The Author Enters Into His Own Death,

All Those Young Photographers Who Are At Work In The World, Determined Upon The Capture Of Actuality, Do Not Know That They Are Agents Of Death.

It Is Said That Mourning, By Its Gradual Labour, Slowly Erases Pain; I Could Not, I Cannot Believe This; Because For Me, Time Eliminates The Emotion Of Loss (i Do Note Weep), That Is All. For The Rest, Everything Has Remained Motionless. For What I Have Lost Is Not A Figure (the Mother), But A Being; And Not A Being, But A Quality (a Soul): Not The Indispensable, But The Irreplaceable.

One Day, Quite Some Time Ago, I Happened On A Photograph Of Napoleon’s Youngest Brother, Jerome, Taken In 1852. And I Realized Then, With An Amazement I Have Not Been Able To Lessen Since: ‘i Am Looking At Eyes That Looked At The Emperor.’ Sometimes I Would Mention This Amazement, But Since No One Seemed To Share It, Nor Even To Understand It (life Consists Of These Little Touches Of Solitude), I Forgot About It.

Literature Is The Question Minus The Answer.

Where You Are Tender, You Speak Your Plural.