I am writing you again, because I am alone and because it troubles me always to have a dialogue with you in my head, without your knowing anything about it or hearing it or being able to answer. Poor as your photograph is, it does perform a service for me, and I now understand how even the “Black Madonna”, the most disgraceful portrait of the Mother of God, could find indestructible admirers, indeed even more admirers than the good portraits. In any case, those Black Madonna pictures have never been more kissed, looked at, and adored than your photograph, which, although not black, is morose, and absolutely does not reflect your darling, sweet, kissable dolce face. But I improve upon the sun's rays, which have painted falsely, and find that my eyes, so spoiled by lamplight and tobacco, can still paint, not only in dream but also while awake. I have you vivaciously before me, and I carry you on my hands, and I kiss you from head to foot, and I fall on my knees before you, and I groan,“Madame, I love you.” And I truly love you, more than the Moor of Venice ever loved. The false and worthless world views virtually all terary characters falsely and worthlessly. Who of my many slanderers and snake?tongued enemies had ever reproached me that I am destined to play the role of chief lover in a second?class theater? And yet it is true. If the scoundrels had had wit, they would have painted “the production and direction” on one side, and me lying at your feet on the other. Look to this picture and to that in English— they would have written underneath. But dumb scoundrels they are and dumb they will remain, in all eternity.
Momentary absence is good, for in constant presence things seem too much alike to be diffe*****ated. Proximity dwarfs even towers, while the petty and the commonplace, at close view, grow too big. Small habits, which may physically