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Mary Butts Diary Entry Tuesday, 5 July 1921
Tried to understand why C.M. [Cecil Maitland] and I have not got on so well lately. My side.
(i) He wants me to live with him in the same house.
i.e. to be Mrs. Maitland as to disadvantages with none of the advantages (if any).
This hitches it on to the John trouble when I put up with the joint ménage, and tried to make it successful, and did not please him.
It catches me out on my ‘lie’ about insufficient money and my passionate desire. I expect it is a determination—in fact—I know it i.e. I’ve sworn it to spend my spare money on clothes and scent and taxis for myself.
But (ii) this is only the mask for another set of adjustments—it is another way of saying that C.M. can’t live without me—which (iii) is another way of saying that he can’t live with me. So, when he taxes my love and patience—as any lover must, he has taken away from me my liberty through which alone I can satisfy him in the vital and ecstatic part of our relation.
What is a relation without vitality or ecstasy.
(iv) It is a terrible coercion a man so neurotic and so desperate can exercise on his lover.
We talked it out as clearly as this, and kissed and made friends, though without illumination or conclusion—Still, I’ve forced myself to speak out, and not kept it a mystery.
I will remember and teach to my children Aleister’s image—
The Plant Kindness.
The Flower Self-Sacrifice.
The Fruit Catastrophe.
Write. A hindoo ascetic—[illegible] nothing, eyes eaten away—etc. Coming to the exact appreciation of his state of body.
Philosophical adjunct?
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