Dearest: I have been doing something so wise and foolish: mentally wise,
I mean, and physically foolish. Do you guess?--Disobeying your parting
injunction, and sitting up to see eclipses.
It was such a luxury to do as I was _not_ told just for once; to feel
there was an independent me still capable of asserting itself. My belief
is that, waking, you hold me subjugated: but, once your godhead has put
on its spiritual nightcap, and begun nodding, your mesmeric influence
relaxes. Up starts resolution and independence, and I breathe desolately
for a time, feeling myself once more a free woman.
'Twas a tremulous experience, Beloved; but I loved it all the more for
that. How we love playing at grief and death--the two things that must
come--before it is their due time! I took a look at my world for three
most mortal hours last night, trying to see you _out_ of it. And oh, how
close it kept bringing me! I almost heard you breathe, and was forever
wondering--Can we ever be nearer, or love each other more than we do?
For _that_ we should each want a sixth sense, and a second soul: and it
would still be only the same spread out over larger territory. I prefer
to keep it nesting close in its present limitations, where it feels like
a "growing pain"; children have it in their legs, we in our hearts.
I am growing sleepy as I write, and feel I am sending you a dull
letter,--my penalty for doing as you forbade.
I sat up from half-past one to a quarter to five to see our shadow go
over heaven. I didn't see much, the sky was too piebald: but I was not
disappointed, as I had never watched the darkness into dawn like that
before: and it was interesting to hear all the persons awaking:--cocks
at half-past four, frogs immediately after, then pheasants and various
others following. I was cuddled close up against my window, throned in a
big arm-chair with many pillows, a spirit-lamp, cocoa, bread and butter,
and buns; so I fared well. Just after the pheasants and the first
querulous fidgetings of hungry blackbirds comes a soft pattering along
the path below: and Benjy, secretive and important, is fussing his way
to the shrubbery, when instinct or real sentiment prompts him to look up
at my window; he gives a whimper and a wag, and goes on. I try to
persuade myself that he didn't see me, and that he does this, other
mornings, when I am not thus perversely bolstered up in rebellion, and
peering through blinds at wrong hours. Isn't there something pathetic in
the very idea that a dog may have a behind-your-back attachment of that
sort?--that every morning he looks up at an unresponsive blank, and
wags, and goes by?
I heard him very happy in the shrubs a moment after: he and a pheasant,
I fancy, disputing over a question of boundaries. And he comes in for
breakfast, three hours later, looking positively _fresh,_ and wants to
know why I am yawning.
Most mornings he brings your letter up to my room in his mouth. It is
old Nan-nan's joke: she only sends up _yours_ so, and pretends it is
Benjy's own clever selection. I pretend that, too, to him; and he thinks
he is doing something wonderful. The other morning I was--well, Benjy
hears splashing: and tires of waiting--or his mouth waters. An extra can
of hot water happens to stand at the door; and therein he deposits his
treasure (mine, I mean), and retires saying nothing. The consequence is,
when I open three minutes after his scratch, I find you all ungummed and
swimming, your beautiful handwriting bleared and smeared, so that no eye
but mine could have read it. Benjy's shame when I showed him what he
had done was wonderful.
How it rejoices me to write quite foolish things to you!--that I _can_
helps to explain a great deal in the up-above order of things, which I
never took in when I was merely young and frivolous. One must have
touched a grave side of life before one can take in that Heaven is not
opposed to laughter.
My eye has just caught back at what I have written; and the "little
death" runs through me, just because I wrote "grave side." It shouldn't,
but loving has made me superstitious: the happiness seems too great; how
can it go on? I keep thinking--this is not life: you are too much for
me, my dearest!
Oh, my Beloved, come quickly to meet me to-day: this morning! Ride over;
I am willing it. My own dearest, you must come. If you don't, what shall
I believe? That Love cannot outdo space: that when you are away I cannot
reach you by willing. But I can: come to me! You shall see my arms open
to you as never before. What is it?--you must be coming. I have more
love in me after all than I knew.
Ah, I know: I wrote "grave side," and all my heart is in arms against
the treason. With us it is not "till death us do part": we leap it
altogether, and are clasped on the other side.
My dear, my dear, I lay my head down on your heart: I love you! I post
this to show how certain I am. At twelve to-day I shall see you.