This is the last letter my friend wrote before he shot himself. It is in no sense a vindication, or apology. It was prompted, I think, merely by a like desire to that we all feel – to explain ourselves to those who have any love or regard for us.
‘You will remember that when I came to see you after my wife left me, I seemed almost resigned, even to make light of what had happened. It was but seeming. When the actual thing was over, I only gradually became aware of what it meant to me. As time went on, I began to see things in this new aspect, to realize that all I had valued most in life was become its burden. I was afraid even to think of some things. But memories of the past have a life of their own. They returned like ghosts into my solitude. Even the beauty of a thing was its imperishable sadness.
‘I thought continuously of Lucy – besought, argued, pleaded, reproached, but thought on. Had I had rest at night from her, it might have been different. But I dreamed of her; sometimes, as it were of a great pit of gloom into which we both must descend; sometimes, as of a celestial peace and serenity; only to wake again and again in the darkness and remember. To remember that she was gone, and that I must live on without her. I went on loving her, can words say how hopelessly! – how impiously sometimes! And yet not foolishly, perhaps, as you shall see.
‘But then, as day and night went by and I grew more and more to feel my solitude, as gradually every former interest faded and I knew that it was faded for ever, I strove in vain to be tranquil and patient, to come to life again. But slowly, and, as it seemed, irresistibly all hope withered away, and a kind even of enthusiasm went into one idea – to revenge myself.
‘And yet not “revenge”. That is but a word. I wanted to make an end; to come to terms, as it were, with an impossible life that now had no meaning – and this one friend to blame! We were friends, almost as intimate in many things as are you and I. I don’t think he bore me any malice. I believe rather that he hated his part in the matter; that he never afterwards found rest or contentment; nor had the least chance of happiness when what was done, was done. But he had Lucy. I cannot describe the pain, hatred and hopelessness that overwhelmed me when in utter folly and futility I dwelt on that.
‘I had made no effort or inquiry to discover where they had gone to. But as this one idea took possession of me, shutting out all other interests, all other memories, then I did inquire. I had made up my mind; that was an unutterable relief. Now, at least, I had an aim to guide me on.
‘But, like a bird that exists in a cage, ever and again I caught glimpses of the open, of the desolation and beauty of what I had lost, and would come no more. I only loved my wife the more; and wanted nothing but her love. Or no love, even, only to have her back.
‘Of course, had she come, my dull stupid humanity would have rebelled against her. Education, tradition, religion, egotism – each, of course, would have had its endless say. And the slow canker of memories of the past. But my own self would have taken her back, inevitably, without a word. All else would have sunk like a stone, even my rancour against him.
‘It was, I suppose, because I loved her so much, and because I am too dull to be able not to love, or to get to love somebody or something else. Other men might. I had only one hopeless idea – herself. And to hide that from me, I did the other.
‘I found out where they were. He had bought a cottage in a rather lonely part of the country some few miles – how odd it seems! – from a straggling village where I used to stay with a great-aunt when I was a child. I remembered the woods. I remembered how once I was lost in these woods and fell asleep tired out in a dell of withered last year’s leaves and moss, with all the world’s rabbits for company, and a summer’s blackberries for a dreadful supper. Well, I was to lose myself there again.
‘I went down to the old village, stayed idly on a few weeks, asking here and there a question. I was mad, and yet at peace. I had sold everything I had, and so had plenty of money. That was an ever-satisfactory thought – that I should not want for money. I had no wish to die. I felt vaguely it could bring me no release, or only a false and transitory release.
‘“Wait awhile!” I used to say to myself, wandering aimlessly in the woods. “Wait awhile, my friend, you’ll have no difficulty soon.” But in my heart my one desire was to see Lucy again. That was the impossibility. I could not go without seeing her again. Indeed, I planned coldly to get done with him, but without any hatred, with endless self-contempt. It was of Lucy only I was thinking in my heart.
‘It had always been my delight – the power of seeing things in the imagination. Slim, gentle, beautiful, herself, I saw Lucy on and on in the strange gloom of thought. But now I sometimes in imagination saw them together. So I felt bound to him. I could not break away. When he was gone, then, perhaps, I should be able to think over calmly all that was past. Once get past this crisis, I should be well. All else – the future, my friends, my duty, death – were nothing to me. And yet, how lucid my mind was, in the long delay! I had never experienced before such intellectual ease.
‘I bought a derelict cottage – scarcely more than a hut – about a mile from the fence that separated them from the past. No other house than theirs stood near it. So long had mine been empty that even its paths and ruts were overgrown, and nearly obliterated. Here I was alone. And now I see that I was happy. Simply because I was near her. And we should be alone again. Time would unfailingly afford the opportunity. I could wait.
‘I rehearsed what I would say to him when at length we met, and again rehearsed what he would answer. And so, from then onward, hardly a day went by but morning, afternoon, or evening, hidden and secure, I saw him pass unconscious, or, as I melodramatically conceived, half-conscious, of my presence, and his danger. He too carried a gun. I used to hear him shooting in the woods.
