Lăsăm uşa la balcon deschisă. Luna plină din noaptea asta vine cu furtuni ce vor umfla perdeaua mea de voal portocalie. Lumina doar de la acvariu. Ne întindem pe canapele. Tu ai să stai cu ochii închişi, eu am să-ţi citesc. Cum ţi-am citit atunci. Am să şi plâng. Ai să mă întrerupi, somnoroasă, cu întrebări. O să tresări nedumerită la fraze citite cu intonaţie aparte. Sclipiri de contrazicere le laşi să treacă uşor. În noaptea asta ai să mă accepţi aşa. Aşa cum m-ai cunoscut. Şi-o să ne vindece pe amândouă. Doar în noaptea asta. 

  

 Mi-am pus semne la cuvintele ei, la cuvintele lui, la cuvintele altora despre ei. Nu te anunţ ale cui le citesc. Tu o să înţelegi. 

  

 Te-aştept… Am să-ţi citesc încet. Fiecare cuvânt cu pauză. 

Was I less I, or more I, and you less or more you?

We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations.

As soon as I utter a phrase my sincerity dies, becomes a lie whose coldness chills me. Don’t say anything, because I see that you understand me, and I am afraid of your understanding. I have such a fear of finding another like myself, and such a desire to find one! I am so utterly lonely, but I also have such a fear that my isolation be broken through, and I no longer be the head and ruler of my universe. I am in great terror of your understanding by which you penetrate into my world; and then I stand revealed and I have to share my kingdom with you.

I am lonely, yet not everybody will do. I don’t know why, some people fill the gaps and others emphasize my loneliness. In reality those who satisfy me are those who simply allow me to live with my ‘idea of them’. How wrong it is for a woman to expect the man to build the world she wants, rather than to create it herself?

Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death. I postpone death by living, by suffering, by error, by risking, by giving, by losing.

Do not seek the because – in love there is no because, no reason, no explanation, no solutions.

There are two ways to reach me: by way of kisses or by way of the imagination. But there is a hierarchy: the kisses alone don’t work.

Too late for changes, too late perhaps for explanations and ideological webs, but the love goes on, the love goes on, blind to laws and warnings and even to wisdom and to fears. And whatever that love is, perhaps an illusion of a new love, I want it, I can’t resist it, my whole being melts in one kiss, my knowledge melts, my fears melt, my blood dances, my legs open.

Anais, I don’t know how to tell you what I feel. I live in perpetual expectancy. You come and the time slips away in a dream. It is only when you go that I realize completely your presence. And then it is too late. You numb me. […] This is a little drunken, Anais. I am saying to myself “here is the first woman with whom I can be absolutely sincere.” I remember your saying -“you could fool me. I wouldn’t know it.” When I walk along the boulevards and think of that. I can’t fool you – and yet I would like to. I mean that I can never be absolutely loyal – it’s not in me. I love women, or life, too much – which it is, I don’t know. But laugh, Anais, I love to hear you laugh. You are the only woman who has a sense of gaiety, a wise tolerance – no more, you seem to urge me to betray you. I love you for that. […]

I don’t know what to expect of you, but it is something in the way of a miracle. I am going to demand everything of you – even the impossible, because you encourage it. You are really strong. I even like your deceit, your treachery. It seems aristocratic to me.

What we are familiar with we cease to see.

A startingly white face, burning eyes. June Mansfield, Henry’s wife. As she came towards me from the darkness of my garden into the light of the doorway I saw for the first time the most beautiful woman on earth.

Years ago, when I tried to imagine a pure beauty, I had created an image in my mind of just that woman. I had even imagined she would be Jewish. I knew long ago the color of her skin, her profile, her teeth.

Her beauty drowned me. As I sat in front of her I felt that I would do anything she asked of me. Henry faded, She was color, brilliance, strangeness.

Her role in life alone preoccupies her. I knew the reason: her beauty brings dramas and events to her. Ideas mean little. I saw in her a caricature of the theatrical and dramatic personage. Costume, attitudes, talk. She is a superb actress. No more. I could not grasp her core. Everything Henry had said about her was true.

By the end of the evening I was like a man, terribly in love with her face and body, which promised so much, and I hated the self created in her by others. Others feel because of her; and because of her, others write poetry; because of her, others hate; others, like Henry, love her in spite of themselves. A startingly white face retreating into the darkness of the garden. She poses for me as she leaves. I want to run out and kiss her fantastic beauty, kiss it and say, “You carry away with you a reflection of me, a part of me. I dreamed you, I wished for your existance. You will always be part of my life. If I love you, it must be because we have shared at some time the same imaginings, the same madness, the same stage.