Love In Goethe's Letter To Abelne

Longing feels more pleasing to Malte even when he thinks of Abelone. When she does not talk to him, he does not feel sad but enjoys the longing. He knows that they would reconcile. It became more pleasing while they longed for each other. Pleasure is in the longing, in the distance. It is not in being together, in the destination. Love is both fascinating and strange. One feels complete and alone at the same moment. One rediscovers everything in life as new, sees the world in a different way. In his life, Abelone was someone who opened those doors for him that he did not know about before. He was able to see everything as different. He was able to perceive things closely. When she read him a letter written by Bettina to Goethe, it seemed like a song. Before that Malte would not have understood it. But with Abelone reading it, Bettina became Abelone and Abelone became Bettina. It is as if all the women who love are alike, just as Malte would find people like himself, experiencing the same kinds of things as he does. Every woman in love experiences the longing and suffering, and tries to reach over to the absolute through that suffering. And in that, every woman becomes like the another woman in love. Bettina and Abelone seemed one to Malte. When he read Bettina’s letter to Abelone, she did not want to listen to Goethe’s replies. She only wanted him to read Bettina’s letters which were more powerful, passionate

The name of wife may seem more sacred or more binding, but sweeter for me will always be the word mistress, or, if you permit me, that of concubine or whore.