Else Lasker-Schüler writing a letter beside a crystal and a piece of coral

If the beloved were made of crystal

Else Lasker-Schüler (1869–1945), a German Jewish poet and artist, tucks a little message into a longer letter in her novel Der Malik. The writer is telling the Blue Rider what she sent to somebody else. For a moment we read over his shoulder the words meant for King Giselheer. It is at this particularly intimate point that a crystal enters the correspondence.

A reply among the presents

The king receives an unusual parcel. A wooden soldier shares the space with a chocolate trumpet, a silver penholder and an agate seal. There is plenty to play with, but among the toys are several things that the recipient could use to write and seal a letter. The possibility of a reply has slipped into the package almost without our noticing.

[…] I wish you were made of crystal. Then I would like to be your lizard, or your starfish, or your coral, or your carnivorous flower.

– Else Lasker-Schüler, Der Malik, 1986, Sixth letter, enclosed message to King Giselheer.[1]

Four ways of keeping someone company

In the accompanying note the game changes. The writer now sends things made of words and includes herself among them. If the man she addresses were made of crystal, she could be his lizard. In the next breath she is at sea, moving from a starfish to a piece of coral, until she thinks of a flower capable of eating animals.

What holds these quick changes together is the little word “your”. Whatever shape she takes, she wants it to be one in which she belongs with him. A playful list can explore the possibilities of such a wish at greater leisure than a single declaration of love. The crystal gives the imagination somewhere to return to while every creature around it keeps moving.