Dear Anne, Earlier today I wrote to you: "You have invited me to this "memorial service." Even if I'm not asked (or permitted) to speak to the group, most of the participants will seek to speak with me to convey their "condolences". I will reply to them that I consider them to have been lured and seduced by you to participate in a gang rape of Margaret's spirit, a rape by which my spirit is similarly abused, because Margaret's spirit and my spirit are one." At the time, I promised to "provide you with a detailed formal explanation." Here it is. Soon after Margaret and I began to court in the summer of 1949, I enrolled in graduate school in comparative literature and became familiar with a novel by André Gide, La Porte Étroite, (The Narrow Gate). The title refers to Matthew 7:14: "Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." The book tells the story of the loves of two sisters, Juliette and Alissa, and of their lovers Édouard and Jerome, respectively. Édouard, an otherwise uninspired and uninspiring vintner is afflicted with a mad love for Juliette, an affection which she does not reciprocate. But Juliette marries Édouard nonetheless; and with five children which Juliette bore Édouard, they live more or less happily everafter. Although the fervent love of Alissa for Jerome is, on the other hand, reciprocal, their affection is fatally stifled by Alissa's religious fervor. The issue becomes: is La Porte Étroite wide enough to permit two lovers abrest to walk together to their God in the Kingdom of Heaven. It is not. Their relationship withers and Alissa dies unwed. Impressed as I was at the time with the spiritual obstacles to marriage, I gave Margaret the book to read. At first she misunderstood and treated it as a theological tract with the comment that the path to "God" was a journey which the lovers could never make jointly, but only as individuals. I did not correct her. A few weeks later it dawned on Margaret that a spiritual block to marriage on my part was a potential threat also to her own future. She panicked, begged me to put La Porte Étroite out of my mind, and never to mention it. I complied. I never spoke to her of the book again. Put it away for 63 years, found it yesterday among our French books on the shelves, its pages brown and brittle. Meanwhile I've reread La Porte Étroite on the Internet. Our problem, Margaret's and mine, remained unsolved and continued to reappear on different occasion as an identity crisis for me, antecedent and analogous to the identity crisis which your Memorial Service poses for me even after seventy years of idolizing Margaret, and especially then. I felt my identity threatened time and again by my immediate environment, and I pleaded with Margaret to protect me. She would not because she could not. Time and again she would trott out a quatrain by Edward Markham: “He drew a circle that shut me out- Heretic , rebel, a thing to flout. But love and I had the wit to win: We drew a circle and took him In ! It was a misunderstanding. For me not togetherness, survival was the issue. We loved each other so much that we tried to duck the question. It remained unasked and unanswered. Then in January 1950, came the moment of truth. On my way back from the annual Christmas visit to Virginia, I stopped to see Margaret in St Mark's place. It was a happy emcounter. On January 6, 1950 she wrote me: " ... I must begin my letter now before the warmth and happiness of your visit is overlaid by all the necessary details of my work.... So little was said, but the very fact of your being here was so important. All the other times that I have seen you, I have come to you, escaping from something that was too much, either my work or something else. But your coming to me in the midst of my work when it was going well meant that I was quite free of any shadow of desperation. And it seemed also to make my life here something that was included in my friendship with you." For me the happiness did not last. Two days later, in Cambridge, I was distraught and depressed. On January 8, 1950, I wrote to Margaret: "What is most on my mind is my constant criticism of the immediate and distant environment. At worst it could be derogation to compensate for personal insufficiencies; at best it would be a translation of the constant examination of my own motivations and actions to the situations in which they arise. Probably it is a combination of both. But what shall I do? What makes the situation even bitterer for me is the knowledge that you would think I was wrong, that I was egotistical, and would take sides with everything which hurts and depresses me, - or at best you would maintain a benevolent neutrality." "If only I could carry out the logical scheme. All my life I have been drawing a magic circle around the place where I stand; on my side were always only very few people, sometimes one, and sometimes none. And now you get in the way of the chalk which draws the line that separates me from what hurts me. You stand in the way, you cannot, - or will not, - come on my side, and I do not have the strength to push you out of the way of the chalk that draws the magic circle, - for I would hurt both you and myself, and probably lose my equilibrium in the attempt." "Please do not stand in the doorway too long. I must close the door, because it is very cold outside, and there is not much coal. My feet are cold, and my fingers will get stiff, and I will not be able to practice violin. Besides everything will freeze. Please do not stand in the doorway too long. Lest I forget myself and try to close the door while you are still there. I would hurt you, and the door would shatter, and I would become very ill, and perhaps never recover, because I cannot live without doors. Where will you go? Which way, in or out? I can see no way for your coming in, - I have built such a defense. Perhaps you see a way to come in; angels I think can penetrate the most elaborate defenses. Humans must break them, But be careful of what you break. For goodness sake, close the door if you want to come in. - If you will go away, you can do so gently, without making much noise, and when I know that you are gone, and when I am sure I will no longer hurt you, I shall get up to close the door after you. I will turn out the light and go to sleep, and dream ... " Three days later, on January 11. 1950, Margaret replied: "How deeply I am penetrated with the vices of scholasticism! I cannot begin to write to you about these things which are really very simple without a preface and stupid melodramatic literary devices; I would be gentle and patient and explain to you slowly and carefully as I explained adverbial clauses this afternoon. I did not expect to succeed then, but I did; the children trusted me, and blamed their confusion on themselves or on the teacher last year. But you tempt me into acrobatics with literary devices. So much of what we feel seems to be expressed symbolically. The symbols are sometimes beautiful and enrich our relationship, but sometimes I think they obscure the reality. Books, bridges, door, circles--I have the symbols for the beautiful mythology with which I can occupy my mind when you finally shut the door and swallow the key. But now I must resist the temptation toconvert your metaphors to my own uses; it is very hard. Do you know this verse of Markham's: "He drew a circle that shut me outm Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout, But love and I had the wit to win, We drew a circle that took him in." It is not very beautifully expressed, but it is something that I have often thought about, though I do not think that I have before in connection with you. Nor do I really think it illustrative now, because I think no longer in terms of enclosed spaces. I think I am more withdrawn from the world that I have ever been before-- but not to a place, a circle or a room with a door. It is rather a place to which I am going, and which I will never reach. To me your empty (except for you) room with its door is in its way as unreal a place to be as the great houses full of people which other people build for themselves. You have locked out the whole world; they have locked out all but a few of the millions. Neither you nor they will be safe from whatever you fear behind your doors. I KNOW that I am "a stranger and a sojourner wherever I am, whether in the bog houses or in your room.