Dearest, I speak the truth to you—I am not ill indeed. When I was at best in health I used sometimes to be a little weak and faint, and it has only been so for this last day or two. By Wednesday the cloud will have passed. And, do you know, I have found out something from our long parting, ... I have found out that I love you better than even I thought. There’s a piece of finding out! My own dearest—what would become of me indeed, if I could not see you on Wednesday nor on Thursday nor on Friday?—no breath I have, for going on. No breath I should have, for living on. I do kiss you through the distance——since you tell me. I love you with my soul.
Your own I am.
Three of the flowers and nearly all the little blue ones stay with me all this while to comfort me!! isn’t it kind of them?
Two letters to-day—and such letters! Ah—if you love me always but half as much—I will agree with you now for half! Yet, O Hesiod, half is not better than the whole, by any means! Yet ... if the whole went away, and did not leave me half!—
When I was a child I heard two married women talking. One said to the other ... ‘The most painful part of marriage is the first year, when the lover changes into the husband by slow degrees.’ The other woman agreed, as a matter of fact is agreed to. I listened with my eyes and ears, and never forgot it ... as you observe. It seemed to me, child as I was, a dreadful thing to have a husband by such a process. Now, it seems to me more dreadful.
Si l’âme est immortelle
L’amour ne l’est-il pas?
Beautiful verses—just to prove to you that I do not remember only the disagreeable things ... only to teaze you with, like so many undeserved reproaches. And you so good, so best—Ah—but it is that which frightens me! so far best!
You were foolish to begin to love me, you know, as always I told you, my beloved!—but since you would begin, ... go on to do it as long as you can ... do not leave me in the wilderness. God bless you for me!—
I am your Ba.