I had one friend who was true to me through all the vicissitudes of life. Fate drove this one friend far away, and when we got the chance occasionally to see each other it was only for a few hours, which fled like seconds—so much did we have to say to each other. It was our earnest yearning once to get a chance to go away during the summer and spend a vacation together, free and unhampered, satiate ourselves with each other, and then have enough for a whole year. At the cost of many sacrifices we succeeded in having our dream fulfilled. But I would not make the attempt again. I am afraid I would lose my friend altogether.
When we found the long days before us and heard ourselves again and wanted to open our hearts to each other, we became aware—with secret horror—that we had become different in many respects. And occasionally in those beautiful hours we were conscious of something like a shudder at the thought that something fine and delicate that had been anxiously guarded might die. We separated sooner than we had planned or had originally wished. We were happy that we had parted, for we were still carrying home with us a precious heritage from our youth: our friendship—which had not yet been destroyed, but slightly bruised by rude and heavy hands. We shuddered how near we were to including ourselves among the dead.
Was that anything wonderful? Years had passed. Each one of us had experienced thousands of impressions, and what had once been common and had borne the same image had become so different that it would have been impossible to recognize them as having had a common origin. And thus it is that we stand on the roads that once were so near each other but are now so wide apart and that we call to each other like frightened children seeking flowers in the woods and longing anxiously to hear the voices of their comrades. We call to each other to prove to ourselves that we have not died.
It is all souls’ day. Numberless persons are making pilgrimages to the graves of their dead to lay a flower there. I stay at home and close my eyes. I am not crying for the dead who have died but live for me. I am weeping for the dead who still live but who are dead to me....
MIRROR SLAVES.
There are persons who spend their entire lives under the tyranny of the mirror. From early morning to late at night they are thinking, “How do I look to-day?” The mirror follows them into their dreams and shows them their ego horribly distorted and grotesquely transformed, or it annihilates the imperfections which make them so unhappy. Everybody has a tremendous interest in his personal appearance, an interest which may assume such proportions as to amount to self-love, to being in love with one’s bodily ego, or to hatred of one’s self, disgust with one’s own appearance. Ultimately every one of us is egocentric. For each one of us our ego is the hub of the world. Every slightest happening is looked at and judged from the standpoint of our own ego. In the mirror slaves this trait is exaggerated to the n-th degree, to the extent of being uncanny and neurotic. They spend their lives in front of the corporeal and spiritual mirror. For they fix their gaze not only on their physical appearance, but even on their thoughts, feelings, sensations, and work; they are constantly checking themselves up, criticising themselves, and are most discontented with themselves, or they are ridiculously conceited, and never cease to admire their actions and transformations.
Mirror slaves waste a part of their lives in front of the mirror. They keep a little mirror by them constantly so as to look at themselves from time to time. They can’t pass a mirror without stopping in front of it long enough to survey themselves from head to foot. There is a story of a king who promised to give his daughter in marriage to the man who would pass a certain mirror without looking into it. Vanity foiled all but a poet, and the princess was awarded to him. (And, in all probability, the poet did not look into the mirror because he was absorbed in admiring his ego in the mirror of his soul!) This story teaches us the intensity of human vanity. In the case of mirror slaves this human failing becomes a disease; it fills their lives and, under certain circumstances, unfits them for life.