalled pleasure, that Heine met Mathilde, and was attracted by
what one might call the fresh elementalism of her nature. That his
love began with that fine intoxication of wonder and passion without
which no love can endure, this letter to his friend August Lewald
will show: "How can I apologize for not writing to you? And you are
kind enough to offer me the good excuse that your letter must have
been lost. No, I will confess the whole truth. I duly received
it--but at a time when I was up to my neck in a love affair that I
have not yet got out of. Since October nothing has been of any
account with me that was not directly connected with this. I have
neglected everything, I see nobody, and give a sigh whenever I think
of my friends.... So I have often sighed to think that you must
misunderstand my silence, yet I could not fairly set myself down to
write. And that is all I can tell you today; for my cheeks are in
such a flame, and my brain reels so with the scent of flowers, that I
am in no condition to talk sensibly to you.
"Did you ever read King Solomon's Song? Just read it, and you will
there find all I could say today."
So wrote Heine at the beginning of his love. When that love had
been living for eight years, he was still writing in no less
lover-like a fashion.
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