From Pardo Bazán to Napoleón: The erotic letters you never imagined you would read

"My dear Saviour.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
14 February 2023 Tuesday 05:37
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From Pardo Bazán to Napoleón: The erotic letters you never imagined you would read

"My dear Saviour. When the car started I was about to jump out of the car to stay with you in Cadaqués. I have behaved like an indecent donkey with you, you are the best there is for me”, Federico García Lorca confessed to Dalí in a letter written on July 31, 1927. The secret incident that distanced the two geniuses is unknown. since then they never saw each other again. This is a fragment of the multiple letters that the expert in epistolary literature Nicolas Bersihand collects in his book Cartas Eróticas, recently arrived in bookstores by Ediciones B and in which you can also learn more about the intimate lives of such illustrious characters. like Virginia Woolf, Emily Dickinson, Trotski or Napoleon.

Regarding the latter, Bersihand admits his surprise after discovering that the emperor of all times, who frightened the entire world, was actually “a submissive and childish man when it comes to love and sexual matters. Such was the passion that he felt for Josefina, her first wife, that he turns a deaf ear when she lies to him and tells him that she has been pregnant for more than nine months. Which obviously doesn't make sense. Napoleon also sometimes reproaches him for some letters that transmit "a deadly coldness", as well as his infidelities, although he ends up forgiving them.

The expert confesses that “the intention of this book was precisely this, to provide lights and shadows on certain historical figures. And there is no better way to get to know them than through their privacy”. In this sense, he assures him, “a person's life can be summed up in ten letters. And, of these, those that are of love or erotic themes give us a broader and more real vision of the person in question. Of course, he warns him, “in general terms, the focus between men and women is very different. They tend to be more cheerful, sincere and transparent. They, darker and, sometimes, perverse ”.

For this difference to be appreciated, the following examples are good. The first, the writings of Emilia Pardo Bazán to Benito Pérez Galdós. The author goes so far as to give her the greatest of compliments, taking into account her profession: "I like you more than any book." The tone increases as time goes by: “Come take possession of these sculptural chambers. Here is a vulture waiting for her booby bird, for her little owl”.

“She is bold, yes, but there is no malice in her words. Only sincerity and a vital attitude”, says Bersihand, who puts Stendhal as a totally opposite person. "The one known as the champion of love writes things that today could land him in jail." In one of her letters addressed to Prosper Mérimée, author of the opera Carmen, she gives advice to “benefit a decent woman for the first time”. Thus, she points out that “while she is lying down, she strokes her. She starts to like him. Her habit, however, always leads her to resist. Then, without her noticing her, you must rest your left forearm on her neck, under her chin, in such a way as to choke her.”

More conservative were Benjamin Franklin's advice to a friend. "For one of the fathers of the US Constitution to give sexual recommendations to his acquaintances was already an unusual audacity," says the expert. "I suggest that in all your love affairs you opt for older women and not for younger ones," he even says. Oscar Wilde, on the other hand, opted for poetry to declare himself to his lover, Alfred Douglas, whom he comes to compare with Apollo and whose lips "red as rose petals, are made as much for the madness of music and song as for the one with the kisses”. These confessions landed the British writer in jail after Douglas's father denounced him for sodomy. “It was a real scandal. The world did not forgive him for challenging Victorian puritanism and his end was most tragic. He died two years after his release in a Parisian hotel. Like an outcast, ruined and alone", laments Bersihand, who sees in the acts of the intellectual "a true act of courage".

The letters from Juliette Drouet to Victor Hugo, historical epistolary testimony on female jouissance, do not go unnoticed either. “You ask me what kind of pleasure we poor women experience. ‘It was about time you worried about that, my dear Toto! Over the years, I hope for seventh heaven more often thanks to my little fingers than for the grace of your great mast. I couldn't tell you to what extent I feel nostalgic for our first voyages. How energetic you were! Too much, perhaps; You didn't save anything for later. Here I am, dry”.

Although if someone deserves distinction, that is none other than Mademoiselle S., who expressed erotic debauchery like no one else and whose letters are, surely, the most read in the world on this subject: “My dear love, I am vicious, but I would like to be even more to please you, to keep you, because I adore you, you know. Bersihand pays homage in her book to this anonymous woman, since she “is the most famous author of erotic correspondence of all time. Hopefully one day we can put a face and eyes on it ”.

Like these, there are many curiosities that can be found in the book, although the author confesses his intention to give "a feminist emphasis, as well as give voice to the LGTBIQ collective", among which stands out the epistle of Eleno de Céspedes, a man trans who was accused of witchcraft and who decides to write a letter to the Inquisition to explain that he is actually "a hermaphrodite person", for which he asks that a surgeon attend him "to analyze my cause".

Bersihand acknowledges that he would spend hours rereading this found correspondence. There are more than a thousand letters that he has collected over the course of a year, although he admits that "it has been impossible to include them all in the book." All in all, he applauds that "eroticism is less and less a taboo subject" and he is not afraid that it will stop expressing itself in written form given the evident drop in popularity of letters. “Correspondence has existed and will always exist. Before it was orally. And now it is transmitted via email, WhatsApp and even emoticons. In the future who knows. What is clear to me is that we will find a way to express our feelings, ”she concludes.