Know that I have placed much faith and trust in you, in anything that you did. If you opened one door to me and told me it led to the great and permanent truth, I believed you absolutely. If you hauled me back and put me through an opposite one, telling me that there my road lay, I believed you with equal faith. Now, now, at the end of an hour, I am, through you, convinced of one door, the only and true entrance; and I am as sure as I am that the sun is shining at this moment, that nothing in God's world can ever again make me lose sight of it. I have found that you can lose sight of it, Thyrsis,—something shows me that I have in the last month been more right than you. Yes, I have, Thyrsis, though you may not know it. And the reason I couldn't stay right was because I am not strong enough to grasp my good impulses, and keep hold of them: because I have not enough faith in the soul within me.
I will try to tell you what I have felt since reading your letter. All is so disgustingly calm in me now. But listen, I believe I have had a little glimpse this afternoon of what it is to feel; and because of that knowledge I now am not afraid to tell you that I claim something of God and life —that I can get it if you
can. This has been very strong in me at moments, but, as I tell you, I have not yet learned to hold my glimpses of truth—they seem to come to me, and as quickly disappear.
I began to read your letter, and I cannot describe to you the convulsion that came over me. It seemed that I had the feeling of an empty skull on a desert; such a feeling—you can never have it! All the horror and despair! I tried to form my thoughts and tell myself it was not true. I tried to pray, and I did pray—out loud—and asked God to give me strength to read the letter.
I tried to use all the penetration I was capable of, to find out one thing, whether you were purely and unreservedly sincere in it. I wondered whether you really wished to live your life alone, but could not find the courage to tell me so. I firmly believe that no failure in the future, no disgust or helplessness, could ever bring me the complete anguish of those moments.
Can you realize what such a thing meant to me, Thy rsis ?
Last spring, I had succeeded in bringing myself into an almost complete state of coma—I saw that I could do nothing, and because I would not endure such profitless pain I drugged myself to sleep. And you, you fiend, waked me up; and may your soul be thrice cursed if you have only pulled the doll to pieces to see what it was made of! Know, you that have a soul which says it lives and suffers—that I can't go to sleep again! There is no joy for me in mother or father, in friends or admiration—I can tolerate nothing that I tolerated before you came with your cursed or blessed fire!
Also, if you do not marry me, or if I do not find some man who has your strength and desire for life, and
who will take me and help me to learn, I shall die without having lived.—And I cried out in misery—only forty-two years, only forty-two little years, and I shall be an old woman of sixty! Only forty-two years in which to learn to live!
I believe if I had you here now I could almost strangle you. We may kill each other some day. I sometimes feel that there is nothing that will give me any relief, that I cannot breathe, I cannot support my body. But these are foolish and unprofitable feelings—and I believe I will yet be saved, if not by you, perhaps by myself. I think some heavenly aid came to me to-day. I asked for it, I simply said it must come—and now I am able to bear myself and look around me, and say that the secret of my liberation is not death but life.
Please realize, Thyrsis, that I know you do not need me, that I cannot either entertain you or help you. My dear, do you not know that I have been conscious of this from the very beginning—and it has been this thought that has often made me worry, and doubt, and question. And then I have told myself that you had found something in me to love; and that I also was very hungry to know about life and God; and that if you loved me enough to believe I was not dross, we might, with our untiring devotion—well, we might be right in going with each other. And now—would you rather I should tell you I will not marry you, be my desire, or effort, what it may? I do not know—even though I want to live so terribly. I have no word, no proof to give!
And now, Thyrsis, I have no more strength to write. I only wish I had some power to make you know what I have felt this afternoon—I think if I could, you
would have no more doubt of me. And I believe it i& my God-given right not to doubt myself.
I will write no more—I have written enough to make you answer one of two things. "Come with me," or y "I would rather go alone." I know which one it will be, even now in my wretchedness. The sky is so blue this evening, and everything is so beautiful—and I am trying so hard to be right, to feel strong and confident!
XI
DEAR THYRSIS:
I have just arisen. I woke in the middle of the night,, and there was a spectre sitting by my bedside to frighten me ; he succeeded at first, but I managed finally to get rid of him, and to find some peace. Many of your sentences came to me, and I was able to get be-hind the words, and I saw plainly that the letters were just what you should have written, and that they could not but benefit me. They have accomplished their purpose, I believe—they are burned into my soul, and have placed me rightly in our relation. I shall simply never trust the permission you may give me, in the future, to rest or be satisfied. I shall only hate you, for the pain of some of your words I shall never forget.
The memory of the first two pages of your letter will always put me in mortal terror of you. For the rest, I am very grateful, and I will try to show you how I love your ideal. I can never repay you as long as I live for letting me come with you. Oh Thyrsis, I am sure that I will never think or care whether you love me or not, if only I may go with you and learn how to strive!
I tore up all your love-letters this morning. I kept
the last letter—though I do not think I could bear to read it over. I should be afraid of again going through with that despair. Oh, I beg for the time when I shall be obliged to waste none of my minutes— and when I shall have no opportunity of writing you! What time I have spent over your letters and mine!
XII DEAR THYESIS:
I am restlessly waiting for the supper-bell to ring, and my head is aching intensely, and I am generally topsy-turvy. Alas! alas! the distance that separates us and our understanding!
I received a letter to-day while I was studying—but said I would not open it for a week, that I wanted strength to study. Well, I studied all the afternoon and found it none too easy. When I came home, I thought perhaps it was better to read your letter, which I grimly did.
Do you know, you are keeping me on the rack, literally on the rack, and my flesh and blood do not seem to be able to stand it—my body seems to be the organ that first fails me, my brain is never so tired as my body. I love to think that you are not less merciful to me than you would be to yourself, I feel that you could not have used more cruel whips to yourself. Do you suppose that any disgust, scolding, or malediction to me could, as your wife, hurt me, as your doubt of me hurts me now?
And I just begin to read your letter again, and I tell you, you are a fool. You say you do not know whether you could love any one as you ought—well, I, with all my weakness, know whether / can love, and
I love you a thousand times more than you have given me cause to. And you are so hungry! Will you always starve because you are blind? As to being satisfied, how could you be? But you say you will love me as much as I deserve. How much do I deserve—do you know? I sometimes cry out against you and long to get hold of you. If you have genius, why doesn't it give you some inkling whether you are a man with a heart, not only a stupid boy? And then I see it all plainly, or think I do, and know that you are trying so hard to be right towards us, because you think you love me the way other people love; and you know if I am weak, it would degrade your genius; and you cannot be sure of my character or strength. You cannot know whether I realize the life I am selecting—you have found it hard, and you have every reason to think that I will find it ten times harder; and you love me in a way that is not the highest,—but yet you love me enough, thank God, to tell me the whole truth!