15

“Dove, I know you long to speed time—I do too—but we must not act in haste. There are practical matters that one so celestial as you need not concern herself with, but that must be the business of one as earthly as I. Please do not fret, my darling. We will tell my mother and sisters soon, and the day will come for our marriage, and this entire prolonged courtship will become the smallest trial faced before a lifetime of companionship. . . .”

I crumple the letter and throw it across the room. He moves like one stuck in tar pits and I long to drag him out by the collar. I am nearly thirty years old! He is thirty-five! At this age, most women have died from having their fourth child, and most men are widowers, and yet we are virgins!

I direct my frustration into my art and create like one possessed. If I could sustain this energy, I might even be able to support us. I have suggested as much, but Nathaniel knows how the process of creation often leaves me ill, and he does not want to rely upon my talents or to tax me in any way. I cannot argue with him, because I do not trust my head to cooperate, which vexes me nearly as much as his reticence.

The bas-relief of George is complete, and I send two paintings as gifts to Nathaniel. I wish I could deliver them to his apartment myself, but with their bulky frames, I could not carry one, let alone two. When the paintings arrive, Nathaniel writes of how I have captured the very essence and moment of our souls’ joining, and of his wish that no one but him ever look on them because of their intimacy. He has hung black curtains to protect them from the city’s soot and visitors’ eyes, but draws back the curtains to behold them each morning and night. He beseeches me to mingle in his dreams so I may be with him while he sleeps.

How I long to make this vision a reality!

The months pass with shocking swiftness, and I am increasingly agitated that Nathaniel seems content to correspond with me and dip into our home for short visits, only to leave me again and again.

“Why can you not visit with me as often as you do your mother and sisters?” I say.

“I do not visit them more, Sophia, but I must see them. I am so divided.”

“Then marry me now so we can be together most, and you can go to them when you must, and there will be no more division of spirit.”

“I cannot even bear to hold your letters in my filthy hands after working all day at the custom house,” says Nathaniel. “I scrub them clean before handling the paper your pure fingers have touched. I cannot imagine coming home to you so sooty.”

“Do not be ridiculous. I would take you any way I could have you. If we were told that we could no longer bathe in the water of Massachusetts, I would have you dirty and stinking, and would be happy to do so.”

“What a horrid image.”

I groan and begin to argue again when he lays his fingers over my lips. I move his hand aside to speak, and he stops the words by placing his mouth on mine, and delivering the most luscious, distracting kiss. When he pulls away, he is serious and his voice is quiet.

“I implore you not to say things that bring darkness between us.”

“It is difficult for one like me, so open in my thoughts and words, to suppress anything, especially as it relates to you.”

“I do not wish to stifle you,” he says. “I only ask that you try to understand me more thoroughly before arguing. There are things I know I must do, without always comprehending why—unspoken impulses that must be obeyed. When you ask me why I must visit here or there, or why my face is shadowed, it taxes me, because there is much about my own nature that I dare not probe.”

“I never wish to upset you,” I say. “I know that you hold yourself back from embracing life’s gifts, and to your detriment. How often do you say I interpret the world for you? I know that our marriage will make you happier and more satisfied. That is why I urge so much.”

“I know, my dove.”

He kisses me again and leaves, and we make no forward progress.

By the summer, I am frantic. I pace about the parlor with another letter from Nathaniel praising my celestial nature and how my love makes him more worthy of life than he ever could be alone, while all I want to do is strike him with an open palm. Perhaps that would make him awaken from his dreamy musings and see that his angel is a woman of flesh and blood who would like nothing more than to commingle with her utmost passion.

“You wear out the floorboards,” says Mary, not looking up from her scribblings.

“I find his complacence baffling. When he is with me, he speaks of his heartiest wish for our marriage. By letter he invokes it. He frets over our separations and how intolerable the gray days are without his dearest dove by his side, and yet he does nothing to hasten the union.”

“You know how he wishes for financial security. You cannot rush that.”

“What is security? There is no such thing. The only certainly is death and its swift and frequent appearance in our lives. Why not make as much heaven on earth together as we can?”

I am aware that I am speaking to a woman who has waited almost a decade for her love—a man with far more financial stability than mine—and would wait until the end of time. I will find no sympathy from Mary.

I attempt to distract myself in other ways, and find the most heavenly respite in a stay with the Emersons in Concord. Being in the company of Waldo and Lidian, who are so like me in our love of nature, is a joy. I spend hours walking the banks of Walden Pond, visiting friends, wading through the benevolent meadows, and hiking the hills of Sleepy Hollow. When my wanderings take me to the banks of the Concord River, I am entranced by its deep stillness. It is as if nature is trying to reassure me. I reflect on the perfection of its seasons, and remind myself to have hope that time will unite Nathaniel and me at the correct moment.

On the hill behind me is a charming dwelling. I believe it belongs to Emerson’s relation, and I think how lucky its inhabitant is to live here by the river, surrounded by fields and orchards, and such a short walk from the village, and the Emersons, and Walden Pond. I would like to live in a house like it with Nathaniel someday.

A movement on the hill draws my attention. At first, I think the young woman I see is an apparition, and then I fear she is the beggar girl, until I realize it is only a farm woman. I watch her walk with her head bent, her severe hair pulled into what must be a painful bun at the nape of her neck, her gown so thin, worn, and stretched it must have belonged to ten larger people than she before coming to hang on her gaunt frame. In spite of the verdant summer surroundings, she is a portent of winter and darkness, and I feel a longing to make her lift her eyes to the beauty of the earth. But I am mute. I fear I would frighten her if I disturbed her deep thought, and before long she is gone from my view, leaving only a chilly wind in her wake.