writes Karl Beck in his “Stille Lieder.”
How closely these phenomena are connected with the ideas of blood and cruelty, and how this connexion is favoured by the redness and the flow of blood during sexual excitement, are matters previously discussed ([p. 51]); and in my “Contributions to the Etiology of Psychopathia Sexualis” (vol. ii., pp. 39-41) I have considered the question at greater length. In the same category must also be placed the sexually stimulating influence of red colours.
In association with these algolagnistic manifestations, so long as they remain within physiological bounds, we do not so much see actual physical pain, the actual infliction of suffering or cruelty, as the idea thereof, as mental pain; indeed, actual pain is often not lustful, as such, but only in idea. Eulenburg,[595] especially, has rightly drawn attention to this mental intensification of algolagnia. Mental pain and tears give a wonderful depth to love, increase passion, as Goethe describes in his “Stella.” Love needs pain, in order to be perceived as love. Why? Because pain is something new, a contrast to pleasure, whose eternity would be unbearable. This is described very clearly in the “Letters of Ninon de L’Enclos,” which, though apocryphal, are not less psychologically interesting (German edition, pp. 220, 221; Berlin, 1906).
“Change in the spiritual state is important to the happiness of both the lovers. And what could better provide this advantage than a separation? Have you never experienced the sweetness of a tender separation? The disquiet, the commiseration, the tears which accompany the departing lover, are they not something most valuable to a delicate, sensitive soul? Commonly, lovers regard separation for a few days as an evil. But if they examined the nature of their reputed pain a little more closely, they would soon perceive that this pain does not make a purely disagreeable impression on the soul; on the contrary, an entrancing joy lies hidden therein. The pain enfolds a delightful charm; and we learn that the heart, however much it may be moved with sympathy, always finds itself in an agreeable mood as soon as it is able to exercise its sensibility.”
Similarly, G. H. Schneider remarks (op. cit., pp. 126, 127), that in all love relationships there arises a need for becoming aware of
“the contrast between the pain and the ecstasy of love, by misunderstandings, by transient mental torment, by momentary jealousy on the part of the woman, or by sportive or earnest threats; and this need is gratified instinctively by man, because he feels instinctively that love without it disappears or will disappear.”
He explains this necessity for pain and sorrow in love as dependent upon a degree of exhaustion, a fatigue of the nerve-centres concerned, which demand a period of repose. In the ancestors of the human race, and in the lower animals, this repose was obtained by the alternation of quite opposite feelings, such as love and hate; thus the occasional stimulation of those centres also by which pain is perceived is a physiological necessity for the nervous system.
Nothing, in fact, is harder to bear than a succession of beautiful days; this is true even of love. Why is it that the very best, unalterably tender wives or husbands are so frequently deceived? Certainly it is because they often forget that with the sweetness of love it is necessary to intermingle a little bitterness, and so to allow their partner now and again to experience the “joy of grief.”
“Frau Venus, meine schöne Frau,
Von sussem Wein und Küssen
Ist meine Seele worden krank,
Ich schmachte nach Bitternissen.”
Heinrich Heine.