the settlement on a big bay horse—and all the girls at the window, of course!—and I sewing away at the homespun for you!—I think all the angels of heaven would be choiring in my heart—and what thick, warm clothes I’d make you for winter! Perhaps in heaven they’ll let some of the women sew for the men they love—I wonder!
“I hear Cora’s voice from downstairs as I write. She’s often so angry with Ray, poor girl. It does not seem to me that she and Ray really belong to each other, though they SAY so often that they do.”
Richard having read thus far with a growing, vague uneasiness, looked up, frowning. He hoped Laura had no Marie Bashkirtseff idea of publishing this manuscript. It was too intimate, he thought, even if the names in it were to be disguised.
… “Though they SAY so often that they do. I think Ray is in love with HER, but it can’t be like THIS. What he feels must be something wholly different—there is violence and wildness in it. And they are bitter with each other so often - always `getting even’ for something. He does care—he is frantically “IN love” with her, undoubtedly, but so insanely jealous. I suppose all jealousy is insane. But love is the only sanity. How can what is insane be part of it? I could not be jealous of You. I owe life to you—I have never lived till now.”
The next writing was two days later:
… . “To-day as I passed your house with Cora, I kept looking at the big front door at which you go in and out so often—YOUR door! I never knew that just a door could look so beautiful! And unconsciously I kept my eyes on it, as we walked on, turning my head and looking and looking back at it, till Cora suddenly burst out laughing, and said: `Well, LAURA!’ And I came to myself—and found her looking at me. It was like getting back after a journey, and for a second I was a little dazed, and Cora kept on laughing at me, and I felt myself getting red. I made some silly excuse about thinking your house had been repainted—and she laughed louder than ever. I was afraid then that she understood—I wonder if she could have? I hope not, though I love her so much I don’t know why I would rather she didn’t know, unless it is just my FEELING about it. It is a GUARDIAN feeling—that I must keep for myself, the music of these angels singing in my heart—singing of You. I hope she did not understand—and I so fear she did. Why should I be so AFRAID?” …
… . “Two days since I have talked to You in your book after Cora caught me staring at your door and laughed at me—and ten minutes ago I was sitting beside the ACTUAL You on the porch! I am trembling yet. It was the first time you’d come for months and months; and yet you had the air of thinking it rather a pleasant thing to do as you came up the steps! And a dizzy feeling came over me, because I wondered if it was seeing me on the street THAT day that put it into your head to come. It seemed too much happiness—and risking too much—to let myself BELIEVE it, but I couldn’t help just wondering. I began to tremble as I saw you coming up our side of the street in the moonlight—and when you turned in here I was all panic—I nearly ran into the house. I don’t know how I found voice to greet you. I didn’t seem to have any breath left at all. I was so relieved when Cora took a chair between us and began to talk to you, because I’m sure I couldn’t have. She and poor Ray had been having one of their quarrels and she was punishing him. Poor boy, he seemed so miserable—though he tried to talk to me—about politics, I think, though I’m not sure, because I couldn’t listen much better than either of us could talk. I could only hear Your voice—such a rich, quiet voice, and it has a sound like the look you have—friendly and faraway and wistful. I have thought and thought about what it is that makes you look wistful. You have less to wish for than anybody else in the world because you have Yourself. So why are you wistful? I think it’s just because you ARE!
“I heard Cora asking you why you hadn’t come to see us for so long, and then she said: `Is it because you dislike me? You look at me, sometimes, as if you dislike me!’ And I wished she hadn’t said it. I had a feeling you wouldn’t like that `personal’ way of talking that she enjoys—and that—oh, it didn’t seem to be in keeping with the dignity of You! And I love Cora so much I wanted her to be finer—with You. I wanted her to understand you better than to play those little charming tricks at you. You are so good, so HIGH, that if she could make a real friend of you I think it would be the best thing for her that could happen. She’s never had a man-FRIEND. Perhaps she WAS trying to make one of you and hasn’t any other way to go about it. She can be so REALLY sweet, I wanted you to see that side of her.
