for towels. Laundry seldom gotten out. Sinks stopped up from too much garbage. Washing dishes in bathtub, which was greasy and black-rimmed. Bathroom always cold as an icebox. Breaking up furniture to throw into fire. Shades always down, windows never washed, atmosphere sepulchral. Floor constantly strewn with plaster of Paris, tools, paints, books, cigarette butts, garbage, soiled dishes, pots. Jean running around all day in overalls. June, always half naked and complaining of the cold.
What is all that to me? A side of June I will never know. And the other side, which belongs to me, is full of magic and dazzling with beauty and fineness. These details only show me the two-sideness of all things, my own two-sideness, now craving abject living, animality.
To Henry: "You say, 'Gide has mind, Dostoevsky has the other thing, and it is what Dostoevsky has that really matters.' For you and for me the highest moment, the keenest joy, is not when our minds dominate but when we lose our minds, and you and I both lose it in the same way, through love. We have lost our minds to June....
"Tell me something. You have a feeling for the macabre. Your imagination is attracted by certain grim images. Did you tell Bertha that living with June was like carrying a corpse about? Do you really mind June's neuroses and illness, or are you merely cursing at what enslaves you?"
I have an acute struggle to keep Henry, whom I don't want to give up, and to keep the relationship between June and me a precious secret.
Yesterday at the cafe he tore bits of our story from me. It hurt and maddened me. I came home and wrote him a long, feverish letter. If he showed this letter to June, I would lose her. Henry cannot make me love her less, but he can torment me by making her appear more unreal, more selfless, by proving that there is no June, only an image, invented by us, by Henry's mind, and my poetry. He talked about influences on her. The influence of Jean, the woman in New York. This was torture to me.
And then he said, "You mystify me." And I said nothing. Is he going to hate me? When we first met he was so warm and so responsive to my presence. His whole body was aware of me. We leaned over eagerly to look at the book I had brought him. We were both exultant. He forgot to drink his coffee.
I am trapped, between the beauty of June and the genius of Henry. In a different way, I am devoted to both, a part of me goes out to each of them. But I love June madly, unreasoningly. Henry gives me life, June gives me death. I must choose, and I cannot. For me to give Henry all the feelings I have had about June is exactly like giving my body and soul to him.
To Henry: "Perhaps you didn't realize it, but for the first time today you shocked and startled me out of a dream. All your notes, your stories of June never hurt me. Nothing hurt me until you touched on the source of my terror: June and the influence of Jean. What terror I have when I remember her talk and sense through it how loaded she is with the riches of others, all the others who love her beauty. Even Count Bruga was Jean's creation. When we were together June said, 'You will invent what we will do together.' I was ready to give her everything I have ever invented and created, from my house, my costumes, my jewelry to my writing, my imaginings, my life. I would have worked for her alone.
"Understand me. I worship her. I accept everything she is, but she must
be.
I only revolt if there is no June (as I wrote the first night I met her). Don't tell me that there is no June except the physical June. Don't tell me, because you must know. You have lived with her.
"I never feared, until today, what our two minds would discover together. But what a poison you distilled, perhaps the very poison which is in you. Is that your terror, too? Do you feel haunted and yet deluded, as by a creation of your own brain? Is it fear of an illusion you fight with crude words? Tell me she is not just a
What is all that to me? A side of June I will never know. And the other side, which belongs to me, is full of magic and dazzling with beauty and fineness. These details only show me the two-sideness of all things, my own two-sideness, now craving abject living, animality.
To Henry: "You say, 'Gide has mind, Dostoevsky has the other thing, and it is what Dostoevsky has that really matters.' For you and for me the highest moment, the keenest joy, is not when our minds dominate but when we lose our minds, and you and I both lose it in the same way, through love. We have lost our minds to June....
"Tell me something. You have a feeling for the macabre. Your imagination is attracted by certain grim images. Did you tell Bertha that living with June was like carrying a corpse about? Do you really mind June's neuroses and illness, or are you merely cursing at what enslaves you?"
I have an acute struggle to keep Henry, whom I don't want to give up, and to keep the relationship between June and me a precious secret.
Yesterday at the cafe he tore bits of our story from me. It hurt and maddened me. I came home and wrote him a long, feverish letter. If he showed this letter to June, I would lose her. Henry cannot make me love her less, but he can torment me by making her appear more unreal, more selfless, by proving that there is no June, only an image, invented by us, by Henry's mind, and my poetry. He talked about influences on her. The influence of Jean, the woman in New York. This was torture to me.
And then he said, "You mystify me." And I said nothing. Is he going to hate me? When we first met he was so warm and so responsive to my presence. His whole body was aware of me. We leaned over eagerly to look at the book I had brought him. We were both exultant. He forgot to drink his coffee.
I am trapped, between the beauty of June and the genius of Henry. In a different way, I am devoted to both, a part of me goes out to each of them. But I love June madly, unreasoningly. Henry gives me life, June gives me death. I must choose, and I cannot. For me to give Henry all the feelings I have had about June is exactly like giving my body and soul to him.
To Henry: "Perhaps you didn't realize it, but for the first time today you shocked and startled me out of a dream. All your notes, your stories of June never hurt me. Nothing hurt me until you touched on the source of my terror: June and the influence of Jean. What terror I have when I remember her talk and sense through it how loaded she is with the riches of others, all the others who love her beauty. Even Count Bruga was Jean's creation. When we were together June said, 'You will invent what we will do together.' I was ready to give her everything I have ever invented and created, from my house, my costumes, my jewelry to my writing, my imaginings, my life. I would have worked for her alone.
"Understand me. I worship her. I accept everything she is, but she must
be.
I only revolt if there is no June (as I wrote the first night I met her). Don't tell me that there is no June except the physical June. Don't tell me, because you must know. You have lived with her.
"I never feared, until today, what our two minds would discover together. But what a poison you distilled, perhaps the very poison which is in you. Is that your terror, too? Do you feel haunted and yet deluded, as by a creation of your own brain? Is it fear of an illusion you fight with crude words? Tell me she is not just a
Similar Books
