Chapter XXIX: Book III: The Victim Hesitates (2)

Ah dear heart, I wish you could read in my words what I feel! I wonder if I am dreaming when I live in this ideal of what a woman’s love can be--so complete and so utter a surrender, so complete a forgetting, a losing of the self, so complete a living in another heart! I am not afraid to ask just this from a woman--from you! For I have enough heart’s passion to satisfy every thirst that you may feel. Ah, Corydon, I want you! I am drunk with the thought of _making_ a woman to love. I wonder if any man ever thought of that before! Artists go about the world with the great hunger of their hearts, and expecting to find by chance another soul like the one they have spent years in making beautiful and swift and strong; but has anyone ever thought that instead of writing books that no one understands, he might be making another kind of an artwork--one that would be alive, and with sacred possibilities of its own?

XV

DEAR THYRSIS:

Your last letters have been very beautiful. I see one thing--though you inform me that you believe you are a hard man, your natural gentleness and sympathy of heart would be the ruin of both of us in the future if I would permit it. But I think you can trust me, not ever as long as I live to lead you into weakness. My desperateness, before I received your letter saying that I might come with you, was rather dreadful; it made me doubt myself, for it was so difficult to keep myself from going to pieces. I have been wicked enough, to wonder whether I could ever make you feel as I felt for two days--if I could only bring to your heart that one pang, the only real one I ever felt in my life! But it taught me one thing, that the only road toward realization of life and one’s self is through suffering. I found out that I could bear, for it seems to me as I look back at that horrible nightmare, that it was almost by a superhuman effort I was able to read the letter at all. But enough of that!

I think I have effectually cured myself of any weak yearning for your love. I go to you in gratefulness, knowing what I lack and what you need. Anything my love can do for you, it shall do. It may have some power--I sometimes think that it could have more than you realize.

I suppose every woman has thought that the man she loved was her very life, but I do not think it of you, I simply _know_ it. I must go with you, whether I loved you or not.

Meanwhile my love has assumed a strength to me that I never felt before. I don’t know how my wild and incoherent letters have affected you, but there were many times when I longed to get hold of you, literally, and simply shake into you some recognition of my soul. Oh, I am afraid you couldn’t get away from me; the more merciless you are to me, the wilder I get.

I am possessed by so many opposite moods and influences. I am afraid of you a little. I never know what you are going to do to me.

I feel, I cannot help but feel, that I am part of your life, now, you could not neglect me any more than you could your own soul. I consider you just as responsible for mine as you are for your own. I say this with no doubts, but know that it is true, and you must know it.

XVI

DEAR THYRSIS:

You certainly have a wonderful task in store for me, and I pray God to give me strength for it. I can see very plainly that you expect to find the essence of my soul better than yours, because it seems that you are making my task harder than yours.

Do you know, I have actually found myself asking, at times, with a certain defiant rage--if you were actually going to give love to your princess before you had made her suffer! So far you have not made her suffer at all. I had become quite excited over this idea--though perhaps I had no right to. I suppose it is all right, because she is an imaginary person, and you can endow her with all the perfections you please. She is triumphant and thrilling, and worthy of love--whereas I am just little Corydon, whom you have known all your life, and who is stupid and helpless, and impossible to imagine romances about! Is that the way of it?

XVII

MY DEAREST THYRSIS:

A long letter has just come to me. I always receive your letters with many palpitations, and by the time I get through reading, my cheeks are flaming. It is too bad it takes letters so long to go to and fro.

I have finally come to bear the attitude towards myself, that I would to a naughty child. I will have no nonsense, and all my absurdities and inefficiencies _must_ be cured. I think I have come to know myself a little better within the last few days. I know that I have no right to quick victories, or any happiness at all, even your love. I tell you truly, if it were only possible, I would go away this minute--do you hear?--oh! to some lonely place, and then I would do something with myself. I want to be alone, alone--I want to be face to face with myself, and God, if possible! I have come to the conclusion that I can do anything I must do. I think (I am not sure) I could give you up, if I were obliged to, and go away by myself and try alone. If I do not have you, I must have solitude.

