Last year the drawer in the writing-table was full. This year it had
overflowed into the top left-hand drawer of the dressing-table. She had
to turn out all the handkerchiefs and stockings.
Her mother met her as she was carrying them to the wardrobe in the spare
room. You could see she felt that there was something here that must be
enquired into.
"I should have thought," she said, "that writing-table drawer was
enough."
"It isn't."
"Tt-t--" Mamma nodded her head in a sort of exasperated resignation.
"Do you mean to say you're going to _keep_ all that?"
"All that? You should see what I've burnt."
"I should like to know what you're going to do with it!"
"So should I. That's just it--I don't know."
That night the monstrous thought came to her in bed: Supposing I
published those poems--I always meant to do it some day. Why haven't I?
Because I don't care? Or because I care too much? Because I'm afraid?
Afraid that if somebody reads them the illusion they've created would be
gone?
How do I know my writing isn't like my playing?
This is different. There's nothing else. If it's taken from me I shan't
want to go on living.
You didn't want to go on living when Mark died. Yet you went on. As if
Mark had never died.... And if Mamma died you'd go on--in your illusion.
If it is an illusion I'd rather know it.
How _can_ I know? There isn't anybody here who can tell me. Nobody you
could believe if they told you--I can believe _myself_. I've burnt
everything I've written that was bad.
You believe yourself to-day. You believed yesterday. How do you know
you'll believe to-morrow?