(Untitled)

[hunt_theheart]

(continued from here)

*gaily changing tactics* And if thou hadst but wife to comfort thee--ay, wife and children both, within a house well suited to thy taste and every want--wouldst thou be satisfied with nothing more?

Comments

[jarndyceheir]

"I cannot imagine being dissatisfied, so, provided the wife was the one who is my heart's choice."

T: <3

[hunt_theheart]

*tilts his head* And never to discourse with friend again? Not Tom, not I, not kind young Mrs. Strange? No work, no life but wife and house and babes?

Typist: <3back!

[jarndyceheir]

"I would not choose it, perhaps, if I could have both. But nor would I imagine my wife would be content were I to confer upon other women what should, by rights, be hers. I would not wound her so, even if I wished to stray in such a manner of my own desire."

[hunt_theheart]

*all but impatient with this focus on the bodily expression of love, for all his humor's good* Why must thou speak of naught and pillicocks? *there's Elizabethan euphemism for you* There's more to love than congress with a maid--or with a man, wherever thou dost turn. I love dear Rosalind, but would protest an she suggested I should lie with her.

[jarndyceheir]

"That is not at all what I meant. Surely a man should have friends, heaven forbid I gainsay it, but I was under the impression that we were discussing lovers, and whether or no our friend Tom meant to stick to one."

[hunt_theheart]

And is one love the lesser, being chaste--or is a love the greater for the act? An he should take this Sophie for his wife, could he refuse to love the other maid--an he should never touch her hand again, nor see her face, nor know her close embrace, would he be ever faithful in his heart?

[jarndyceheir]

"And you suggest that it is nobler, then, to split one's affection between two women than to be faithful to one while dreaming, in spite of one's self, of the other?"

[hunt_theheart]

'Tis honester; of noble, I know not.

[jarndyceheir]

Richard just rather... stares for a moment, as his Victorian mind tries to grapple with this.

[hunt_theheart]

*Curio smiles; his morality is anomalous in his own time, as well, and he's aware of that (and his typist loves Richard's confounded face)*

[jarndyceheir]

Thank Tom's typist for sending me a million and one Bleak House screencaps. XD

"Have you never told a lie to spare the emotions of another, then?"

[hunt_theheart]

At times--each time, I did repent me sore, for that my secrets caused us greater pain.

[jarndyceheir]

"I don't understand," he says, frustrated. "You mean to say that Tom should bed Molly if he likes and then, if and when Sophia arrives, marry her but bed the both of them?"

[hunt_theheart]

... *just stares* Hast thou not heard a single word I've said? I spoke no word of congress, but of love--

[jarndyceheir]

"I know that! But Tom's love for Molly is hardly Platonic!"

[hunt_theheart]

*pause* ... O.

...

*very forcedly calm* Thy room is next to his, I do recall.