"For four years already we sleep together. I remained a virgin, he [Jawlensky] became a virgin again. Between us sleeps our child - Art. It is the child who ensures our undisturbed sleep. Carnal desire has never once befouled our bed. We both want to remain unsullied, so that not a single impure thought could ever disturb the calm of our nights when we are so close to each other. And yet we love each other. Since we exchanged declarations of love many years ago we have not kissed once even for form's sake. He is everything for me, I love him as a mother, especially as a mother, as a friend, a sister, a wife, I love him as an artist and a friend. I am not his mistress and my tenderness has never had a passionate turn. Because of his love for me, he became a monk. He loves in me his art, and without me he'll die — and he has never enjoyed me as a woman."
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Marianne Werefkin, late 1880's; as cited in Lettres a un inconnu: Aux sources de l'expressionnisme, ed. Gabrielle Dufour-Kowalska. Klincksieck, 1999. pp. 75-77 (Notebook I, pp. 29-30)
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Alexej von Jawlensky
Alexej Georgewitsch von Jawlensky (March 13, 1864 – March 15, 1941) was a Russian Expressionist painter active in Germany, Munich in the 'Blaue Reiter / Blue Rider' and after 1914 in Switzerland, together with Marianne von Werefkin, many years his life-companion, till 1921.
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