At night when I try to sleep, I see the map of Russia as if it was printed on my eyeballs. It is so big and black with a thin red line of fire eating into it. America seems millions of miles away. I wish I could touch you just for a minute. If I could only feel your arms about me for one moment. The only way is not to think beyond this room and this minute.
Ruth.
August.
Dearests:—
Peter is here. Last night, about nine o'clock the door opened and he rushed into the room. I got to my feet on impulse, and then tried to brace myself and control my disordered reason, for, of course, I believed myself delirious. He stopped by the door long enough to throw down his suitcase, and in that instant I struggled fiercely to disbelieve my eyes. I was fighting myself. My legs trembled. But when I fell, his arms were around me, supporting me.
"Is it you? Is it you?" I don't know whether I said the words out loud or not, but I remember feeling the muscle in Peter's shoulder and wondering if I could have gone out of my head as much as that.
"What on earth has happened to you two?" he said at last.
"Let me sit down," I said, feeling suddenly very sick and faint, and a black spot in front of my eyes expanded all at once and shut out the swaying room.
"Why didn't you come to Bucharest?" he asked again.
"How white and thin you are. Isn't he, Marie?" I observed, the blackness gone from my eyes.