Till then let it be more bearable that
I am still alive: grant me, dearest, that one little grace while I live!
Bearable! My sorrow _is_ bearable, I suppose, because I do bear it from
day to day: otherwise I would declare it not to be. Don't suffer as I
do, dearest, unless that will comfort you.
One thing is strange, but I feel quite certain of it: when I heard that I
carried death about in me, scarcely an arm's-length away, I thought
quickly to myself that it was not the solution of the mystery. Others
might have thought that it was: that because I was to die so soon,
therefore I was not fit to be your wife. But I know it was not that. I
know that whatever hopes death in me put an end to, you would have married
me and loved me patiently till I released you, as I am to so soon.
It is always this same woe that crops up: nothing I can ever think can
account for what has been decreed. That too is a secret: mine comes to
meet it. When it arrives shall I know?
And not a word, not a word of this can reach you ever! Its uses are
wrung out and drained dry to comfort me in my eternal solitude.
Good-night; very soon it will have to be good-by.
LETTER LXXXI.
Beloved: I woke last night and believed I had your arms round me, and that
all storms had gone over me forever. The peace of your love had inclosed
me so tremendously that when I was fully awake I began to think that what
I held was you dead, and that our reconciliation had come at that great
cost.
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