The Collector

Another thing I wrote (one writes things and the implications shriek—it’s like suddenly realizing one’s deaf), “I must fight with my weapons. Not his. Not selfishness and brutality and shame and resentment.”

Therefore with generosity (I give myself) and gentleness (I kiss the beast) and no-shame (I do what I do of my own free will) and forgiveness (he can’t help himself).

Even a baby. His baby. Anything. For freedom.

The more I think about it the more I feel sure that this is the way.

He has some secret. He must want me physically.

Perhaps he’s “no good.”

Whatever it is, it will come out.

We’ll know where we are.

I haven’t written much about G.P. these last days. But I think about him a great deal. The first and last thing I look at every day is his picture. I begin to hate that unknown girl who was his model. He must have gone to bed with her. Perhaps she was his first wife. I shall ask him when I get out.

Because the first thing I shall do—the first real positive thing, after I’ve seen the family, will be to go to see him. To tell him that he has been always in my thoughts. That he is the most important person I have ever met. The most real. That I am jealous of every woman who has ever slept with him. I still can’t say that I love him. But now I begin to see that it’s because I don’t know what love is. I’m Emma with her silly little clever-clever theories of love and marriage, and love is something that comes in different clothes, with a different way and different face, and perhaps it takes a long time for you to accept it, to be able to call it love.

Perhaps he would be dry and cold when it came to it. Say I’m too young, he wasn’t ever really serious, and—a thousand things. But I’m not afraid. I would risk it.

Perhaps he’s in mid-affaire with somebody else.

I’d say, I’ve come back because I’m not sure any more that I’m not in love with you.

I’d say, I’ve been naked with a man I loathed. I’ve been at bottom.

I’d let him have me.

But I still couldn’t bear to see him sneaking off with someone else. Reducing it all to sex. I should wither up and die inside if he did.

I know it’s not very emancipated of me.

This is what I feel.

Sex doesn’t matter. Love does.

This afternoon I wanted to ask Caliban to post a letter to G.P. from me. Quite mad. Of course he wouldn’t. He’d be jealous. But I so need to be walking up the stairs and pushing open the studio door, and seeing him at his bench, looking over his shoulder at me, as if he’s not in the least interested to see who it is. Standing there, with his faint, faint smile and eyes that understand things so quickly.

This is useless. I’m thinking of the price before the painting.

Tomorrow. I must act now.

I started today really. I’ve called him Ferdinand (not Cali-ban) three times, and complimented him on a horrid new tie. I’ve smiled at him, I’ve dutifully tried to look as if I like everything about him. He certainly hasn’t given any sign of having noticed it. But he won’t know what’s hit him tomorrow.

I can’t sleep. I’ve got up again and put on G.P.’s clavichord record. Perhaps he’s been listening to it, too, and thinking of me. The Invention I like best is the one after the one he loves best—he loves the fifth, and I the sixth. So we lie side by side in Bach. I always used to think Bach was a bore. Now he overwhelms me, he is so human, so full of moods and gentleness and wonderful tunes and things so simple-deep I play them over and over again as once I used to copy drawings I liked.

I think, perhaps I’ll just try putting my arms round him and kissing him. No more. But he’d grow to like that. It would drag on. It’s got to be a shock.

All this business, it’s bound up with my bossy attitude to life. I’ve always known where I’m going, how I want things to happen. And they have happened as I have wanted, and I have taken it for granted that they have because I know where I’m going. But I have been lucky in all sorts of things.

I’ve always tried to happen to life; but it’s time I let life happen to me.

November 30th

Oh, God.

I’ve done something terrible.

I’ve got to put it down. Look at it.

It is so amazing. That I did it. That what happened happened. That he is what he is. That I am what I am. Things left like this.

Worse than ever before.

I decided to do it this morning. I knew I had to do something extraordinary. To give myself a shock as well as him.

I arranged to have a bath. I was nice to him all day.

I dolled myself up after the bath. Oceans of Mitsouko. I stood in front of the fire, showing my bare feet for his benefit. I was nervous. I didn’t know if I could go through with it. And having my hands bound. But I had three glasses of sherry quickly.

I shut my eyes then and went to work.