Letter from Wilfred Bion to Francesca, April 6, 1951. The Other Side of Genius: Family Letters

Francesca, my darling,

It was kind of you to give me such a lovely scarf; I say ‘lovely scarf’ but I am really very well aware that to me the really exciting thing is that it comes to me from my darling. As for the note, I was torn between my desire to store it up and save it for carefully reading every word, and my desire to tear it open and read it at once. I think I behaved very well don't you? Quite nonchalant and calm and collected all through tea-time and all the way back to Harley Street. Then I had to open the main envelope but I kept the letter burning in my pocket till the interval between the first patient and the next. Now wasn't that an admirable display of phlegm? My dear, what an adorable postscript! I don't know how I got from Harley Street to Iver without any awareness of the intervening stages. One of these days someone who knows me will see me in the train, and then whatever will they think? Sweetheart, it would not surprise me at all if they were to think I must be in love.

Darling Francesca, I can hardly write a letter. I need hours to think about the scarf; then I find I need hours to think about the letter; I hardly have time to think about either when I realize I must have a long, long time to think over carefully and slowly every detail of your astonishing loveliness as you sat at tea. The scarf about your shoulders, your ear-rings, my heart beats faster as I see you again as I write. In my heart I feel that there is a present such as no one in the world but you my darling could give me, a present that fills me with such deep joy that it is almost pain. I never believed that the Tavi1

could be a beautiful place to me but ‘where'er you tread the blushing flow'rs shall rise’ …

… I feel the one thing that can make all things possible already exists, and that is that between you and me there is already an enduring love that cannot be easily shaken