Page:Masterpieces of German literature volume 18.djvu/413

 RICARDA MUCH

TRANSLATED BY MURIEL ALMON

F Martin Luther, who had the qualities necessary to become great, we learn that he was one day forced to see a man who was walking and conversing with him suddenly struck dead by lightning. This occurrence is said so to have shaken his spirit that he turned from the world, became a monk, and went into a monastery where he, unfortunately, did not remain. I have had the same experience, although the bolt which I saw blindly descend did not belong to the external world; but it was not less destructive.

All at once I saw, as I will now fully describe, that there is nothing, absolutely nothing in life that stands firm. Life is a bottomless and boundless sea; doubtless it has indeed a shore and sheltered havens, but we do not reach them alive. It is only on the tossing sea that there is life, and where the sea comes to an end life ceases too—just as a coral dies when it comes out of the ocean. And if we take the beautiful, iridescent jelly-fish out of the water, we find a hideous mass of gelatine in our hands. Now I think men and life are such that it is indeed possible to obtain peace and security, but only by renouncing life with its joyfully rippling waves, its changing colors, its wild tempests. Many people, particularly the young and the old who have experienced nothing, think that divers eternal rocks are to be found in the midst of the irresistible turmoil where the first wave merges with the second in the very moment

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