leans over and engulfs me in an endless kiss. I do not want the kiss to end. He says, "Come to my room."
How stifling the veil about me, which Henry struggles to tear, my fear of reality. We are walking to his room, and I do not feel the ground, but I feel his body against mine. He says, "Look at the carpet on the stairs, it is worn," and I do not see, I only feel the ascension. My note is in his hands. "Read it," I say, at the bottom of the stairs, "and I'll leave you." But I follow him. His room, I do not see. When he takes me in his arms, my body melts. The tenderness of his hands, the unexpected penetration, to the core of me but without violence. What strange, gentle power.
He, too, cries out, "It is all so unreal, so swift."
And I see another Henry, or perhaps the same Henry who walked that day into my house. We talk as I wished we would talk, so easily, so truly. I lie on his bed covered by his coat. He watches me.
"You expected—more brutality?"
His mountains of words, of notes, of quotations are sundered. I am surprised. I did not know this man. We were not in love with each other's writing. But what are we in love with now? I cannot bear the picture of June's face on the mantelpiece. Even in the photograph, it is uncanny, she possesses us both.
I write crazy notes to Henry. We cannot meet today. The day is empty. I am caught. And he? What does he feel? I am invaded, I lose everything, my mind vacillates, I am only aware of sensations.
There are moments in the day when I do not believe in Henry's love, when I feel June dominating both of us, when I say to myself, "This morning he will awake and realize he loves no one but June." Moments when I believe, madly, that we are going to live something new, Henry and I, outside of June's world.
How has he imposed truth on me? I was about to take flight from the prison of my imaginings, but he takes me to his room and there we live a dream, not a reality. He places me where he wants to place me. Incense. Worship. Illusion. And all the rest of his life is effaced. He comes with a new soul to this hour. It is the sleeping potion of fairy tales. I lie with a burning womb and he scarcely notices it. Our gestures are human, but there is a curse on the room. It is June's face. I remember, with great pain, one of his notes: "life's wildest moment—June, kneeling on the street." Is it June or Henry I am jealous of?
He asks to see me again. When I wait in the armchair in his room, and he kneels to kiss me, he is stranger than all my thoughts. With his experience he dominates me. He dominates with his mind, too, and I am silenced. He whispers to me what my body must do. I obey, and new instincts rise in me. He has seized me. A man so human; and I, suddenly brazenly natural. I am amazed at my lying there in his iron bed, with my black underwear vanquished and trampled. And the tight secrecy of me broken for a moment, by a man who calls himself "the last man on earth."
Writing is not, for us, an art, but breathing. After our first encounter I breathed some notes, accents of recognition, human admissions. Henry was still stunned, and I was breathing off the unbearable, willing joy. But the second time, there were no words. My joy was impalpable and terrifying. It swelled within me as I walked the streets.
It transpires, it blazes. I cannot conceal it. I am woman. A man has made me submit. Oh, the joy when a woman finds a man she can submit to, the joy of her femaleness expanding in strong arms.
Hugo looks at me as we sit by the fire. I am talking drunkenly, brilliantly. He says, "I've never seen you look so beautiful. I have never felt your power so strongly. What is the new confidence in you?"
He desires me, just as he did that other time, after John's visit. My conscience dies at that moment. Hugo bears down on me, and I instinctively obey Henry's whispered words. I close my legs about Hugo, and he exclaims in ecstasy, "Darling, darling, what are you doing? You're
How stifling the veil about me, which Henry struggles to tear, my fear of reality. We are walking to his room, and I do not feel the ground, but I feel his body against mine. He says, "Look at the carpet on the stairs, it is worn," and I do not see, I only feel the ascension. My note is in his hands. "Read it," I say, at the bottom of the stairs, "and I'll leave you." But I follow him. His room, I do not see. When he takes me in his arms, my body melts. The tenderness of his hands, the unexpected penetration, to the core of me but without violence. What strange, gentle power.
He, too, cries out, "It is all so unreal, so swift."
And I see another Henry, or perhaps the same Henry who walked that day into my house. We talk as I wished we would talk, so easily, so truly. I lie on his bed covered by his coat. He watches me.
"You expected—more brutality?"
His mountains of words, of notes, of quotations are sundered. I am surprised. I did not know this man. We were not in love with each other's writing. But what are we in love with now? I cannot bear the picture of June's face on the mantelpiece. Even in the photograph, it is uncanny, she possesses us both.
I write crazy notes to Henry. We cannot meet today. The day is empty. I am caught. And he? What does he feel? I am invaded, I lose everything, my mind vacillates, I am only aware of sensations.
There are moments in the day when I do not believe in Henry's love, when I feel June dominating both of us, when I say to myself, "This morning he will awake and realize he loves no one but June." Moments when I believe, madly, that we are going to live something new, Henry and I, outside of June's world.
How has he imposed truth on me? I was about to take flight from the prison of my imaginings, but he takes me to his room and there we live a dream, not a reality. He places me where he wants to place me. Incense. Worship. Illusion. And all the rest of his life is effaced. He comes with a new soul to this hour. It is the sleeping potion of fairy tales. I lie with a burning womb and he scarcely notices it. Our gestures are human, but there is a curse on the room. It is June's face. I remember, with great pain, one of his notes: "life's wildest moment—June, kneeling on the street." Is it June or Henry I am jealous of?
He asks to see me again. When I wait in the armchair in his room, and he kneels to kiss me, he is stranger than all my thoughts. With his experience he dominates me. He dominates with his mind, too, and I am silenced. He whispers to me what my body must do. I obey, and new instincts rise in me. He has seized me. A man so human; and I, suddenly brazenly natural. I am amazed at my lying there in his iron bed, with my black underwear vanquished and trampled. And the tight secrecy of me broken for a moment, by a man who calls himself "the last man on earth."
Writing is not, for us, an art, but breathing. After our first encounter I breathed some notes, accents of recognition, human admissions. Henry was still stunned, and I was breathing off the unbearable, willing joy. But the second time, there were no words. My joy was impalpable and terrifying. It swelled within me as I walked the streets.
It transpires, it blazes. I cannot conceal it. I am woman. A man has made me submit. Oh, the joy when a woman finds a man she can submit to, the joy of her femaleness expanding in strong arms.
Hugo looks at me as we sit by the fire. I am talking drunkenly, brilliantly. He says, "I've never seen you look so beautiful. I have never felt your power so strongly. What is the new confidence in you?"
He desires me, just as he did that other time, after John's visit. My conscience dies at that moment. Hugo bears down on me, and I instinctively obey Henry's whispered words. I close my legs about Hugo, and he exclaims in ecstasy, "Darling, darling, what are you doing? You're
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