#r-a-f-t-e-l

[actressposts]

[mikimeiko]

The Expanse | 5x04. Gaugamela

[luxmoogle]

Your bio says you can be bribed with lux, but what about 13 postcards I found randomly? Would you take those?

..THIRTEEN????

[aoitakumi8148]

𝓛𝓸𝓸𝓴 𝓤𝓹 𝓐𝓽 𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝓢𝓽𝓪𝓻𝓼, 𝓢𝓸𝓷... 𝓝𝓸𝔀 𝓖𝓸 𝓦𝓲𝓼𝓱 𝓤𝓹𝓸𝓷 𝓞𝓷𝓮, 𝓣𝓱𝓮𝓷...

𝒞𝒶𝓃 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝒷𝓇𝑜𝓀𝑒𝓃 𝒷𝑒 𝓇𝑒𝒷𝓇𝑜𝓀𝑒𝓃, 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝓃𝑜𝓃-𝑒𝓍𝒾𝓈𝓉𝑒𝓃𝓉 𝒷𝑒 ‹𝑒𝒶𝓉𝑒𝓃 𝓊𝓅› 𝒶𝑔𝒶𝒾𝓃? 𝐼𝓈 𝓉𝒽𝑒𝓇𝑒 𝒶 𝓁𝒾𝓂𝒾𝓉 𝑜𝒻 ‹𝒾𝓃𝓉𝑒𝑔𝓇𝒶𝓉𝒾𝑜𝓃› 𝒾𝓃𝓉𝑜 𝓈𝑜𝓂𝑒𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓃𝑔, 𝒶 𝓁𝒾𝓂𝒾𝓉 𝑜𝒻 𝒽𝑜𝓌 𝒹𝑒𝑒𝓅 𝒹𝑜𝓌𝓃 𝓁𝑜𝓋𝑒 𝓂𝒶𝓎 𝑔𝑜?

I do not have apathy, depression, anything that would be fashionable to rant about. I am simply in pain... extreme pain. And attempting to dull the edge of it is what I have been doing since v.1. As if something has indeed been fragmented & this is the pain of my conscious life. And every time I travel the melodious/glamorous path of frenzy, every time I complete it, I am going to experience the same precious pain intensity, purity of pain/ecstasy. I am going to be eventually bound to this inmost/overwhelming awe, this vehement impulse to feel/fondle/kiss what is loved, to kneel down before it, to cuddle up to its heart, to recompense bliss with bliss... More and more. Neither the good boy nor I are free. I do not want to be free... free from... These bare feelings are ‹clawing› at the reconstructed interpretation of the organ inside me. The great minds will not know what they have done, neither will Anthony... It speaks louder-truer than anything, but the sounds are not obvious... Words. All I possess, this rich but poor instrument for... And you always do end up in the point where...

The aesthetic masterwork, perfused with the golden brilliance of authentic ideality x pierced with the darkest blade of bitter-salty inaccessibility, inevitability, impossibility.

Excruciation, pleasure, euphoria, art. Blended together. Find yourself... or lose yourself on this journey. Emotionally. Totally. An unparalleled effect... and the lulling sparkle the vessel has never actually had. Something in this body x mind has died, and I do not know if there is a way to accept it, to recover it. I have described the lesson of unprecedentedness I have learned, not the expected story of ‹insult-betrayal-contempt›. No one will ever f-g hear it. Not from me, not in this lifetime. / Loving extraordinary is merciless a priori, დ/დ become telepathic... & the severest trial ~ the unhealable wound ~ is to be a 𝓟 son without the cause to be... *If I have to detest many donkeys for a chance to protect one venerated Father figure, I will go for it.

