One imagined all was over. Then with dramatic suddenness—an earth-shaking crash, as if God in a temper had slammed His door. This drama took about three hours from the night, and the river has risen yet another foot.
September 9, 1921. In Camp. Mexico.
The cycle has come round. Again it is my birthday, just a year ago I bought my ticket for Russia.
Dick managed somehow to get a bunch of gigantic mauve convolvulous flowers that were growing up a palmtree. He brought them to me with great sentiment, so my birthday was, after all, a birthday!
Tonight is the third night of thunder storms (I am writing by torch light in the midst of it).
After nights of pain and sleeplessness one begins to think stupid things: I feel as if this beautiful valley were a valley of death; I have thought for sometime that the valley meant to keep me. Even the way I came to it was strange and uncanny—almost called to it from the train window. It cast a spell on me then, a spell strong enough to enforce my return.
Ever since I came it has been suggested to me that I stay forever, why go away?
The suggestion first came from man. Then the beauty of the place set itself to lure me. Then the river tried to catch me. It has tried to catch Dick too. Having slipped through that, I am now poisoned unmercifully. I shall get over that but then there’s still the river, and every storm makes the water rise, and the strong current grows swifter. In the end I can only leave the island by ferry, and the river is getting more and more impassable. After a month of Paradise weather suddenly these storms, on purpose to stop me going. I must go in four days. I will be well enough to go in four days. I will go in four days whether I am well enough or not ... but, in the end there’s the river to cross.
I might have known it was uncanny, this beauty. This enticing stillness, this holiness of peace—it is a trap. It is a valley of death. It is full of spirits and mysteries. I must get out—I am mad. No, I am not mad, I am sick.
September 11. In Camp. Mexico.