看完《婚姻的肖像》和《薇塔与维吉尼亚》，做一个简单的时间线梳理。
Vita Sackville-West，全名 Victoria Mary Sackville-West，生卒年1892-1962，终年70岁。
童年：1906–1910
童年时期，Vita 在女子学校 Helen Wolff's school 上学。此时她并不合群，时常觉得孤独，深夜在 Knole 不停写作。不过，此时她认识了初恋们 Violet Keppel 和 Rosamund Grosvenor。
1910年，Vita 正式进入社交圈。
初恋：Rosamund Grosvenor
Rosamund Grosvenor 比 Vita 大四岁，对 Vita 的性取向有非常重要的影响。Rosamund 可能是 Vita 爱上的第一个女人，她在日记里写到，「Oh, I dare say I realized vaguely that I had no business to sleep with Rosamund, and I should certainly never have allowed anyone to find it out」。 她们在1911年就热恋中了。但1912年 Vita 的日记里写到「这种关系是肤浅的，纯粹是身体上的，因为坦率地说，我发现她非常烦人，但是我很喜欢她，她性格柔和但愚蠢」。
1913年 21岁的 Vita 嫁给 Harold Nicolson，两人关系破裂。1924年 Rosamund 结婚。二战中担任护士，1944年被炸死于伦敦 Savoy Chapel 医院，时年55岁。
此生不渝：Violet Keppel
Violet Keppel（1894-1972）十岁那年遇见了比她大两岁的 Vita，结为好友。14岁那年，Violet 向 Vita 告白，送给 Vita 那枚古老的戒指（剧中她一直戴的那枚）。但两人并没有生活在一起。 直到1910年，Violet 一家搬回 London 的 Grosvenor Street。Violet 发现了 Vita 和 Rosamund Grosvenor 的关系并且很快要结婚了，于是订婚使 Vita 吃醋…… 1918年，两人身处热恋状态中，作出很多当时社会规范觉得出格的事情，比如一起去巴黎玩…… 1919年，Violet 结婚。 1020年，两人私奔到巴黎，两位丈夫前来寻妻，Vita 的丈夫 Harold 告诉她 Violet 对她不忠（对象是她丈夫），Vita 非常生气，两人关系破裂。 1921年，两人最后在法国又旅行了一次。在 Harold 的威胁下，两人正式分手。Violet 被送往意大利，被禁止给 Vita 写信。她写了一份特别绝望的信给她们共同的朋友 Pat Dansey。 1940年，因为二战 Violet 回到伦敦，两人时隔二十年再见，又恢复了情真意切的通信。直至1962年 Vita 去世。十年后 Violet 去世。
对这段关系颇为了解的伍尔夫写了一本《奥兰多》送给 Vita，主角就是 Vita，Violet 在里面是俄罗斯公主 Sasha。
灵魂伴侣：Virginia Woolf
1922年，Vita 在一场聚会上认识了伍尔夫。1925年两人相恋，持续了十年，高峰期在1925-1928年左右。她们之间有很多情意绵绵的情书，比如：
1926，Vita to 伍尔夫， （此时 Vita 去非洲旅行了）
I am reduced to a thing that wants Virginia. I composed a beautiful letter to you in the sleepless nightmare hours of the night, and it has all gone: I just miss you, in a quite simple desperate human way. You, with all your un-dumb letters, would never write so elementary a phrase as that; perhaps you wouldn’t even feel it. And yet I believe you’ll be sensible of a little gap. But you’d clothe it in so exquisite a phrase that it would lose a little of its reality. Whereas with me it is quite stark: I miss you even more than I could have believed; and I was prepared to miss you a good deal. So this letter is just really a squeal of pain. It is incredible how essential to me you have become. I suppose you are accustomed to people saying these things. Damn you, spoilt creature; I shan’t make you love me any the more by giving myself away like this — but oh my dear, I can’t be clever and stand-offish with you: I love you too much for that. Too truly. You have no idea how stand-offish I can be with people I don’t love. I have brought it to a fine art. But you have broken down my defences. And I don’t really resent it.”
