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35 Camille Claudel Dies after Thirty Years in the Asylum Dead Mother, I despise you. Is it your punishment to watch me suffer and die? At night, I open my eyes and I see your eyes. My jailer. Kiss me on the mouth. Taste this death, Widow Claudel. Will you miss this spectacle: the chipped chamber pot, the oily black sauce of soured beef stew, tough figs and biscuits? Will you miss the iron bed? Or Sister Saint Hildefonse, no saint, herself afflicted a bit, tender with her own wretchedness, teary with nerves? I will limp to you with the sort of packages you sent to me these years: one kilo of butter, one kilo of flour, one piece of soap. (The lunatics are singing like angels of death.) Beg me, Dead Mother, for mandarins, for brandied cherries. Beg me for release. ...

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