Читать книгу "Not I, but the Wind..." - Frieda von Richthofen Lawrence - Страница 34

And always again the mail and tragedy. I was so sure I would be able to be with my children but finally my husband wrote: “If you don’t come home the children have no longer any mother, you shall not see them again.” I was almost beside myself with grief. But Lawrence held me, I could not leave him any more, he needed me more than they did.

But I was like a cat without her kittens, and always in my mind was the care, “Now if they came where would I put them to sleep?” I felt the separation physically as if something tore at my navel-string. And Lawrence could not bear it, it was too much for him. And then again I would turn to him and be healed and forget for a while.

Everybody seemed to condemn us and be against us and I couldn’t for the life of me understand how the whole world couldn’t see how right and wonderful it was to live as we did; I just couldn’t. I said: “Lorenzo, why can’t people live as happily and get as much out of life as we do? Everybody could, with the little money we spend.” And he answered: “You forget that I’m a genius,” half in fun and half seriously.

I wasn’t impressed by the genius at that time, making a long nose at him, taking everything like the wind and the rain, but now I know that the glamour of it all was his genius.

He was always absolutely sure of himself, sure that the Lord was with him. Once we had a big storm on our way to Australia and I said, afraid: “Now, if this ship goes down ...” He answered: “The ship that I am on won’t go down.”

Here follow some letters he wrote to my sister Else: