No one reading this correspondence can deny that something more than common friendship was developing between my wife and Phillip Asher. It is not long before one begins to sense the ooze of decorous flirtation between the lines of Asher’s correspondence: “You have grown only more lovely with the years.” Why was this compliment necessary? And this in the same letter in which he declares how inappropriate it is to continue to write to her! Clearly the man does not wish for the correspondence to end at all; he is merely waiting for Etna to assume responsibility for it. One does have sympathy, however, for Etna’s desire in her letter of November 27 not to be dictated to by her former lover’s younger brother; though Asher is correct in his letter of November 29 in suggesting that, with their correspondence, they are crossing a marital, if not moral, line. One can only imagine the poor man’s intolerable dinner at Ferald’s house on Thanksgiving Day. Ferald had position but never any conversation worth listening to. As for his wife, Millicent — well, one shudders to imagine.
In his December 6 letter, Asher pursues Etna (in an epistolary manner) to Exeter with news of his election. He then places the acceptance of the post of Dean in her hands. Is not this token of his affection as tangible as a jet brooch? And when he receives no reply? He accepts the post, as he was certain to have done all along.
I do not wish to speak for any other reader of this correspondence, but I cannot help but point out the manner in which both step outside the bounds of common friendship with the slightly frantic exchange of January 15 and 18: “Forgive my silence.” “You do not need my forgiveness.” Note that there are no polite salutations in these letters, lending the exchange the breathless quality of that between lovers. Both Phillip and Etna continue to speak of the inappropriateness of the correspondence, but neither seems willing to end it. Indeed, Etna deepens the bond between them with her “ethical questions” letter. The questions are absurd, and one cannot help but have a little sympathy for Asher, whose discomfort is all too apparent in his reply. (Of course it is not ethical to rent a room which is kept secret from the spouse; what was Asher supposed to say?) Etna’s syntax is garbled in her letter, as if her thoughts had addled her grammar. The questions are nearly impossible to follow, and, really, one aches to edit this missive. There is, as well, a certain stiff quality to her prose and — how shall I put it? — a less than rigorous intellect on display here.
Though Asher’s response and return questions are perfectly reasonable under the circumstances, I find appalling his presumptuous reporting of my conduct during the early months of 1915. It goes without saying that I find it disingenuous in the extreme when he states, on February 15, that he wishes to assuage his familial conscience. This is mere posturing, I think, and worse — a way to excuse his already inexcusable behavior.
I was, of course, distressed to see that on February 20, Etna invites Asher to call her by her Christian name — a bit coquettishly, I might add. And I cannot pretend to have been anything other than grievously wounded by the final letter of April 20. “My dearest Phillip,” Etna writes (weeks of intimacy leapt o’er in a single endearment!). What happened between the frantic letter of March 9, when the reality of her situation was sinking in, and the short missive of April 20 inviting Asher to meet her? I assume it is the cottage she means to show him. Were there more letters that were not saved? Had they seen each other in the interim?
Though I was hurt to discover this correspondence, and particularly hurt to find that last affectionate letter, I was already, at the time of the discovery, an animal with many wounds. Nicholas Van Tassel was stumbling maniacally, arrows poking out in all directions, spilling blood upon the plains.
A man makes a rash pronouncement and then spends the rest of his life regretting it. In the cottage, I spoke of divorce. I wished to punish, to assert my authority. I would take away the marriage with a word. I would humiliate my wife. A foolish declaration by a foolish man. Did I take any enjoyment in shocking Etna with my decree? Did I take pleasure in seeing her pale face, the way the strength in her legs gave out? For a moment, perhaps, I had had some satisfaction. But to what end had I done this? To deprive myself of the woman with whom I had been obsessed for fifteen years? The only woman I had ever loved?
I don’t know how I managed to drive the Stevens-Duryea or even where I drove it, for it was already dark by the time I crossed into Thrupp. I had long since turned on the headlamps of the car, which illuminated the surface of the road but not anything beyond the circumference of the electric light, and so it was as if I drove blind through a landscape deeply foreign to me. As a weary horse will seek the barn, however, the Stevens-Duryea finally made its way to Moxon’s house. I parked it in the drive.