Take tram 23, get off at "Bridge Street", turn sideways into the alley on the right-hand side, walk through a few taverns, and in the blink of an eye embark on the famous "Philosopher's Trail" on the north bank of the Neckar River. The surrounding area is getting greener and greener, and I feel the lightness of my body and mind in an instant.
Most visitors take a different route: cross the coffee-scented "Stone Alley", cross the bustling Old Bridge, follow the winding and steep "Snake Road", and finally sweat a lot to climb the "Philosopher's Trail". My daily walking routes are just the opposite. In the more than four years I studied in Heidelberg, I don't know how many times I have walked this path suitable for contemplation and contemplation. Sometimes it is walking with friends, talking about ideals in the scenery, but more often it is a solo walk, sometimes in the early morning when the mist rises, sometimes in the evening when the sunset is calm, mostly in the afternoon when there is no inspiration, and even many times under the starry night sky.
From the "Philosopher's Trail" you can see the old town of Heidelberg
This small southern German town, famous for its universities, has a special geographical location: the Neckar River, a tributary of the Rhine, flows through Heidelberg from east to west, and the city is bordered by rolling hills and forests to the east and the vast plains that stretch all the way to France in the west. The "Holy Trinity" of mountains, river valleys and plains, together with the ruins of medieval ancient cities and castles, constitute an ideal landscape with great density and breadth, natural and cultural tension. She did become one of the most painted European cities during the Romantic period, and the painters who fell in love with her were not limited to the Germans, but also to foreigners from afar, such as the British landscape master Turner.
When the poet Eichingdorf came to Heidelberg in 1807, he wrote in his diary: "Heidelberg itself is a magnificent romance; here in spring the houses, the courtyards and all the ordinary things are embraced with vines and flowers, and the mountains and forests tell the wonderful fairy tales of ancient times, as if there were no mean things in the world." "For more than six centuries, universities have gradually spread in this city. From the collection of the most important manuscript of medieval German poetry, the Manessee Codex, to the publication of the most important Collection of German folk songs of the Romantics, The Strange Horn of youth, from Luther's "Heidelberg Theory" to Goethe's "Heidelberg Love", and the "Heidelberg Spirit" represented by Weber, Jaspers and Gadamer in the twentieth century, the city has carried too much love. Reality and dreams are mixed here, shadows and true faces are mixed here, and it is even more difficult to rationally distinguish between "poetry" and "truth" about her.
After about twenty minutes of walking east along the Philosopher's Trail, you will reach a more open observation deck where a monument to Eichingdorf reminds passers-by of the poet's years in the university town. The reddish-brown stele has this little poem (above):
There is singing and sleeping in all things,
Dreaming in the song.
If you happen to meet a wonderful word,
The world jumped up and sang.
Eichendorff named the poem "The Wand," a tool used to probe underground sources, oil, or mineral veins, generally in a Y-shaped fork, also known as the "Dragon Wand." According to this ancient technique of detection that originated in the Middle Ages, the detector grasps the two ends of the fork of the Y-shaped tool with both hands, points the third end directly forward, and when it is found, the wand will tremble or sink. It becomes a wonderful metaphor: just as the originally static wand moves when a water source or vein is detected, when the "divine word" is encountered, it is also the time when the "song" of all things changes from the static of sleep to the dynamic of the chant, the transformation process from the "word" to the "song" (poem). Heidelberg, a city with a population of only 150,000, is gradually acquiring its own lively vitality and spiritual symbolism in the creation of poets, painters and musicians.
On many homesick evenings, or in afternoons when my doctoral dissertation was disturbed, I would sit for an hour on a bench by the stone tablet, sorting out some almost forgotten past from the chaos, or looking for Ariadne's thread in the chaotic thoughts. This is a superb vantage point overlooking Heidelberg's old town, looking at the students walking through the streets and alleys, as if peeking into herself in the mirror: the girl listened to a free concert in the autumn afternoon, walked out of the magnificent Church of the Holy Spirit, not far to the west across the Grain Square is the German Literature Department of heidelberg University, she looked a little timid when she pushed open the gray gate; the teenager walked out of the university library built of reddish-brown sandstone with three books, turned a corner to the new teaching building, he looked up at the statue of Minerva hanging on the gate, The pretentiousness in her eyes may have been to hide her mediocrity; the maiden bowed her head to the old bridge on a cold winter day, the half-melted ice and snow mixed with mud and glued to her boots, and today's writing class was at Weber's House across the river, where Weber and his wife, Mariana, had received the wise men of the four directions. She met the teenagers of the same class on the old bridge, and the two looked at the birds hanging upside down in the light waves, perhaps thinking of Hölderlin's poems. But she had a little doubt in her heart, was this really the road to the Hidden Dream Pavilion?
