The Rosy Crucifixion 3 - Nexus Read Free Page A

to believe, I began. That Mona loves me so much that she has to lie to me night and day? Or that she loves you so much that she hasn’t the courage to tell me? Or that you love her so much that you can’t stand seeing her unhappy? Or, let me ask this first—do you know what love is? Tell me, have you ever been in love with a man? I know you once had a dog you loved, or so you told me, and I know you have made love to trees. I also know that you love more than you hate, but—do you know what love is? If you met two people who were madly in love with one another, would your love for one of them increase that love or destroy it? I’ll put it another way. Perhaps this will make it clearer. If you regarded yourself only as an object of pity and some one showed you real affection, real love, would it make any difference to you whether that person was a he or a she, married or unmarried? I mean, would you, or could you, be content merely to accept that love? Or would you want it exclusively for yourself?
    Pause. Heavy pause.
    And what, I continued, makes you think you’re worthy of love? Or even that you are loved? Or, if you think you are, that you’re capable of returning it? Sit down, why don’t you? You know, we could really have an interesting talk. We might even get somewhere. We might arrive at truth. I’m willing to try. She gave me a strange, startled look. You say that Mona thinks I like complicated beings. To be very honest with you, I don’t. Take you now, you’re a very simple sort of being … all of a piece, aren’t you? Integrated, as they say. You’re so securely at one with yourself and the whole wide world that, just to make sure of it, you deliver yourself up for observation. Am I too cruel? Go ahead, snicker if you will. Things sound strange when you put them upside down. Besides, you didn’t go to the observation ward on your own, did you? Just another one of Mona’s yarns, what! Of course, I swallowed it hook, line and sinker—because I didn’t want to destroy your friendship for one another. Now that you’re out, thanks to my efforts, you want to show me your gratitude. Is that it? You don’t want to see me unhappy, especially when I’m living with some one near arid dear to you.
    She began to giggle despite the fact that she was highly incensed.
    Listen, if you had asked me if I were jealous of you, much as I hate to admit it, I would have said yes. I’m not ashamed to confess that it humiliates me to think some one like you can make me jealous. You’re hardly the type I would have chosen for a rival. I don’t like morphodites any more than I like people with double-jointed thumbs. I’m prejudiced. Bourgeois, if you like. I never loved, a dog, but I never hated one either. I’ve met fags who were entertaining, clever, talented, diverting, but I must say I wouldn’t care to live with them. I’m not talking morals, you understand, I’m talking likes and dislikes. Certain things rub me the wrong way. It’s most unfortunate, to put it mildly, that my wife should feel so keenly drawn to you. Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? Almost literary. It’s a god-damned shame, is what I mean to say, that she couldn’t have chosen a real man, if she had to betray me, even if he were some one I despised. But you … why shit! it leaves me absolutely defenceless. I wince at the mere thought of some one saying to me—What’s wrong with you? Because there must be something wrong with a man—at least, so the world reasons—when his wife is violently attracted to another woman. I’ve tried my damnedest to discover what’s wrong with me, if there is anything wrong, but I can’t lay a finger on it. Besides, if a woman is able to love another woman as well as the man she’s tied to, there’s nothing wrong with that, is there? She’s not to be blamed if she happens to be endowed with an unusual store of affection, isn’t that so? Supposing, however, that as the husband of such an extraordinary