MR. HUNTER: Very well—I don't want to argue a point like this—it's all one paragraph if you like. May I continue?
MR. WARNER: By all means, finish the paragraph.
MR. HUNTER (reading):
"... No, I don't hate Ann, I was not thinking only of Ann when I wrote that.
"Another thing, by the way, that I hardly dared to write.
"Jimmy, I need to know: if Ann would allow a separation, and if we went somewhere—no matter where, so it's a long way off—would you be mentally, emotionally able to live with me? Look into yourself. Tell me, if you can, what would happen inside you, supposing the situation was like that. Make it far away—Arizona, Tahiti, island of Capri, who cares?—and I am with you, in your bed at night and with you in all the long bright days. Would you see me still as a human woman who loves you and who would be happy to bear you children?—that could be, you know; a doctor assured me of it a couple of years ago, the little deformity is no obstacle. Or would I become the whore who 'led you astray' and 'wrecked your life'?
"You know, Jimmy, it hasn't seemed to me (but I could be so damned wrong!) that religion goes very deep with you. Isn't it mostly a matter of being brought up in a certain way that automatically shuts out other views without seriously examining them? I'm trying to suggest that unlike Ann, you're really not embedded in religion like a fly in amber. I've made no secret of my own agnosticism with you—wouldn't have occurred to me to do so—and that hasn't appeared to trouble you particularly. You do shy away, you don't like the topic, I suppose you feel the way so many people do nowadays, that religion is all right but talking about it is not quite nice. But I can't imagine that you condemn me in your heart (do you?) for relying on my own reason, being unafraid of doubt, interested in proof, critical of all self-appointed authority?
"So I'll even dare ask you: just where is the mercy, the rationale, the loving-kindness, in an ethical-religious system that makes me a whore bound for hell because I love you and welcome intercourse with you and want to live with you?
"I want to see you tomorrow, Jimmy. You spoke of having to work late because of Miss Anderson's being out sick—may I come there in the evening, just to see you for a few minutes? I'll be well-behaved (I hope). There are one or two other things—things even I don't care to scrawl on paper. If you call and say I mustn't come, of course I won't, but—please?
"For the first time in our experience I shall be listening for the phone and hoping you don't call. 'How do I love thee? Let me count the ways'—I can't, I can't.
"Callista."
The third letter, members of the jury, is again from Callista Blake to James Doherty. It is dated June 25th, just a week later than the one I last read, and was addressed, like the other two, to Mr. Doherty at his office. It reads as follows:
"Jimmy—
"Didn't you say you would call me Monday evening? What happened? I remember you said you would be tied up over the week end—if only my silly hungry arms had been the rope to tie you!—well, so I counted the hours to Monday evening, and glued myself to the phone, but no Jimmy. I know I mustn't call your house—you needn't have reminded me of that, last Friday! Tuesday, though, I did try to call you at the office—I'm sorry, Jimmy, I know you didn't want me to, but I was miserable, I had to try to reach you somehow—but you were out, anyway Mr. Judd answered the phone and said you were, and he sounded so chilly—am I a black cat across his path or something?—I didn't know he disliked me. What's happening, Jimmy? Could be purely my nerved-up imagination. But all week, no Jimmy. Couldn't you at least have got as far as a phone booth? Oh hell, I'm writing like a sniveling brat.
"Lately I've been having too many morbid thoughts. I know I behaved badly Friday evening—you didn't want anything to get started, and I had to act like a whining bitch in heat. You should know there's more to me than that—I guess you do, I guess you do. Well, since that evening I've now and then thought of us—I even dreamed something of the kind—as if we were no wiser than a pair of kids slipping out behind the barn to study the difference between a boy and a girl—with peevish grown-ups likely to come around the corner of the building any minute. I've lost some of the dream—I think we did get caught and stood there frozen waiting for the wrath. Only the boy in the dream wasn't quite you. Be jealous, damn you.
"Are we so terribly far apart? I'm beginning to understand there's plenty about me you don't even like. It's not strange. Didn't I tell you at the start, or try to, that I'm not easy to get along with? I often have a bad enough time trying to get along with myself. But Jimmy, Dearest, all people are far apart in a lot of important ways. No exceptions. And all people have elements in common too, things they can share, use to bridge the gulf between self and self, if they only knew it. Don't you think we have enough in common so that if we both tried hard and honestly and lovingly, we could live happily together?
"I know, I know—I wrote that as if I were assuming that Ann would set you free. Oh, I like you and don't like you, for not wanting to talk about her with me. Like you for it because I know it's loyalty, you're trying to be fair to her, spare her pain, you still love her in many ways—and somehow I know about all of them, and respect every one of them whether you believe that or not. And dislike it, it hurts, because—well, because I happen to be the one under the gun, Jimmy, and I keep thinking if I knew more about her I might see my own way better. I love you in ways she never imagined, couldn't imagine. She's not a passionate woman, Jimmy—as I don't suppose you need to be told. She's sweet, possessive, domestic, good to you so far as she knows how to be, loves you in her fashion so long as you conform to what she wants you to be. Undoubtedly it troubles her that you haven't happened to have children yet. Loves you in her fashion—oh, Jimmy, to my thinking, and I'm not a fool, loving an image of what you'd like another person to be, that's not love at all, just self-love and arrogance.
"Am I doing it too? Am I in love with what I wish you were? I mustn't always shy away from that thought—I'll have to look at it straight some time, can't now somehow, not now, not now. I don't think it's true. Anyway I will assure you, pretty Ann never woke up at night whimpering your name and tasting blood on her lip.
"There's no solution that won't hurt somebody. I'm selfish too—like you, like Ann if she knew and understood, I don't want to be hurt any more than I have been. I don't hate Ann, I don't want to hate her. I don't want anything except to get away somewhere with you—are we savages to be held in line by magic words mumbled in the mouth of a priest?—because I love you best and need you.
"Silence is the cruelest of a coward's weapons. It's not like you to use it against me. Please write, or call me. Please come to me.
"Callista."
The fourth letter is typed, dated July 5th, 1959, and signed only with a typed capital J. You remember yesterday Mr. Lamson testified that James Doherty himself, as well as Miss Blake, acknowledged his authorship of this letter. It reads:
"Dear Callista:
"I meant to write to you sooner, but have been very busy, so am afraid the time has slipped by, besides I do not know just how to say what I ought to, except that we must relinquish the prospect we have discussed and that you mention in your letter, as it would not work out for the best but am afraid would have bad consequences to all concerned. I consider myself very much to blame having given you a wrong idea of the situation, although that certainly was not my intention. I think all we can do is try to forget about it, because that is what we must do, unless the situation changes some time. I am sorry to have to say it as you may feel disappointed and that I have let you down, as a matter of fact I feel that myself, am afraid I may have treated you rather badly letting you take things for granted when I ought not to have done so, although that was not my intention, and am very sorry if it is so. I feel you are not to blame in any way but I am, I know, and the only thing we can do is sort of forget the whole thing and hope you can forgive me for letting you down.
"Sincerely,
"J.""P.S. I feel we ought not to get in touch again about this for a while as there is nothing we can do. Please read between the lines and don't be angry."
Since the defendant appears to find this letter amusing, I can only say that her sense of humor has not much in common with mine.
MR. WARNER: Is the defendant on trial for changes in facial expression? I did not know that an unhappy smile was an indictable offense.