Breton asked for Léona’s diary to help him along. She complied. In love. Once Léona gave him enough, including herself, in an out-of-town hotel, the writer abandoned her; soon after whining to his friend that having sex with her, was like “making love to Joan of Arc.” In a hopeless attempt to keep herself in Breton’s orbit, she wrote desperate letters to the writer, embellished with drawings, the same ones he later used in his book. Gradually, ‘Nadja’ stopped comparing him to God, but to a wildcat, and herself, his prey. Perhaps, the change occurred after he showed her the notes for his 'novel'. “How can I read this report… glimpse this distorted portrait of myself without rebelling, or even crying,” she implored, heartbroken. Léona asked Breton for her diary, which he returned once materials for the book were extracted. The last letter, which she quietly slipped under his door, read: “Thank you André, I’ve received everything… I don’t want to waste any of the time you’ll need for loftier things.”’ Léona Camile Ghislaine Delacourt ‘voluntarily’, if reluctantly, sacrificed herself at the Art’s altar.
It’s raining still
My room is dark
Heart in the abyss
My sanity is dying,
she wrote before she was committed into a psychiatric institution, no longer a woman but a symbol.
