I want to examine my relationship with Veronika1. A couple of weeks ago I told her I loved her. I did, and still do. But it’s a strange, unexpected kind of love. I love her when I am in her company, and the longer I am with her the more I love her. I would never say I love her on meeting her but I always do on leaving her. Also I love her differently when we are in company and when we are alone. When we are in company I am proud of her, pleased to be seen with her, delighted by our remembered private intimacy. When we are alone it is very different. Harder to speak of. Things become more complicated. We are less a couple than the unassembled parts of what could become a couple. Also I cannot say that I miss her, mentally or physically, when she is not with me. I am not overjoyed to see her. But conversely whenever she speaks of not seeing me again, which she does less and less often, then there is immediately a ball of chaos in my chest and I become very upset. What can I say in summation? This isn’t an absolute love. Already I am starting to notice things, not to become annoyed of them but simply to notice that one could become annoyed by some of her mannerisms. Her habit of saying Yes, yes, yes during silences. Her screwing up her eyes. Her stories. I can’t take seriously what she tells me about her past. I can’t believe these people exist and therefore I can’t believe that her emotions about them are serious. It’s like watching someone with toothache. You always think they are lying, can never really empathize. It seems that I love Veronika, but not enough. Enough for six months but not enough for a year. It was funny that I have always, more or less unconsciously, imagined that I would be the less loving one2. I always cast myself as manipulator, decider, controller. But when we started going out, though Veronika still won’t say we are actually ‘going out’, it was clear that I was the more in love. Now thought, although she hasn’t said she loves me, I think her affection is the greater.
If I’m judging young-Toby as a writer judging a writer, not me judging proto-me, I think this is about the best thing I’ve read by him. In the diary, at least. Much of the rest of his prose is flat. I find his repetitions awkward — he’ll say something in one way, and the balancing phrase to one way will be another way. He’s avoiding risk, mischief. There’s not enough variation of vocabulary or rhythm or attack. Not enough fun. But he doesn’t want to go wayward, or tasteless, and he adores symmetry.
If I find any promise in myself, it’s in this paragraph.
Young-Toby is quoting WH Auden’s poem ‘The More Loving One’.
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.
It’s hard to overstate how much of an influence Auden was on young-Toby.