XVIII

MY DEAREST CORYDON:

Thinking about my work this morning, and how hard it was, and how much strength it would take, my thoughts turned to you, and I discovered, as never before, just how I like to think of you. It seemed to me that you were part of the raw material that I had to use; that I had mastered you, and was going to make you what you had to be. And there woke in my heart at those words a fierceness of purpose that I had never felt in my life before--I was quite mad with it; and you cried out to escape me, but I would not let you go, but held you right tightly in my arms. And so--I do not mean to let you go! I shall bear you away with me, and make you what I wish. And the promise of marriage that I make you is just this: not that I love you--I do not love you; but what I wish the woman to be whom I am to love--that I will make you!

And do not ever dare to ask me for any other promise, for you will not get it. You will come with this.

XIX

MY THYRSIS:

I had an _iron grip_ at my heart just now, as I was trying to study. I had a foreboding of something--and then I came home and found your letter telling me I was yours, and I _must._ At last I may go to you the way I wish! My love, my love, I do not care what you are, or what you do to me, as long as I may go with you.

How I laugh at myself as I say it! You have mastered me to worship your _life_--not you. I shall not work for your love, I shall work to live. Our love will be one of the incidents of our life. Meanwhile, I may go with you, that is all that I say--I sing it. I may go with you, not to happiness, but to necessity!

And now that cursed German! It hangs over my head like a sword of Damocles I have heard of--though I don’t know why it was held over his head!

You think our love was settling into the cooing state! Dear me, Thyrsis, I hope I will not always have to yell to you over a foggy ocean!

XX

DEAR THYRSIS:

Can you imagine what it must be to be shut up in a little room on a rainy night, with the children and people screaming under your window? That is my position now.

I find myself hard to manage at times. I want to become discouraged or melancholy or disgusted, but I drive myself better than I used to. I even was happy a little for a few moments to-night. I was playing one of my piano-pieces, and I found myself imagining all sorts of things. But this happens very seldom, and only lasts for a moment. I often wonder at myself. Two months ago I did not love you one particle; I love you now, so that--so that it is impossible for me to do anything else. In fact I did not realize how much I loved you until that terrible moment when I read you did not love me. I saw how impossible it will be to cease to love you, no matter what you do to me. I do not know _why_ it is; I simply know it is, and perhaps some day I may teach _you_ how to love. I do not imagine you know how very well, at present--no, Thyrsis, I don’t.

I know your true self now, and I love it better than ever I loved the other. I say it with a certain grimness. I know you, your real self, and I love it.

Know, oh, my Beloved, that in the last three months you have grown to me from a boy into a man, into my husband! When I think of you as you were at first you seem a child compared to what you are now.

XXI

DEAREST LOVE:

Last night, as I went to sleep, I was thinking of you and our problem, and there were all sorts of uncertainties; but one thing I have to tell you, my Corydon--that it came to me how sweet and true, and how pure and good you have been; and I loved you very, very much indeed. I thought: I should like to tell her that, and ask her always to be so noble and unselfish. Can you not realize how all your deficiencies are as nothing to me, in the sight of that one unapproachable perfection? For my Corydon is all devotion and love, and pure, pure, maiden goodness! And there is quite a whole heart full of feeling for you in that, and I wish I had you here to tell you.

XXII

MY CORYDON:

I am coming more and more to realize myself, and what is the single faculty I have been given. I think of a dear clergyman friend I used to have, and I realize what a _loving_ heart is--what it is to delight in a human soul for its own sake, and to be kind to it, fond of it. And I know that there could not be a man with less of that than I have. Certainly I know this, I never did love a soul for its own sake, and don’t think I could. I love beauty, and truth, and power, and I hate everything else, if it come across my way. If I had to live the life of that clergyman friend I should be insane in a month. I see this as something very hateful; but there is only one thing I can do, to see that I hate my own self more than I hate any other self--and work, work, for the thing I love.

You asked me once to tell you if your death would make any difference to me. If you were to die to-morrow I should feel that a sacred opportunity was gone out of my life, that all my efforts must have less result forever after. But I do not think I should stop working a day.

I love you because you are something upon which I may exert the force of my will. I honestly believe that the truest word, the nearest to my character, I ever spoke. If I care about you it is for one thing, and one only--because you are a soul hungry for life, because you are capable of sacrifice and high effort, because you are sensitive and eager. I love you and honor you for this; I take you to my bosom, I give all my life to your service; and I shall make you a perfect woman, or else kill you.