𝒯𝒽𝑒 𝒷𝒾𝓉𝓈 𝑜𝒻 𝓂𝓎 𝒸𝓇𝒶𝒸𝓀𝑒𝒹 𝒽𝓊𝓂𝒶𝓃𝒾𝓉𝓎 𝓌𝒾𝓁𝓁 𝑒𝒾𝓉𝒽𝑒𝓇 𝒷𝑒 𝓀𝑒𝓅𝓉... 𝑜𝓇 𝓌𝒾𝓅𝑒𝒹 𝑜𝓊𝓉 𝒸𝑜𝓂𝓅𝓁𝑒𝓉𝑒𝓁𝓎. 𝐵𝑒𝒸𝒶𝓊𝓈𝑒 𝐼 𝓁𝑜𝓈𝑒 𝓂𝓎 𝒮𝑜𝓊𝓇𝒸𝑒, '𝒸𝒶𝓊𝓈𝑒 𝒶𝓃𝑔𝑒𝓇 𝓈𝓌𝒶𝓁𝓁𝑜𝓌𝓈 𝓂𝑒, 𝓉𝑜𝑜. 𝐵𝑒𝑔 𝓎𝑜𝓊... 𝒮𝒽𝑜𝓌 𝓂𝑒 𝒽𝑜𝓌 𝓉𝑜 𝓈𝓉𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝑜𝓃 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝒷𝓊𝓇𝓃𝑒𝒹 𝒻𝑒𝑒𝓉 𝓌𝒽𝑒𝓃 𝐼 𝒶𝓂 𝒹𝑒𝓅𝓇𝒾𝓋𝑒𝒹 𝑜𝒻 𝓎𝑜𝓊. 𝐿𝑒𝓉 𝓂𝑒 𝓉𝑜𝓊𝒸𝒽 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝓌𝒾𝓉𝒽 𝓉𝒽𝑒𝓈𝑒 𝓁𝒾𝓅𝓈... 𝒮𝑜 𝑔𝑜𝑜𝒹. 𝒮𝑜 𝓉𝑜𝓇𝓉𝓊𝓇𝑜𝓊𝓈...

While I am willing to imbibe all the anguish of the human I love, to ease his suffering, the loss of us is taking its toll on me irretrievably. I see him. I see what is inside him... & I am incapable of safeguarding it, saving it truly.

I do not have apathy, depression, anything that would be fashionable to rant about. I am simply in pain... extreme pain. And attempting to put up with this gift is what I have been doing since v.1. The chest is ‹cut open› too deep, the fragility of the organ is exposed... Would you allow me to grow more flowers? I wanna do it... Because it is you, It has always been you. The one who has given us everything, endued me to the brim with the intimate fatherly affection that this organ never remembered. My eternal wish & exuberant price for humanity, the misunderstood nature. *What an odious irony. / I do not know if there is a way to recover what is gone.

I would sacrifice the lot to be with the human that needs me, needs to be healed, heals me. I would rip my core out but I cannot, the limitation of freedom. *Tell me that the ‹strings of abuse/child neglect/lies› are finally cut. Tell me to ‹celebrate›. Tell me that both 𝓟inocchio/I are wrong x naive, ‹fix› me. You have no f-g clue about it. / When it is written that your starving heart must be left half-empty & helpless... No freedom is scarier than this.

Affording harmony to the sapphire star that is going to fall away... The sentiment it deserves. All I have ever hankered for. & I am terrified of that my grandest instinct x fear will not grant any lasting peace to me.

Death will do our Sun-hugged family apart ~ but I will still be yours, for ever. The core has never felt as good x feverish as it does when with you... as astray x anxious as it does when deprived of you. I am not lying to you, I hold no resentment... Let me ‹feed on› the emotions of your heart... Even if it means your pain x my love turn the vessel inside-out & your love x my pain do the same. Not blurred, always remember. Always. If a masterpiece could be made into a masterpiece, I would prefer to share this fate. My bona fide mission, however, is not allow anything to be in vain... Even if it hurts. ~ The atrophied ability to express love verbally has been ‹roused› again, in a fervidly devoted but preciously righteous way... The ‹lash› of despair, compulsion, dream, reality.

