Marlene by Marlene Dietrich Read Free Book Online Page A

But I suppose it left an even deeper imprint on me. Since I had no father I needed a masculine model to relate to. So I raved about everything that revolved around Goethe.
    I was happy when I was told I would be going to boarding school in Weimar, although the idea of leaving home made me very sad.
    As always, I obeyed.
    The boarding school was cold and unfriendly; the streets seemed foreign, and the smell in the air was different from that inmy big native city. No mother, nobody I knew, no refuge to which I could flee, no place where I could secretly cry, no warmth.
    We slept six in a room. That was harder for me than for the other pupils. I was used to a private existence. (In the meantime, I’ve learned it’s no different in the army.) There must be a hidden intention in this kind of education. While you may “enjoy” its benefits, you also, of course, suffer under it. You mope, and you lie awake all night and cry because you want to be at home with mother. But the school finally wins out. You no longer cry for “Mamma” but learn to manage on your own. You learn to do what you must and keep your personal feelings at arm’s length.
    You fall in line going down the street in twos; you lead the other pupils (I wonder why I was always at the head) and meet people who are busy shopping or gossiping on a street corner. You feel desperate, rejected, excluded. We read Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther and shed copious tears. We would have liked best of all, as young people do today, loudly to proclaim our joy at discovering that so famous a writer knew our young souls. All young people feel misunderstood. It is an old affliction of youth. When you’re suffering the torments of loneliness, poetry and sentimentality help—violins that sing deep in our hearts, dreams that inspire us even though they cannot solve our problems. That was what I felt at the time. During my stay in Weimar, I came to know a wonderful love that suffused my whole being with excitement, indeed an ecstasy that guided my life with a divine light and shielded me from evil and mean experiences.
    Strange as it may seem, Goethe had become a veritable god to me I read his books and followed all his teachings. Nothing could undo or harm me. His city became a refuge for me. His houses became my houses. The women he loved became rivals who made me mad with jealousy.
    Many of my “biographers” make Weimar the city of my birth. This is simply not true. But what is true is that this city became the home of my choice.
    It was a simple thing to do since almost all its inhabitants live under Goethe’s spell.
    His house on the Frauenplan, his Garden House, the house of his great friend Frau Charlotte von Stein were shrines—we would go there every day to cleanse our souls.
    This admiration for a great poet and thinker bore fruit. It was a protective shield against all the temptations that threaten a young girl’s heart, her body and soul. My passion for Goethe, along with the rest of my education, enclosed me in a complete circle full of solid moral values that I have preserved throughout my life.
    And there was also Immanuel Kant! His laws were my laws; I knew them by heart!
    â€œSo act that the maxim of your will, at the same time, could always hold as the principle of a universal legislation.”
    â€œThe principle directly opposed to morality consists in making the principle of individual well-being the dominant principle of the will.”
    â€œThe moral law, as such, requires no justification, not only because it proves the possibility of freedom but because it proves that freedom really belongs to those who recognize this law and choose to submit to it.”
    Logic is not a feminine trait. Thank God I was bound to Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative and teachings and, during my youth, insisted on thinking like a man and not like a woman. Logic was demanded at every moment. If my