Dear God,
I had no peace to write before
we are afloat upon this blue blue sea.
Wedder is snug in bunk and glad at last
not to be do do doing all the time—
the silly chap has done some silly things.
How Auld Lang Syne seems that soft warm bright night
when I bade you good-bye, chloroformed Candle,
then skipped down ladder into Wedder’s arms.
Swift as the wind we sped in cab to train
and curtained carriage where we wed wed wed,
went wedding all the way to London town
and booked into Saint Pancras’s Hotel.
And yet poor Duncan wanted marriage too!
He did not get it. Please tell Candle so.
You never wedded, God, so may not know
eight hours of it takes much more out of men
than they can give without a lot of rest.
Next day was all my own. I saw some sights,
then waked my Wedder with a good high tea.
“Where have you been?”
I told.
“Who did you meet?”
“No one.” “Do you expect me to believe
you walked all day and never saw a man?”
“No—I saw crowds of men but spoke to none,
except a policeman in Regent’s Park
from whom I asked the way to Drury Lane.”
“Of course!” he said. “It would be the police!
They’re very tall and handsome are they not?
Guards officers are strong and handsome too.
They prowl the parks for girls who won’t say no.
Perhaps your policeman was in the Guards.
The uniforms are very similar.”
“Have you gone daft?” I asked him. “What is wrong?”
“I’m not the only man you ever loved—
admit you have had hundreds before me!”
“Not hundreds—no. I never counted them,
but half a hundred might be about right.”
He gasped, gaped, groaned, writhed, sobbed
and tore his hair
then asked for details. That is how I learned
he did not think that kissing hands is love.
Love (Wedder thinks) only deserves the name
when men insert their middle footless leg.
“If that is so Dear Wedder, rest assured
you are the only man I ever loved.”
“Liar cheat whore!” he screamed. “I am no fool!
You are no virgin! Who deflowered you first?”
It took a while to find out what he meant.
It seems that women who have not been wed
by wedders like my Wedder all possess
a slip of skin across the loving groove
where Wedderburns poke their peninsula.
This slip of skin he never found on me.
“And how do you explain the scar?” he asked,
referring to a thin white line which starts
among the curls above my loving groove
and, like the Greenwich line of longitude,
divides in two the belly Solomon
has somewhere likened to a heap of wheat.
“Surely all women’s stomachs have that line.”
“No no!” says Wedder. “Only pregnant ones
who’ve been cut open to let babies out.”
“That must have been B.C.B.K.,” I said,
“the time Before they Cracked poor Bella’s Knob.”
I let him feel that crack which rings my skull
just underneath the hair. He sighed and said,
“I told you everything—my inmost thoughts,
childhood and darkest deeds. Why did you not
speak of your past? Or rather, lack of past.”
“You never gave me time before tonight
to tell you anything, you talked so much.
I thought you did not want to know my past,
my thoughts and hopes and anything of me
not obviously useful when we wed.”
“You’re right—I am a fiend! I ought to die!”
he yelled, then punched his head, burst into tears,
pulled off his trousers, wed me very quick.
I soothed him, babied him (he is a baby)
and got him wedding at a proper speed.
Yes, wed he can and does, but little Candle,
if you are reading this do not feel sad.
Women need Wedderburns but love much more
their faithful kindly man who waits at home.
I had a baby once. God, is that true?
If it is true what has become of her?
For I am somehow sure she is a girl.
This is a thought too big for Bell to think.
I must grow into it by slow degrees.
God, do you read the change there is in me?
I am not quite as selfish as I was.
I felt for Candle though he is not here
and tried to comfort him. I start to fear
the feeling that will grow if I think much
about the little daughter I have lost.
Strange how the baby-minded Wedderburn
has taught this cracked and empty-headed Bell
to be more feelingful for other folk.
He managed it by making me his nurse
when we reached Switzerland. I’ll tell you how.
The jealousy which he had shown in London
did not depart when we reached Amsterdam.
The only time we were not arm-in-arm
was when he left me in a waiting-room
to see a doctor for his lethargy—
that’s what he called the tiredness that he felt,
which was quite natural. We all need rest,
and time to sit and look and dream and think.
