What can you compare the pain of childbirth to?
- Doctor, tell me, is giving birth very painful?
- Well, how can I tell you? Have you ever been hit in the balls with a beer mug?
Men, now you can no longer guess what to compare such pain with, but feel it for yourself. The thing is that a device has been created that simulates exactly the pain experienced by a woman during childbirth. And it is designed for several stages. True, there is a huge plus for men - you can refuse at any time. So just try it on yourself and you will know.
I would compare this pain to the pain from a strongly contracted muscle. Only this is not one small muscle, but the entire abdomen. It takes my breath away. I was seriously afraid that I would die from pain. Honestly, at that moment I didn’t care. I just wanted to scream, scream and be hysterical. Well, I tried not to do that.
She gave birth without anesthesia or stimulation.
Personally, I was always surprised by the descriptions of terrible labor pains. The pain is quite tolerable, similar to heavy menstruation. For men, the comparison is like diarrhea with pain and colic in the intestines. Not only did I not scream once, I didn’t even moan. There was a young woman in the room with me who was literally standing on her shoulder blades from contractions. I thought - it’s not more dilated, that’s why the ort is tossing around like that. The doctor who came told her - shame on you, you are so furious, you are two fingers dilated (explanation for men - the width of two fingers, not the length), and your neighbor is eight.
In life I have experienced much more terrible pain. I suffered from arachnoiditis (inflammation of the blood vessels in the brain) - this is hellish pain.
And once in my life I had a toothache. This is the worst thing in the world!!!
Many women I knew said that during childbirth, there was pain all over the body, some in the stomach, others had pain in their back. I was stimulated labor using gel. The gel was injected into the cervix. And when the contractions reached their maximum, it seemed to me that it was at the point on the abdomen where the cervix is located that a knife was being stuck in without a break, taken out and stabbed again. I still can’t imagine how such pain can be endured, I was shaking very much and I couldn’t utter a word, as my chin was shaking from the pain. I was periodically injected with painkillers into a vein, and it became easier for a while. I was surprised, exactly point pain. I think it's all about the gel, when natural course process, the pain probably feels a little different. But I'm sure it hurts a lot, in any case.
The comparison with twine is very apt, plus the feeling that in the lower abdomen during contractions thousands of needles are digging into you.
I had two births and both times I gave birth without anesthesia and surgical intervention. The pain is severe, but not unbearable. The main thing is a normal attitude :)
I was most afraid that they would put me on a drip for stimulation))). I can’t imagine how people endure contractions lying down - I ran like a panther around the perimeter, or along the corridor :)
The pain is quite bearable and quickly forgotten!
I have never experienced such pain before. Women who have given birth have told me that this pain is similar to the pain of menstruation, only worse. I realized that they were lying. It is very painful, BUT TOlerable. The obstetrics book says that this pain is similar to the pain of live amputation of limbs, or cancer pain in the final stages.
Oh, I don’t know, Ol... It seemed to me during contractions that if there was such a button to turn myself off)) I would definitely use it!! I had contractions for three whole days!! At first, of course, rarely, then more often, but I didn’t sleep a single night, I couldn’t lift a glass of water, my hands were so weak, on the advice of experienced people, I dragged beds from wall to wall to ease the sensations and distract myself, and I searched on the ceiling with the eyes of some kind of hook!!))) ... And after giving birth, two days later, the gallstones also began to shake. This is easier, although, of course, it takes your breath away so much that you can’t even feel your arms or legs And also contractions. But the attacks were not new to me, unlike childbirth, I knew that there will be an end. The recovery was easy and good, I don’t remember anything else bad! And two hours after giving birth, I was already lying in my bed on my side and writing a letter to my friend!!!))) Everything is forgotten quickly!! But once again I would agree to only have a caesarean section!!
I cannot compare the pain during childbirth with any other pain, because it is different, completely unlike anything in sensation. And in terms of intensity... well, I don’t know, it’s probably different for everyone, since not everyone has the same sensitivity.
But I can describe the pain during contractions :) It feels like you were grabbed by the internal organs and began to twist them from the inside. The pain takes your breath away, you can’t breathe! And then suddenly they let me go! And so every 3 minutes))
I can compare the pain during childbirth to some kind of constipation (if a stone is stuck), which is mixed with a fracture. And at this time you are also scalded with boiling water. And then terribly painful periods begin. Something like that.) But don’t worry, all this passes very quickly. And this is not the kind of pain people endure. I wish you patience during childbirth!
I read the question and the joke came to mind, well, I can’t resist, it’s so on topic)))
A pregnant woman sees a male gynecologist:
December 13th. Heinrich Heine celebrates his BIRTHDAY...
Heine - the gloomy German genius - comes from Dusseldorf. He was born a little earlier than Pushkin, and died a little later. In general, they are contemporaries.
Heinrich Heine (1797-1856), German poet and prose writer, critic and publicist, who is ranked on a par with Goethe, Schiller and G. E. Lessing.
