_E.B.B. to R.B._
Monday Evening.
[In the same envelope with the preceding letter.]
Now forgive me, dearest of all, but I must teaze you just a little,
and entreat you, if only for the love of me, to have medical advice
and follow it _without further delay_. I like to have recourse to
these medical people quite as little as you can--but I am persuaded
that it is necessary--that it is at least _wise_, for you to do so
now, and, you see, you were 'not quite so well' again last night! So
will you, for me? Would _I_ not, if you wished it? And on Wednesday,
yes, on Wednesday, come--that is, if coming on Wednesday should really
be not bad for you, for you _must_ do what is right and kind, and I
doubt whether the omnibus-driving and the noises of every sort betwixt
us, should not keep you away for a little while--I trust you to do
what is best for both of us.
And it is not best ... it is not good even, to talk about 'dying for
me' ... oh, I do beseech you never to use such words. You make me feel
as if I were choking. Also it is nonsense--because nobody puts out a
candle for the light's sake.
Write _one line_ to me to-morrow--literally so little--just to say how
you are. I know by the writing here, what _is_. Let me have the one
line by the eight o'clock post to-morrow, Tuesday.
For the rest it may be my 'goodness' or my badness, but the world
seems to have sunk away beneath my feet and to have left only you to
look to and hold by. Am I not to _feel_, then, any trembling of the
hand? the least trembling?
May God bless both of us--which is a double blessing for me
notwithstanding my badness.
_I trust you about Wednesday_--and if it should be wise and kind not
to come quite so soon, we will take it out of other days and lose not
one of them. And as for anything 'horrible' being likely to happen, do
not think of that either,--there can be nothing horrible while you are
not ill. So be well--try to be well--use the means and, well or ill,
let me have the one line to-morrow ... Tuesday. I send you the foolish
letter I wrote to-day in answer to your too long one--too long, was it
not, as you felt? And I, the writer of the foolish one, am
twice-foolish, and push poor 'Luria' out of sight, and refuse to
finish my notes on him till the harm he has done shall have passed
away. In my badness I bring false accusation, perhaps, against poor
Luria.
So till Wednesday--or as you shall fix otherwise.