The doctor’s pills let him dispense with rest.
We rushed through racecourses and boxing-clubs,
cathedrals, café-dansants, music-halls.
His face was white, his eyes grew huge and shone.
“I am no weakling, Bell!” he cried. “On! On!”
Thank you, dear God, for teaching me to sleep
by simply sitting down and shutting eyes.
In omnibuses, trains, cabs, trams and boats
this came in handy, but was not enough—
I had to find some other way to sleep.
The second night abroad we went to see
an opera by Wagner. It was long,
and Wedder, every time I shut my eyes,
nudged me and hissed, “Wake up and concentrate!”
This taught me how to sleep with open eyes.
Soon I could also do it standing up
and rushing arm-in-arm from place to place.
I think I answered questions in my sleep—
the only answer he required was, “Yes dear.”
I always wakened up in our hotels,
offices where I sent you telegrams
(while Wedder telegrammed to his mama)
in restaurants, because I like my food,
but nowhere else except the Frankfort zoo
and German betting-shop I will describe.
I think it was the smell which wakened me.
This place (just like the zoo) stank of despair,
and fearful hope, also of stale obsession
which seemed a mixture of the first two stinks.
My fancy nose perhaps exaggerated—
I opened eyes upon a brilliant room.
Do you remember taking me to see
the Glasgow Stock Exchange? It looked like that.15
Around me fluted columns, cream and gold,
held up a vaulted ceiling, blue and white,
from which hung shining crystal chandeliers
which lit up all the business underneath—
six tables where smart people played roulette.
Against the walls were sofas, scarlet plush,
where more smart people sat, and one was me.
And Wedderburn was standing by my side,
and gazing at the table nearest us,
and muttering, “I see. I see. I see.”
I thought that he was talking in his sleep
with open eyes, as I had done. I said,
(gentle but firm) “Let’s go to our hotel,
dear Duncan. I will put you into bed.”
He stared at me, then slowly shook his head.
“Not yet. Not yet. I have a thing to do.
I know you inwardly despise my brain—
think it a mere appendage to my prick
and less efficient than my testicles.
I tell you Bella, that this brain now grasps
a mighty FACT which other men call CHANCE
because they cannot grasp it. Now I see
that GOD, FATE, DESTINY, like LUCK and
CHANCE
are noises glorifying IGNORANCE
under the label of a solemn name.
Up, woman, and attend me to the game!”
The people at the table turned to stare
as we approached. One offered him a chair.
He murmured thanks, and into it he slid.
I stood behind to watch, as he had bid.
Dear God I am tired. It is late. Writing like Shakespeare is hard work for a woman with a cracked head who cannot spell properly, though I notice my writing is getting smaller. Tomorrow we stop at Athens. Do you remember taking me there ages ago by way of Zagreb and Sarajevo? I hope they have mended the Parthenon. Now I will creep to Wedder’s side and say what led to his collapse another day, ending this entry with a line of stars.
At dawn our ship, which is a Russian one,
left Constantinetcetera; now we steam
out of the Bosphorus toward Odessa.
The air is fresh and calm, the sky clear blue.
I wrapped my man up warm and made him sit
outside upon a deck-chair for an hour.
Had I not done it he’d have crouched below,
reading the Bible in his bunk all day.
Again he begged to be joined onto me
in “wholly wedlock”. Wholly wedlock! Ugh.
The joys of wedding cannot be locked up,
not even partly, nor can his nipple-noddle
remember I must marry someone else.
The mob who clustered round the roulette table
did not seem smart when we were part of it.
Of course some folk were rich or richly dressed
with fine silk waistcoats, officers’ tail coats
and obvious breasts in low-cut velvet gowns.
Others were wealthy in a middling way
like merchants, owners of small properties
or clergymen, all very neat and sober,
and some of them escorted by their wives.
At first I did not notice any poor
(the obviously poor were not let in)
but then I saw some clothes were not quite clean,
or fraying at the cuffs, or buttoned high
to hide the colour of the underwear.
The rich laid gold and notes upon the squares.
Middle folk bet with silver more than gold,
and thought a lot before they placed their bets.
