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a handwritten letter from person to person
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404 - Jean-Paul SARTRE (1905–1980). Autograph letter, [Pisa 19543?…
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Estimate €1,000 - €1,500
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Description
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 had become 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 created 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 travelling in Italy at the time 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 that you don’t see, from the windows, the postman leaving without a letter for you. And besides, it’s only natural that I should write at the end of a day when I haven’t stopped thinking of 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 rollercoaster-like hills. I’m living in anticipation. […] I’m in love with you. 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 I’m more touchy with you than with anyone else: that means, first and foremost, that I love you; that you’re the only one I want. And then there’s your youth and your incredible beauty: as these are things I ought no longer to have, as I’m no longer young enough to be loved by a very beautiful and very young girl, I’m more demanding: if this love is not passion, if it does not go to extremes, I feel wretched, like a freeloader, and I accuse myself of settling for too little (as far as your feelings are concerned) just so I can enjoy all this beauty and youth which, normally, ought not to be mine. If you like, your physical gifts make it my duty to accept only the strongest love; otherwise, I consider myself a despicable old man. If you do not love me more than anything in the world and of your own free will, I am either taking advantage of you cowardly, or else I resign myself (just as cowardly) to not losing you again; in either case, I deserve to be put to death like a dog, and immediately. And when I feel that, I arm myself with shame and fury. You, who are as proud as I am, can surely understand this: you are too beautiful, too young, too intelligent and too desirable for me to let you get away with anything. […] We’re both as proud as punch, but I feel as though, together, we’ve moved beyond pride. And that from now on, we’ll be simply ourselves. […] 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 no longer feel anything at all – I feel only you. You say your love is a dry warmth, and you must be right, but to me it feels like tenderness. […] I feel a powerful tenderness between us. My darling, we’re going to be happy’. Then he talks about his trip to Tuscany: ‘I was on the hills, amongst vineyards and olive trees. The earth was a strange sort of dry, whitish clay, in large clods; the olive trees were like wisps of smoke; there were pitch-black cypresses on the mountain ridges—isolated, in clusters, in procession—creating grey, very gentle landscapes. If you think of grey as a sort of black from which all the greens, all the blues, all the silvers emerge. The car would nose downwards or lift its nose depending on the gradient; we drove through small farming villages, all alike, with views of grey rolling hills turning to blue, dark, steeply sloping streets and a single square, always the same, a sloping patch of ground, between three or four austere palaces—stone squares with almost no windows—until the light eventually drowned it all in a blurring mist that left only the outlines, and then night fell. And I walked with you through it all, the whole time, from midday until nightfall. 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, there’s a moment when you’re still there and yet you’ve already left them; now, for me, it’s the opposite: I’m not yet with you, and yet 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 speak to you—see you tomorrow, my love!”
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About the sale Letters and Autograph Manuscripts – Part II
Auction location
Auction time 10/14/2026 at 2:00 PM
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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