[MY BOOKISH OBSESSIONS] PASSION + JEALOUSY// Love Letters//

He is angry.
He is irritated.
Many days have passed and yet there is no news of his beloved. She doesn’t write.

WHY DOESN’T SHE WRITE TO HIM?

Maybe she is ill. Maybe something bad happened to her. Oh, god, what if she is hurt somehow because I wasn’t there to protect her, to care for her? What if she someone else has caught her eye – someone who gives her attention when I couldn’t, who loves her more than me? But surely that’s not possible. Is it?

Love is toxic in the most delightful yet painful way.

You find yourself obsessing over the littlest changes. A single missed text, an unanswered call, and your thoughts go spiraling down, imagining the worst things possible. Isn’t that the truth? 

As all the dark thoughts gather in his mind, turning his every waking moment into a torment, Bonaparte pens down his anxieties and fears hoping that his jealous yet passionate urgings will convince his wife to write more often before loses his mind.

//MY AESTHETIC// It took me SOOOOOO loooong to make this onee!!! SO YOU BETTER LIKE IT!!!

Napolean Bonaparte to Josephine Bonaparte
Verona, 3 Frimaire, year V [1797]

To Josephine, in Milan

I love you no longer; on the contrary, I detest you. You are a wretch, truly perverse, truly stupid, a real Cinderella. You never write to me at all, you do not love your husband; you know the pleasure that your letters give him yet you cannot even manage to write him half a dozen lines, thrown off in a moment!

What then do you do all day, Madame? What business is so vital that it robs you of the time to write to your faithful lover? What attachment can be stifling and pushing aside the love, the tender and constant love which you promised him? 

Who can this wonderful new lover be who takes up every moment, rules your days and prevents you from devoting your attention to your husband? Beware, Josephine; one fine night the doors will be broken down and there I shall be.

In truth, I am worried, my love, to have no news from you; write me a four-page letter at once made up from those delightful words which fill my heart with emotion and joy.

I hope you hold you in my arms before long, when I shall lavish upon you a million kisses, burning as the equatorial sun.

Bonaparte

One look at his words, even a fleeting one, and your mind is filled with his troubled thoughts, his worry, his MAD ANTICIPATION.

I don’t blame Bonaparte for the hint of anger in his letter. And although everyone may not agree but to me, such a letter – with gentle reprimands and jealousy –  is one of the best ways to convey how much a person means to them.

He wants every bit of his wife reserved for himself. No exceptions are allowed. Even when he is gone, he wants her to devote as much thought to him as he does to her.

Granted, it’s always just a phase in the long-run of relationships but ISN’T IT THE BEST??

SO? What did you think of Napolean Bonaparte’s letter to his wife?

How you imagine his wife would have felt at the receipt of this letter? 

Which lines were your favorite?