The poorest people staked the smallest coins,
or stood and stared with faces white as Wedder’s.
Folk who moved money fast were rich or poor,
or turning quickly into rich or poor:
yet rich, poor, middling—frantic, stunned, amused—
young, in the prime of strength or elderly—
German, French, Spaniard, Russian or Swede—
even some English folk who seldom bid
but stared about as if superior—
had something wrong with them. I worked out what,
but not before the damage had been done.
The spinning wheel and little rattling ball
ground something down in those who bet and watched,
and they were pleased to feel it ground away
because it was so precious that they loathed it,
and loved to see others destroy it too.
I’ve since discussed this with a clever man
who says the precious thing has many names.
Poor people call it money; priests, the soul;
the Germans call it will and poets, love.
He called it freedom, for that makes men feel
to blame for what they do. Men hate that feeling,
so want it crushed and killed. I am no man.
To me the place stank like a Roman game
where tortured minds, not bodies were the show.
This crowd had come to see the human mind
whose thoughts can wander through eternity
pinned to a little accidental ball.
Poor Wedder, meanwhile, had begun to bet.
Most of the gamblers shifted bets about
from black squares onto red and back again.
Wedderburn bet upon a single square
marked zero, laying one gold coin on it.
He lost, bet two, lost those, then bet and lost
four, eight, sixteen, then laid down thirty-two.
A wooden-rake-man pushed back twelve of these—
twenty was highest bet the shop would take.
Wedderburn shrugged and let the twenty lie.
The ball was rattled round and Wedder won.
He won a lot. The little rolls of gold
were given him in small blue envelopes.
He turned and faced me with a happy smile,
the first I had from him since we eloped.
While pocketing the gold he murmured, “Well?
You did not know that I could do it, Bell!”
I felt such pity for his muddled head
I did not notice he was glad to think
he had done something to astonish me.
I should have said, “O Duncan you were grand!
I nearly fainted, I was so impressed—
now let us have a meal to celebrate.”
I should have said that. What I said was this.
“O Duncan please take me away from here!
Let us play billiards—billiards need some skill.
Come, let us set the perfect ivory globes
gliding and clicking on the smooth green cloth.”
His face, from white, went red. He frightened me.
“You hate to see me win? You hate roulette?”
he hissed. “Then woman, know I hate it too!
Hate and despise it! And to prove I do
will now AMAZE, APPAL AND PUT TO SHAME
THE CROUPIERS WHO CONTROL—
THE FOOLS WHO PLAY THIS GAME!”
He stood, strode past me to another table,
sat down and started playing as before.
I would have left and gone to our hotel
but did not know the way, nor yet the name.
That was what came of too much sleep-walking—
I’d ended up not knowing where I was.
I sat upon a sofa by the wall
while Wedder left each table where he won
and shifted to the next. Folk followed him.
I heard much babble, voices shout “Bravo!”
then rumpus, stramash, pandemonium.
The other gamblers thought he was a hero.
Some praised his courage. Ladies in low-cut gowns
gave him glad looks, meaning “Come wed me quick.”
A Jewish broker, weeping like a fountain,
begged him to leave before his luck ran out.
He played until they shut shop for the night.
It took a while to pack his money up.
While this was done poor Wedderburn got wooed,
fawned on and flattered all he wished, though not
by me. I heard a cough and someone say,
“Madame, will you forgive if I intrude?”
and looking sideways ding ding whoopee God!
The dinner bell! I’m feeling ravenous—
hungry parched famished and athirst for bortsch,
a splendid beetroot soup, but still have time
to finish off this entry with a rhyme.
I will not write like Shakespeare any more. It slows me down, especially now I am trying to spell words in the long way most people do. Another warm Odessa day. The sky is a high sheet of perfectly smooth pale-grey cloud which does not even hide the horizon. I sit with my little writing-case open on my knees on the topmost step of a huge flight of steps descending to the harbour front. It is wide enough to march an army down, and very like the steps down to the West End Park near our house,16 God. All kinds of people promenade here too, but if I sat writing a letter on the Glasgow steps many would give me angry or astonished looks, and if I was poorly dressed the police would move me on. The Russians ignore me completely or smile in a friendly way. Of all the nations I have visited the U.S.A. and Russia suit me best. The people seem more ready to talk to strangers without being formal or disapproving. Is this because, like me, they have very little past? The friend I made in the betting-shop who talked to me about roulette and freedom and the soul is Russian. He said Russia is as young a country as the U.S.A. because a nation is only as old as its literature.