Heinrich Heine, a classic of German romanticism hated by the Nazis
Happiness leaves without looking back.
The anemone does not like to wait.
With his hand he will push back the locks of hair from his forehead,
He will kiss you and run.
And Auntie Woe from the hugs
She won’t let you go, no matter how old she is.
Sits by the bed at night
And he knits and knits until the morning. 
Heinrich Heine is considered the last poet of the “romantic era” and at the same time its head. He made the spoken language capable of lyricism, raised the feuilleton and travelogues to artistic form and gave a previously unfamiliar elegant lightness to the German language. Composers Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann, Richard Wagner, Johann Brahms, P. I. Tchaikovsky and many others wrote songs based on his poems.
Born on December 13, 1797, in the family of an impoverished Jewish merchant in Düsseldorf, a textile merchant. In addition to him, three more children grew up in the family - Charlotte, Gustav and Maximilian. Heinrich received his initial education at the local Catholic Lyceum, where he was instilled with a love for the pomp of Catholic worship. Mother Betty (Peyra) was seriously involved in raising her son. An educated and wise woman, she wanted to provide Henry with a good education.
After the expulsion of the French and the annexation of Düsseldorf to Prussia, Heinrich transferred to the economic school. After this, Heinrich was sent for an internship in Frankfurt am Main. This was an attempt to make the boy a successor of the family financial and trading tradition. But it failed, and Henry returned home. In 1816, the parents sent their son to Hamburg, where his uncle, Solomon Heine, had a bank. Like a true teacher, he gave Heinrich the opportunity to reveal his abilities and put his nephew in charge of a small company. But Heinrich “successfully” failed the case in less than six months. Then his uncle put him in charge of accounting, but Heinrich became more and more interested in lyrics. Having quarreled with his uncle, Heinrich returns home again.
During the three years he spent with Solomon, he fell in love with his cousin Amalia, the daughter of Solomon's uncle. The love remained unrequited, and all of Henry’s experiences found an outlet in his poems - this is especially clearly seen in the “Book of Songs.”
Who fell in love without hope,
Wasteful like God.
Who can fall in love again
Without hope, he is a fool.
It's me who fell in love again
No hope, no answer.
I made the sun and stars laugh,
I laugh and die.
The parents gave their consent for their son to enter the university. He first entered the law faculty of the University of Bonn. But, after listening to just one lecture, Heine becomes interested in attending a lecture on history. German language and poetry read by August Schlegel. In 1820, Heine moved to the University of Göttingen, but he was expelled for challenging one of the students to a duel, with whom he responded to insults. From 1821 to 1823, Heine studied at the University of Berlin, where he attended a course of lectures from Hegel. At this time he joined the literary circles of the city. In 1825, before receiving his doctorate, he was forced to be baptized, since diplomas were only issued to Christians. 
Heine's support for the July Revolution of 1830 forced the poet, tired of constant censorship, to move to Paris. Only after 13 years spent in France, Henry was lucky to be back in his homeland. In the summer of 1848, a rumor spread throughout Europe about the poet’s death, but in fact, having said goodbye to the world in May, he found himself bedridden due to illness. Back in 1846, he began to experience progressive paralysis, but he did not lose interest in life and continued to write. Even after eight years of illness, Heine did not give up and even retained his sense of humor. In 1851, his last collection, Romansero, was published. The collection conveys skepticism and pessimism. Without a doubt, it reflected physical condition poet.
The most famous poems by Heine in Russia are “Lorelei,” which all schoolchildren studying German know, and “Pine,” which was translated by M.Yu. Lermontov:
It's lonely in the wild north
There is a pine tree on the bare top.
And dozes, swaying, and snow falls
She is dressed like a robe.
And she dreams of everything in the distant desert,
In the region where the sun rises,
Alone and sad on a burning cliff
A beautiful palm tree is growing.
This talented translation suffers from two inaccuracies. The German word Fichtenbaum, “pine,” is masculine, that is, it is a poem about the unhappy love of a man for a woman. And Morgenland (from Lermontov - “the land where the sun rises”) means nothing more than the Middle East. Heine has an obvious reference here to the deserts and cliffs of Palestine. It is no coincidence that Lermontov's translation is called free.
Heine was extremely popular in Germany, but his relations with his contemporaries were not smooth. “Heine sprays his poison on his enemies,” they said about him. His books were banned in several German states. One writer promised Heine to “find and strangle” him if he wrote even one bad word about him. The poet's cousins demanded that any mention of their family be removed from Heine's forthcoming Memoirs in exchange for the renewal of the scholarship.
Heine joked about everything. “The history of literature is a big morgue where everyone looks for the dead they love or are related to.”
Over the foam of the sea, embraced in thought,
I'm sitting on a rocky cliff.
The waves crash and the seagulls scream,
And the wind rushes with a whistle.
I loved a lot of friends and girlfriends.
