Bloomsbury as anything more than an incestuous séance cocooned in an anti-Victorian Victorianism that makes me cede greatness to your actually eminent Victorians, though by the end of the interview she made me understand that at the very least I might prefer Forster to Woolf. She introduced herself to me again at the party and I thanked her for her piece. She asked me what I had been reading lately and I told her.
I had not detected anything flirtatious in her manner, but then Frances came by while we were talking about Philip Larkin (I envy his control, but it’s the kind of envy that transpires when you recognize your own fundamental inability to become the thing you envy, which then leaves you to settle freely into unqualified respect). The girl, I thought, stiffened, I suppose because Frances had arrived and was standing there in a silence of aplomb that suggested she and I shared daily proximity. I then took Frances by the hand and said, “This is Frances Reardon. She’s just written a beautiful novel.” “I’ve heard about your book,” said the girl, leveling a gaze at Frances and then issuing a very perfunctory “Congratulations.” “You’ve got nothing to worry about,” said Frances. “He’s not mine.” “I’m not worried at all,” said the girl. Although she did look a little taken aback. “I’m going to leave you two,” said Frances, and then she did. It was very hard not to laugh. Sometimes I wish women would just go ahead and throw the punch. If that were the case, I’d bet every time on Frances.
Yours,
Bernard
April 5, 1960
Dear Frances—
I want to write this so you know that I’ve thought this over and am telling you what I feel in a slightly cooler moment. I would call you but I fear you would hang up on me. Or that you might not pick up at all.
I’m writing this between classes. It’s 10:30. A student just floated his head in the window pleadingly but I waved him off. I hear collegial repartee and purposeful footsteps outside the door. I see Lexington Avenue below me through the window to my right. I see all the children still in their winter coats crossing and recrossing the street in a pattern that makes me think of the hedges in gardens in Florence.
I am not sorry that I kissed you. Again. So now I will tell you that I want you in an unseemly, criminal, animal way.
I speak to make myself clear. I speak, admittedly, to stir you, if there is something in you to be stirred.
You will think I’m going mad again. I know I’m not. If I were mad, this would be rhyming.
Call me when you get this letter.
Bernard
June 1, 1960
Dear Claire—
Please forgive me for not having replied to your past two letters.
Bernard and I have been engaging in what might in a court of law be called an affair. I have seen him many nights for many weeks. I have slept in his bed. Claire, this person has gotten me into his bed. In a nightgown, I assure you, but into his bed. He says that he is in love with me. I believe that he thinks he is. He may actually be. I have not told him that I am in love with him. Because I don’t know what I think. He says he does not mind this. He knows me, he says, and he knows that I need to get my mind around it before I start making pronouncements. He is right. But I am scared. I am scared even to describe to you what it has felt like, the enjoyment I take in being described as something beautiful. That’s right: he calls me beautiful. I want to laugh myself sometimes when he says it.
I don’t know if I love him, but I do know that I love being called beautiful by Bernard. This is a confusion. I feel shame. I think I now need to be easier on my sister. I could never tell Ann about this or ask her advice. It would be like asking an alcoholic how to get off the sauce.
I don’t think that there’s sin here. That’s not it. Not even in forgetting—perhaps forgiving—that he says he does not believe. The sin will come because I sin against Bernard’s hopes. Or if I get hopes and then he sins against them. For my part, I am determined to not have hopes. I would rather be sinned against