伍尔夫回复，
Your letter came this morning — But why do you think I don’t feel, or that I make phrases? “Lovely phrases” you say which rob things of reality. Just the opposite. Always, always, always I try to say what I feel. Will you then believe that after you went last Tuesday — exactly a week ago — out I went into the slums of Bloomsbury, to find a barrel organ. But it did not make me cheerful … And ever since, nothing important has happened — Somehow it’s dull and damp. I have been dull; I have missed you. I do miss you. I shall miss you. And if you don’t believe it, you’re a longeared owl and ass.
1927，伍尔夫 to Vita（我心中的情书最佳），
Look here Vita — throw over your man, and we’ll go to Hampton Court and dine on the river together and walk in the garden in the moonlight and come home late and have a bottle of wine and get tipsy, and I’ll tell you all the things I have in my head, millions, myriads — They won’t stir by day, only by dark on the river. Think of that. Throw over your man, I say, and come.” 看这儿，Vita——忘却你的男人吧，然后我们就去汉普顿宫，在河边共进晚餐，在月光下的花园里散步，晚点儿回家，再喝上一瓶红酒。我会将我脑海里的一切都倾诉给你，千万百万，无穷无尽——岁月不能使它们浑浊，唯有幽黯的长河才能。想想那些吧。我说了，忘掉你的男人，跟我来。
当然，什么都比不过伍尔夫的那本《奥兰多》。Vita 的儿子，Nigel Nicolson 说这本书是「the longest and most charming love-letter in literature.」
我好看我人人爱我就是不能有空窗期我要脚踏很多条船
其他同性恋人包括： 1927年，Mary Garman，布鲁姆斯伯里团体（包括作家、艺术家和知识分子）的一员（Vita 你真喜欢文学圈啊……忘了说 Violet Keppel 也是作家） 1929-1931，Hilda Matheson，bbc制作人。 1931，Vita 和新闻记者Evelyn Irons 和记者的情人 Olive Rinder 玩3p……但记者第二年遇见了 Joy McSweeney 甩了 Vita。
最后
补充一封 Violet to Vita 的情书（引自：Primary Article Sources） Violet Trefusis, letter to Vita Sackville-West (March 1919)
My own sweet love, I am writing this at 2 o'clock in the morning at the conclusion of the most cruelly ironical clay I have spent in my life. This evening I was taken to a ball of some good people. Chinday had previously told all her friends I was engaged so I was congratulated by everyone I knew there. I could have screamed aloud. Mitya, I can't face this existence. I shall see you once again on Monday and it depends on you whether we shall ever see each other again. It is really wicked and horrible. I am losing every atom of self-respect I ever possessed. I hate myself. 0 Mitya, what have you done to me? 0 my darling, precious love, what is going to become of use I want you every second and every hour of the day, yet I am being slowly and inexorably tied to somebody else... Sometimes I am flooded by an agony of physical longing for you... a craving for your nearness and your touch. At other times I feel I should be quite content if I could only hear the sound of your voice. I try so hard to imagine your lips on mine. Never was there such a pitiful imagining.... Darling, whatever it may cost us, my mother won't be cross with you any more. I suppose this ridiculous engagement will set her mind at rest.... Nothing and no one in the world could kill the love I have for you. I have surrendered my whole individuality, the very essence of my being to you. I have given you my body time after time to treat as you pleased, to tear to pieces if such had been your will. All the hoardings of my imagination I have laid bare to you. There isn't a recess in my brain into which you haven't penetrated. I have clung to you and caressed you and slept with you and I would like to tell the whole world I clamour for you.... You are my lover and I am your mistress, and kingdoms and empires and governments have tottered and succumbed before now to that mighty combination - the most powerful in the world.
