Autograph letter signed (“Leonard”) to Marianne Ihlen ("My darling Marianne"), "on the St. Lawrence between Montreal and Quebec City," 22 June 1961.

Two pages, 250 x 195mm, aerogram (a little loss at edges, affecting a few words).

“So here I am at midnight on the black river, thinking of you as I have done the whole winter, and feeling the emptiness I’ve known since we parted.”

A lengthy letter written from a Yugoslav freighter. Cohen discusses his writing, as well as their relationship at length, touching on his ambivalence toward commitment and his financial situation, namely whether he can provide for Marianne and her son. “What am I going to do? I don’t know. I just want to open my heart to you and perhaps we can understand together. I suppose I’ll head for Hydra, hitchhiking across Italy to Brindisi and hopping a boat there. I have only three hundred dollars to my name…”

Regarding his work he mentions “major repairs on my novel” though he notes, “it looks pretty certain than an American publisher will take it. He’s promised me $500 as soon as I turn it in.” Nonetheless, he is struck by the discordance between the positive critical reception and income—“I will never be anything but poor. My work is not commercial. Even though ‘Spice-Box’ is making history it will bring in less than $700... But these numbers mean nothing. My freedom is very fragile. I can buy it for very little, but I would hate myself if I left you and the child to preserve it, and I would hate you if I didn’t leave and lost it. What kind of invitation is this? I don’t know. I can’t seem to make commitments. I wish we could have gone on living like we were before—in love and in freedom. I’m so lonely for you, and yet I know there will be times when I’ll want to go away so I can come back again.”

He closes: “I’m so tired of isolation. You have reached me, something so simple in you has reached me, maybe that is what your love is... Marianne, my darling, be patient with me if you think I'm worth saving.”

He would be back in Greece that August.

By descent from Marianne Ihlen.