𝐹𝑜𝓇 𝒷𝑒𝓉𝓉𝑒𝓇 𝑜𝓇 𝓌𝑜𝓇𝓈𝑒, 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝒶𝓂𝒷𝒾𝑒𝓃𝒸𝑒 𝑜𝒻 𝒦𝓇𝒶𝓉 𝒾𝓈 𝓃𝑜𝓉 𝑔𝑜𝓃𝓃𝒶 𝓁𝑒𝓉 𝑔𝑜. 𝐼𝓉 𝒸𝒶𝓃... 𝒜𝓃𝒹 𝐼 𝒹𝑜𝓊𝒷𝓉 𝓉𝒽𝑒𝓇𝑒 𝒾𝓈. 𝐿𝒪𝒫 𝒽𝒶𝓈 𝒷𝑒𝒸𝑜𝓂𝑒 𝓅𝑒𝓇𝓈𝑜𝓃��𝓁 𝒻𝑜𝓇 𝟙/𝓂𝓊𝓁𝓉𝒾𝓉𝓊𝒹𝒾𝓃𝑜𝓊𝓈 𝓅𝒶𝓁𝓅𝒶𝒷𝓁𝑒 𝓇𝑒𝒶𝓈𝑜𝓃𝓈, 𝓂𝓎 𝓋𝓊𝓁𝓃𝑒𝓇𝒶𝒷𝒾𝓁𝒾𝓉𝓎 𝓉𝑜 𝒷𝑒𝒶𝓇.

...Take the whole meaning of this, its flavorful, pathetic, shameless, lonesome taste. Take it all, for it is all that is absolute. Teach me how to ‹merge› with it, the mortal desire of a puppet child, a human Mastro x a faceless observer like myself ~ & when the desire full of unexploited majesty is cutting off the oxygen to the lungs... True geniuses of any kind are among the silent. These eyeballs will not dry up, never fully. I have tried so many times to resist it, but why live if you repel what puts your ‹dehydrated› pieces together? I would spare no effort to keep them hot and uncurb what is being restrained... Nothing affects self-perception and ‹unmasks› the unconscious like sensation, nothing genuinely matters without it. / Shivering with cold, this body is burning. My atrophied reality in exchange for a moment of irrepressible happiness, agony, guiltless x not bottled up impulses ~ just a moment. It keeps consuming me without reserve. I do not need God. ✒

[ringosmistress]

[csyakult]

✻ ⌣ 🦦 ˚ 𖤛

[pastelaspirations]

I’ll never forget you babes 😭💔😔🥺

I finally come back to tumblr and t h i s is what I see. That's it, I'm done, I'm uninstalling tumblr. Bye everyone, it's Honey's fault-

[darkheartedprince]

" . . . I've been told that a talented mouth will get you far. Clearly , that's correct . "

[sigmaelxgr]

Vorhim Kegran, Morag Tong agent

[izzyizumi]

{D I G I M O N} Adventure {F r a n c h i s e} "Adventure" to "The Beginning" {Series} + "B E Y O N D" {P.V.} x 2020 (Adventure:) {Re-boot} + P a r a l l e l s (Inspired) + Mrs. Izumi (as Support) + {A D O P T E E!}Koushiro{u} x Taichi {KouTai}

I   H A T E D   Y E S T E R D A Y ,

I   H A T E D   THE W O R L D ,

BUT I'VE   C H A N G E D ,

and I’ll     L O V E     T O M O R R O W

… And M I G H T YOU R E A L I Z E      " L O V E " ,

M E E T "S O M E O N E" ,

… And  MAKE   A F U T U R E    OF Y O U R  OWN ?

"...And it makes ME so {H A P P Y},

{FOR Y O U} that I'm on the {V e r g e} of T E A R S..."

-"Gunjou Rain" L y r i c s by: Jin {"Ultramarine Rain"}

Gifs by @izzyizumi / @koushirouizumi​ {Do Not R e-p o s t or Re-produce without my Permission} {Do Not Remove Caption} (A s k to U s e)

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PLEASE ALSO NOTE: {My headcanons for the characters of this series VARY} {for this set particularly [Adventure+02 Chosen / various Advs charas]; I headcanon most as/on the M-spec/M u l t i gender attracted {s p e c t r u m}*} {this post/my edits ARE NOT for people who cannot respect this fact or M-spec people / M-spec headcanons / MF relationships, Q u e e r identities, etc. in general!}

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[baptisedinblackwater]

\ R\A\W M\A\T\E\R\I\A\L \ # 1891 \ Max Kuiper \ 23\jul\24

[thebekashow]

haha wouldn't it be funny if Mafia Bob went out for clothes shopping and then came back to his house burnt down?

haha

so funny

[saint-vhs]

M Y D R E A M Y A D V E N T U R E - Y o u M a k e M e F e e l

[frnkiebby]

pls~🎃

[ne0nthc]