You must understand what I want; I want no concrete thing, no dozen languages to throw you into despair. I want effort, effort, _effort!_ That’s all. And I believe that you might be a stronger soul than I at this moment, if only you chose to hunt yourself out and fight! That is truly what I feel about you, and that is why I love you.

XXIII

DEAREST THYRSIS:

I have no more to say, my precious one; I bow in joy before your will, your certainty, your power. Let it be so, I shall adore you as I so long to do.

You are giving me all I could ask for. What more could I wish from you, dear Thyrsis, than to know you will never leave my side? I will try not to do any more bemoaning of my shortcomings. To-night I reached a wonderful security and almost sublimity, until I could have fallen on my face and praised God for His mercy. I talked out loud to myself, I exhorted myself, I explained to myself what is my beauty and possibility in life--the _reason_ for which I was born. I was quite lifted out of myself, by a conviction that came like a benediction, that the essence of my soul was good and pure, and that if anybody upon earth had the power to reach God, it was myself.

Dear God, _how_ I have spent the years of my life! like an imbecile! But you--if you take me, I shall go mad--I shall love you like a tigress! I shall implore you to invent any way that will enable me to realize life! Oh, if you take me, how madly I shall love you! I fancy myself seeing you now, and I don’t know what I should do--I love you so dreadfully! I think of you, and everything about you seems so wondrously beautiful to me!

I almost have a feeling that I have no right to love you so much. Oh, tell me, do you want me to love you as I can? Already you seem part of me, mine--mine! And it is wonderful how you help me.

XXIV

Thyrsis:

I spent the whole day in the park without a bite to eat, because I did not want to take the trouble to come home after it, and I only had five cents. I have tried, oh, tried to control myself and make myself saner. I am seized with occasional fits of the horrors, and of wild cravings for you, until I could scream. It is so unbearable, and I almost want to die. Oh, but I do _not_ want to die! My imagination has become so fevered in the last few days--if I do not see you soon, I know not what will become of me!

I have never loved you so wildly--though I have always longed for you. I sometimes feel now as if my brain were utterly wrecked. I know not what is the matter; I gasp, when I think of you. I am convinced of heaven and hell almost in the same breath--experience each in rapid succession. One touch of your hand and one look, I think would cure me. I seem as if in a thunder-storm--pitchy blackness with flashes of light--and in the flashes I see you, my beloved!

XXV

Thyrsis:

I am atrociously weary of being able to depend upon myself not at all; but oh, how marvellously sweet and good you are to me! I shall never be able to pay you for your help!

Dear Heaven, what a cup of bitterness I have drunk, since I last saw you! Dearest, you have really torn me to pieces, unwittingly. But now I am healed, and I may go on in your blessed sight, with my terrors gone forever.

And then I actually wonder if you have an earthly form! It will be very strange to see you and touch you, I sometimes wake up with a start at the thought of it!

XXVI

Thyrsis:

Here I am, the most restless and miserable and uncomfortable and pining of creatures--a very Dido! Are you satisfied, now that you have made it almost impossible for me to put my mind on anything but you, you? I spend hours reading one page of my book.

I was reading peaceably just now, and I suddenly thought how I would feel if I saw you coming in at the door. I started and could hardly believe that I will really see you--in something besides visions. When night comes I usually get fidgety, and can hardly realize I do not need to worry over phantoms. Then I go on with “Classicism and Romanticism in Music,” and I think of you--and read a line and think of you! You see, it doesn’t do for me to be too intense, for I just devour myself, and that is all. My only idea of a vent is to knock my head against something.

I suppose it is the inevitable result of caring for someone you cannot see. Here I might be studying now, but what do I do? I go around seeking rest--and I write you a dozen times a day, and use up all the stamps in the house.

Oh well, I dare say if you wished me to love you, you have accomplished your purpose most successfully. There is nothing in life but you, and to suddenly acquire a new self is most startling, and something hard to believe. Thyrsis, I simply cannot realize that I may go to you and find peace and security.

