Читать книгу "Not I, but the Wind..." - Frieda von Richthofen Lawrence - Страница 28

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It is five o’clock in the morning. The air is fresh after last night’s heavy rain. There is a slight mist, but the sun from the desert is driving it away.

Suddenly it comes over me so strongly that Lawrence is dead, really dead. The grief for his loss will be my steady companion for the rest of my life. Sometimes it will be a friend, consoling me, putting everything in proper proportion. And sometimes this grief will follow me, dogging my footsteps like a hyena, not wanting me to live. Never will anything matter so desperately any more.

I remember Lawrence saying to me: “You always identify yourself with life, why do you?”

I answered: “Because I feel like it.”

I know now how completely he trusted his life to me, he in whom death was always so near.

I hated that death and I fought against it like a demon, unconsciously on my own. I did not know he was consumptive till years later when the doctor in Mexico told me. All my life with him there was this secret fear that I could not share with him. I had to bear it alone. Then in the end I knew, and it was an awful knowledge, that I could do no more. Death was stronger than I. His life hung by a thread and one day that thread would break. He would die before his time.

This true mountain morning takes me back to our journey across the Alps.

It was in the middle of August that we set out gaily. Neither of us knew Italy at the time, it was a great adventure for both. We packed up our few possessions, three trunks went ahead of us to the Lago di Garda. We set off on foot, with a rucksack each and a Burberry. In the rucksack was a little spirit lamp, we were going to cook our food by the roadside for cheapness.

We started on a misty morning very thrilled. The trees were dripping along the road, but we were happy in our adventure, free, going to unknown parts. We walked along the solid green of the valley of the Isar, we climbed up hills and went down again. One of my desires, to sleep in haylofts, was fulfilled. But sleeping in haylofts is uncomfortable, really. It rained so much and we were soaked. And the wind blows through haylofts and if you cover yourself with a ton of hay you still can’t get warm. Lawrence has described the crucifixes we passed, the lovely chapel he found high up in the mountains. He lit the candles on the altar, for it was evening, read all the exvotos and forgot how tired and hungry he was.

Here are some poems he wrote about this time: