The source of Rilke’s “eternal current” is nothing other than this. Appointed a university professor at just twenty-five years old; received at court by the emperor at the apex of his success; severely criticized by the majority of the academic world, which did not understand his ideas; always precariously balanced between enthusiasm and depression: the “dear sweet chubby one,” Ludwig Boltzmann, will end his life by hanging himself. He does so at Duino, near Trieste, while his wife and daughter are swimming in the Adriatic. The same Duino where, just a few years later, Rilke will write his
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