12.18.2016

Hamburgo, 5 de Febrero de 1930 / José Antonio Ramos Sucre

Hamburg, February 5th, 1930

Ms. Dolores Emilia Madriz.
Cumaná.

Illustrious Dolores Emilia:

     I’ve answered the very polite letter you sent me at Juan’s house and now I’ll refer to another one from January 6th. In this new letter you give me the same unvarying solicitude regarding my health.
     But you talk about coming to Europe next April counting on my health.
     By that date the tremendous problem of my health won’t be resolved. I myself don’t even know what I have. I suspect all this horror comes from a parasite infection and two specialists I’ve consulted think the same thing. But if the sickness has its own independent existence and it isn’t related to that infection, then I’m doomed.
     I don’t even know how my brain manages to write a letter.
     The tropical institute in Hamburg assures me they’ve cured the amoebiasis perfectly. But the nervous anxiety hasn’t disappeared yet and it manifests itself in contradictory ways.
     This very week I leave for the Tyrol, where they’ll give me a new treatment to help me recover from the exhaustion and to wean me off the sleeping pills.
     Only the fear of suicide allows me to suffer with such patience. I’ll be good to you and you’ll be happy. But this process has to be decided still.
     German women are adorable, very pretty, of a child-like nature. German men hit their wives. One night I saved a girl from being run over by a car and she clung to me and I had never felt like I did then the infallible victory of women, of the defenseless creature, over compassionate men. The little German girl was like Luisa Elena Almándoz. She was full of terror and was moaning. She was absolutely lacking in virtue or ferocity.
     By the way, everyone in Europe is immoral, they live and let everyone else live. The roars of anthropophagous virtue aren’t heard around here. The Europeans work at a frightening pace and they’re very friendly. No one here curses or blasphemes. These are very cultured countries. I should have been born in Europe because I’m very corrupted*, in other words human.
     You know me.




* “In the facsimile published by the magazine Oriente, 1981, it’s evident that Ramos Sucre crossed out the syllable “com” with a line and an x, which proves he started to write the word “compasivo” [compassionate] before it occurred to him to play with the meaning and surprise his cousin with the unexpected “corrompido” [corrupted].”
(Alba Rosa Hernández Bossio)




{ José Antonio Ramos Sucre, Obra poética, Edición crítica de Alba Rosa Hernández Bossio, Madrid: Colección Archivos, 2001 }

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