But where are they? Who will find them?
The waves are rising and foaming all around,
And the wind whistles for a long time.
Heine lived in Paris for a quarter of a century. France became his second home. In 1834, in one of the Parisian shops, thirty-seven-year-old Heine met his future wife- the daughter of peasants, an orphan, whose childhood was spent in the French wilderness. Matilda Mira was taken to Paris by her shoemaker aunt. Matilda was charming kind girl, who, for all her merits, could neither read nor write at the age of nineteen.
The last years of his life, Heine was bedridden, which he called with bitter irony a “mattress grave.”
One of his favorite visitors was Karl Marx.
Heine was a distant relative of Karl Marx on his mother's side. It is noteworthy that, having met in 1843 in Paris, they had no idea about their relationship. The poet was fascinated by the mind of this young philosopher and almost daily came to Vano Street to talk about politics and literature. Both of them shared a passion for the French utopians. Karl urged Heine to put his poetic genius at the service of freedom: “Leave these eternal love serenades and show the poets how to wield the whip.”
After Hitler came to power, the Nazis quickly realized with whom this “true German” poet was related. His books were removed from all libraries and burned
During the Nazi years in Germany, Heine was banned and all his monuments were destroyed. Among the books that the Nazis publicly burned in 1933 were Heine's works. These bonfires confirmed his brilliant prophecy: “Where they burn books, they will later burn people.”
In 1911, John Doe said of Heine: “This poet has created many things that will live even when Germany and the Germans will probably be no more.” 
Many composers, including Schubert and Schumann, wrote music to Heine's poems. In honor of the poet, two literary prizes: in 1956 by the Ministry of Culture of the GDR "Heinrich Heine" and in 1972 a prize in his hometown of Düsseldorf.
When a woman leaves you, forget it
That he believed her constancy.
Fall in love with someone else or hit the road.
Put a knapsack on your shoulders and travel.
You will see a lake in peaceful shade
Weeping willow grove.
Cry a little over a little grief,
And things will seem easier.
Sighing, you will reach the blue mountains.
When you reach the top,
You will shudder, looking around the space
And heard the screech of an eagle.
You will become free like these eagles.
And, starting to live again,
You will see from a steep and high cliff,
That little has been lost in the past! 
Heine's works are easy to read - partly because he knew how to say a lot simply and briefly, and partly because he never went into lengthy polemics, preferring short poetry or prose and easily moving from one topic to another. His popularity, but by no means his true place in literature, is based on poetry, on brilliant and inimitable songs (Lieder), widely known throughout the world. He was not only a born poet, but also a brilliant prose writer, combining in his works the clarity of Lessing, whom he admired, with the genius of Nietzsche, who admired him. 
Two before parting
Saying goodbye, they serve
One hand to the other,
They sigh and shed tears.
And you and I didn’t cry,
When we had to part.
Heavy tears of sadness
We shed later - and apart.
All yours creative path Heine passed through with a keen awareness of the incompatibility of lofty dreams and reality. Remaining a passionate dreamer, he was always closely connected with reality, and he thought of the highest happiness as the earthly happiness of earthly people. And today, in the 21st century, Heine has not aged or become obsolete. Open any of his poems and you will see this. Let us finish the story about the fate and works of the great poet with the same words with which we ended the poem “Germany. Winter's Tale» Heinrich Heine:
Above the violently singing flames of the stanzas
No one has power in the universe. 
The poet who made readers happy died on February 17, 1856 in Paris. His last words were: “Write! Papers, pencil!
Heine is buried in Paris at the Montmartre cemetery. 
Heinrich Heine's grave.
Montmartre Cemetery, Paris
“Really, I don’t know whether I deserve to have my coffin ever decorated with a laurel wreath. Poetry, with all my love for it, has always been for me only a sacred toy or a consecrated means for heavenly purposes. I have never attached of great importance the glory of the poet, and I care little whether my songs are praised or condemned. But you must place a sword on my coffin, for I was a brave soldier in the war for the liberation of mankind!" 
The tombstone of Heinrich Heine was erected not only in Paris. After many years of non-recognition, the Germans also decorated their Unter den Linden with a monument to their great poet.
Don't make fun of the devil
The years of life are short
And torments beyond the grave,
Dear friend, it's not nothing
And pay your debts regularly.
Life is not so short -
You still have to borrow
From someone else's wallet! 
Quotes from Heinrich Heine
The taller a person is, the easier the arrow of ridicule hits him; It's harder to hit dwarfs.
Women's hatred is, in fact, the same love, only changed direction.
When the heroes leave, the clowns enter the arena.
If a great passion takes possession of us for the second time in life, we, unfortunately, no longer have the same faith in its immortality...
What is love? This toothache in the heart.
The only beauty I know is health.
Wisdom exists in the singular and has precise boundaries, but there are thousands of stupidities and they are all limitless.
Silence is the English way of conversation.
