Acting in you is a revelation. What the soul so
often cannot say through the body because the body is not subtle enough, you
can say. The body usually betrays the soul. You have the power of contagion, of
transmitting emotion through the infinite shadings of your movements, the
variations of your mouth’s designs, the feathery palpitations of your
eyelashes. And your voice, your voice more than any other voice linked to your
breath, the breathlessness of feeling, so that you take one’s breath away with
you and carry one into the realm of breathlessness and silence. So much power
you have Sabina! The pain you felt afterwards was not the pain of failure or of
exhibitionism, as you said, it must be the pain of having revealed so much that
was of the spirit, like some great mystic revelation of compassion and love and
secret illusion, so that you expected this to have been communicated to others,
and that they should respond as to a magic ritual. It must have been a shock
when it did not happen to the audience, when they remained untransformed. But
to those who respond as I did, you appear as something beyond the actor who can
transmit to others the power to feel, to believe. For me the miracle took
place. You seemed the only one alive among the actors. What hurt you was that
it was not acting, and that when it ended there was a break in the dream. You
should have been protected from the violent transition. You should have been
carried off the stage, so that you would not feel the change of level, from the
stage to the street, and from the street to your home, and from there to
another party, another love, another snowstorm, another pair of gold slippers.
“It must take great courage to give to many
what one often gives but to the loved one. A voice altered by love, desire, the
smile of open naked tenderness. We are permitted to witness the exposure of all
feelings, tenderness, anger, weakness, abandon, childishness, fear, all that we
usually reveal only to the loved one. That is why we love the actress. They
give us the intimate being who is only revealed in the act of love. We receive
all the treasures, a caressing glance, an intimate gesture, the secret ranges
of the voice. This openness, which is closed again as soon as we face a partial
relationship, the one who understands only one part of us, is the miraculous
openness which takes place in whole love. And so I witnessed, on the stage,
this mystery of total love which in my life is hidden from me. And now, Sabina,
I cannot bear the little loves, and yet I cannot claim all of yours, and every day
I see you now, immense, complete, and I but a fragment, wandering…”
Sabina touched the letter which rested on her
breast, the sharp corners of the pages hurting her a little… “What can I give
you?” he asked. “What have I to give you?” he cried out in anguish, thinking
this was the reason why he had not seen her for three days, or heard from her.
Another time he had said playfully: “I can only nibble at you.” And had pressed
his small, perfect teeth into her shoulder.
The ascensions of the ballet dancers into space
and their return to the ground, brought before her eyes a Japanese umbrella
made of colored paper which she once wore in her hair. It was lovely to see, so
delicately made. When it rained and others opened their umbrellas then it was
time for her to close hers.
But a hi wind had torn it, and when she went
into Chinatown to buy another the woman who ran the shop shouted violently:
“It’s made in Japan, throw it in the gutter!”
Sabina had looked at the parasol, innocent and
fragile, made in a moment of peace by a workman dreaming of peace, made like a
flower, lighter than war and hatred. She left the shop and looked down at the
gutter and could not bring herself to throw it. She folded it quietly, folded
tender gardens, the fragile structure of dream, a workman’s dream of peace,
innocent music, innocent workman whose hands had not made
often cannot say through the body because the body is not subtle enough, you
can say. The body usually betrays the soul. You have the power of contagion, of
transmitting emotion through the infinite shadings of your movements, the
variations of your mouth’s designs, the feathery palpitations of your
eyelashes. And your voice, your voice more than any other voice linked to your
breath, the breathlessness of feeling, so that you take one’s breath away with
you and carry one into the realm of breathlessness and silence. So much power
you have Sabina! The pain you felt afterwards was not the pain of failure or of
exhibitionism, as you said, it must be the pain of having revealed so much that
was of the spirit, like some great mystic revelation of compassion and love and
secret illusion, so that you expected this to have been communicated to others,
and that they should respond as to a magic ritual. It must have been a shock
when it did not happen to the audience, when they remained untransformed. But
to those who respond as I did, you appear as something beyond the actor who can
transmit to others the power to feel, to believe. For me the miracle took
place. You seemed the only one alive among the actors. What hurt you was that
it was not acting, and that when it ended there was a break in the dream. You
should have been protected from the violent transition. You should have been
carried off the stage, so that you would not feel the change of level, from the
stage to the street, and from the street to your home, and from there to
another party, another love, another snowstorm, another pair of gold slippers.
“It must take great courage to give to many
what one often gives but to the loved one. A voice altered by love, desire, the
smile of open naked tenderness. We are permitted to witness the exposure of all
feelings, tenderness, anger, weakness, abandon, childishness, fear, all that we
usually reveal only to the loved one. That is why we love the actress. They
give us the intimate being who is only revealed in the act of love. We receive
all the treasures, a caressing glance, an intimate gesture, the secret ranges
of the voice. This openness, which is closed again as soon as we face a partial
relationship, the one who understands only one part of us, is the miraculous
openness which takes place in whole love. And so I witnessed, on the stage,
this mystery of total love which in my life is hidden from me. And now, Sabina,
I cannot bear the little loves, and yet I cannot claim all of yours, and every day
I see you now, immense, complete, and I but a fragment, wandering…”
Sabina touched the letter which rested on her
breast, the sharp corners of the pages hurting her a little… “What can I give
you?” he asked. “What have I to give you?” he cried out in anguish, thinking
this was the reason why he had not seen her for three days, or heard from her.
Another time he had said playfully: “I can only nibble at you.” And had pressed
his small, perfect teeth into her shoulder.
The ascensions of the ballet dancers into space
and their return to the ground, brought before her eyes a Japanese umbrella
made of colored paper which she once wore in her hair. It was lovely to see, so
delicately made. When it rained and others opened their umbrellas then it was
time for her to close hers.
But a hi wind had torn it, and when she went
into Chinatown to buy another the woman who ran the shop shouted violently:
“It’s made in Japan, throw it in the gutter!”
Sabina had looked at the parasol, innocent and
fragile, made in a moment of peace by a workman dreaming of peace, made like a
flower, lighter than war and hatred. She left the shop and looked down at the
gutter and could not bring herself to throw it. She folded it quietly, folded
tender gardens, the fragile structure of dream, a workman’s dream of peace,
innocent music, innocent workman whose hands had not made
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