Читать книгу A Walk with Love and Death - Hans Koning - Страница 13

On the market square of that town stood a kind of inn; here I took a room all to myself and ordered a hot bath prepared without asking prices. I sat in the steaming water and thought, Heron, you’ve gone out of your mind; but I enjoyed it. And then I hit upon the idea of writing a letter to Claudia. First they told me the roads were too dangerous for the delivering of letters; but the following morning an ex-soldier in a quilted coat green and molded with age, on an even older horse, came around and said he’d deliver my letter for ten sous.

“And you’ll have to pay the same for the answer,” he said.

The answer! I’d never thought of expecting an answer. But of course there might be one, and I’d wait for it right there.

To Claudia de Saint-Jean

Dammartin House

I am in love with you.

Not a love to ensnare you but a love to set you free.

I know the world is sick, Claudia. But let it be sick without you or me for a while.

Rise up, my love, my fair one, for the winter is past. That’s from the Song of Solomon. And don’t let your priest tell you that that song is an ode to the Church. It’s an ode to Pharaoh’s daughter. She was beautiful but not as beautiful as you are.

I want to carry your portrait in my heart, on my journey. Let me know that I may. That way I can come back to you safely and serve you.

I will look at no other woman. There is none like you.

Did I feel all this or was it acted, like a story in a romance? A bit of both perhaps; but once I had written those words, seen them in front of me, they assumed a life of their own and became true outside my will.

And it seemed to me when I sealed that letter that I loved Claudia, loved her better than any girl before in my life, and that I had loved her that much from the first moment.