I believe that she lives and sleeps under the instrument, as I here live and sleep, sleep and live, under it. My instrument is quite near one of the harbour-windows, so that, hearing her, I can gaze out toward her over the expanse of waters, yet see her not; and she, too, looking over the sea toward me, can hear a voice from the azure depths of nowhere, yet see me not.
I this morning early to her:
“Good morning! Are you there?”
“Good morning! No: I am there,” says she.
“Well, that was what I asked—‘are you there?’ ”
“But I not here, I am there,” says she.
“I know very well that you are not ‘here,’ ” said I, “for I do not see you: but I asked if you were there, and you say ‘No,’ and then ‘Yes.’ ”
“It is the paladox of the heart,” says she.
“The what?”
“The paladox,” says she.
“But still I do not understand: how can you be both there and not there?”
“If my ear is here, and I elsewhere?” says she.
“An operation?”
“Yes!” says she.
“What doctor?”
“A specialist!” says she.
“An ear-specialist?”
“A heart!” says she.
“And you let a heart-specialist operate on your ear?”
“On myself he operlated, and left the ear behind!” says she.
“Well, and how are you after it?”
“Fairly well. Are you?” says she.
“Quite well. Did you sleep well?”
“Except when you lang me up at midnight. I have had such a dleam …”
“What?”
“I dleamed that I saw two little boys of the same age—only I could not see their faces, I never can see anybody’s face, only yours and mine, mine and yours always—of the same age—playing in a wood. …”
“Ah, I hope that one of them was not called Cain, my poor girl.”
“Not at all! neither of them! Suppose I tell a stoly, and say that one was called Caius and the other Tibelius, or one John and the other Jesus?”
“Ah. Well, tell me the dleam. …”
“Now you do not deserve.”
“Well, what will you do today?”
“I? It is a lovely day … have you nice weather in England?”
“Very.”
“Well, between eleven and twelve I will go out and gather Spling-flowers in the park, and cover the salon deep, deep. Wouldn’t you like to be here?”
“Not I.”
“You would!”
“Why should I? I prefer England.”
“But Flance is nice too: and Flance wants to be fliends with England, and is waiting, oh waiting, for England to come over, and be fliends. Couldn’t some lapplochement be negotiated?”
“Goodbye. This talking spoils my morning smoke. …”
So we speak together across the sea, my God.
On the morning of the 8th April, when I had been separated thirteen weeks from her, I boarded several ships in the Inner Port, a lunacy in my heart, and selected what looked like a very swift boat, one of the smaller Atlantic air-steamers called the Stettin, which seemed to require the least labour in oiling, etc., in order to fit her for the sea: for the boat in which I had come to England was a mere tub, though sound, and I pined for the wings of a dove, that I might fly away to her, and be at rest.
I toiled with fluttering hands that day, and I believe that I was of the colour of ashes to my very lips. By half-past two o’clock I was finished, and by three was coasting down Southampton Water by Netley Hospital and the Hamble-mouth, having said not one word about anything at the telephone, or even to my own guilty heart not a word. But in the silent depths of my being I felt this fact: that this must be a 35-knot boat, and that, if driven hard, hard, in spite of the heavy garment of seaweed which she trailed, she would do 30; also that Havre was 120 miles away, and at 7 p.m. I should be on its quay.
And when I was away, and out on the bright and breezy sea, I called to her, crying out: “I am coming!” And I knew that she heard me, and that her heart leapt to meet me, for mine leapt, too, and felt her answering.
The sun went down: it set. I was tired of the day’s work, and of standing at the high-set wheel; and I could not yet see the coast of France. And a thought smote me, and after another ten minutes I turned the ship’s head back, my face screwed with pain, God knows, like a man whose thumbs are ground between the screws, and his body drawn out and out on the rack to tenuous length, and his flesh massacred with pincers: and I fell upon the floor of the bridge contorted with anguish: for I could not go to her. But after a time that paroxysm passed, and I rose up sullen and resentful, and resumed my place at the wheel, steering back for England: for a fixed resolve was in my breast, and I said: “Oh no, no more. If I could bear it, I would, I would … but if it is impossible, how can I? Tomorrow night as the sun sets—without fail—so help me God—I will kill myself.”
So it is finished, my good God.
On the early morning of the next day, the 9th, I having come back to Portsmouth about eleven the previous night, when I bid her “Good morning” through the telephone, she said “Good morning,” and not another word. I said:
“I got my hookah-bowl broken last night, and shall be trying to mend it today.”
No answer.
“Are you there?” said I.
“Yes,” says she.
“Then why don’t you answer?” said I.
“Where were you all yesterday?” says she.
“I went for a little cruise in the basin,” said I.
Silence for
