Jean-Paul SARTRE (1905–1980). Autograph letter, [Pisa 19543? - Lot 404

Lot n° 404
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Result : 2 506EUR
Jean-Paul SARTRE (1905–1980). Autograph letter, [Pisa 19543? - Lot 404
Jean-Paul SARTRE (1905–1980). Autograph letter, [Pisa 19543?], to his mistress Évelyne Rey; 4 pages, in-4. A passionate love letter to the young actress Évelyne Rey, who became his mistress. The young and beautiful actress Éveline Lanzmann, known as Évelyne Rey (1930–1966), appeared in revivals of *Huis clos* in 1953 and 1956, and premiered the role of Johanna in *Les Sequestrés d’Altona* in 1959. She was the sister of Claude Lanzmann, himself a lover of Simone de Beauvoir. Sartre was then traveling in Italy with Simone de Beauvoir. “My dear love. I’m very sleepy, and this won’t be a very long letter, but I’m writing it so you won’t see the mailman leave without a letter for you from the window. And besides, it’s only natural that I write at the end of a day when I haven’t stopped thinking about you and longing for you. […] Deep down, I’m writing on a whim, because as I was climbing the stairs, I thought I was going to take you in my arms. But all day long, you were there with me, in that car bumping along the roller-coaster-like hills. I’m living in anticipation. […] I’m in love with you. Very deeply. […] As soon as I feel that you love me, I have no qualms about admitting to myself that I adore you. I can tell that I’m more touchy with you than with anyone else: that means, first of all, that I love you; that you’re the only one I want. And then there’s your youth and your incredible beauty: since these are things I shouldn’t have anymore—since I’m no longer young enough to be loved by a very beautiful, very young girl—I’m more demanding: if this love isn’t passion, if it doesn’t go to extremes, I feel miserable, like a freeloader, and I accuse myself of settling for too little (when it comes to your feelings) just so I can enjoy all this beauty and youth that normally shouldn’t be mine. If you will, your physical gifts make it my duty to accept only the strongest love; otherwise, I consider myself a despicable old man. If you don’t love me more than anything in the world—and spontaneously—then I’m taking advantage of you cowardly, or else I resign myself (just as cowardly) to not losing you again; either way, I deserve to be put to death like a dog, right this minute. And when I feel that, I armor myself with shame and fury. You, who are just as proud as I am, can surely understand this: you’re too beautiful, too young, too intelligent, and too desirable for me to let anything slide with you. […] We’re both as proud as sin, but I feel like together we’ve moved beyond pride. And that we’ll be perfectly simple from now on. […] Now, I want nothing more than to be in your arms, to be close to you, to kiss you, and to talk to you. When you love me, I no longer feel old or young—I don’t feel anything at all; I feel only you. You say your love is a dry warmth, and you must be right, but I feel it as tenderness. […] I feel a powerful tenderness between us. My darling, we’re going to be happy.” Then he recalls his trip to Tuscany: “I was in the hills, among vineyards and olive trees. The earth was a strange, dry, whitish clay, in large clumps; the olive trees were like wisps of smoke; there were jet-black cypresses on the mountain ridges—isolated, in clusters, in procession—creating gray, very gentle landscapes. If you think of gray as a kind of black from which all the greens, all the blues, and all the silvers emerge. The car would nose down or nose up depending on the slope; we passed through small farming villages, all alike, with a view of gray rolling hills that turned to blue, dark streets with steep slopes, and a single square—always the same— a sloping patch of land, between three or four austere palaces—stone squares with almost no windows—until the light finally drowned it all in an equalizing haze that left only the shapes, and then night fell. And I walked with you through it all, the whole time, from noon until night. You were my eyes that saw, you were my heart. The hills and the palaces were mere appearances, mirages; the only reality was you—it was our future life. “I love you; I’m happy to love you so deeply.” He’s in Pisa and will be returning to Paris in seven days: “The separation is over for me. You know, when you leave people and cities behind, and for a moment you’re still there yet you’ve already left them; now for me it’s the opposite—I’m not with you yet, and I’ve already joined you. I take you in my arms, I kiss your mouth, I bite it, I hold you tight, I look into your big eyes, I talk to you—see you tomorrow, my love!”
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