“Our literature began with Pushkin, a contemporary of your Walter Scott,” he told me. “Before Pushkin Russia was not a true nation, it was an administered region. Our aristocracy spoke French, our bureaucracy was Prussian, and the only true Russians—the peasants—were despised by rulers and bureaucracy alike. Then Pushkin learned the folk-tales from his nursemaid, a woman of the people. His novellas and poems made us proud of our language and aware of our tragic past—our peculiar present—our enigmatic future. He made Russia a state of mind—made it real. Since then we have had Gogol who was as great as your Dickens and Turgénieff who is greater than your George Eliot and Tolstoï who is as great as your Shakespeare. But you had Shakespeare centuries before Walter Scott.”
Not since Miss MacTavish fled from my embraces in San Francisco had I heard so many writers mentioned in so few sentences, and I had read none of them! To stop him thinking Bell Baxter a total ignoramus I said Burns was a great Scottish poet who lived before Scott, and Shakespeare and Dickens et cetera were all English; but he could not grasp the difference between Scotland and England, though he is wise about other things. I also said most folk thought novels and poetry were idle pastimes—did he not take them too seriously?
“People who care nothing for their country’s stories and songs,” he said, “are like people without a past—without a memory—they are half people.”
Imagine how that made me feel! But perhaps, like Russia, I am making up for lost time.
This was the stranger who spoke to me in the betting-shop while the rabble fussed around Wedder. He was a neat little man like Candle, but (I find this hard to explain) more humble than Candle, and also more proud. I saw by his clothes that he was poor, and by his face that he was clever. I felt he was a lovable man, though maybe not a quick wedder, and I was delighted. Nobody but Wedderburn had spoken to me since the policeman in Regent’s Park. I said, “Well, you look interesting! What have you to say to me?”
He brightened at that and also seemed surprised. He said, “But surely you are a great lady—the daughter of an English milord or baron?”
“Not me. Why think that?”
“You talk as great ladies in Russia talk. They too say at once what they feel without regard for convention. Since you are that sort I will talk fast, without introducing myself except to say I am an inveterate gambler— a quite unnecessary person who wants to give advice which will cost me nothing but may save you from a terrible loss.”
This was exciting. I said, “Go on.”
“The Englishman who has such success, he is your . . .?” He was looking at the fingers of my left hand for a wedding ring. I said, “He and I are wed.”
This was fooling him slightly because most people think wedding and marriage are the same, but it was easier than complicated explanations. He said, “And your husband has never played roulette before?”
“Not roulette.”
“That explains why he played so systematically. His system was the most obvious in the world—all thinking gamblers discover it during their first game and abandon it before the end. But tonight your husband had the best luck in the world, or worst, depending on how it takes him. The pattern of play, by sheer accident, conformed to his childish system again and again! Astonishing! This hardly ever happens, but when it does it usually befalls a beginner who (forgive me, I could not say this to a conventional Englishwoman) is very much in love, and therefore more confident or desperate than usual. Yes, Cupid and cupidity once in a lifetime coincide to flatter us. That happened to me. I won a fortune but lost the woman I loved, and then, of course, the fortune, for the gambling fever entered my blood. It made me what I am—a lost soul—an existence manqué. If you cannot persuade your husband to leave this infernal little town tomorrow he will return to this casino, lose all he has won, then throw everything else away in an effort to recover it. The revenues of the municipality depend exclusively on the casinos, so the banks have the most modern facilities for speedily converting property into cash at iniquitous rates of exchange. I have seen a great princess—a woman of eighty but still sharp-witted and sensible—I have seen her fooled by beginners’ luck into squandering nearly everything but the lives of her servants before she regained her senses.”