“Afterwhile, when Ray couldn’t bear it any longer to talk to me, and in his desperation brazenly took Cora to the other end of the porch almost by force, and I was left, in a way, alone with you what did you think of me? I was tongue-tied! Oh, oh, oh! You were quiet—but I_ was DUMB! My heart wasn’t dumb—it hammered! All the time I kept saying to myself such a jumble of things. And into the jumble would come such a rapture that You were there—it was like a paean of happiness—a chanting of the glory of having You near me—I WAS mixed up! I could PLAY all those confused things, but writing them doesn’t tell it. Writing them would only be like this: `He’s here, he’s HERE! Speak, you little fool! He’s here, he’s here! He’s sitting beside you! SPEAK, idiot, or he’ll never come back! He’s here, he’s beside you you could put out your hand and touch him! Are you dead, that you can’t speak? He’s here, he’s here, he’s HERE!’
“Ah, some day I shall be able to talk to you—but not till I get more used to this inner song. It seems to WILL that nothing else shall come from my lips till IT does!
“In spite of my silence—my outward woodenness—you said, as you went away, that you would come again! You said `soon’! I could only nod but Cora called from the other end of the porch and asked: `HOW soon?’ Oh, I bless her for it, because you said, `Day after tomorrow.’ Day after tomorrow! Day after tomorrow! DAY AFTER TOMORROW!
… . “Twenty-one hours since I wrote—no, SANG—`Day after tomorrow!’ And now it is `Tomorrow!’ Oh, the slow, golden day that this has been! I could not stay in the house—I walked—no, I WINGED! I was in the open country before I knew it—with You! For You are in everything. I never knew the sky was blue, before. Until now I just thought it was the sky. The whitest clouds I ever saw sailed over that blue, and I stood upon the prow of each in turn, then leaped in and swam to the next and sailed with IT! Oh, the beautiful sky, and kind, green woods and blessed, long, white, dusty country road! Never in my life shall I forget that walk—this day in the open with my love—You! Tomorrow! Tomorrow! Tomorrow! TOMORROW!”
The next writing in Laura’s book was dated more than two months later:
… . “I have decided to write again in this book. I have thought it all out carefully, and I have come to the conclusion that it can do no harm and may help me to be steady and sensible. It is the thought, not its expression, that is guilty, but I do not believe that my thoughts are guilty: I believe that they are good. I know that I wish only good. I have read that when people suffer very much the best thing is for them to cry. And so I’ll let myself WRITE out my feelings—and perhaps get rid of some of the silly self-pity I’m foolish enough to feel, instead of going about choked up with it. How queer it is that even when we keep our thoughts respectable we can’t help having absurd FEELINGS like self-pity, even though we know how rotten stupid they are! Yes, I’ll let it all out here, and then, some day, when I’ve cured myself all whole again, I’ll burn this poor, silly old book. And if I’m not cured before the wedding, I’ll burn it then, anyhow.
“How funny little girls are! From the time they’re little bits of things they talk about marriage—whom they are going to marry, what sort of person it will be. I think Cora and I began when she was about five and I not seven. And as girls grow up, I don’t believe there was ever one who genuinely expected to be an old maid. The most unattractive young girls discuss and plan and expect marriage just as much as the prettier and gayer ones. The only way we can find out that men don’t want to marry us is by their not asking us. We don’t see ourselves very well, and I honestly believe we all think—way deep down—that we’re pretty attractive. At least, every girl has the idea, sometimes, that if men only saw the whole truth they’d think her as nice as any other girl, and really nicer than most others. But I don’t believe I have any hallucinations of that sort about myself left. I can’t imagine—now—ANY man seeing anything in me that would make him care for me. I can’t see anything about me to care for, myself. Sometimes I think maybe I could make a man get excited about me if I could take a startlingly personal tone with him from the beginning, making him wonder all sorts of you-and-I perhapses—but I couldn’t do it very well probably—oh, I couldn’t make myself do it if I could do it well! And I shouldn’t think it would have much effect except upon very inexperienced men—yet it does! Now, I wonder if this is a streak of sourness coming out; I don’t feel bitter—I’m just thinking honestly, I’m sure.
