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22 WWW. UNWLA.ORG “НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, ЛИПЕНЬ - СЕРПЕНЬ 2013 Lesya Ukrainka's German Love Letter As we know, Lesya Ukrainka was an inveterate letter writer. Her love for the genre spilled over into fiction, resulting in a prose sketch originally written in German and entitled “Ein Brief ins Weite” (translated into English as “A Letter to a Distant Shore”). This fiction al letter's appearance was an uni n- tended outcome of one of Lesya Ukrainka's many travels to seek treatment for tuberculosis: while sta y- ing at a clinic in Berlin in 1899, she was paid a visit by the editor of the German magazine Die Gesellschaft , for which she wrote this sketch just a few months later and where it was published in 1900. Although not autobiographical, the “Letter,” which recalls a chance encounter during a sea vo y- age, nonetheless captures something of that feeling of being in transit which t he author herself had lik e- ly experienced on her journeys. Yet above all, the sketch creates a fleeting image of an ideal relationship between a man and a woman — which approaches perfection exactly because it is so short - lived, almost ephemeral. For the dura tion of one meeting, the woman narrator and the man to whom she addresses her letter were able to offer each other perfect companionship, but as the narrator herself acknowledges, a second meeting could have been very different. The woman's love letter is just as unusual as the mee t- ing she describes: she is able to articulate her feelings about the man openly precisely because she knows that her letter will never reach its destination. Olesia Wallo Lesya Ukrainka A Letter to a Distant Shore You most certainly will never have the o p- portunity to read this letter, but even if it should so happen that you do — and I am not at all co n- vinced that it could ever be possible — you would not, in any event, be able to find out who wr ote it and to whom it was addressed. Of what use, then, such a letter? Truly, I do not know the answer to this question and, for the moment, I do not wish to think about it. There is a French saying for such conduct: c'est plus fort que moi [it is somethi ng more powerful than I am] . And so, this c'est plus fort que moi is what is behind my desire to send you a letter somewhere on a distant shore. I do not know your name, and it is quite likely that I will never find out what it is. We met during an ocean voyage. For me, it was a journey to a foreign land; for you, it was a homecoming; but the road was the same for both of us. We were like two waves that float along together for some time until an obstacle appears — a ship or a rock — that parts them forever; t hey never try to find one another again, for nothing impels them to do so. This is what is happening to us. I would really like to know: do you still remember our encounter — the encounter that was our first and our last? I have no way of knowing if you do or not, but I will never forget it, even though I have forgotten countless other such a c- cidental encounters that I have had since then. I often see you in my mind's eye — your head slightly tilted forward, a serious look in your eyes, and your voice, clear but not strident, pe r- haps a trifle husky. When I close my eyes, I see you in a distant perspective — as one sees objects through opera glasses when they are turned the opposite way — but to me your image always looks pleasing, refined, and clear, like a photog ravure executed with an engraving needle. I am not able to explain to myself why I always see you like this, but I cannot imagine you in any other way. I recall very precisely how you approached me. You noticed that I was maintaining my ba l- ance with great difficulty, and that I was almost falling because the ship was rocking so violently. You offered me your assistance then, and we strolled together, arm in arm, the entire afternoon until nightfall. There is nothing exceptional in this — that an arm is offe red to someone who is feeling di z- zy... As soon as you offered me your arm, howe v- er, I had the feeling that we had strolled together this way more than once. I was not the least bit surprised that you were able to maintain your balance so wonderfully on the swaying deck, and that your arm was a better support to me than the iron railing of the stairs; it seemed to me that I had known this for a long time. You did not permit me to walk alone even once, and when I swayed your hand came up quickly, and you loo ked into my eyes in alarm, saying in a quietly reproachful voice: “I beg you, hold on more tightly to my arm!” And whenever we came up to a bench, and
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