XXVII

MY DEAREST CORYDON:

I have just a few words to say. I have two weeks left in which to shake off my shoulders the fearful animal that has been tearing me. _For just three weeks to-day,_ not a line written!

The task seems almost beyond my powers. God, will people ever know how I have worked over this book!

But unless you develop some new doubt, or I persist in writing letters, I ought to get it done now. I shall see you as soon as I have finished, and meantime I shall write no letters.

XXVIII

DEAR THYRSIS:

I would give a great deal to let you know how I have struggled and suffered.

I have had almost _more_ than I could bear--the more horrible because the more unreasonable. You must know it. If it disturbs you, please put the letter away until a favorable time. I account my trouble greatly physical--I have never been in such a nervous state. The murky despair that has come over me--that I have writhed and struggled in, as in the clutches of some fiend! It seems to me I have experienced every torment of each successive stage of Dante’s Inferno. I know what is the emotion of a soul in all the bloom and hope of youth, condemned _to die_.

I woke up in the middle of the night last night--and felt as if a monster sat by to throw a black cloth over me and smother me. I got up and shook myself, and my heart was beating violently.

I managed to get myself free. This morning I am better. God in Heaven only knows--I would rather be torn limb from limb, yes, honestly, than endure the blackness of soul that I have had through all these years of strife and failure by myself.

Dearest Thyrsis:

Perhaps if I have written to you a few words, I shall be able to put my mind on study--as so far I have not done. I actually to-night have been indulging in all sorts of romantic moods about you. I felt in a singing mood, and when I came up from dinner I put on a beautiful dress, just for fun, and I looked quite radiant. I dreamed of you, and imagined that you were at my feet, in true Romeo fashion--and I was your Juliet. I imagined--I couldn’t help thinking of this, and I knew I ought to be doing something else! Oh, but how I want a poor taste of joy! You were my Romeo to-night--you were beautiful and young and loving; and well, I had one dream of youth and happiness before my miseries begin.

I have felt that we were very near to each other lately. You have shown me the tenderness of your heart, and I love you quite rapturously. I love your goodness, your sympathy--perhaps when I see you I can tell you!

XXX

DEAREST THYRSIS:

I received a postal just now, saying that you were coming soon. I had my usual queer faintness. It was like receiving word from the dead--it seemed such centuries--aeons--since I heard from you! I send you this batch of notes I have written you at various times, a sort of mental itinerary, for my mind has traveled into all sorts of queer places, back and forth. I tell you that without your continual influence, I am lost in doubt and uncertainty. Please try to understand these notes and my fits of love and fear.

XXXI

DEAR THYRSIS:

I am in one of my cast-iron moods, this morning--in a fighting mood, I do not care with whom or what. You, even you, have not altogether understood me--you have often given me a dog’s portion. I have been a slave, a cowering kitten before you, and you (unwittingly I know) have done much to destroy all my courage and hope and love--by what you call making me aware of your higher self. Fortunately I _know_ what your higher self is, quite as well as you do, if not a little better--and I know that it is the self that most strengthens my love and courage, the self that most fills me with life. I have a right to life as well as you, and a right to the love in you that most inspires me. I feel I am capable of judging this, in spite of all my lack of education, and my inability to follow you in your intellectual life.

I have thought lately that you were able to make yourself believe that you were anything you wished to think yourself. Whenever you wring my heart and deprive me of strength, I shall go somewhere alone, and when I have controlled myself, come back to you.

You say you are master--but it must be master of the right. I want strength, and why you should think it right ever to have helped to throw me into more despair, I do not know. The reason I have written all this is because such ideas have come to me lately, and a fear that sometimes you might resort to your unloving methods, with the thought of its being right. I tell you I would rather stay at home, than ever go through with some of the pangs you have cost me, in what you called your higher moods. You must not gainsay me, that I am also capable of respecting high moods and bowing before them; but it would seem to me that they are only high if they are a source of inspiration and joy to me.

Because we love each other, would that be any reason why we must dote upon each other, or sink from our high resolves? I cannot see why our love for each other should not always be a means of our reaching our higher selves. You need not answer this letter--but when you come back, tell me whether what I say impresses you as being right or wrong--if there is not some justification in it. But perhaps I should wait. I have no right to disturb you now.

