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no cabeçalho, pintura de Paul Béliveau
Excertos das cartas de Van Gogh a Theo, seu irmão:
In my unbelief I’m a believer, in a way, and though having changed I am the same, and my torment is none other than this, what could I be good for, couldn’t I serve and be useful in some way, how could I come to know more thoroughly, and go more deeply into this subject or that? Do you see, it continually torments me, and then you feel a prisoner in penury, excluded from participating in this work or that, and such and such necessary things are beyond your reach. Because of that, you’re not without melancholy, and you feel emptiness where there could be friendship and high and serious affections, and you feel a terrible discouragement gnawing at your psychic energy itself, and fate seems able to put a barrier against the instincts for affection, or a tide of revulsion that overcomes you. And then you say, How long, O Lord! Well, then, what can I say; does what goes on inside show on the outside? Someone has a great fire in his soul and nobody ever comes to warm themselves at it, and passers-by see nothing but a little smoke at the top of the chimney and then go on their way. So now what are we to do, keep this fire alive inside, have salt in ourselves, wait patiently, but with how much impatience, await the hour, I say, when whoever wants to, will come and sit down there, will stay there, for all I know?
I’m always inclined to believe that the best way of knowing is to love a great deal. Love that friend, that person, that thing, whatever you like, you’ll be on the right path to knowing more thoroughly, afterwards; that’s what I say to myself. But you must love with a high, serious intimate sympathy, with a will, with intelligence, and you must always seek to know more thoroughly, better, and more.
In the springtime a bird in a cage knows very well that there’s something he’d be good for; he feels very clearly that there’s something to be done but he can’t do it; what it is he can’t clearly remember,and he has vague ideas and says to himself, “the others are building their nests and making their little ones and raising the brood,” and he bangs his head against the bars of his cage. And then the cage stays there and the bird is mad with suffering. “Look, there’s an idler,” says another passing bird — that fellow’s a sort of man of leisure. And yet the prisoner lives and doesn’t die; nothing of what’s going on within shows outside, he’s in good health, he’s rather cheerful in the sunshine. But then comes the season of migration. A bout of melancholy — but, say the children who look after him, he’s got everything that he needs in his cage, after all — but he looks at the sky outside, heavy with storm clouds, and within himself feels a rebellion against fate. I’m in a cage, I’m in a cage, and so I lack for nothing, you fools! Me, I have everything I need! Ah, for pity’s sake, freedom, to be a bird like other birds!
An idle man like that resembles an idle bird like that.
[…]
You may not always be able to say what it is that confines, that immures, that seems to bury, and yet you feel [the] bars…
You know, what makes the prison disappear is very deep, serious attachment. To be friends, to be brothers, to love; that opens the prison through sovereign power, through a most powerful spell. But he who doesn’t have that remains in death. But where sympathy springs up again, life springs up again.
Wheatfield Under Thunderclouds [que cores...] (link within)
64. Martin Heidegger à Hannah Arendt
Meßkirch, le 16 mai 50
Ô toi, si chère amie! que n'és-tu là -mais em même temps tu es là- comme j'aimerais te faire surgir ici d'un coup de baguette magique, celle de ta parole. Et dire qu'un si vaste océan nos sépare. Le contenu de "La Parole", c'est la manière dont je pense à la parole; ce n'est pas une philosophie que aurait la parole pour object. Mais, tu t'en souviens encore -de la parole nous nous étions entretenus lors d'une promenade au Waldtal. Tu a raison en ce que tu dis de la réconciliation et du ressentiment. Il m'arrive souvent de reéfléchir à ces questions. Dire que tu m'est si proche en toutes ces pensées! Je me prends alors à rêver -t'imaginant désireuse d'habiter en ces lieux, d'arpenter les chemins forestiers ce recroisant, de porter ta part de tout le paisible règne des choses, et d'être là au millieu de la joie extrême. Au lieu de quoi je n'ai 'que' ton portrait- même si ton coeur est présent à mon coeur, comme l'ardent désir et l'espoir que nos grandissions l'un pour l'outre, en allant vers toujours plus de simplicité, au pli de notre relation. L'autre photo est bien différente; mais il faut aussi qu'elle soit tienne.
Sois, chez toi au loin, toi si chère -revenue, advenante- toi Hannah.
Martin
Algumas destas cartas, sobretudo as dele, estão cheias duma ansiedade e duma sensação de falta pesadas. 1950, ela está nos EUA e um oceano os separa. Escrevem-se cartas, levam tempo a chegar ao destino, viajam de navio. As pessoas passam meses sem notícias umas das outras, às vezes anos. Deixam de ver-se, não há a comunicação rápida de hoje nem o manancial de fotografias sempre disponíveis na rede. Os oceanos hoje são virtuais, mesmo os materiais. Naqueles tempos há desencontros que não podem remediar-se porque não há meios de comunicação à mão. Não há portáteis. Tudo era mais pesado. Era preciso escolher as palavras e os gestos com cuidado porque poderia não haver oportunidade de emendar a mão, de correcção. O que se dizia tinha mais peso, como os actores que fazem poucos gestos e todos os que fazem ganham um relevo significante. Tudo era mais irremediável, mais lento e mais grave...
“Estou a caminho de Auschwitz. Beijos do teu Heini”, lê-se numa das cartas, citada pelo jornal britânico The Guardian.
Se havia alguma dúvida que aqueles tipos eram todos marados dos cornos, desculpem-me a expressão, isto tira-as todas. Aterrador!
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