The Nature of a Crime

have longed for you all these years, you would wonder that I did not, sitting in that chair, put the ring up to my teeth, in spite of Burden’s letter, and end it. I have an irresistible longing for rest⁠—or perhaps it is only your support. To think that I must face forever⁠—or for as long as it lasts⁠—this troublesome excitement of avoiding thoughts of you⁠—that was almost unbearable. I resisted because I had written these letters to you. I love you and I know you love me⁠—yet without them I would have inflicted upon you the wound of my death. Having written them I cannot face the cruelty to you. I mean that, if I had died without your knowing why, it would have been only a death grievous to you⁠—still it is the duty of humanity and of you with humanity to bear and to forget deaths. But now that you must know, I could not face the cruelty of filling you with the pain of unmerited remorse. For I know that you would have felt remorse, and it would have been unmerited since I gave you no chance or any time to stretch out your hands to me. Now I give it you and wait for your verdict.

For the definite alternatives are these: I will put Burden’s estate absolutely clear within the year and work out, in order to make safe money, the new and comparatively sober scheme of which I have written to you: that I will do if you will consent to be mine to the extent of sharing our thoughts alone. Or, if you will not, I will continue to gamble more wildly than ever with the Burden money. And that in the end means death and a refuge from you.

So then, I stand reprieved⁠—and the final verdict is in your hands.

Colophon

The Nature of a Crime
was published in 1909 by
Joseph Conrad and Ford Madox Ford.

This ebook was produced for
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Portrait of M. Fitzgerald,
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Uncopyright

May you do good and not evil.
May you find forgiveness for yourself and forgive others.
May you share freely, never taking more than you give.

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