always. continuously. with increasing apprehension, and decreasing hope.
i will love you with no regard to the outrage of certain parents or the boredom of certain friends.
i will love you if you cut your hair and i will love you if you cut the hair of others.
i will love you as the doctor loves his sickest patient and a lake loves its thirstiest swimmer.
i will love you as a cufflink loves to drop from its shirt and explore the party for itself and as a pair of white gloves loves to slip delicately into the punchbowl.
i will love you as misfortune loves orphans, as fire loves innocence, and as justice loves to sit and watch while everything goes wrong.
i will love you as a drawer loves a secret compartment, and as a secret compartment loves a secret, and as a secret loves to make a person gasp, and as a gasping person loves a glass of brandy to calm their nerves, and as a glass of brandy loves to shatter on the floor, and as the noise of glass shattering loves to make someone else gasp, and as someone else gasping loves a nearby desk to lean against, even if leaning against it presses a lever that loves to open a drawer and reveal a secret compartment. i will love you until all such compartments are discovered and opened, and until all the secrets have gone gasping into the world.
i will love you no matter where you go and who you see, no matter where you avoid and who you don’t see, and no matter who sees you avoiding where you go. i will love you no matter what happens to you, and no matter how i discover what happens to you, and no matter what happens to me as i discover this, and no matter how i am discovered after what happens to me as i am discovering this.
that, beatrice, is how i will love you even as the world goes on its wicked way.
— lemony snicket to beatrice baudelaire, the beatrice letters
