Letter XLIV

Dearest: I have been doing something so wise and foolish: mentally wise,
I mean, and physically foolish. Do you guess?--Disobeying your parting
injunction, and sitting up to see eclipses.

It was such a luxury to do as I was not told just for once; to feel
there was an independent me still capable of asserting itself. My belief
is that, waking, you hold me subjugated: but, once your godhead has put
on its spiritual nightcap, and begun nodding, your mesmeric influence
relaxes. Up starts resolution and independence, and I breathe desolately
for a time, feeling myself once more a free woman.

'Twas a tremulous experience, Beloved; but I loved it all the more for
that. How we love playing at grief and death--the two things that must
come--before it is their due time! I took a look at my world for three
most mortal hours last night, trying to see you out of it. And oh, how
close it kept bringing me! I almost heard you breathe, and was forever
wondering--Can we ever be nearer, or love each other more than we do?
For that we should each want a sixth sense, and a second soul: and it
would still be only the same spread out over larger territory. I prefer
to keep it nesting close in its present limitations, where it feels like
a "growing pain"; children have it in their legs, we in our hearts.

I am growing sleepy as I write, and feel I am sending you a dull
letter,--my penalty for doing as you forbade.