Chapter one

PHILIP MANSFIELD DIARY

Where there is silence, there is pain; where there is music, there is often pain; where there is absence, there is pain. And sometimes everything blends together, even if the beloved one is near, and this pain, like a veil before eyes, tightly tightens the forehead, becomes dull, like evening haze, clouding all thoughts, all words that could otherwise have been born in the mind. At such moments, trapped in your own being, feeling that the very spaces around me (these empty spans between furniture and walls, which in moments of pain put pressure on more than a physical object) have become areas of hostile, alien, although inhabited not once a day. traveled, yes, at such moments I am cast into stupidity, into silence, into a feeling of distance from myself and from all others. I am told that all this is because I spend too much time in the life of my mind, while I could live in the minds of others, because I, the true Philip (obviously unknown to my loved ones), sat and held my hand once loved talking to her like a flowing stream, lingering only at the stones and bridges of her words, absorbing and accepting them to show my true resemblance to her.

Oh, how often, how often I put my lips to my wife's lips (suspecting how my lips are getting too wet and weak) and swore to her that, enveloped in love, I will now become her, dissolve and disappear in her, and our souls, I I know, unite. That could not be, she said, turning away. Below, it seems, they were playing the piano: his sounds injured with their fractional unconcern. Then there was silence, and my wife began to get excited. She said that the bed should be smoothed, that the maid could spy, and all this despite my objections, that I did not even attempt to make love to her, did not even try to let my hands go under her skirts. With all this, Philip, with all this, she always muttered, smoothing her hair with a scattered look of a woman who had not yet fully calmed down or was busy with completely different thoughts, although she did not want to admit it. I can not be any other than the one that is, and you can not, she often said. So, where there should be love, there is a vacuum, I said. Not a vacuum, Phillip, but rather a hidden and renewed passion.

I can't do anything if the love that is between my legs fascinates me most of all in my head. This is evil! I shouted, though to myself. Over the years, the words we exchanged became coarser and kisses less and less. Hiding the deception, as they could, from our children, we still could not stand the pretense. The words of separation were uttered, and Amy began to sob, clinging to her mother. Richard, whose masculinity I had counted on in his nineteen years, did not speak to any of us; however, in the last week of their life here, I noticed how he kissed his mother three times, once completely on the lips, and she threw back her head, stroking his hair. I could not shout at them to stop it. Everything came together so that they could call me "unhappy." Pretending to notice nothing, I left. The hour was late. Amy and Sylvia were both in bed. When I left the room, convulsively straightened up and on my stiff legs, I heard a smacking of water, but then I blamed myself, not their unclean thoughts. "Pretty," she told him, although I was always called just "dear."

A full hour passed until she finally came to the bedroom. When she dropped her robe, I noticed that her nipples were stiff. I wanted to ask her what she had done for so long downstairs, but could not get together. She had already closed the canopy, but suddenly turned around on the bed where I was lying, and asked: “You don’t like me like that — do you not like me like that?” She lowered her pantaloons. Her lower cheeks were so pink, as if they were being grabbed. I could swear there were fingerprints on them. The lamp was burning. At night, the woman between her legs is not looking.I did not stir and did not answer. She quickly took off her trousers, and I saw a wet spot on them in the middle of my trousers. I'm so wet here ... Put him in there, she said. Her face was flushed with drunk wine: red wine always gives her that kind of paint. Richard rose from the living room, where they had just sat. He tiptoed past our door, as if afraid of any noise. Don't say that, I said. I did not look at her. Such liberties in words met her often. Then there was silence ...

The same well-known silence, which happens in a dark and abandoned house in the marshes, when the first snow falls, disrupting calm. So you do not want ... You will not plant your rooster in my nest? she asked, laughing harshly and offensively. If you believe your sinful thoughts about me, then I will be a sinner at least to satisfy your fantasies, Philip. Go ahead ... Ambush! Take me under you, and I will tell you very bad things. On me, except stockings, nothing. You like to stroke my stockings, don't you? Oh, what a flattering voice it was ... and yet I did not answer. It was the voice of sin, not the voice of love. I felt her leaning over my bed and realized that her legs were apart. I leaned away from her. Her hand touched my shoulder, then fell. Perhaps it was a turning point. I knew it was true, but I could not help it. Then I will go to sleep in another place, I heard. Oh, how lonely it was on this wide bed when the door opened, closed, and she left!

Her long nightgown stayed on my bed. I heard her legs slip in stockings. All night long there seemed to be a moan of voices in my ears. About this you can not write. At breakfast nothing was said. Amy and Sylvia bowed and were silent. Richard drank coffee in his room. An hour later, all travel bags were packed and assembled at the bottom. She said she was leaving for Liverpool ... She told Sylvia, not me. She said "cute Sylvia" that she did not want to go, or did not want to go so soon. Mother gently kissed her daughter, and then left with quiet Amy and Richard for her train. Perhaps I should have said, asked, beg. No, I would not pray to her. Too often, I stumbled on this stony ground and watched my words fly past her ears: not completely unnoticed, I would like to think, but less restrained because of her replicas. I have nothing more to say to her, nothing. The bed she slept on that night was crumpled, and I was afraid that the maid would see the linen and pillows she was riding on.

“Best” Too many scarlet and lustful things she told me at night, disgusting with her wildness and anger ... I can’t say or write this down with a pen. Memories of that night darken, they are more transparent in my mind. I’m afraid about the stained and knocked-out sheet, about what should not think. I will pray for her deliverance and for my deliverance although we may never meet again. Today Sylvia was swinging in the garden on a swing. Soon her thirteenth birthday will come. Rosa, could not swing it so high. I can Look at everything above her stockings. Someone has to talk to her, because I hesitate. You shouldn’t talk about these subjects: a thorn in the tongue hurts your lips. You look so sad, Dad, she laughed. I turned away. I often say so, when I am only serious. In such innocence live young, not feeling the pain of silence, music, absence, but not knowing other things.

SYLVIA MANSFIELD DIARY

I did not want to take any of the parties, but even less I wanted to go to Liverpool. Mom, I'm sure, will forgive me for this. Anyway, I'll visit them there for Christmas. Perhaps she did not understand that dad needed silence so that he could continue to work. His table is covered in the pages of his novel. I am sure that it all started with writing, because he always wanted peace, and my mother found it difficult. Richard has always kissed her late in the last few days. I wonder why. Probably, he had long wanted to Liverpool, he had long wanted a city ...