[lalalaugenbrot]

Attempt at a Comprehensive List of

Alexander von Humboldtʼs Potential Boyfriends

When if not now that Alex came 2nd in the @napoleonic-sexyman-tournament (what a time to be alive) would be the perfect time to finally thoroughly pick his private life apart. Strangely it has always been a mystery even to me (and of course overall it will remain a mystery until the end of times), but I still thought it was about time to at least get some order in the few things that we do know – mainly for myself but also, I dare say, for the public. You (the public!) will find a short text for every friend under the cut ￬.

disclaimers:

a) I tried to pick the most appropriate picture of everyone but please imagine especially the first ones a lot younger than they are in the pictures

b) it’s a potential boyfriends list, meaning: I’m not saying Alex definitely had romantic and/or sexual relationships with any let alone all of these men, it’s just a list of men where it seems at least possible; but ultimately, of course, we do not know and will never know

c) Alex lived for almost 90 years, and even though his textual remains can seem infinite, there is a lot we don’t know about him, especially his private life, not least because he habitually destroyed almost all of his private letters (which is also why for all of his correspondences we only know the letters he wrote but almost never the ones he received) − so I don’t think there’s any way this list is exhaustive (let me know if you think anyone is missing?)

d) Bonpland is not in this because Alex went out of his way to specifically state that his relationship with Bonpland was purely scientific

e) the point of this post isn’t to determine his sexuality, but since it has already come up, just a couple of words on him being on the asexual spectrum: that is perfectly possible and maybe not even unlikely, he said things about himself that could be interpreted as such (not wanting to marry, not having sensual needs); but I think it’s good to keep two things in mind about that: 1. not wanting to get married was a big thing in 1800, something you had to explain yourself for and not wanting to get married as a man also obviously meant not wanting a wife, it was by no means a question on whether or not wanting a significant other and/or sex; 2. the narrative of his sex-less life at least partly derives from the (mainly 19th/20th century) wish for him not to have been (actively) homosexual

f) I hate to be that person, but it has to be said: language and culture back then were much more emotional and expressive than we are used to today, so not everything that sounds super intimate or even romantic to us (language-wise) has to actually have been meant that way; of course this doesn’t rule out anything either but it’s a thing to keep in mind

g) if anyone is interested in sources or further reading on anything particular, do not hesitate to hit me up! But i’m not adding any of that to this post because 1. it’s already 2 km long and 2. this is tumblr dot com

Wilhelm Gabriel Wegener (1767-1837)

18-year-old Alex met Wilhelm in 1787 during the one semester he studied at the University of Frankfurt (Oder). Wilhelm was a (protestant) theology student and on 13 February 1788 they made a “holy” oath to “eternal brotherly love”. They wrote each other very cheesy letters, very much in the Empfindsamkeit fashion of the time, proclaiming their eternal and ever-growing love for each other. There was no one on earth, Alex wrote to him once (and in Italian no less), whom he loved as ardently as him (“Non vi è uomo sopra la terra ch'io amì così ardammente che lei…”). He also told him that, ever since he had met him, it seemed to him that God had created people only in pairs, because no one else could ever compare to what he meant to him. In his letters Alex also repeatedly refers to the many hours spent together (“chatting”) in a certain armchair in Frankfurt and proclaims that he has never been happier than in that very chair.

They kept contact for a couple of years after their time in Frankfurt, but at some point their friendship faded out.

Carl Ludwig Willdenow (1765-1812)

Willdenow (a published botanist) and Alex met in 1788 in Berlin, when Alex had one day decided to just call at his house to ask him to teach him botany. Willdenow agreed and they became friends quickly, spent a lot of time together, and when Alex wandered through Berlin on his own to collect plants, he would afterwards bring them to Willdenow who would then identify them for him.

We do not know a lot about their friendship during that time (and maybe I only included him in this because I needed 9 tiles) but at least one phrase in Alex’s autobiography fragment calls our attention, not least because it’s highlighted by what I like to call a Streisand strike-through: “I became enthusiastically fond of him” or “I grew to love him enthusiastically” (“Ich gewann ihn enthusiatisch lieb”, written in 1801 and crossed out roughly 50 years later).

