"In life you don’t rise up, you go down. She couldn’t anymore. She could not get down to where I was … There was too much night for her around me."

Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Journey to the End of Night, 1932

From the "Sailboats and Swans" series — Portraits of Russian and Ukrainian Prisoners by Michal Chelbin.

On Valentine's Day of 1884, just 36 hours after the birth of their only daughter, Alice, 25-year-old future U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt held his young wife in his arms as she passed away from undiagnosed Bright's disease. Incredibly, just hours before, in the same house, he had already said a final goodbye to his mother, Martha. She had succumbed to Typhoid, aged just 48.

Theodore's diary for that day read as follows.

Genevieve, Thomas Theodor Heine, 1911

Thomas Theodor Heine, illustration to Knut Hamsun, Slave of love, 1902.

Lost in translation, directed by Sophia Coppola, 2003

Stammheim prison, Stuttgart, 70s

Why'd you have to leave so soon? Why'd you have to go?

Trifid, Lagoon, and Mars

It is astounding how I have systematically destroyed myself in the course of years, it was like a slowly widening breach in a dam, a purposeful action. The spirit that brought it about must now be celebrating triumphs…

Franz Kafka, The diaries: 1910-1923

16 Years of Alcohol, Richard Jobson, 2003

City lights

Off-topic