Excerpt from a letter to Henry Miller from Lawrence Durrell

When Greece fell during the Second World War, Lawrence Durrell fled to Alexandria, where he served as a press attaché to the British Embassy.

Here is a colourful excerpt from a letter he wrote to Henry Miller about his experience there in February, 1944:

 “The Alexandrian way of death is very Proustian and slow; a decomposition in greys and greens – by the hashish pipe or boys. But the women are splendid – like neglected gardens –rich, silk-and-olive complexions, slanting black eyes and soft adze-cut lips, and heavenly figures like line-drawings by a sexual Matisse. I am up to my ears in them – if I must be a little literal. But, as my friends remark, “Kess femmes, comme les peintures d’Alexandrie, ont trop de technique mais peu de temperament.” But one has never had anything lovelier and emptier than an Alexandrian girl. Their very emptiness is a caress. Imagine making love to a vacuum – you must come here for a week after the war. After that you’ll be so completely emptied of worldly goods that you’ll be ripe for Tibet and all it means. Meanwhile we are crawling through the ever-narrowing conduit of this bloody war. Do write from time to time – you are like a voice from something very far but completely understood – while here one talks into the air round people and words fly flatly off into space – sound and fury.

[…]

Larry

[P.S.] Now I think of the correct simile for the Alexandrians. When they make love it’s like two people in a dark room slashing at each other with razors – to make each other feel _____?”