XXXII

THYRSIS:

I woke up this morning with the feeling that I did not love you. That same thing has happened to me two or three times, and I do not understand it.

It must be because at the present moment you do not love _me!_ You are writing your book, and telling yourself that you cannot love me as you ought! Is this so? It is only a surmise on my part, and I do not know, but I should not be surprised if you were. I only know that the one thing that can bring us together is love, and I do not love you now. Perhaps you can explain it to me. I write this absolutely without emotion.

I tell you there have been things horribly wrong about you. You have done anything but inspire love in my heart--you have never seen me with love in my heart. Until lately, I never have felt any love for you; before, I simply compelled myself to think I loved you, because my life seemed to depend upon it. There have been many times when, as I look back, you seem to me to have been base.

Well may you preach, while you are alone, and are monarch of yourself. I shall have to have more of a chance than has ever come to me, before I will bear your displeasure or your exhortations. If you come to me and speak to me of the high, proud self that I must reach, every vestige of love for you will leave my heart, and I would as soon marry a stone pillar!

Great Heaven, what strange moods I have! I picture our meeting each other, unmoved by love; you determined, energetic, indifferent to all things, myself included; and I disappointed, but with a hardness in my heart--no tears!

I am indulging now in the most lifeless and gloomy of broodings; if you do not come back to me, the only soul I can love, if you are not joyful and strong, sincere, sympathetic, and loving, all of these--I shall know it is a farce for me to ever hope to gain any life with _you_. I do not believe that any woman can grow without love, and a great deal of it. Why do you suppose I am writing all this--I, who have felt such deep and true love for you? I have no courage--the dampness of the day has settled into my soul--and I shall be joyless until there is no more cursed doubt of you and your love for me.

XXXIII

Dear Corydon: Against resolutions, I am writing to you again. I thought of you--there is a boat up the lake to-day with some hunters, and if I finish this letter, I can send it in by them as they pass. I have many things to tell you, and you must think about them.

This is one of my paralyzing letters. It will reach you Monday. I can’t tell where I may be then. I have been wrestling with the end of the book, and I am wild with rage at my impotence. The fact has come to me that no amount of will is enough, because all my life is cowardly and false. I have found myself wanting _to sneak through this work_, and come home and enjoy myself; and you can’t sneak with God, and that’s all. I cannot come home beaten, and so here I am, still struggling--and with snow on the ground, and the shack so cold that I sit half in the fire-place.

I think of you, and at times when my soul is afire, I imagine I can do anything. I see that you are helpless, but I think that I can change your whole being, and _make_ you what I wish. But then that feeling dies out, and I think of you as you _are_, and with despair. I do not allude to any of your “deficiencies”--music, learning, and other stuff. I mean your life-force, or your lack of it. I see that you have learned nothing of the unspeakable, unattainable thing for which I am panting. And it has come to me that I dare not marry you, that I should be binding my life to ruin. My head is surging with plans, and a whole infinity of future, and I simply cannot carry any woman with me on this journey.

As I say this, I see the tears of despair in your eyes. I can only tell you what I am--God made me for an _artist,_ not a _lover!_ I have not deep feelings--I do not care for human suffering; I can _work,_ that is all. Art is no respecter of persons, and neither am I--I labor for something which is not of self, and requires denial of self. And as I think about you, the feeling comes to me that it is not this you want, that I should make you utterly wretched if I married you. You love _love;_ you do not wish to fling yourself into a struggle such as my life must be. I see that in all your letters--your terror of this highest self of mine. If you married me, you would have to fight a battle that would almost kill you. You would have to wear your heart out, night and day--you would have to lose yourself and your feelings--fling away everything, and live in self-contempt and effort. You would have to know it--I can’t help it--that I love life, and that to human hearts I owe no allegiance; that to me they are simply impatience and vexation.

Do you want such a life? If you can learn to love it for what it is--a wild, unnatural, but royal life--very well. If you are coming to me with pleading eyes, secretly wishing for affection, and in terror of me when you don’t get it, then God help you, that is all!

