Читать книгу "Not I, but the Wind..." - Frieda von Richthofen Lawrence - Страница 19

Adr Herrn Karl Krenkow

Waldbröl—Rheinprovinz

14 May 1912

Yes, I got your letter later in the day—and your letter and E ...’s and yours to Garnett, this morning. In E ...’s, as in mine to E ... , see the men combining in their freemasonry against you. It is very strange.

I will send your letter to Garnett. I enclose one of his to me. It will make you laugh.

With correcting proofs, and reading E ...’s letter, I feel rather detached. Things are coming straight. When you got in London, and had to face that judge, it would make you ill. We are not callous enough to stand against the public, the whole mass of the world’s disapprobation, in a sort of criminal dock. It destroys us, though we deny it. We are all off the balance. We are like spring scales that have been knocked about. We had better be still awhile, let ourselves come to rest.

Things are working out to their final state now. I did not do wrong in writing to E.... Do not write to my sister yet. When all is a “fait accompli” then we will tell her, because then it will be useless for her to do other than to accept.

I am very well, but, like you, I feel shaky. Shall we not leave our meeting till we are better? Here, in a little while, I shall be solid again. And if you must go to England, will you go to Munich first—so far? No, I don’t want to be left alone in Munich. Let us have firm ground where we next go. Quakiness and uncertainty are the death of us. See, tell me exactly what you are going to do. Is the divorce coming off? Are you going to England at all? Are we going finally to pitch our camp in Munich? Are we going to have enough money to get along with? Have you settled anything definite with E ...?—One must be detached, impersonal, cold, and logical, when one is arranging affairs. We do not want another fleet of horrors attacking us when we are on a rather flimsy raft—lodging in a borrowed flat on borrowed money.

Look, my dear, now that the suspense is going over, we can wait even a bit religiously for one another. My next coming to you is solemn, intrinsically—I am solemn over it—not sad, oh no—but it is my marriage, after all, and a great thing—not a thing to be snatched and clumsily handled. I will not come to you unless it is safely, and firmly. When I have come, things shall not put us apart again. So we must wait and watch for the hour. Henceforth, dignity in our movements and our arrangements—no shufflings and underhandedness. And we must settle the money business. I will write to the publishers, if necessary, for a sub. I have got about £30 due in August—£24 due—and £25 more I am owed. Can we wait, or not, for that?

Now I shall do as I like, because you are not certain. Even if I stay in Waldbröl a month, I won’t come till our affair is welded firm. I can wait a month—a year almost—for a sure thing. But an unsure thing is a horror to me.

I love you—and I am in earnest about it—and we are going to make a great—or, at least, a good life together. I’m not going to risk fret and harassment, which would spoil our intimacy, because of hasty forcing of affairs.

Don’t think I love you less, in being like this. You will think so, but it isn’t true. The best man in me loves you. And I dread anything dragging our love down.

Be definite, my dear; be detailed, be business-like. In our marriage, let us be business-like. The love is there—then let the common-sense match it.

Auf Wiedersehen

D. H. Lawrence

This poetry will come in next month’s English. I’m afraid you won’t like it.

D. H. L.

And I love you, and I am sorry it is so hard. But it is only a little while—then we will have a dead cert.