When the vice is grandiose, it outrages less.
GOOD is better than beauty.
A person who is not busy with work can never enjoy complete happiness; on the face of an idle person you will always find a trace of discontent and apathy.
It is customary to glorify a playwright who knows how to extract tears. Even the most pathetic onion has this talent.
If love lives in us, we are eternal.
All healthy people love life
Angels call it heavenly joy, devils call it hellish torment, and people call it love.
The deepest truth blossoms only from the deepest love.
Wise people think about their thoughts, foolish people proclaim them.
A woman is both an apple and a snake.
Oh this paradise! An amazing thing: as soon as the woman rose to thinking and self-awareness, her first thought was: a new dress!
I wouldn't say that women don't have character - they just have a different character every day.
Women make history, although history only remembers the names of men.
German women are dangerous with their diaries, which their husbands can find.
Women know only one way to make us happy and thirty thousand ways to make us unhappy.
Yes, women are dangerous; but the beautiful ones are not so dangerous as those who have mental advantages more than physical ones. For the former are accustomed to men courting them, while the latter go towards the pride of men and, luring them with flattery, gain more admirers.
I once thought that the most terrible thing was female infidelity, and, to express it as terrible as possible, I called women snakes. But alas! Now I know: the worst thing is that they are not really snakes; After all, snakes can shed their skin every year and become younger in the new skin.
Each person is a world that is born with him and dies with him; Under every gravestone lies world history.
One of the eternal themes in literature - the theme of love - runs through the entire work of V. Mayakovsky. “Love is the heart of everything. If it stops working, everything else dies off, becomes superfluous, unnecessary. But if the heart works, it cannot help but manifest itself in everything,” the poet believed. Mayakovsky's life with all its joys and sorrows, pain, despair - all in his poems. The poet's works tell about his love and what it was like. Love-suffering, love-torment haunted his lyrical hero. Let's open the poem "Cloud in Pants" (1914), and we are immediately, from the first lines, embraced uneasy feeling great and passionate love: Mom! Your. my son is very sick! Mother! His heart is on fire, this tragic love not made up. The poet himself points to the veracity of those experiences described in the poem: Do you think it’s malaria that’s delirious? It was, it was in Odessa, “I’ll come at four,” said Maria. But a feeling of exceptional strength brings not joy, but suffering. And the whole horror is not that love is unrequited, but that love is generally impossible in this scary world, where everything is bought and sold. Behind the personal, intimate shines through big world human relations , a world hostile to love. And this world, this reality took away the poet’s beloved, stole his love. And Mayakovsky exclaims: “You cannot love!” But he could not help but love. No more than a year has passed, and the heart is again torn by the pangs of love. These feelings of his are reflected in the poem “The Flute-Spine”. And again, not the joy of love, but despair sounds from the pages of the poem: I crumple miles of streets with the sweep of my steps, Where will I go, this hell melts! What kind of heavenly Hoffmann did you come up with, you damned one?! Turning to God, the poet calls out: ...do you hear! Take away the damned one that you made my beloved! The fact that even then the poet did not find celebration or happiness in love is evidenced by other works of Mayakovsky of 1916-1917. In the poem “Man,” which sounds like a hymn to the human creator, love appears in images expressing only suffering: The handcuffs rattle on me, the love of a millennium... And only my pain is sharper - I stand, entwined in fire, on the fireproof fire of unthinkable love. In the poems addressed to the beloved, there is so much passion, tenderness and at the same time doubt, protest, despair and even denial of love: Love! Only in my fevered brain was you! Stop the stupid comedy! Look - I, the greatest Don Quixote, am tearing off the toy armor! In the twenties, Mayakovsky wrote one after another the poems “I Love” (1922), “About This” (1923). The poem “I Love” is a lyrical and philosophical reflection on love, its essence and place in human life. The poet contrasts venal love with true, passionate, faithful love, which neither quarrels nor miles can wash away. But already in the poem “About This” the lyrical hero appears before the readers again restless, suffering, tormented by unsatisfied love. The poet is deeply worried that the joys of life have not touched him: In childhood, maybe at the very bottom, I will find ten tolerable days. What about others?! For me this would be great! This is not the case. See - it's not there! Further, turning from the future to the present, the poet bitterly notes: I did not live up to my earthly things, I did not love what was mine on earth. Of course, one cannot equate the lyrical hero of a poem with the author. But the fact that in the poem “About This” its lyrical hero bears the real features of the author is undoubtedly, many details of the poem speak about this. The poet's love was strong. But already in 1924, in the poem “Anniversary,” in a sincere conversation with Pushkin, Mayakovsky said with a smile: I am now free from love and from posters. And, looking back at the past, the poet says with barely noticeable irony: There were all sorts of things: standing under the window, letters, shaking nervous jelly. When you are not able to grieve, this, Alexander Sergeevich, is much more difficult. .. ...I tortured the heart with rhymes - and now love has come... These lines, of course, do not deny love in general. In the poem "Tamara and the Demon", published in February next year, Mayakovsky sadly stated: “I’ve been waiting for love, I’m 30 years old.” And in the poem “Farewell” he is ironic: Where are you, matchmakers? Rise up, Agafya! An unprecedented groom is proposed. Have you ever seen that a person with such a biography would be single and aging unrecognized?! The poet's heart longed for love, but love did not come. “Somehow live and bask alone,” the poet writes in one of his poems. There is so much bitterness in these words, bitterness that Mayakovsky drank to the fullest. But he could not agree with the unrealizability of love, its transcendence: Listen! After all, if the stars light up, does that mean someone needs it? So, does anyone want them to exist? This means that it is necessary for at least one star to light up over the rooftops every evening! The poet cannot imagine himself without love - whether we are talking about his beloved or about all of humanity. The poems “Lilichka” and “Letter to Tatyana Yakovleva” end on the highest lyrical note. The poet's feelings are at their highest. He is truly forever wounded by love. And this wound is not healing, bleeding. But no matter how dramatically the poet’s life develops, the reader cannot help but be shocked by the power of this love, which, despite everything, affirms the invincibility of life. The poet had every reason to say: If I wrote anything, if I said anything, It was the fault of my heavenly eyes, my beloved eyes.