You are a child, and you can not dream what I mean. But every day I learn something more of a great savage force of mine, that will stand out against the rest of this world, that is burning me up, that is driving me mad. One of two things it will do to you--it will make you the same kind of creature, or it will tear the soul out of you. Do you understand that? And nothing will stop it--it cares for nothing in the world but the utterance of itself! And if you wish to marry me, it will be with no promise of mine save to wreak it upon you! To take you, and make you just such a creature, kill or cure--nothing else! Not one instant’s patience--but just one insistent, frantic demand that you succeed--and fiery, writhing disgust with you when you do not succeed--disgust that will make you scream--and make you live! Do you understand this--and do you get any idea of the temper behind this? And how it seems to you, I don’t know--it is the only kind of truth I am capable of; I shall simply fling naked the force of my passionate, raging will, and punish you with it each instant of your life--until you understand it, and love it, and worship it, as I do.

Now, I don’t know what you will think about this letter--and I don’t care. It is here--and you must take it. It does not come to you for criticism, any more than it would come for criticism to the world. It will rule the world. If I marry you I must live all my soul before you, and you must share it; if you think you can do this without first having suffered, having first torn loose your own crushed self, you are mistaken. But remember this--I shall demand from you just as much fire as I give; you may say you _cannot_, you may weep and say you cannot--I will gnash my teeth at you and say you _must_.

Perhaps I’m a fool to think I can do this. At any rate, I don’t want to do anything else; I am a fool to think of doing anything else, and you to let me.

I _cannot_ be false to my art without having a reaction of disgust, and you cannot marry me, unless you understand that. When I sat down to this letter I called myself mad for trying to tie my life to yours. Now I am interested in you again. You may wish to make this cast still; and oh, of course I shall drop back as usual, and you’ll be happy, and I’ll be your “Romeo”!

_Ugh_--how I hated that letter! _“Romeo”_ indeed! Wouldn’t we have a fine sentimental time--you with your prettiest dress on, and I holding you in my arms and telling you how much I loved you!

XXXIV

MY DEAR THYRSIS:

I shall be your wife. This thought takes hold of me firmly and calmly, and I have no tears, nor fright, nor uncertainty. I suffered, of course, while I read your letter, and my self-control toppled, but no “tears of despair” came into my eyes. I am not despairing--I shall be your wife, and I shall feel that for many years one of my greatest efforts will be to prevent you from becoming my “Romeo.” I am very weak and human, and you become that easily--do you know it?

Rejoice, I have gained my self-control, and well, I am going to be your wife. Or else (it comes to me quite as a matter of course, without any feeling of it being unnatural or unusual) I shall not care to live. But after all, I do not fear that I shall die--I shall be your wife. You may even gainsay it, you may _even_ tell me I shall ruin your life, you may _even_ tell me that you refuse to take me--but sooner or later I shall be your wife. I say it with perfect certainty, and almost composure.

It is unfortunate that at such a time as this I cannot see you--it is quite cruelly wicked. There is so much to say, not all in _your_ favor either. Some day I shall learn to bring out and keep before me that higher self of yours, which _now_ I do not fear. I also have a higher self, though it does not show itself very often. It is a self which can meet that self of yours without flinching, but which loves it, and stretches out its arms to it--which knows that without that self of yours it cannot, _will_ not live. It is hard to realize such a thing, but I beseech you no longer, I am going with you. You see now, I have no fear of your not taking me--I simply have no fear of this.

If I had, I could not write you this way. But you have been the means of showing me I _can_ awaken, and that I was not meant to live the life of the people around me. Chance tried hard to put me to sleep forever, but you have roused me. Dear me, how I smile to myself at my confidence! But I am so sure--this feeling would not be in my heart if it had no meaning! I was not meant for this life I am leading. I am not afraid because I have no proof that I am a genius, and no prospect of being one at present. I do not know whether what you have must come as an inspiration direct from God, I do not know whether I am _capable_ of winning any of this life that you are seeking; but I do know this--I’m going to have the chance to try, and you are going to give it to me. Do you suppose I could tell you that I am willing to stay at home and let you leave me?

I have not even any fear now of your wishing to leave me. Why, I wouldn’t hold my life at a pennyworth if you were out of it!

“You are my only means of breathing, you fool,” I thought. I sometimes wonder how you could think of leaving me, when I feel as I do at present. I ask myself why it is that you know nothing of it, and why it does not make you put out your hand in gladness to me--how you could write me that all my letters showed you I did not want to struggle to lead your life!