I wanted to kiss that little stranger for the sense he talked and the good he wished to do. Instead I had to sigh and explain that alas my poor man would take no advice from me because he felt weak when he did, strong when he did not. I said, “But he might take advice from another man. Please tell him what you have told me. Here he comes.”
Wedder, suddenly seeing me talk to a stranger, broke out of the crowd and strode toward us his hair sticking out all ways like the bristles of an over-used scrubbing-brush. His face seemed more blue than white and his eyes were bloodshot. Beside him hurried a servant in the livery of the betting-shop, carrying the winnings in a bag.
“Duncan,” I said, “please listen to this gentleman. He has something important to tell you.”
Wedder folded his arms and stood very stiff, staring down at my new friend. The stranger had spoken only a few sentences when Wedderburn said sharply, “Why are you telling me this?”
“If I see two children who know nothing about express trains picnic on a railway line it is natural to tell them of the danger,” said the stranger, “but if you need a more personal reason, hear this. An English friend (Mr. Astley, of Lovel and Co., a famous London firm) once did me a favour I have never managed to repay. Since I owe the English something I wish to pay them back a little through you.”
“I am a Scot,” said Wedderburn, looking at me, and I saw something imploring in the look.
“That need not deter me,” said my new friend. “Mr Astley is a cousin of Lord Pibroch.”
“We must leave, Bell,” said Wedderburn tonelessly, and I realized he had folded his arms tight to stop himself trembling. Sleeplessness and excitement had so exhausted him that he could hardly hear or see a thing; all his strength and concentration were needed just to keep him standing and sounding sensible. Instead of giving him a row for his rudeness I slid my arm through his and he clutched it.
“My poor man needs rest now, but I shall remember what you told me. Thanks very much. Good night,” I said.
As we moved toward the door accompanied by the servant I saw Wedderburn was sleep-walking like I had done.
In the entrance hall I pinched him awake to learn the name of our hotel. When he got conscious he said he needed a lavatory first and tottered off to it with the servant carrying his winnings, for he would not let those out of his sight. A second later my new friend was beside me again, speaking so fast and quiet that I must tilt an ear toward him.
“Your husband looks too distraught to count his winnings tonight. Take and keep as much of the money as you can without him knowing. That will not be theft. If he gambles again it will be your only means of leaving this town with dignity.”
I nodded, shook his hands with both of mine and said I wished I could help him in some way. He blushed rosy-red, smiled, said, “Too late!” bowed and left.
Soon after Wedder came back looking neater. His face was still the same horrid colour but there was no sign of trembling and tiredness in him now. I knew he had taken one of the anti-lethargy pills and another wedding night was coming up. As he gripped my arm in a masterly way I thought, “How long can the poor soul keep going like this?”
At the door a very grand looking man said, “Gute Nacht, mein Herr! Your custom tomorrow we shall receive, I furiously hope?”
“Of course,” said Wedder with a grim smile, “if your gold-mine is not yet exhausted.”
“Not from me but from your fellow players you have won,” said the man amiably, so I knew he was the head shopkeeper.
Outside I found that the shop, our hotel, a bank and the railway station were all on the same square, so we had not far to go. On reaching our room Wedder seized the bag from the servant, slammed the door in his face without saying thanks or tipping, ran to our bed (a huge one with a canopy) and emptied the money onto it with a kind of tinkling crash, for some envelopes split open. He flung these envelopes to the floor and began ripping other envelopes and pouring out coins, mad keen to make one big puddle of his gold on the silk bedcover. I realized that, like little Robbie Murdoch with a mud puddle, he would then splash about in it before counting it. This might go on all night. I had to distract him somehow.
“At this point I will omit two pages,” said Baxter. “They cast strong light into that zone where anatomy and psychology are forms of each other, but your future wife will one day teach you such things in person, so why anticipate them here? In chaste and accurate language Bell tells how, for a few hours, she wooed Wedderburn away from his infantile obsession with gold and restored him to a deep and natural slumber on a bearskin hearth-rug. She tells how she removed and hid four hundred friedrichs d’or from the pile on the bed, and how he did not miss these when he awoke and counted the rest into neat heaps. I will continue from there.”