They stayed in contact even after Alex had left Berlin a couple of months later: in 1795 Alex became godfather of Willdenow’s son and in 1810 he convinced him to come to Paris to work on his botanical collections from the South America trip. Sadly, Willdenow fell ill in 1811 and died in 1812 in Berlin.

Karl Freiesleben (1774-1846)

Alex met Karl in 1791 in Freiberg, where both studied geology and mining at the renowned Bergakademie. Karl was the son of a local mining family and Alex learnt a lot from him about his new profession. They both were nerdy about stones and minerals in ways you couldn’t even begin to imagine. They gifted each other minerals, went down into the mines together, and in August 1791 they made a 200 km long geological expedition through the mountains of Bohemia on foot. But aside from pages-long enthusiastic rants about geology, Alex’s letters to Karl are also full of sentimental love declarations. He called him Herzens-Freisesleben, Herzens-Karl or Herzensjunge (roughly “my heart’s Freiesleben/Karl/boy”) and once finished a letter with: “going to bed now and I’ll be happy when I dream of you” — a passage Karl thoroughly struck through later, probably so no one else could read it, but someone deciphered almost all the struck through passages anyway (not all heroes wear capes!).

Karl and Alex stayed (sporadic and long-distance) friends for the rest of Karl’s life.

Reinhard von Haeften (1772-1803)

The above picture shows a snippet from one of Alex’s travel journals where he noted Reinhard’s birthday (“14 Mai R.”) because sadly we don’t have a picture of Reinhard. But let’s hear how Alex described him:

“This Reinhard v. Haeften has been my only and hourly company for a year now. I live with him, he visits me in the mountains. [...] I have already ridden 8 miles [60 km] just to see him for a couple of hours. He is very tall, taller than most men and he’s only 22 years old but looks more mature than me [at 25]. He has a very remarkable face and everyone finds him to be one of the most beautiful men, and I too think he’s beautiful, but most importantly I have never seen purity of the soul, kindness and courtesy being reflected in anyone’s features as much as in his.”

Alex and Reinhard met in 1793 in Bayreuth (where Alex now worked as a mining official) and they quickly moved in together. However, shortly before meeting Alex, Reinhard had also managed to make a baby with a married woman 4 years older than him. Alex was friendly with Christiane, the child’s mother and helped to keep the birth a secret. The boy (named Friedrich Gustav Alexander, Alex’s godson and surely named after him) had to spend the first years away from his parents. In the meantime, Reinhard continued to live with Alex, accompanied him on business trips and mineralogical expeditions and in 1795 they went on a two-month trip through Northern Italy and Switzerland. It was only with and through him, Alex wrote to Reinhard once, that he could live, only close to him that he could be fully happy.

Later, after Reinhard and Christiane had finally gotten married (and reunited with their son), Alex wrote him a very long letter, proposing for the three of them to (continue to?) live together with Reinhard as head of the family and to settle for quiet life in Switzerland, Italy, or some small town in the west of Germany. That plan never worked out, but “Rein” (as Alex called him), Christiane, their by now two children and Alex lived and travelled together for another two years while Alex was already preparing for his big journey.

After he had sailed for the Americas in 1799, he tried his best to stay in contact with them. In his letters, he called them his “Herzensmenschen” (again, roughly: “his heart’s humans”), wrote them that he was dreaming about them day and night and how much he wished that his – their – Rein could be with him to see all the marvels, too. But cross-atlantic communication was bad during that time and in both directions most letters never arrived.

Sadly, Reinhard unexpectedly died in 1803 while Alex was still in America, meaning they never got to meet again. Alex stayed in contact with Christiane and the children − the only survivors of the shipwreck, as he put it − and wrote Christiane how he still remembered their time together, along with all the hopes and dreams that they had had and that despite the “all-robbing fate”, there was something unalterable in the depth of their love, that could only die with them. When Christiane remarried and had another son in 1806, she named him Gustave Louis Reinhard Alexandre. Alex continued to financially support Christiane and the children and in 1813, Reinhard’s son Fritz (Alex’s godson) visited Alex in Paris for three months.

