For fifteen nights, fifteen days, fifteen years my heart has been crying that you are dead and that it has lost the hope of ever seeing you again in your clothes exactly as you used to look, with that manner of yours.... Fifteen days since I have been trying to learn again, begin all over again, and call everything into question again. Fifteen days of impotence. I see only what is.
There is earth on your hands, on your eyes, on every part of your body wherever it may be. Your feet are cold and gray like the feet of a pauper, your skin is bloated, worms are preying upon you. I don't want to—I cannot see you as you are. When I think of you I have a false vision of your living self with your cheeks of the color of life and your dear natural gestures. How can I help being all bewildered? Nothing is left. Even the memory of you changes from day to day. I can no longer recall the right tone of your voice. Your corpse is hidden. It is as if I were suffering for no reason at all.
Not to know how to suffer, perhaps that is what suffering is.... Not to divine where you are, is that your death?
The sparkling hearth-fire has scattered and gone out. Fire has devoured fire. A few embers reddening here and there, a porous heap of fanciful firebrands.
And now, and now, my beloved, if I no longer see you, I do see the consuming truth. I see it and here it is: I let you go. I consented. There's no doubt of it, it was I who killed you....
X
I felt a great need for fresh air and light. What the nature of this hunger and thirst was I cannot tell.... The sunshine suddenly lighted up the window-frame. Its golden rays coming through the open casement and falling obliquely upon the objects in my room filled it with numerous fires. It was a salute.
To be out of doors, to walk, to feel the sun on my skin!
I had a letter to mail. The thought of it brought me to my feet, impatient, ready.
Should I take the little one along? But how about a good long walk, the semblance of distraction?... I decided to go alone.