Two years later, I returned to Heidelberg in the middle of summer 2016. The girl who was dazed and exploring the way in the deep labyrinth of the library returned to her hometown of Shanghai, turned around and stepped on the podium, but it was not a smooth road in life. Shanghai has changed a lot in the past few years, and the ever-expanding subway line is another kind of ever-changing labyrinth, but Heidelberg seems to be the same, and even the pigeons on Bismarck Square are still so stupid that they often have to let the trams ring to remind them to fly away, walking the streets of the past, as if immersed in some kind of sober dream.
One cool afternoon, I revisited the Philosopher's Trail with a couple who had been reunited. The couple is an "exotic" combination: husband Abdo is Iranian, Khomeini fled to Germany after coming to power and never returned to his homeland; his wife Suzanne, a German, met Abdo in college with his ideals. The two experienced together in the German universities of the academic boom era, and the husband who read literature and his wife who studied agriculture were very interested in entering the company to work. After graduation, the two opened Heidelberg's first "organic shop" with the concept of "biodynamic farming" that was still very cutting-edge at that time. They gave the shop a very simple name - "apple and grain". In early 2010, I was wandering around the city on an unusually depressed evening, stumbling into this small shop hidden in "March Lane" and unknowingly becoming a regular visitor. The old couple, who have no children, take great care of me, especially the boss Abdo, who often says that I remind him of the years when he left his hometown to study in a foreign country. The shop is close to the Heidelberg University Library, and when I'm tired of reading, I'll go there to buy a whole wheat loaf, or a banana and an apple, make small talk with Suzanne, listen to Abdo read a hafez poem in Persian, or help them look at the storefront for a while. Before I left Heidelberg in 2014, I had quit my rental house and spent the last night of my study abroad career at their home (below).
As we chatted about our recent situation, we walked east along the Philosopher's Trail, where the woods grew denser and less crowded, and a stone monument to Hölderlin waited for the wanderers around the corner (below). Inscribed on the tablet is the first passage of that wonderful Hydelberg Ode:
I've loved you for a long time and would love to call you happy
Mother, and a simple song for you,
You are one of the many cities of the motherland that I have seen
One of the most beautiful.
This is the poet's warmest confession of the city. Hölderlin's hometown is not Heidelberg, but he regards himself as a child of the city and offers the most innocent and natural praise to his mother. The fourth paragraph of the poem is the most fascinating:
This boy, this river, runs to the plain,
Sorrow and joy, like this heart, are beautiful
Perish in love,
Invest in the tide of time.
Hölderlin collages "sorrow and joy" into one word in the ode, as if "sorrow" and "joy" do not contradict each other and are one in the poet's destiny. For visitors in a hurry, this romantic town is like a paradise garden, full of happiness and sweetness, but for more than a quarter of the total population, heidelberg life is not all about flowing water, forests, castles and illusions, but also many sleepless dawns and nightshades, as well as the pain of love and the residue of dreams. Time and fate are like the neika river that travels day and night, and there is no possibility of reversing the current. Or, in Heidegger's words, there is a "throwing relationship" between them and the city, where everyone is thrown into the great river of existence and time, without exception.
In Heidelberg in the summer, at seven o'clock at night, the sunset is still colorful. I sat down with Abdo and Suzanne in a restaurant with a great view of the medieval bridge gate. I said that I finally worked and insisted on inviting them to a "feast", which the couple happily accepted. They told me that the year after I left Heidelberg (2015), I opened "Apples and Grains" for nearly three decades because it was no match for the rising "organic supermarket chain" and finally closed its doors. Now, they live a modest retirement life on a modest pension. Still, we're so relieved to reminisce about the gadamers, who are once regulars, laughing and reminiscing about my bizarre hairstyles that were once identical to Spock's in Star Trek, talking about how much they now drink Chinese green tea every day, and how much I miss the German "poppy seed cake." We talked until night fell and it was cool by the river. We walked along the Main Street together and ended up in "March Lane". When they broke up on the street corner, the "Church of Destiny" not far away rang the bell, and when they looked back, the couple had disappeared into the shadows of their dreams. Heidelberg has not changed much during the years of the sun and the moon, but there is no longer any bondage and concern in the "March Lane".
It is said that hugo wrote to a friend after coming to Heidelberg: "People should not just stay here, but must live here." "But it may not be enough to just live, you have to leave from here." Parting is the main color of Heidelberg. Every year, groups of students end their study here and use this as a starting point to go global. Just like the landform here: the water droplets merge into the creek, and the creek rushes into the big river, and the big river rushes endlessly to the plain. Here, the stranger finds the spiritual homeland, and then goes further and wider, which is the eternity of Heidelberg's change. The Neckar River flows from east to west in Heidelberg, where young girls were thrown by fate and wandered into the land of a foreign land. After parting, they returned from west to east, carrying the memories of Heidelberg and re-embarking on a journey towards a world of glitz and uncertainty.
Author: Jiang Linjing
Editor: Xie Juan
Editor-in-Charge: Shu Ming
*Wenhui exclusive manuscript, please indicate the source when reprinting.