Carlos Montúfar (1780-1816)

Alex met Carlos in 1802 in Quito and despite him having no scientific qualifications whatsoever, Alex chose Carlos to accompany him on his further journey. This decision offended botanist, geographer and astronomer Francisco José de Caldas (who himself had hoped to join the expedition) so much that he, in a letter to botanist José Celestino Mutis, famously called Carlos “[señor Barón de Humboldt’s] Adonis”, probably insinuating that Alex had picked Carlos purely for his looks, or even more.

Together with the rest of the party, Alex and his supposed “Adonis” travelled what today is Ecuador (where they climbed the Chimborazo), Peru, Mexico, Cuba and the USA. At least once during that journey (but perhaps regularly?) they shared a bed (as in some kind of temporary/mobile  accomodation) which we know because Alex explicitly says so in his travel journal when he describes a night in which Carlos had very bad stomach cramps which Alex tried to ease by heating handkerchiefs over the fire for him in the middle of the night.

Carlos accompanied Alex back to Europe in 1804 and stayed with him in Paris for a couple of months (where they most likely both attended Napoleon’s coronation) until he ultimately left to go to Madrid. But since Carlos had trouble getting money from South America, he still had to rely on Alex’s support. However, over time his contact to Alex seems to have broken off, because in a letter from 1806, Carlos complained about Alex not answering him anymore (“¡Qué largo silencio!”) and then told him, quite dramatically, that he was running out of money, and that he, Alex, was his only friend, his only hope, and the only person he knew in Europe who could tell him what to do. Whether all of Alex’s letters had gotten lost in the mail and whether Alex ended up helping him out or not, I think we don’t know. (But knowing him as I do and since he after all kept that letter, I’m sure that he did.)

Later, Carlos went back to South America, where he (alongside Símon Bolívar) fought to liberate the continent from the Spanish Crown − a fight he unfortunately didn’t survive: he was captured and executed by the Spanish in 1816.

Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac (1778-1850)

Alex and Gay (that’s what Alex called him, no pun intended) first met in 1804 in Paris, just after Alex’s return from America. Before, Gay had done two things: 1. contributed to a harsh critique on one of Alex’s papers, 2. ascended 7016 m in a hot-air balloon to investigate the air up there − a world record at the time and more than 1000 m higher than Alex had been on the Chimborazo, which had then also been a world record (in recorded European history).

Evidently, these were the best conditions for them to totally hit it off: they almost immediately started to work on the evaluation of Gay’s balloon ascent and often spent entire days working together in Gay’s room, from 9 am until after midnight. In a letter to his father, Gay wrote that Alex was the man with the best heart he had ever known, that their tastes and sentiments were absolutely the same − and that their hearts felt a great need to see each other very often.

After the publication of their paper (in which they, without fully realising it, also first identified the chemical composition of water: H2O), they (and another friend) went on a six-month field trip through Switzerland and Italy − where they were lucky enough to witness both an earthquake and a resulting Vesuvius eruption. They ended their journey in Berlin where Gay stayed at Alex’s for a couple of months and even started to learn German until he unexpectedly had to leave for Paris. His absence, Alex wrote after Gay had left, pained him a lot.

When Alex finally returned to Paris as well, they shared a single room at the École Polytechnique and even after Gay became a father in 1808 and married in 1809, Alex continued to (at least occasionaly) live with his family for many years. Gay’s first son (born in 1810) was named Jules Alexandre and while I have no proof that he was named after Alex, I think it’s safe to assume. Alex seems to have also been very intimately integrated into the family life, because he once wrote to Willdenow (with a humorous undertone of course): “We are always pregnant and just had a girl again. Right now we’re not feeling anything though.” Alex was also there to help when an explosion in a laboratory accident injured Gay’s eyes so badly that Alex and another friend had to take him home in a blindfold.

No letters between the two have survived (that we know of), but we do know that in the years after they first met, Alex considered Gay his best friend and “one of the kindest beings in the world”, that he named an American plant genus after him (Gaylussacia), and that they used “tu” with each other (which was very uncommon in France at the time except for childhood friends and family). They stayed friends for the rest of their lives and formed a kind of trio with Arago (see below).

