Les écrits d'Etty Hillesum. Journaux et lettres 1941-1943 (The writings of Etty Hillesum. Diaries and letters 1941-1943. Complete edition). Paris: Seuil, 2008, 1081 p.
Friday afternoon, quarter to five [December 5, 1941]
I am faithful to him, deep down. Just like I am loyal to Han. I am faithful to everyone. I walk down the street beside a man holding white flowers that look like a bridal bouquet, and I give him beaming looks; twelve hours ago I was in the arms of another man and I loved him - and I love him.
Is it vulgar? Is it decadent?
For me it's perfectly normal. Maybe because physical love is not - or is no longer - the main thing for me. It is another, larger love. Or am I deceiving myself? Am I being too vague? Even in my love relationships? I don't think so. But what's wrong with me rambling like this? I'm totally out of touch.
p. 248
February 22, 1942, Sunday evening, 9 o'clock
When he read this psalm before dinner, standing under the lamp, without pathos, in an almost detached tone, an ample goodness spread over the dear landscape of his face. And for a moment, I loved him with a love that hurt terribly, because it went far beyond all forms of eroticism and sensuality, and suddenly seemed so elusive. I understood then that I could never express my love for him in an embrace, even in the most complete abandonment, and that hurt, because one has to stand quietly in one's corner and carry this love inside oneself, which is almost too heavy a weight for a little sensual woman like me. And a small, silent smile thrown over a plate of potatoes can be more valuable than a whole night under shared sheets, and when I looked deep into his eyes, I suddenly felt tears welling up and, almost dazzled by his kind eyes, I had to turn mine away. And meanwhile, we continued to talk nonsense happily. But without disharmony between these superficial jokes and the deep feelings, the one complemented the other - etc.
.................
I have so much gratitude for this life, I feel how much I am developing, I know my faults and my daily smallnesses, but I also know the difficulties I face. And I have so much love, I love a few good friends with love, but this love is not a barrier for my fellow human beings, it goes so far, it is so encompassing, so vast, it includes so many, even people who, to tell you the truth, I don't like personally, and this is what I have to aim at. It is now 10 o'clock. Han has gone back upstairs to sleep with his lung patient son, who is a bit pathetic, and I crawl gratefully into my narrow, lonely bed. It's really weird, when I lie on my back in it, I feel like I'm snuggling up to the good old earth itself, when I'm really just lying on a soft mattress. But when I am lying there, intensely, full of gratitude for everything, I seem to be communicating with - yes, with what, exactly? With the earth, with the sky, with God, with everything. And really, in those moments I feel like I'm snuggled up against the earth itself, while I feel a soft, decadent, bourgeois mattress underneath me. And now, good night.
p. 359-362
Saturday morning [March 28, 1942], 10 a.m.
And on Thursday evening, it was again war outside my window and I watched the show from my bed. Next to me, Bernard was playing a Bach record. And the voice was at first loud and radiant. And suddenly, planes, anti-aircraft defense, shooting, bombs, a thunder like we had not heard for a long time. Just a stone's throw from the house, it seemed. And suddenly I became very aware of all the houses around the world that are collapsing on their occupants every day. Bach continued unperturbed, but his voice was reduced to a faint trickle. And I, lying in my bed, was in a very strange mood. Tracer bullets grazing the naked, threatening trunk outside my window. Tremendous rumblings. And I thought: "At any moment, a piece of shrapnel can pass through the window. It is perfectly possible. And it is also possible that one suffers very badly. And yet I felt a deep gratitude and peace, lying there in my bed. And I accepted, with a sense of maturity and humility, all the disasters and pains that might still befall me. And I firmly believed that I would continue to find life beautiful, always, in spite of everything. All disasters are of our own making. And why is it the war? Maybe because I sometimes tend to berate my fellow human beings. Because we don't have enough love in us, myself, my neighbor, everyone. And we can fight war and all its after-effects by releasing love in ourselves, every day, every moment, and give it a chance to live. And I believe that I could never hate a human being for what is called his "wickedness", it is rather myself that I would hate - "hate" is too big a word here. One cannot be too relative in what one demands of others, nor too absolute in the demands one makes of oneself. And I believe that this is also the reason why I am not afraid of the times in which we live, because everything that happens is, in a certain way, so close to me, and - in spite of the monstrous forms that it sometimes takes - so obviously produced by men and always reducible to human phenomena, and because of this, there are many behaviors which have nothing frightening for me, because I continue to see in them human productions, coming from each individual, from myself, so that everything is understandable, and that the behaviors never turn into incomprehensible monstrosities, having no more link with the men.
Yes, these trees, their branches were often, at night, weighed down with stellar fruit, and now they are stabs in the clear spring sky. And in this new form, in this new landscape, still of unspeakable beauty.
p. 432-433
April 5 [1942], Sunday morning, 9:30 a.m.