My words are failing me now--this is probably the reason you know nothing about me.

Besides, when I have written you before this, I have been worrying and doubting and afraid. I am none of these now; and I do not believe I am deluding myself--in fact I _know_ I am not. _I shall be your wife._ It is indeed a pity I cannot talk to you now--yes, a very great pity. It is also rather incomprehensible, that you can imagine leaving me _now._ And all my letters have told you that I wish to be petted and cuddled, did they? If you were here, I do not know that it would do any good to give my feelings vent, it would profit me nothing to strike you, and what could I do? I cannot hate you--it is not natural that one should hate one’s husband.

Some day, oh, _some_ day, I tell myself--you will no lonnger play and trifle with me and my soul!

Did you really think you are going to put me to sleep again? Surely my life is something; and you have given me some reason for its existence. I can hardly tell you what I wish to say; people run in and out, and I am bothered--I suppose this is one of my tasks. But do you not see that you have taken the responsibility of a soul into your hands? I cannot live without you. What is it--do creatures go around the world struggling and saying they must live, and are they only pitiful fools for trying?

And are you one of God’s chosen ones? Will you tell me, “Corydon, you simply cannot live my life--you are not fit?” Dear Thyrsis, I actually believe that if you should tell me that now, I should laugh with joy, for I would see that I had gained one victory, that of proving to you your own weakness and stupidity. And I should not let you discourage me. I should throw my arms around your neck, and cling to you until you had promised to take me. After all, it is a small boon to ask the privilege of trying to live, it cannot but be a glory to you to help me; and if I do not make you waste your time or money, how can I hinder you?

Ask yourself how you have treated me--have I not suffered a little? Though I may have been miserably weak, have I not now a little courage? Why do the moments blind you so, that you can speak to me as though I were a sawdust doll?

There is only one thing that I will let myself do. I know that you are strong and brave, and that I can be if I go with you; and I am going with you--there simply is no other alternative--for I love you! Yes, dear, I saw it very plainly as I read your letter to-day. I seem to feel very differently about it all now. I know we _cannot_ sit still and love each other--this costs me no pang. You need not love me one bit; I may simply belong to you, we may simply belong to each other.

I see how I fall into blindness of the high things at home. How almost impossible it is for me to do anything, while I have the earthly ties of love! I study--but how? How is it possible to live the physical life of other people--to be sympathetic and agreeable and conciliatory, and gain anything for your own soul? How is such a creature as myself to get what it wants, unless it goes away where there are no contrary and disturbing influences--where it has no ties, no obligations? The souls that have won, how did they do it--did they go alone, or did they stay in the parlor and serve tea?

Such thoughts as these would make me grovel at your feet, if need be, in an agony of prayer. The means, I cry--and you are the means! What is there for me, then, but to beseech you to have faith in me? I suppose, as yet, you have little or no cause--though once or twice I have risen to you, even though perhaps you did not know it. I am almost happy now--for I feel that this _useless_ strife is at an end, this craving and wondering if you wish to leave me. And for all that, I despise you, too--for your blind and wanton cruelty in wishing to crush what you have created! How do you expect God to value your soul, when you so lightly value mine?

But after all, will it help me to beseech you? The thing I honor in you is your desire to be right--and I know that you will act toward me as your sense of right prompts you. You will act toward me as you feel you _must_ do, to be true. Yes, be true to yourself, please; I am happy to trust in yourself so. If you believe that I will mar your life, I do not wish to go I with you. I do not know why, but I feel that something has come to me to prevent my despair from returning; I shall take care of my soul--there _must_ be something for me in this life. I have a feeling that perhaps you will think I am writing this last mute acceptance of your will, without knowing what I am doing. But I _know_ that I shall struggle without you, I shall not die.

And I wish that you would do one thing--see me as soon as you can; let it be early in the morning, and it shall be decided _on_ _that_ _day_ whether I am to marry you or not. I shall leave you, not to see you again--or knowing that I am to be your wife. I am sick unto death of fuming and sighing, tears and fears.

What will you do, Thyrsis? I cannot write any more.

I unfold the letter again. _What, in the name of God, are you going to do?_