Thus, practically immobilized, half-blind, deprived of the ability to eat and drink on his own, the great German poet Heine determined the state in which he remained all this time.
Apparently, the first manifestations of a serious illness arose much earlier than management, confirming this point of view is not sufficiently defined. And they can be interpreted in different ways.
It is known that in 1832 Heine “suddenly suffered from paralysis of his arm.”
We are talking about a statement of fact, devoid of any significant details necessary for diagnosis. It is not clear which hand, left or right, we're talking about. And, most importantly, nothing is said about the consequences of “paralysis”. Has mobility been restored in the paralyzed arm, and, if so, to what extent?
In 1836, Heine suffered a long-term bedridden " serious illness liver." What this disease was and what it was associated with is also not entirely clear.
The first clear evidence of the presence of a progressive disease spinal cord appeared in 1845. Heine's gait was impaired. Due to paralysis of the eyelid, one eye stopped opening. Paresis masticatory muscles made it very difficult to eat. Heine became noticeably older and haggard. Even his close friends found it difficult to recognize him.
On May 15, 1846, a correspondent for the Communist Bureau of Relations organized by Marx and Engels, a certain Hermann Everbeck, reported from Paris:
“Heine is going tomorrow to the waters of the Pyrenees; the poor fellow is irretrievably lost, because now the first signs of softening of the brain are already appearing... He will die gradually, in parts, as sometimes happens, over the course of five years.”
In September of the same year, Heinrich Heine was visited by Friedrich Engels. In a letter to Marx, Engels wrote:
“The council of doctors established with irrefutable clarity that Heine had all the symptoms of progressive paralysis.”
Heine's illness was surrounded by rumors. In part, they are evil. When Heine was being treated at the waters, one of the journalistic fraternity wrote that he had been placed in a madhouse. In August 1846, newspapers reported the death of the poet.
The year 1848 was fatal in the development of the disease. In May 1848, Heine visited the Louvre. He was brought from the Louvre on a stretcher. Heine's legs became paralyzed and he fell to the floor at the foot of the statue of Venus de Milo.
Mystically minded people attributed, and still attribute to this day, the statue of the Venus de Milo special properties. Either some kind of energy that has accumulated over thousands of years and affects people, or something else. At the same time, they refer to cases of no other, from their point of view, inexplicable influence of the statue of the goddess on visitors.
Naturally, among other incidents, what happened to Heine occupies a special place.
The years Heine spent in the “mattress grave” were painful. He was plagued by attacks of muscle pain. Drilling, tearing, shooting. Muscle convulsions were of particular concern. There were also intestinal colic, frequent vomiting, involuntary secretion of saliva, disorder of urination and defecation.
Monument at the grave of G. Heine. Montmartre
Heine was treated. But the treatment did not have any noticeable effect on either the manifestations of the disease or its course. On February 17, 1856, Heinrich Heine died. He was buried in the Montmartre cemetery.
Heine's death went unnoticed. Flaubert was indignant about this:
“And when I think that there were nine people at Heinrich Heine’s funeral, I feel sad. Oh, the audience! Oh, bourgeois! Oh, scoundrels! Ah, despicable ones!
Heine's wealthy relatives intended to erect a mausoleum befitting a member of a respected family on the poet's grave, but his widow categorically refused. She considered the attentions belated.
During his lifetime, help to the needy poet came from time to time. And receiving it was associated with a number of humiliating requirements. The frequency of cash receipts and the amount depended on the fulfillment or non-fulfillment of which.
