[Adelphi Hotel, Liverpool]
How shall I speak totravels, trips and plansEH's 1934–5 year in Europe;b4EH sails for Boston;f1 My Love?1 or of Her? or how to celebrate her? I cannottravels, trips and plansEH's 1934–5 year in Europe;b4EH and TSE's final farewell;f2 tonight write a letter, I can only think of last evening and this morning. AndHale, Emilyrelationship with TSE;w9mutual embraces;e5 having learnt (recently) release for my pent-up tenderness by holding Her in my arms, on my lap, and pressing my face to Hers to intoxicate myself with the air she breathed out, how can I discipline myself again to the use of mere words? How wonderful when you left me, and then rushed back and said ‘When I’m gone I’m here’, and then I looked out and followed you down the street. When I talk to people they seem faint and ghostlike; when I look at myself I see no longer quite the same face. We are both in two places at once, and I am in Liverpool and you are here. I feel stifled in ordinary air, when I can no longer turn to breathe in the air that you breathe out. ButHale, Emilyrelationship with TSE;w9EH kissed on the right foot;e6 I have kissed your blessed foot, your beautiful foot, I have blossomed in your heart, and I am dazzled and humbled and trying to understand the thought that you love me, which is a kind of Grace, for why should you? I am afraid even by speaking that I may lose one moment that we have had, one word that you have spoken; and I am still struggling to take in properly something that seems so much too great for me. You have touched me, and I become a new person, so completely yours, that I do not know how to behave as my new self yet, the new self that is more you than me, completely possessed by you; and I cannot arrange words to make sense. If we could be together now the little things would help so, I could brush your hair and make ready your things for you; but now I am left alone with only the big things, and a love so great between us that it seems too much greater than I am. IHale, Emilyrelationship with TSE;w9as consubstantial union;e3 cannot write more now, I feel that I am going through an agony of being born, of becoming another person with, in You; but I will write tomorrow too and to the boat.
Dear, my dear, I wanted to write this much, as I have done, beforeflowers and floraviolets;d1left by departing EH;a4 opening the letter which I found in my room with the violets soon after you left. And now I have read your Letter, dear: so we are both bewildered, and you will know that I am as overwhelmed as you can be: you see, what we have entered upon is just as new for me as for you, and all the more bewildering, I believe, because of what I have felt before. I am filled with wretchedness and rejoicing, and when I go to bed I shall imagine you kissing me; and when you take off your stocking you must imagine me kissing your dear dear feet and striving to approach your beautiful saintly soul.
1.Cf. ‘Should I listen for more, or should I speak now?’ (Romeo and Juliet, II, 2).