_Rome,
February._
Darling Miss,
Have you really decide not to let me follow you? If it so, your heart
is darker than the Black Forest and you are more wicked as the bears
that live there, and if one of those bears eat you, I will say, “So
much the better.” But when they see you, I fear they will only lick
your hands. Perhaps it is you do not understand the tender language of
love belonging to the old countries, you who come from so far away new
America? Maybe only way to make you love me is with the rough language
of the savage and the hard hand of the brute. I would like to tear the
delicate feathers off the hummingbird to punish her. _Bozhe moi!_ But
I would like to beat you!
It has been said once I resemble D’Artagnan and perhaps you are afraid
of me, afraid of what Spaniards call a _furia francesa_. Perhaps you
feel I carry you off like a hero of antiquity--Paris, I think--took
Helena away.
You are making game of me. I am very furious. I have try lately to
console myself to find another woman, as much as it is possible like
my hummingbird. I look but cannot find her. I have treasure long time
the only thing I have had that was of you--the handkerchief. But today
the handkerchief it is gone and not to be found. I have sorrow like
for the loss of a dear friend.
Here I am alone, with thirty people in the hotel, and not one of them
hummingbirds. I am weary and think often of you. I would give them
all for having you.
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