I am determined not to regret this...
My very dear Captain,
I hold you in the highest regard, I truly do. You continually impress me, and continually mystify me, and I could spend my whole life being fascinated by you. In have already spent a goodly section of my time here in this world doing just that. I have been drawn to you ever since I first met you. You were so very… I do not know the words to say what I mean, but it struck me then that though you declared yourself to be no civilized man, you were a better gentleman and a far kinder host then many of the patrons of the museum, who would have been most offended if anyone had said of them what you freely claimed of yourself. I wanted to know why.
But, even then, I was impressed by your intelligence and the way those eyes of yours - the way you seem to look straight into everyone and everything, especially me, has always made my breath catch - and I wanted to know more about you, not simply more about the Nautilus. I used to spend hours vaguely hoping I would see you, that I would get a chance to talk to you, that perhaps you would have dinner with me, or invite me along on an expedition, or join me in the salon for a bit the way you did sometimes, reading while I took notes. I enjoyed that more than anything.
And then I went away… Do you have any idea how long we delayed? I am not certain how much you knew of what we quietly, occasionally plotted. M. Land was miserable, but I… I was not. I could not be. I was lonely sometimes, or confused, or worried about you (quite often I was worried about you) but I was not miserable. I was, in a quiet, almost unsettled way, happy. When I returned to Paris everything was gone, and different, and I was different, and I missed you.
And now I’m back with you, and I don’t know what I’m doing, and I know you, at least as well as I think I will get to for some time, but I don’t know what I’m doing. I love you. I love you, and you change me, shift me, make me nervous and make me happy, and are so inexpressibly kind. I know you think you are not, I know you do not quite believe me when I say I admire you, but I do, because you are so intelligent, and because you do care about people, even if sometimes who you think about confuses me, and you are so sure and certain. I wish for you to be happy so much. I desperately want you to be happy. I want you to be happy with me. I want to make you happy. You make me happy. I want so much to make you feel even a little as new and different and interested and happy as you make me feel.
I don’t know how to do this, but I will try. I am trying. I love you.
Yours always,
Pierre
I hold you in the highest regard, I truly do. You continually impress me, and continually mystify me, and I could spend my whole life being fascinated by you. In have already spent a goodly section of my time here in this world doing just that. I have been drawn to you ever since I first met you. You were so very… I do not know the words to say what I mean, but it struck me then that though you declared yourself to be no civilized man, you were a better gentleman and a far kinder host then many of the patrons of the museum, who would have been most offended if anyone had said of them what you freely claimed of yourself. I wanted to know why.
But, even then, I was impressed by your intelligence and the way those eyes of yours - the way you seem to look straight into everyone and everything, especially me, has always made my breath catch - and I wanted to know more about you, not simply more about the Nautilus. I used to spend hours vaguely hoping I would see you, that I would get a chance to talk to you, that perhaps you would have dinner with me, or invite me along on an expedition, or join me in the salon for a bit the way you did sometimes, reading while I took notes. I enjoyed that more than anything.
And then I went away… Do you have any idea how long we delayed? I am not certain how much you knew of what we quietly, occasionally plotted. M. Land was miserable, but I… I was not. I could not be. I was lonely sometimes, or confused, or worried about you (quite often I was worried about you) but I was not miserable. I was, in a quiet, almost unsettled way, happy. When I returned to Paris everything was gone, and different, and I was different, and I missed you.
And now I’m back with you, and I don’t know what I’m doing, and I know you, at least as well as I think I will get to for some time, but I don’t know what I’m doing. I love you. I love you, and you change me, shift me, make me nervous and make me happy, and are so inexpressibly kind. I know you think you are not, I know you do not quite believe me when I say I admire you, but I do, because you are so intelligent, and because you do care about people, even if sometimes who you think about confuses me, and you are so sure and certain. I wish for you to be happy so much. I desperately want you to be happy. I want you to be happy with me. I want to make you happy. You make me happy. I want so much to make you feel even a little as new and different and interested and happy as you make me feel.
I don’t know how to do this, but I will try. I am trying. I love you.
Yours always,
Pierre