As far as one can judge from the memoirs of contemporaries, doctors found signs of tabes dorsalis in Heine. It was with this disease that they associated a complex of numerous and extremely painful disorders. They also said that he suffered from progressive paralysis. In Heine's time, tabes dorsalis and progressive paralysis were considered as a consequence of syphilis. Although it was assumed that these diseases could develop as a result of some other influences. Now they talk about syphilis as the only cause. And in tabes dorsalis and progressive paralysis they see one of the forms of late syphilitic damage to the nervous system.
Unlike many other diseases, the cause of which can be judged one way or another, syphilis is unambiguous. Or there was an infection. Or he wasn't there. The presence of tabes dorsalis in Heine speaks in favor of infection.
However, not everything fits together here. There are certain discrepancies. Some authors write about “bad heredity.” In other words, it is believed that Heine inherited syphilis from one of his parents.
This does not fit with clinical realities. Typically, hereditary syphilis reveals itself relatively early. Heine, apparently, had no syphilitic manifestations in both childhood and youth. Obviously they appeared later.
Heine was not too picky. And he could easily get infected. And syphilis was quite common at that time. Wasn't anything out of the ordinary.
But Heine did not have progressive paralysis. Progressive paralysis, as is known, is characterized by a whole list of clinical disorders. This is nonsense. Including the magnificent delirium of grandeur. Emotional disturbances- from severe depression to mania. And finally, dementia. Typically, the death of progressive paralytics occurs against the background of profound insanity.
To last days Heinrich Heine, as stated by one of the researchers, “retained amazing power of spirit, clarity and speed of thinking.” He could create. Moreover, the disease, on the one hand, seemed to stimulate creativity. On the other hand, creativity alleviated suffering. It distracted me from them. Heine wrote:
“My mental agitation is more the result of illness than of genius. To alleviate my suffering at least a little, I wrote poetry. On these terrible nights, mad with pain, my poor head rushes from side to side and makes the bells of my worn out stupid cap ring with cruel gaiety.”
"Sick Heine." Engraving by Charles Gleyre, 1851.
As before, Heine amazed those around him with his wit.
In 1848, Heinrich Heine was visited by Karl Marx. During the visit, Heine's bed was remade. Any touch caused him pain. And his wife and the nurse carried him on a sheet.
“You see, dear Marx,” Heine joked sadly, “women still carry me in their arms.”
Until his last days, Heine was attracted to women. And he evoked reciprocal feelings in them.
Elisa Krinitz at the bedside of G. Heine
In June 1855, less than a year before his death, Heine met a certain Elisa von Krinitz. Eliza is called "the poet's latest passion." She came to Paris from Vienna. A mutual friend asked her to give Heine the notes of some musical pieces. And Eliza agreed.
“Behind the screen on a rather low bed,” Eliza later wrote, “lay a sick, half-blind man... He looked much younger than his years. His facial features were highly distinctive and attracted attention; It seemed to me that I saw Christ in front of me, across whose face the smile of Mephistopheles glides.”
For six months, Heinrich Heine and Elisa Krinitz communicated almost daily. Heine called Eliza "Mushka".
According to Heine’s sister, Charlotte, Eliza had “... a face with roguish eyes... a small mouth... When talking or smiling, she reveals pearly teeth. Her legs and arms are small and graceful, all her movements are unusually graceful.”
Wife, Mathilde Heine
Charlotte writes that Eliza came “every day for several hours, and the respect with which her brother treated the resilient little one... aroused in Matilda... (Heine’s wife Cresence Eugenie Mira. In his poems, Heine called her Matilda - V.D.) jealousy, which in the end turned into outright enmity.”
Congratulating Eliza Krinitz on the upcoming 1856, Heine wrote:
“You are my beloved Fly, and I do not feel pain when I think about your grace, about the grace of your mind.”
The last letter, or rather note, was sent by Heine and his maid to Eliza shortly before his death:
"Expensive! Don't come today (Thursday). I have the worst migraine. Come tomorrow (Friday)."
Heinrich Heine died on Saturday. At 4:45 am. A few hours before his death, he asked for “pencils and paper” to be brought to him.
Elise Krinitz (she was allowed to say goodbye to the dead poet the next day) remembered his “ pale face, whose regular features resembled the purest works of Greek art."
The nature of Heinrich Heine’s relationship with Elise Krinitz is best described by lines from his “Memoirs”.
“When blood flows more slowly in the veins, when only one immortal soul loves... she loves more slowly and not so violently, but... infinitely deeper, more superhuman.”
Heine's sense of humor did not leave him in the most difficult moments of his life.
The focus of his humor concerned things in which, it would seem, there was nothing funny. His plight and extremely painful painful sensations. He then blamed God for the lack of logic in his actions:
"I'm sorry, but your illogicality, Lord
Amazing
You created a merry poet
And you ruin his mood.”
