a letter from Jan Mankes translated

This is a translation that I made of one of the latest letters Mankes wrote. A letter he wrote while he was sick with Tuberculosis. It was addressed to a female friend and art collector. A few months later he died, only thirty years old. I think this letter illustrates the kind of person Jan Mankes was.

An August day can be so dusty and sobering”. “On these days you just want to disappear, escape all this misery imposing on you”.
However you know: “the serene evening will come and the Lapwing will be heard all over the lowlands”.
When taking a walk in the early morning dew and looking at the backs of the cows and the dampening trees, you know that only the thought of all these things justifies everything else on such a fierce, August day.

“You’re not to moan and curse”, and you must not try to change it and improve it, you just seek out a quiet place somewhere on a deserted piece of land, and wait, while knowing that it will come by itself.
Nature has nothing to hide, but gives everything, and those August days, they also have their place in our mental landscape. But the winterstorm nights, they will come, and so will the lovely mornings and evenings in may, those days made of intimacy.

‘Only that depth we get while living life through extremes together can make true friendships happen. Will fate allow us to go through all these stages’?

The Dutch version of this letter is found on the website: www.annezernike.nl