26 January, 1895
Angelica,
I'm writing now against my better judgement. I don't think this exercise in trying to get you to see from my perspective will be any more successful than the last, and I expect you will again pronounce me guilty of doing nothing and will again demand a pat laundry list of things you can do to to mend this. You believe that there must be a list of simple items you can tick off and once the last is completed this relationship will be restored. You act as though I have such a list in mind and withhold it from you out of spite. If I had a tidy list of things that would fix us, I would share it. If I had such a list, I would action it. I don't. I wrote the initial letter requesting our separation because from my perspective this seems unrecoverable. Differences irreconcilable in our experiences of the same conversation. The attached letter is one example, but it's far from the only one.
Emrys
A separate piece of parchment, folded inside the first. This one is written in vanishing ink; twenty minutes after being unfolded the words will start to fade until they eventually disappear entirely.
I have given a great deal of thought to the question of whether you knew what you were doing when you asked me if the man I loved was at the party that night. I was certain that you must have, because you are intelligent and not naive to the ways of the world, but since you wrote emphatically that you have never willfully misunderstood I have determined to believe that you were never willfully malicious. Hence the explanation that follows, which I hope you do not find patronizing.
When two men love each other discretion is of the utmost importance. I could list examples of the consequences when it is not maintained, but I'm sure you are quite capable of discovering them for yourself should you care to. They are hardly difficult to find. Men sent to prison, sent to asylums, dismissed from their careers, disowned or exiled from their families, made pariahs in society. When two men love each other it is with this understanding: that they mutually hold the power to destroy the other, and that they will never use that power, and that they will guard it well. There is no trust deeper than this, and at even a hint that this trust has been betrayed the relationship must dissolve. No one survives it otherwise.
I do not know what your motivation was in asking. I suppose you wanted to be thanked for your generosity in having stopped at one question. You said this, after, that you did not ask the questions you have — as though this one question was not enough. So I suppose this was a feint on your part, an attempt to get your epee pinned beneath my neck so that you could show me you were disinclined to slit my jugular, and to induce me to be relieved and grateful that you had deigned to let me live.
After that night I had to speak to him about it. I had to look him in the eye and confess that I had broken his trust, that I had let someone else wrest from my grasp the power he had given me and I was no longer a fit guardian of it. I had to tell him that my wife knew about him and that I had no way of knowing whatsoever what she would do with the knowledge, today or tomorrow or five years down the line. I had to tell him because I cared for him too much to let his entire life be ruined by your carelessness, without so much as a warning, and I had to do this knowing the only sane reaction on his part would be to leave and never see me again.
This wasn't yours to take. This part of my heart that held him in it was not yours. The trust he gave me was not yours. But you took it regardless, perhaps without even realizing what you were doing — and that almost makes it worse, that it was not only cruel but thoughtlessly cruel. You suspected I held on to something beautiful and precious and you wrested it from my grasp and threw it to the ground, and whether you were purposefully trying to shatter it or whether you had no idea of its fragility the original sin in the same. You had no right to take it, to claw it out of my hands. I haven't been able to bring myself to forgive you for it yet. I'm not sure whether I will.
I am not interested in hearing your explanation of all your good intentions. Your intentions are irrelevant. You hurt me, and you threatened to hurt the man I love, and I take your actions as evidence over your words.
I hope you see that writing to recast this in some light of your choosing, arguing that this was somehow born of your fondness or enduring love or your total and complete devotion, will do you no favors if your goal is still reconciliation. It would only serve to convince me that you didn't understand the damage you were causing and still don't understand it — and therefore that you are liable to repeat it, as many times as I present you the opportunity to do so.
I don't intend on exposing someone I care about to this sort of danger again.
When two men love each other discretion is of the utmost importance. I could list examples of the consequences when it is not maintained, but I'm sure you are quite capable of discovering them for yourself should you care to. They are hardly difficult to find. Men sent to prison, sent to asylums, dismissed from their careers, disowned or exiled from their families, made pariahs in society. When two men love each other it is with this understanding: that they mutually hold the power to destroy the other, and that they will never use that power, and that they will guard it well. There is no trust deeper than this, and at even a hint that this trust has been betrayed the relationship must dissolve. No one survives it otherwise.
I do not know what your motivation was in asking. I suppose you wanted to be thanked for your generosity in having stopped at one question. You said this, after, that you did not ask the questions you have — as though this one question was not enough. So I suppose this was a feint on your part, an attempt to get your epee pinned beneath my neck so that you could show me you were disinclined to slit my jugular, and to induce me to be relieved and grateful that you had deigned to let me live.
After that night I had to speak to him about it. I had to look him in the eye and confess that I had broken his trust, that I had let someone else wrest from my grasp the power he had given me and I was no longer a fit guardian of it. I had to tell him that my wife knew about him and that I had no way of knowing whatsoever what she would do with the knowledge, today or tomorrow or five years down the line. I had to tell him because I cared for him too much to let his entire life be ruined by your carelessness, without so much as a warning, and I had to do this knowing the only sane reaction on his part would be to leave and never see me again.
This wasn't yours to take. This part of my heart that held him in it was not yours. The trust he gave me was not yours. But you took it regardless, perhaps without even realizing what you were doing — and that almost makes it worse, that it was not only cruel but thoughtlessly cruel. You suspected I held on to something beautiful and precious and you wrested it from my grasp and threw it to the ground, and whether you were purposefully trying to shatter it or whether you had no idea of its fragility the original sin in the same. You had no right to take it, to claw it out of my hands. I haven't been able to bring myself to forgive you for it yet. I'm not sure whether I will.
I am not interested in hearing your explanation of all your good intentions. Your intentions are irrelevant. You hurt me, and you threatened to hurt the man I love, and I take your actions as evidence over your words.
I hope you see that writing to recast this in some light of your choosing, arguing that this was somehow born of your fondness or enduring love or your total and complete devotion, will do you no favors if your goal is still reconciliation. It would only serve to convince me that you didn't understand the damage you were causing and still don't understand it — and therefore that you are liable to repeat it, as many times as I present you the opportunity to do so.
I don't intend on exposing someone I care about to this sort of danger again.
Lou made this! <3