IMRE:
A MEMORANDUM
EDITED BY
XAVIER MAYNE.
"The Friendship which is Love—the Love which is Friendship"
NAPLES.
The English Book-Press: R. RISPOLI,
CALATA TRINITÀ MAGGIORE, 53.
1906.
(Privately Printed And All Rights Reserved.)
THIS BOOK IS PRIVATELY PRINTED
IN A LIMITED EDITION, OF WHICH THIS COPY IS
NUMBER 10
CONTENTS
| PREFATORY | Page | 3 |
| MASKS | ' | 9 |
| MASKS AND—A FACE | ' | 79 |
| FACES—HEARTS—SOULS | ' | 157 |
PREFATORY.
My dear Mayne:
In these pages I give you a chapter out of my life... an episode thatat first seemed impossible to write even to you. It has lengthenedunder my hand, as autobiography is likely to do. My apology is that insetting forth absolute truth in which we ourselves are concerned sodeeply, the perspectives, and what painters call the values, are noteasily maintained. But I hope not to be tedious to the reader forwhom, especially, I have laid open as mysterious and profoundlypersonal an incident.
You know why it has been written at all for you. Now that it liesbefore me, finished, I do not feel so dubious of what may be thoughtof its utterly sincere course as I did when I began to put it onpaper. And as you have more than once urged me to write somethingconcerning just that topic which is the mainspring of my pages I haveasked myself whether, instead of some impersonal essay, I would notdo best to give over to your editorial hand all that is here?—assomething for other men than for you and me only? Do with it,therefore, as you please. As speaking out to any other human heartthat is throbbing on in rebellion against the ignorances, the narrowpsychologic conventions, the false social ethics of our epoch—toomany men's hearts must do so!—as offered in a hope that someperplexed and solitary soul may grow a little calmer, may feel itselfa little less alone in our world of mysteries—so do I give thisrecord to you, to use it as you will. Take it as from Imre and fromme.
As regards the actual narrative, I may say to you here that thedialogue is kept, word for word, faithfully as it passed, in all themore significant passages; and that the correspondence is literallytranslated.
I do not know what may be the exact shade of even your sympatheticjudgment, as you lay down th