I must add this: in all the romantic relationships I have had in this more than full young life of mine, there always came a time, more or less shortly, when I looked back with a certain nostalgia to the beginnings, the adventurous, fresh and promising beginnings of the relationship in question, and said to myself, "Too bad it's not like it was in the beginning anymore, it will never be this beautiful again." And now, with S., it's exactly the opposite. With each new phase of our relationship, I scan how far we've come and think, "Never has the bond between us been as deep and strong as it is now." Each step forward seems to gain in intensity and the previous phases seem to pale in comparison to the next, so much more diverse, nuanced, interesting, and deep is our relationship with each step. I once said, this was after February 3, when I had known him for a year - think, a year: "I don't think intensification is possible anymore." And yet, there was indeed a new "intensification", due to the fact that, sometimes, a still uncultivated piece of the friendship ground started to bloom without warning. And now I have become accustomed to saying: "There can hardly be any more intensification." Any form of growth, in any sense, is still possible with us. And this is also because we are both in full possession of our strengths, because we almost always focus on the same things, because we open up to each other and to the world day after day. That we don't think we have any "rights" over each other. Because we both understand the art of intensely enjoying the little things in life and because we both believe in God in the same way. From the fact that, from time to time, we are in love with each other and we accept it as an additional gift, a free gift, without seeing it as the center of gravity of our relationship. And I learn from him, every day, and he is so eager to "teach" someone else and I ask him questions, questions, and his answer is always ready.
p. 460-461
Saturday morning [June 13, 1942]
It took me many detours and tangles of words, on this dark and rainy morning, to come to a simple and clear notion of things. Between the far too many, yet necessary, words of this morning, this is more or less what I wrote: "You try to remedy a temporary lack of inner strength by making demands on the outer world and unreasonably expecting that world to come and give you strength." -
I should have added: "In the moments when I don't have love in me, or at least I don't feel that I have love in me, I try to compensate by demanding extra supplies of love from my loved ones. And I might as well give it up, because even if they were to pour lots of love on me, I would end up being embarrassed by it and I wouldn't even feel it as love, because it wouldn't echo in me. Then a process starts where you become more and more demanding. One can almost reduce it to a short algebraic formula: the deficit or absence of love in me makes me demand a double ration of love from the outside world. And even if it were given to me, I would not know what to do with it anyway.
But - and this is a new question - how does one come to be temporarily loveless? But that's a chapter of its own, and perhaps it's also much simpler than I think; in any case, now I have to prepare some little theme sentences for my bean supplier. –
p. 580-581
Monday morning [June 15, 1942], 8 a.m.
After the meditation in front of the pear tree bookcase: One should never take a person, however beloved, as a goal in life. Here again, it is a question of finality and causality. The goal is life itself in all its forms. And every human being is a mediator between ourselves and life. Life lends human beings its gestures, its content and its forms, and in each human being we learn to know life in another form. For our part, we teach those we meet in life to know it better, but then we must free them, return them to life, even if it is difficult for us. As for those we love the most, it is probably through them that we learn to know life best. Or is it the other way around? Doesn't our love obliterate our view of life? Yes, if this love makes the loved one the supreme goal.
p. 586
Saturday [July 4, 1942], late morning
And those people without number, who do not know today how to continue to live and who, still alive, are already largely dead. But one does not have the right, as long as one is still alive, to let oneself die, one must live one's life fully and to the end. Even if something happens to him (Spier)? Yes, you must continue to live in the spirit that is his and you must pray for him, day and night. I have a strange feeling. Everything that until now has been so unreal is beginning to become more and more real, an inner reality until now . As if a whole process of childbirth was taking place within me. Shifts. And everything on the outside remains the same. And one cannot talk about these shifts that take place inside oneself, because one does not master one's voice yet and because it would seem too big, and almost unbearable. One thing is certain, however: we must contribute to increasing the reserves of love on this earth. Every little bit of hatred that we add to the already too many hatreds makes this world even more inhospitable and unlivable. And I have so much of that love, I have so much of it, I have so much of it that it is already contributing and it has ceased to be insufficient. And now I really have to go to bed. The sadness is now diverted from the man-woman-bed problem, in this respect I am really evolving and I am not so silly anymore. Our time will come when it must.
p. 656
July 11, 1942. Saturday morning, 11 o'clock
In this ruined world, the shortest paths from one being to another are inner paths. In the outside world, you are torn from each other and the paths that could bring you together are so deeply buried in the ruins that, in many cases, they will never be traced. Maintaining contact, continuing a life together, can only be done internally. And don't we always hope to meet again one day on this earth?
Of course I don't know how I will react when I really have to leave him. I can still hear his voice when he called me this morning; tonight I'll have dinner at his table, tomorrow morning we'll go for a walk, have lunch at Liesl and Werner's and then in the afternoon we'll make music. He is always there. And in my heart I don't really believe that I will have to part with him and the others. A human being is a small thing. In this new situation, we will first have to get to know each other again. –
p. 676-677
Letter to Maria Tuinzing. Westerbork, Saturday August 7 and Sunday August 8, 1943
(extract)
Many people here feel their love for their neighbor withering away because it is not nourished from the outside. People here do not give you much opportunity to love them, they say. The mass is a hideous monster, the individuals are pitiful," someone said. But for me, I keep having this inner experience: there is no causal link between the behavior of people and the love we feel for them. This love for your neighbor is like an elementary prayer that helps you to live. The very person of this "neighbor" does not make much of a difference. Ah, Maria, there is a certain shortage of love here, and I feel so surprisingly rich in it; I would be hard pressed to explain it to others.
p. 890