202
PARTISAN REVIEW
there, but it had not been him speaking. He read on, hearing his
voice detail more intimacies, more recollections that could only stir
the listener, mastering his tone, reading as from a text, but not as a
stage actor: that would have been too much.
By the time of the third letter from Italy, he felt himself settled
into a pattern of sorts: he was a voice, a disembodied voice articu–
lating a stranger's passion, an instrument whose chief responsibility
was to maintain an almost professional aloofness. He came to recog–
nize the writer's style, even to anticipate what would be said. There
was, of course, a certain amount of repetition; but such repetitions
are not annoying to the lover's ear, are more like a litany, part of an
eternal ritual. He spoke of the man's love, his loneliness, her vibrant
being, her soft body, at all times careful never to speak in the voice of
a lover.
The correspondence proceeded both ways. Trying to keep her
writing as plain and patent as she could, she wrote back. But from
the comments he made in return-half humorous, half serious-it
seemed clear that he had struggled to extract a meaning from the
English, had had to content himself with the general contours of its
message. And indeed that there were letters in return was itself the
most significant message . He apparently was more guarded and it
seemed not to have occurred to him to show his lover's letters to
somebody else, for similar elucidation . Perhaps it was pride, or a
fervent belief in the sanctity of privacy. But she, more frank, less
concerned with niceties than with coming as close as possible to
direct contact, felt differently. When she came to Terry with a new
proposal, however, he responded unenthusiastically.
"Don't you think that's going too far?" he said, almost exasper–
ated. He folded his arms; it seemed a gesture of disapproval, and she
looked away.
"You're right, I know you're right ... but how do I get to him?
He doesn't know what I write, not exactly, at any rate ." Her face
seemed, if only relatively, to have grown slightly haggard . Her eyes
had lost some of their luster, her smile was sadder. But he found the
change in her, to his own surprise, quite attractive. She seemed to
have gained a new dimension, a fullness not previously there, or not
as visible. She was, perhaps, more rooted in reality; drawn heaven–
ward by love, yes, if one liked, but also to the earth. Still, as she sat
in his kitchen, her keys on the table, leaning forward in her chair as
if beseeching him for enlightenment, he could only feel a pang of
anguish, a sense of his own helplessness. He did not want hEr to
