Hydra, 16 December 1961

Typed letter signed (“Leonard”) to Marianne Ihlen ("My dear Marianne"), Hydra, 16 December 1961.

One page, 280 x 215mm.

Finally fed up with their months apart, Cohen makes plans to visit Ihlen in Oslo. “I want to see you alone, not in the incestuous context of Axel and Patricia, which I am tired of, and not as another loyal Hydra visitor like Sam [Barclay]. I’m sick of all these club connections. I’ve lost you somewhere in the plot of a tiresome novel which I helped to write. I’ve abandoned that novel and its dramatis personae. I want to meet you alone. There’s no point in talking—that’s why I couldn’t write you these months. We’re not ‘four people’—we’re two people. And I don’t want Sam bringing me presents from you. I want to smash these comfortable chains." Sam Barclay, an heir of the Barclays banking family in London, was a friend of Marianne's and frequent visitor to Hydra.

He closes, "I wish I could fly tomorrow but the typing isn’t finished and I have to take the train anyway. I’ve forgotten so much of you, but what I remember drives this journey. I long for you very much and what I remember I love.”

By descent from Marianne Ihlen.