Ivory and Horn (ivoryandhorn) wrote in roads_diverged, @ 2009-04-25 10:37:00 |
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Entry tags: | ivoryandhorn:ivahn/pevi, original: the city adel, theme 17: high society |
[The City Adel] (Pevi/Ivahn) "TO MR. IVAHN CHANDLERSOHN" Theme #17: high society
Title: TO MR. IVAHN CHANDLERSOHN
Author: ivoryandhorn
Fandom: Original - The City Adel
Pairing: Pevi/Ivahn (uh, more like Pevi --> Ivahn in this one?)
Rating: PG
Warnings: none
Theme: Society #17: high society
Notes: ~1400 words. Written not long after I'd read The Coquette for school, while the style was still earwormy. This isn't a completely faithful reproduction of the writing style of the time, just...my mental impression of it.
Summary: Just a note between friends.
How can I explain myself? How may I ever atone for my lapse in judgment, for exposing myself for the profligate that I truly am? Perhaps the best I can do is only to endeavor to explain, and hope that you will look favorably upon my words and desperate exhortations, even if only by the obligation of our Long have you been aware of my unnatural tastes. Even as boys in school, when youth runs roughshod over reason, you promised to keep my secret. Never, in the years since, have I had cause to doubt your most honorable word. Since our school days I have loved you as a brother, bosom companion of my youth and keeper of my sordid secrets and tales. Tolerant but never judgmental, I know you have always disapproved of my bent towards libertinism and gaiety, to say nothing of the nature of my passions. And yet, Ivahn, you have always remained steadfast in your conviction of our friendship and I have always been eternally grateful that the world saw fit to hand me a friend such as yourself to one such as me: I know my own nature. You think me damned, though you will not abandon me to my fate. You know already my feelings on the subject of faith; I will not recount them here, lest I recall the past arguments we have had and injure myself even further in your regard. Out of respect of you I had long resolved to keep you clear of my conquests and dalliances, for I knew that you were destined for greater things than a rake such as myself, and I hoped always that your eventual nuptials would not sever the friendship I so greatly treasured. Imagine, then, my horror and distress when I found that my roving eye began to turn towards you. I had been content with friendship; nay, friendship had always been what I sought—or so I thought. Yet my resolve and intentions could not withstand the assault of my own traitorous mind. Not long after we had parted ways for good after university did I find to my great distress that. No matter the gaiety of the parties I attended, the women on my arm and the sights of like-minded men did nothing to dispel my melancholy at the thought we should be separated. Such was my state of mind that Yelina even took it upon herself to leave the home and force me to parties, in an attempt to revive my former gaiety. Even my brother took it upon himself to comment upon my melancholic state, and, being himself, to lecture me upon it. All my attempts at distraction, every effort I took to wrench my mind towards less forbidden fruits, ended in failure. Your letters were the only bright spot through those dreary months and with each I found myself imagining futures that I knew could not be. In my own writings I put up a brave front for I knew you yourself were besieged by ladies desiring a marriage into your great family, and my soul recoiled from the thought that you, Ivahn, friend of my heart, should know the truth of my despondency, in both its reason and its extent. Rexin’s own attempts to throw suitable young ladies in my direction did little to aid my spirits, for though they were all accomplished, amiable girls my only thought was ever that they were not, and could never be, you. Finally Yelina realized that this state of affairs could no longer go on and resolved to invite you to our home in merry Boston. I do not know what she said to lure you to our home, for while it is true I desired desperately to see you I had refrained from requesting your presence for fear what little remained of my resolve would simply crumble by such proximity to your person. I was frantic when you agreed, for I did not wish to see you while my sins loomed larger than usual, yet I cannot deny that the traitorous part of me that was occupied with thoughts of greater intimacies than friendship cheered raucously at the prospect of your arrival and proximity. I resolved then that, no matter my turmoil, I would see to it that you had nothing to want in Boston. I will admit that the thought of speaking to you and seeing you again roused my spirits as nothing else ever had, and I eagerly made ready lists of suitable entertainments for your visit. And yet it seems all my preparations and promises and resolve was for naught, for scarcely had you walked into the door when I knew that no engagement could ever replace the warmth, and depth, of feeling I had for you, far beyond what is suitable and acceptable by society between two men. I despaired, but rallied behind the thought that I could not deprive you of Boston’s delights when I had made such commotion about them in my previous letters. For a week I held on to my resolve. And then, that wretched night, after we had both downed more wine than we needed, you informed me that your parents had settled upon a likely lass for you and that you would be asking her hand within the month. All the despair and desire I had held back for months flooded me in that instant: I had always known that I could never have you, that I never could, but to know now that you were to be forever and always outside the reach of not only my love, but our friendship, was more than I could possibly bear. In that moment, lulled by fear and grief and desperation and drink I acted with the utmost lack of judgment, fully aware that your own tastes did not align with my own but scarcely aware of what I was doing, only knowing only that it was either act or expire before you on the spot. I was mortified in the morning, when I recalled what I had done. I could not bear to face myself in my own mirror, and yet I could not deny the truth of it either, impossible as any favorable resolution seemed. I would not blame you for cutting me off entirely, as befits one of your station, wealth, and prospective engagement. I am, or at least I can be and shall force myself to be, content to ever be your friend, even if I must be relegated to one by correspondence only. I await your judgment with the greatest apprehension. But now, Ivahn, the damage has been done. I have confessed obtusely the nature of my want for you, my actions have only proven their truth, I have broken our friendship through folly and weak resolve. I will accept the consequences of my actions, and ask only that you will allow me to continue to stay in your kind regard. I leave this letter on your bureau, knowing that you will find it in the morning before you return to New York, and no matter what your feelings and judgments on the matter may prove to be, I sign myself forever and always as your friend, PEVI TRAVEYN |