As cartas do amor | The love letters

(Primeira carta de amor da coleção comprada na Feira da Ladra)

Lee Park Gateacre Liverpool, 29.4.60
Dear V.,




Dear V.

As I write this I realise that it is exactly one week since I first met you, and yet I cannot imagine never having known you. It is as if my whole life has been relieved in one week. A week so long, and at the same time so short, so bitter and so sweet, full of melancholy farewells and joyous reunions, full of death and life. I died a thousand times during that week. First by the river at Stratford when you confessed that you had not meant to take me away from my friends again that night when you left me at the Hotel and i thought I should never see you again. On Sunday at Trafalgar Square I was so sad, because Fausto said you would not be home before Thursday.


London is such a melancholic place when one is alone. The fountains play, the lights flash, the people laugh and talk but if one knows nobody everything seems so unhappy. The brilliant bubble called life burst, and there seemed to be nothing left.


I was very frightened and nervous on Monday, not knowing whether to telephone. You can probably imagine that I was shaking from head to foot. At the station I was afraid we should miss each other. Then at last you were there. Relief surged over me in waves, just as more melancholia surges over me. I shall never forget how gentle and warm your skin felt at that moment.

It will take a long time to write this letter because i stop frequently to recall something you said or did. I remember going into the Kitchen to help make the coffee; I remember the way you carefully placed the kettle on the gas and then turned slowly towards me; I remember...




"And all my days are trances

And all my nightly dreams

Are where thy brown eye glances

And where thy footsteps gleans

In what ethereal dances

By what eternal streams"




Perhaps you know that Marie rang you to find why we were so late on thursday. She was not really angry, she understands that it takes to long to say goodbye, for goodbye is a long long time. Did you find your little angel? If not I shall ask St. Anthony, he is sure to find it for you. I Think my mother (my poor suffering mother) must have prayed to him for me, so that I should reach home safely. She had been very worried because there was a report in the newspaper of a girl who had been strangled by a man who had given her a lift.

Marie and i reached Liverpool at seven o'clock on Thursday night, exhausted. We came back on the new motorway, the M1, it was a magnificent experience. Poor Marie, she was so tired that she fell asleep on my shoulder, and then woke up sudenly because she was dreaming. I was glad to be home, and yet it does not seems as though we are two hundred miles apart. I do not want to think of that, for I shall weep and you are not here to kiss away my tears and hold me close to you.

“Again you return O melancholy
O gentle mood of the lonely soul”

Everywhere is still, so still, I am alone by the fireside. The embers burn low. The night is silent as only the night can be. It would seem the the world will never again awake. I feel you near me, I feel your hands through my hair, gently lifting my face towards yours. I see your eyes looking into mine as if they were reading my soul. Bewitched, bothered, and bewildered am i.

“Bend lower that I may cover you with my hair,
For me will gaze upon this world no longer”

It is long past midnight. The night is the time for remembering, and there is so much to remember. Now that you are so far away from me I must love you as one loves the sunset, which one sees but cannot touch. The moon is beautiful tonight. Ever changing yet always lonely, like a forsaken love seeking consolation in the stars when the one she adores has deserted her. Now like a proud, beautiful, lonely woman she sweeps the floor of the heavens with her silver mantle searching for peace, but never finding it. Yet she is gentle, for with this same silver mantle she shelters all lovers, all of her memories are happy tonight, she has had a love of her own.

“The innocent moon, which nothing does but shine,
Moves all the labouring forces of the world”

V., the one who ruins, do not break my heart. A broken heart can never be mended.
I will tell you that my name means “blessed”. That is a strange name to have - “I. the blessed one”.
Earlier this evening I went to Julia’s to make sure she arrived home safely. As derek said, we look after each other! I played her record of “Malagnana”. She is foolish, this Imelda, for the record made her weep.
When did I love you most? Who can say, each time I saw you I loved you more. Perhaps on Wednesday, when you told me I reminded you of your mother. Then I know I had not trusted you vainly, then I realized you would not destroy my trust.

“I live in the world’s yong springtime,
And my heart is the heart of spring,
With the force of the growing rootlet,
And the zest of a bird on the wing,
We pluck life’s fruit with laughter,
Its last sweet juice tasting,
To come, to fight and conquor,
To think, to know, to sing.”

I hear your voice floating over me, as it floated over the still waters of the avon. There was peace.

“The music in my heart I bore
Long after it was heard no more”

When people in Portugal ask “who is this Victor de Sousa?” I shall tell them he is a young boy, young and yet so old, who has known life, bitter and sweet, who likes London, and yet primes for his nature land, for the life he has left and to which he can never return, for his student days, for his childhood, for his mother. They will ask, “Who are you to answer our questions?” and I shall reply, “I am she who loves him, who trusts him, I am the one who will comfort him when he cannot bear his sorrows alone. I will draw his head upon my lap and caress him, so that he will sleep and forget his sorrow. I will give him sleep”.

“Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care
The death of each day's life
Sore labour's bath
Balm of hurt minds”

Come to me when you feel the world becoming to materialistic and I will remind you of the type of person you want to be. I shall give you some of my gentleness and you will leave me refreshed. I shall be to you as a haven is to the storm tossed ship, a place of refreshment light and peace.
Remember me when you are in paris. Remember the amour in the still of the night, when you stand by the Seine, perhaps with a girl in your arms. As you caress her remember....
Write to me soon, but take care, my mother should ask to read the letter.
It is almost morning and I should rest. I shall go to bed, perchance to sleep, and if to sleep to dream, and if to dream, to dream of you; Do you mind?

“We are the music makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea - breakers,
Ans sitting by desolate streams: -
World - losers and world - forsakers,
yet we are the movers and shakers
of the world former, it seems.”

Goodnight, mon cher, and thank-you for the memories.


All my love
Imelda

You do not know my surname, this is it: Rimmer.

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