Then, “in a Christian generous way,” he rewarded the “most virtuous snobs” who had annoyed him all his life with their ailments:
“I’ll leave it to you, die-hards,
The whole set of my diseases:
Colic, like ticks,
My guts are being torn more and more sharply,
My urinary canal is narrow,
My vile Prussian hemorrhoids.
These cramps too,
This flow of my saliva,
And tabes dorsalis for you.”
And finally, as if foreseeing a sad outcome, he sadly stated:
“It’s just a pity that it’s dry
of my spinal cord
Will soon force you to leave
This world is progressive."
This quatrain, with the exception of its poetic merits, of course, echoes the no less sad sentiment of the dying Lenin.
As is known, doctors suspected Lenin of cerebral syphilis for quite a long time. And they treated accordingly. Complaining about the lack of effect from the treatment, Ilyich once remarked:
“Perhaps this paralysis is not progressive, but it is certainly progressive...”
Uncle, Solomon Heine Heine, in everything that did not concern his work, was a contradictory person and not very thorough. He mismanaged his funds. Needed money. And because of this, he was constantly busy looking for sources of assistance.
Detractors called the great poet a “professional beggar.” Liberal-minded friends, including Karl Marx, were dissatisfied and, in part, outraged that Heine’s benefits were paid for some time by the “reactionary government of France.”
For many years, the poet was practically dependent on his uncle, the wealthy banker Solomon Heine. After the death of old Solomon, his heirs stopped paying benefits.
The situation of Heinrich Heine, deprived of other sources of income and bedridden, became desperate. This was a kind of tactical move on the part of the relatives. Not to say - blackmail.
Heine prepared his Memoirs for publication. And, not without reason, the relatives believed that the “Memoirs” contained chapters that were compromising them.
In 1847, Heinrich Heine and his cousin Charles, the son and heir of his uncle Solomon, who died in Bose, entered into an agreement. Heinrich Heine had to agree to the burning of the manuscript. All four volumes of the Memoirs were burned. The fruit of seven years of labor.
“This was just the beginning: where books are burned, people will also be burned.”
Memorial plaque in Berlin on Bebelplatz.
Here in 1933 the so-called “CAMPFIRE HOLIDAY” took place.
during which banned books were burned,
among which were the works of G. Heine.
For his part, Karl Heine resumed payment of benefits.
Judging by the surviving passages, world literature has suffered an irreparable loss. One of the most fascinating books of this genre was destroyed.
The heirs of Solomon Heine can also be understood. They were much less interested in literary issues than in the family's reputation. And this reputation could have been seriously damaged if Heine had published his Memoirs.
Be that as it may, the destruction of the manuscript of “Memoirs” confirmed the poet’s ominous prediction:
"Wenn ich sterbe, wird die Zunge ausgeschnitten meiner Leiche." (When I die, they will cut out the tongue of my corpse).
Heine's satirical poems, pamphlets and feuilletons were not liked by the authorities. And the authorities persecuted him. Which ultimately forced the poet to move to France.
Despite the fact that many of Heine’s works had a pronounced political orientation, he was not a politician. And by virtue of his talent. And, no less important, due to personal characteristics.
“Heine, who thousands of times sacrificed factual truth for the sake of a well-aimed wit, a spectacular ending or an elegantly rounded period,” wrote Lion Feuchtwanger, “once answered the reproach of his friends with an absent-minded smile: “But doesn’t that sound beautiful?”
What kind of politician is this?
And yet, Heine’s satirical works inspired revolutionary youth. He was seen, if not as the leader of the struggle for liberation, then as its symbol.
In turn, Heine was also attracted to socialist ideas. And their most authoritative, most brilliant spokesmen.
For some time, Heine was close to F. Lassalle. Then with K. Marx.
IN Soviet times The friendly relations between Marx and Heine were given special importance. Great German philosopher On the one side. And the great German poet - on the other.
Naturally, the Jewish roots of the philosopher and poet were not emphasized.
It has been argued that Marx inspired Heine. And he, in turn, reshaped Marx’s ideas in his work.
Marx actually asked Heine to write less lyric poetry. Focus on political satire. And to brand, sparing no effort, “all those who...”. Including the Prussian military and German nationalism.
And Heine, for the time being, branded to the best of his ability and ability. But over time, being an opponent of all dogmas, and not really believing in the ideals professed by Marx, Heine moved away from him.
The poet was not forgiven for this. Moreover, when characterizing Heine’s “apostasy,” Marx and his faithful ally Engels did not choose any expressions. So Engels, comparing Heine with God knows what Horace did not please him, wrote:
“Old Horace reminds me in places of Heine, who learned a lot from us, but politically was essentially the same scoundrel.”
Marx put it even more harshly. With Heine in mind, in a letter to Engels dated January 17, 1855, he stated:
"U old dog a monstrous memory for all sorts of nasty things.”
In this sense, Lenin, who in vain called his opponents “political prostitutes”, and sometimes even worse, can be considered a faithful and consistent student of Marx and Engels.
