September 29th, 1962

Transcript:

Saturday night: Sept. 29

Dear Dr. Beuscher,

I am sorry to write so much, but it is my one hope, I think I am dying. I am just desperate. Ted has deserted me, I have not seen him for 2 weeks, he is living in London without address. Tonight, utterly mad with this solitude, rain and wind hammering my hundred windows, I climbed to his study out of sheer homesickness to read his writing, lacking letters, and found them—sheafs of passionate love poems to this woman, this one woman to whom he has been growing more & more faithful, describing their orgasms, her ivory body, her smell, her beauty, saying in a world of beauties he married a hag, talking about “now I have hacked the octopus off my ring finger.” Many are fine poems. Absolute impassioned love poems—and I am just dying. I could stand tarts. She is so beautiful, and I feel so haggish & my hair a mess & my nose huge & my brain brainwashed & God knows how I shall keep together. He has spent all the money, left me with nothing. I have almost the equal of my novel grant in our small savings, and the bit I’ve earned since then—nothing else. The solicitor has told me to draw out the money from our savings (joint) since he’s left me with nothing. I am just frantic.

If I had someone living with me, I would not break down & talk to myself, cry, or just stare for hours. But I have no-one—no friends, no relatives. I feel like begging my well-offish aunt to come—just till I rent the house for the winter, if I do, and go to Ireland. I hope the Ireland idea is a good one—it is all I can think of, I just can’t cope with a foreign language & can’t drive the babes to Spain all myself. I shall try to hire a nanny to make the Ireland trip. And there is no money, just my savings, but I feel I’ve got to invest in some move. I’ve got to keep the house, which is in both our names, for later, for when I’m human. It is our one security & such a fine place, it would fetch nothing, no-one but us would have liked it. By sleeping pills I sleep a few hours. I force an egg down with Frieda. I have a woman help 3 mornings a week & try as many days as I can to flog myself out to tea with my few neighbors & the babies. Then the terrible evenings settle in. The shock of this has almost killed my heart. I still love Ted ^[/The old Ted] with everything in me & the knowledge that I am ugly and hateful to him now kills me. He has kept this ^[affair] a rabid secret, although seeing my intuitions. Once I asked if he wanted a divorce and he said no, just a separation, he might never see me for 50 years but might write once a week. I am drowning, just gasping for air. I have written Mrs. Prouty—a woman is only allowed 1/3 her husband’s income, if I have the house it would be next to nothing, then if he doesn’t pay it have the house it would be next to nothing, then if he doesn’t pay it have the house it would be next to nothing, then if he doesn’t pay it is a long & costly suit to get it. If I earn anything I am penalized by having it counted as part of his income & in effect pay my own way! I think Ted will not now settle out of court, as I’d hoped—for even to run the place (cheaper than living in a one-room flat in London) & eat, nothing for me, would cost £800—he made twice that this year.

^[And will make more + more + I have nothing.]

Whatkills me is that I would like so much to be friends with him, now I see all else is impossible. I mean my God my life ^[with him] has been a daily creation, new ideas, new thoughts, our mutual stimulation. Now his is active ^[+ passionately in love] out in the world & I am stuck with two infants & not a soul, mother has lost her job, I have no-one. The part about keeping my personal one-ness a real help. I must. But my god I can’t see to thinking straight. I’d ideally like to earn my way to a flat in London in fall, winter & spring & rent this place, then come here in summer. How can I tell the babies their father has left them. How do you put it? Death is so simple. Where shall I say daddy is? I had my life set as I wished—beautifully and happily domestic, with lots of intellectual stimulus & my part-time writing. I have no desire to teach, be a secretary—and god knows how I can write. I feel Ted hates us. Wants to kill us to be free to spend all his money on her, and English laws are so mean, I have no hope of even subsistence if I go to court. And small hope of earning my way out of it as I would like. I feel so trapped. Every view is blocked by a huge vision of their bodies entwined in a passion across it, him writing immortal poems to her. And all the people of our circle are with them, for them. I have no friends left except maybe the Alan Sillitoes who are in Morocco for the year. How and where, O God do I begin? I can’t face the notion that he may want me to divorce him to marry her. I keep your letters like the Bible. How should I marshal for small money? For a nanny for a year, O God, for what. And how to stop my agony for his loved body and the thousand assaults each day of small things, memories from each cup, where we bought it, how he still loved me then, then when it was not too late. Frieda just lies wrapped in a blanket all day sucking her thumb. What can I do? I’m getting some ki^[ttens. I love you + need you.] Sylvia

 

[Handwritten marginalia on front of letter: PS: Bless you for your advice about a divorce which arrived this morning –  just in time as Ted arrives too, for the last time. There is a dignity + rightness to it. I was clinging to dead associations. I do not want people to think I am a dog-in-the-manger – “poor man, she won’t let him marry.” I know he’s a lousy husband + father – to me at least. And I may, at 50, find a better. I am writing from 5-8 a.m. daily. An immense tonic. Before the babies wake.

 

Handwritten marginalia on back of letter: P.S. Much better, the divorce like a clean knife. I am ripe for it now. Thank you, thank you.]