All Passion Spent

by Vita Sackville-West

And still she asked, where, in this system, was there room for a studio?

The statement that she had loved, though indisputable, still admitted of infinite complexity. Who was the she, the ‘I,’ that had loved? And Henry, who and what was he?

Was there, after all, some foundation for the prevalent belief that woman should minister to man? Had the generations been right, the personal struggle wrong? Was there something beautiful, something active, something creative even, in her apparent submission to Henry?

Could she not balance herself upon the tight-rope of her relationship with him,

dangerously and precariously as in the act of cre...

Of such small things was her life now made: of communion with Genoux, of interest in her own disintegrating body, of Mr Bucktrout’s courtesy and weekly visits, of her pleasure in the frosty morning and the little boys flying kites on the Heath; even of her anxiety about slipping upon a frozen doorstep, for the bones of the aged, she knew, were brittle.

‘You really mustn’t talk as though my life had been a tragedy. I had everything that most women would covet: position, comfort, children, and a husband I loved. I had nothing to complain of – nothing.’

‘Except that you were defrauded of the one thing that mattered. Nothing matters to an artist except the fulfilment of his gift.

Your children, your husband, your splendour, were nothing but obstacles that kept you from yourself.

when you chose that life you sinned against the light.’

he gave you all you could desire. He merely killed you, that’s all. Men do kill women.

Anyhow, why should I accept other people’s ideas? My own are just as likely to be right – right for me.

“Beauty in life,” he used to say, “may come from good dressing and what-not, but for beauty in death you have to fall back on character.”