‘I would generally hide myself a little before night-fall beside a path in the bracken he usually took for home. And though the evenings were now drawing in, he still came the same way. And I determined – though it seemed myself had little interest or say in the matter – I determined to have done with him, to do it at the next moon, while still there was pure, true light enough to shoot without risk of missing.
‘It was the third evening before this one that as I lay on my bed – simply a straw mattress on the floor – I heard his footstep outside. He actually opened the door a little, and looked in. But I lay in darkness; the place smelt only musty and damp; only the stars shed their small, separate lights – in the window. I knew he would not enter. I stole out, when he was gone but a few yards, and looked after him.
‘I see myself standing there, in that square wooden frame, in the beautiful peace, in the still, faint, dewy starlight, hungering only, on and on, beneath that one insane idea, hungering on to see Lucy. I did see her.
‘The third evening after that came at last. I set my little hut in order, ate my last supper, shook out for the birds my crumbs, and locked the door behind me. I climbed through the hedge, over the wires and hurdles. “Never the same place twice”, some odd, cunning, triumphant voice used to say to me. There was a strange, beautiful light in the sky, and no wind. I crept between the thick bushes, over the brambles. The falling of a leaf made, it seemed, more sound than I.
‘A rabbit scurried down the mossy path, eyes astare, and tiny scut shining. The trees, with their branches still green with leaves; the faint smell; the extraordinary quietude – it seemed a dream, and I, the only reality.
‘I took my place, well screened, commanding the path by which he would ascend, facing the last beams of the sun. The birds soon grew accustomed to me.
‘A greenfinch was singing in the leaves above me. I sat motionless, quite cold, almost numb. But my mind was clear; my heart beat untroubledly; a kind of hideous resignation filled my thoughts. But presently I forgot him. I was at last full of hope. I was thinking of her.
‘“At last!” I kept repeating, “Now we shall see. At last!” I said it aloud in a low calm voice, and then I heard the distant snapping of a twig. I counted slowly, nineteen, and he appeared twenty paces in front of me. He had been running and was still a little out of breath. I can but say I had no thought of turning back. I seemed only to be doing again what had been done already. I even analysed his face, its strength, its charm, its obstinacy and weakness. He looked ill and discontented, yet not, as it were, unhappy. I felt vaguely glad he did not look unhappy.
‘And then I covered his heart, called softly, as he came to where he could see me, his name. He stood quite still, his face perfectly calm in the sunlight, his eyes fixed motionless on mine. I heard the roar, smelt the smoke, and was kneeling on one knee beside him looking into the same face, the lids half-closed over the eyes.
‘I did not touch him, stared at him awhile, wondering guilelessly, as it were, what our quarrel had been; what was the matter now. I turned away with my gun, listened; turned back, listened at his mouth. But I did not touch him; I looked at his face with a kind of anguish; the odds between us now were so extreme. He would never now have the opportunity of defending himself, whatever one might say.
‘“O, yes! He’s dead,” I seemed to hear a voice saying. “He’s dead right enough. Don’t be alarmed. It is the end.” Yet I don’t think anything ever seemed quite so absurd to me as ever to have thought that this would be the end. But I felt no sorrow, no remorse; only disappointment, impotence. And then we met.
‘Her face – how can I describe it? Her hands stretched out to me in a last greeting – pity, horror, fear, hopelessness, but love – love. I only, I think, saw the love, then. I regretted nothing, not even the needlessness of what I had done – nothing. I only knew she still loved me and that we had indeed met.
‘She looked down behind me, and questioned me with her eyes. I nodded. I threw my gun into the bushes, and stood quite still, watching her face in the clear, heavenly twilight; in the green, unutterable loneliness. My lips shook, I could not speak. I held out my hands. She put hers, cold and thin as a ghost’s, in mine – “O, me too!” she said, nodding in an odd authoritative way, towards my body. I smiled and shook my head, as if refusing some trivial favour of long ago.
‘She looked at me, knew at once, understood at once. She sat down and hid her face in her hands and I sat down beside her, holding her hand and speaking to her. That was all. In the confusion and tumult as of the sea in the inner darkness of my mind shone steadily her love for me, my love for her. We did not speak of it. I knew that to speak definitely of it was to shatter for ever the peace and understanding we had. I no longer tried to wonder why she had left me, only knew deep in my heart that she had wished for me again, and that now we were at peace. Such are human things, seeming without reason, actions like leaves on a brook.
‘She came back with me to my hut. We did not speak of him; only momentary horror answered me from her eyes, when she was not aware. She fell asleep on my shoulder and cried, like a child, in her sleep. And then I persuaded her to go away. I told her lies; of how no one would inquire; of how in God’s sight I was but an instrument; told her that she was not to blame very much, that we go, and do, as Fate resolves. She listened to me, her beautiful eyes fixed on the distant, wooded hills. And we both knew talking was in vain. She will forgive me that I made a promise that I cannot keep. She will forgive me that I could not bring myself to have courage enough to live on.
‘I walked with her in the early dawn, through the marvellously shining fields, in a sunshine that poured as if from Paradise on wood and hill. We took hands, and kissed one another, at the last stile. I watched her go, watched her turn, disappear; saw her no more.’
* Selected for inclusion in Beg (1955) but omitted at the galley-proof stage.