In his youth, Heine broke with the religion of his fathers. And he became a Lutheran. There were many reasons for this.
And the assimilative ideas of Moses Mendelssohn occupied the minds of Jewish youth. And the Napoleonic wars, which brought Jews liberation from feudal restrictions. AND negative attitude to Judaism in general. And to his rituals, in particular.
Heine, like many other Jews of that time, sincerely believed that changing religion would be his “entrance ticket” to the big world. As often happens with renegades, Heine did not get what he expected. Some people condemned his action. And others did not appreciate it.
Always strapped for money, Heine hoped to take the position of school teacher. But he was refused.
However, the change of religion had little effect on Heine’s worldview. And, accordingly, on his creativity.
In his poems, he ridiculed both the “peace-faced Talmudists” and those newly minted supporters of the Reformation who tried to look holier than most Christians. The newly found coreligionists also suffered.
In the famous “Disputation,” Heine put into the mouth of Doña Blanca, the wife of the Spanish king Pedro, a sacramental phrase he had suffered through.
Summing up the many-hour confrontation between the Franciscan abbot Father José and the rabbi from Navarre Yuda, Doña Blanca said:
“I didn’t understand anything
I am neither in this nor in that faith,
But it seems to me that both
They spoil the air equally..."
Despite all his tossing and metamorphoses, Heine never broke with Jewry. As the disease progressed, the sense of belonging became even stronger.
The grandson of Chaim Bückeburg, his grandfather’s name transformed into the surname Heine (Chaim - Heyman - Heinemann, and finally Heine), once called himself a “mortally ill Jew.” And he bitterly complained that on the day of his death there would be no one to recite Kaddish.
Monument to Heinrich Heine on Mount Brocken (Northern Germany), the most high point Harz, which he described with such love in “Journey to the Harz.” In one of his articles, comparing the ancient Greeks with the Jews, Heine, not without some pathos, wrote:
“I understand now that the Greeks were only beautiful youths, on the contrary, the Jews have always been strong and unyielding men, not only then, but even to this day, despite eighteen centuries of persecution and poverty... martyrs who gave the world God and morality who have fought and suffered in all the battles of the mind."
While in the “mattress grave,” Heine created his most “Jewish” poems.
Personally, Heine was far from the heights at which his work reached for quite a long time.
With poets, and not only with them, this happens quite often.
But the years spent in the “mattress grave” revealed in Heine such an incomparable indestructibility. Such hardness. Such an ability to overcome the painful sensations associated with the disease. Such valor of spirit (animi fortitude - lat.) that one can speak of him not only as a great poet, but also as a great man.
And this is worth a lot.
Times and power change, life and human worldview change. But the highest truths remain unchanged, the human need to love remains unchanged. The mystery of the soul remains unsolved, in which the sacred and irresistible feeling of love burns with an unquenchable fire.
The famous German writer Heinrich Heine also replenished the treasury of poetic declarations of love in a book of poetry that brought him worldwide fame. Numerous poems in the collection “Book of Songs” were inspired by the poet’s unrequited love for his cousin Amalia, and subsequently for her younger sister Teresa. The first sections of the cycle “Sufferings of Youth”, “Dreams” and “Songs” are devoted to this topic.
The poet lives in a world of strange dreams. Each poem in the section is a description of a dream, the visions that visit the poet.
Reality and dreams, ghosts and reality are combined in these poems.
The poet is completely immersed in his despair, but this is not a mournful, hopeless reconciliation, but a stormy feeling. Nowhere does the poet see a bright beginning, everywhere there is hopeless darkness.
For Heine, love is a force that brings inevitable death. The poet himself is an unhappy lover who painfully experiences “her” infidelity, one of the many victims.
In the world where the poet lives, it seems there are no real people alive. These are ghosts and deceitful masks that hide meanness and insignificance. A false, deceptive vision and the poet’s own beloved.
A story about bitter unrequited love continues in "Songs".
In the morning I get up and ask:
“Will she show up?”
And in the evening I lament -
She didn't come.
In vain I am in the night's plan
I call you sleep, -
In oblivion, in the sadness of dreams
I live all day.
These two distributions of the cycle “The Sorrows of Youth” have internal unity because they vary the same theme. We are rotated in a vicious circle of the same feelings and experiences, motives and images.
In the cycles “Lyrical Intermezzo” and “Return”, Heine again spoke about his unhappy love, but in a different way. In these cycles there is a poet's love story. The poet describes the blissful state of falling in love. The poet looks at everything in the world with loving eyes - he even begins to understand the language of the stars, and the Madonna in the Cologne Cathedral seems to him similar to his beloved. No matter how captivated the poet is by his love experiences, he can still joke: he no longer loves the lily, the rose, the sudara and the sun, he loves only “her.”
Love is inexhaustible and eternal, like life itself. Despite all the troubles, poverty in the world is dominated by purity, honor, dignity and love. Different ages, different languages. The only thing is love.