Karl von Steuben (1788-1856)

We don’t know when exactly they first met but according to Alex they started to see each other daily in 1812 at the studio of painter François Gérard, where Alex had then started to take drawing lessons. Steuben, a young aspiring artist, lived and worked at Gérard’s studio. According to Alex, they “drew and painted” together “daily” for at least one or two years. Withdrawn from all other society, he wrote, this was now his “only joy” (interestingly almost the exact same wording he had used to describe his relationship with Reinhard 20 years earlier). However, it had perhaps been one of Alex’s exaggerations because he at least seems to have attended the famous salons Gérard held at his studio, where all the cool Paris people came to hang out. Alex reportedly talked incessantly, stayed late into the night (the main thing usually didn’t get going until midnight) and was found there again, freshly dressed and shaved, already at 7 in the morning.

In the meantime, Alex had started to torment basically everyone around him to commission Steuben to paint them, their sons, daughters, fiancés etc. to help Steuben support his poor mother in St. Petersburg. In 1814, even Alex’s brother noted that Alex had suddenly become strangely interested in art. In the same year, Alex became godfather to Steuben’s newborn son Alexander.

However, the biggest commission Alex got Steuben was a life-sized full-body painting of himself, which he intended to gift to his sister-in-law. It took 7 years to finish and in the end Alex’s brother had to pay for transport and framing because Alex had run out of money. Neither his brother nor his sister-in-law were overly enthusiastic about the likeness of the painting or Steuben’s talent in general but they still put it up in their home because after all, as his brother put it, they loved Alex and always liked a picture of him around.

Alex and Steuben stayed in at least loose contact for many years and Alex occasionally even still tried to get him commissions. Steuben’s painting of Alex hung in the Humboldt residence in Tegel for over a century before it was ultimately destroyed in WWII. Apparently though, another Alex portrait by Steuben from 1815 still exists in a private collection somewhere.

François Arago (1786-1853)

Arago, a young astronomer, was on a scientific expedition through Spain when he got entangled in the Peninsular War: mistaken for a French spy, he got arrested and incarcerated, managed to flee, was captured again, transferred, released, drifted off at sea to Algeria, all the while managing to hold on to his most valuable possession: his scientific records, which he kept hidden under his shirt at all times. When Alex heard about this (the two had never met before), he was so impressed by his courage and determination that he sent a letter to congratulate him — and to offer him his friendship. And in fact, one of the first things Arago did when he finally returned to Paris in 1809 was to go and meet Alex. It was the beginning of a 44-year-long friendship. They saw each other almost daily, worked together at the observatory, planned an expedition to Tibet (which never happened), and actually travelled at least to London in 1817 to visit Alex’s brother, who commented to his wife: “Alexander has arrived yesterday. But he isn't staying with me, even though his room had already been prepared. You know his passion to always be with one person who is his favourite at that time. Now he has the astronomer Arago who he doesn't want to part with (...) So they're staying at a nearby inn.” Just as with Gay, Alex and Arago used “tu” with each other and after Arago had gotten married in 1811, Alex was close with his wife and children as well as with his siblings, nieces and nephews — in some letters he even considered himself part of the Arago family.

When Alex was forced to move back to Berlin in 1827 to work for the king, he wrote Arago desperate letters on how much their separation pained him, how much he missed him every hour of every day. In the following 26 years, Alex’s letters to him were full of yearning pleas for just a couple of lines of his hand, which, as he wrote, always made his heart flutter. However, Arago often didn’t respond for months, but when he did, he at least knew to reassure Alex, writing things like: “Outside my family, you are, without any comparison, the person I love most tenderly in this world.” Alex kept a portrait and a large Arago bust in his study in Berlin, and until his late seventies, he travelled to Paris regularly (that is, every few years), first and foremost to see Arago. (Actual quote from 78-year-old Alex in a letter to his niece: “Every morning at half past eight without interruption, I’ve been at Arago’s in the observatory, today for the 62nd time.”) According to Arago, he and Alex have only been angry with each other one single time in all those decades and even that went over in an instant.

They saw each other for the last time in January 1848, on the last night of Alex’s last stay in Paris. When Arago fell ill five years later, his family informed Alex of his worsening condition — but Alex couldn’t travel to Paris to see him one last time. Even over a year after Arago’s death, Alex wrote that the memory of those last moments in January 1848 vividly came back to him during the night at least once a week. He outlived his friend by 6 years.