“You didn’t expect him to _write_ to you, Lizzie?”
“He might have.”
“But after--after what you told me, surely, oh, surely, you don’t want
to hear from him?”
I was fearful of her answer. If she was waiting, hungering for a letter
from him, it would have been too much even for me.
“That’s just it--I _don’t_ want to. It’s all in the past, as if it had
happened a hundred years ago. I want it to stay there--to be dead.”
She looked into my eyes, a deep look, that for some inexplicable reason
reminded me of Wuzzy’s. I have long realized that my point of view, my
mental processes, are too remote from hers for me ever to see into her
mind or understand its workings. But I was certain that she meant what
she said. My poor Lizzie, coming up out of the Valley of the Shadow,
with her feeble feet planted on the past.
A few days after this she was well enough to sit up in bed with her
hair brushed and braided, and read her letters. One was from Vignorol
asking her why she had not come for her lessons.
She gave it to me, remarking:
“I wish you’d answer that. Tell him I’ve been sick, and that I’ll never
come for any more lessons.”
I dropped my sewing, making the round eyes of astonishment with which I
greet her unexpected decisions.
“You’re not thinking of giving up your singing?”
“Yes, forever.”
“But why? Surely you’re not going to let one failure discourage you.”
I was disturbed. From a few recent remarks, I am satisfied that she has
no means whatever. She _must_ go on with her singing; as Mrs. Bushey
would say, “One must live.” She could curb her ambitions, make her
living on a less brilliant plane.
“I’ll never sing again,” she answered.
“You might give up attempting the opera, or even concerts. But there
are so many other things you could do. Church singing--you began that
way.”
“Yes, that’s it. I began, and I’m not going back to where I began. I’m
going on or I’m going to stop. And I can’t go on.”