You can’t possibly imagine how I felt when I got your letter. I was
still in the hospital where I had been for five months with a bad
foot, and, to tell you the truth, I didn’t care much whether I ever
went out of it again. I can’t explain it very well, but there is
something about the war and this filthy, brutal way of living that
makes it unbearable to lose any pleasures or joys out of life. You
get to believe that nothing matters except being happy. And you
_are_ my happiness. When I thought I’d lost you, I didn’t care
about going on. Of course, there’s your country, and your family,
and your ambition, and so on, but somehow they don’t seem _real_. I
thought of you all the time. I wrote and wrote, and didn’t get any
answer. Then I asked Vincent to look you up, but he wrote that
you’d moved and he couldn’t trace you. I don’t quite see how I
could have gone back on the firing-line again if you hadn’t
written. It’s bad enough anyway, but it wouldn’t be bearable
without some sort of guiding star. Don’t think I’m getting
sentimental, Angelica, but you are that, you know, to me.
I hope this will soon be over. It’s worse than I thought it would
be; but I’m glad I came. I wouldn’t like other fellows to be doing
this job for me. But when I get home! It seems like a vision of
Paradise--you waiting for me, and my home, and good food and a
nice, clean bed, and hot water!
I don’t want you to think that I’ve deteriorated, that I’m always
thinking of physical things, because I’m not. When you’re always
uncomfortable, you can’t help thinking too much about comfort; but
I think much more about other things. I think a lot about what is
the best way to use a life. I can see lots of things I’ve done
wrong. I look forward awfully to making a fresh start. It will all
seem so new, like being born again. Everything will seem remarkable
and interesting--all sort of things I didn’t use to notice.
And to think that there was a time when I used to think quite
calmly about being married to you! Of course, my dear, I always did
look forward to it as the greatest possible happiness, but I more
or less took it for granted--the sort of happiness a fellow always
expects. But now, Angelica, it seems as wonderful and beautiful and
far off as heaven. I can’t even really believe that I’ll see you
ever again. I’ve got so used to being a lousy, muddy, hunted animal
that I can’t believe it will ever end. I don’t even long for the
end; it seems so impossible. I have a damnable conviction--an
obsession, I suppose they’d call it--that every one gets killed in
the war. So many of the chaps I knew have gone, often killed beside
me--and in the hospital, dying so sickeningly! I can’t help
imagining that every one in the world is dying. So that the idea of
coming home and marrying you is--I can’t describe what it is.
Really and literally a dream of heaven.
Angelica, darling, don’t disappoint me again! I couldn’t bear it.
Write to me faithfully, as often as possible--even every day. It
wouldn’t be much to do, for you who are at home and safe and
comfortable.
With all my heart,