“Tonight this will be multiplied ten- or a hundredfold,” he said with a gloating smile. I told him he was a fool.
“Bella!” he cried, “all last night people begged me to stop playing before my luck ran out. I played to the very end and won because I was using REASON—not luck. You, at least, should have faith in me because in the eyes of God you are my lawful wedded wife!”
“God will let me leave you whenever I choose,” I said, “and I will never set foot in that betting-shop again. I bet you will lose everything if you go in again— everything.”
“What will you bet?” he asked, with an odd look. I smiled then, because I had a very bright idea. I said—“Give me five hundred of that money. If you come back richer I will return it and marry you. If you lose the rest we will need it to leave this place.”
He kissed me and wept, saying this was the happiest moment of his life, for now he knew he would have all he could ever want. I wept out of pity for him—what else could I do? Then he gave me the five hundred, we breakfasted and he left. I asked the hotel folk to serve lunch in my room, went back to it and slept.
How lovely, God, to waken all alone, and bath and dress alone, and eat alone. When we get married, Candle, we must spend some time apart to stop us going stale. In the afternoon I went walking round a park in the middle of the square, hoping to see my new friend, and so I did, in the distance. I waved my parasol. From opposite sides we approached an empty bench and sat on it. He asked delicately, “Did you?”
I smiled, nodded and said, “How is my man doing?”
“O, he began early and lost it all in an hour. He staggered us all by his extraordinary coolness. He has since been twice to the bank and four times to the telegraph office—so the rumour goes. Great Britain has the world’s largest and busiest money-market. We expect him to return and lose as much again, or more, in an hour or two.”
“Let us talk of happier things,” I said. “Do you know any?”
“Well,” he said with a rueful smile, “we could talk of the radiant future of the human race a century hence when science, trade and fraternal democracy will have abolished disease, war and poverty, and everyone will live in a hygienic apartment block with a free clinic in the basement run by a good German dentist. But I would feel lost in such a future. If God consulted my wishes (and maybe he did) he would make me a disgraced outchatel—an unemployed manservant—a lover of Russia who would rather chat to a brave Scotswoman in a German public park than fight for the renovation of his homeland. This may not be much but it satisfies me, and is better than being a bed bug. Though of course, bed bugs too must have their unique visions of the world.” 17
So we discussed what people want most, and freedom, the soul, Russian literature, how he hated the Poles because they expected to be treated like gentlemen when they were poorer than he was, and hated the French because they had form without content and sympathized with the Poles, and how he liked the English because of Mr. Astley, and how he had been an outchatel—a tutor to a rich general’s children—and the sad adventures which had made him a gambler. He was so frank and open that I told him a little about my troubles with Wedder. After some thought he said the best I could do with Wedder was take him on a Mediterranean cruise till he was fit to go home. The vessel should not be a passenger ship, but a cargo ship with passenger accommodation.
“There will be few facilities for gambling on a vessel like that,” he said, “and very little social stimulus. If he needs rest as much as you say, a Russian vessel might be better than an English or . . . Scottish ship, for the curiosity of the other passengers will lead to less gossip.”
I kissed him good-bye for that advice. I think my kiss cheered him up.
I shall tell the rest fast. Wedder comes back to hotel penniless, Shakespearean, “To be or not to be”, et cetera. I tell him the five hundred he bet me will let us continue our wedding trip next day, and I will return it to him. Next day he pays the hotel, we go to the station, he buys tickets to Switzerland. Since half an hour till train arrives, he installs me with luggage in the ladies’ waiting-room, saying he will smoke a cigar outside. Of course he dodges straight into the betting-shop for a last quick fling which might just recover everything, and loses everything, then charges back to me raving like Hamlet over Ophelia’s coffin. I see that the only way to quieten him down is to act a little too—“pile on the agony”, as they say in the theatre. I go very frozen-faced and moan in a hollow monotonous voice, “No money? I will get us money.”
“How? How?”
“Never ask. Wait here. I will be gone for two hours. We will catch the later train.”
Out I go, find a pleasant little café and enjoy four lovely cups of chocolate and eight Viennese pastries. Then I go back looking tragic just in time for the train. Our carriage is crowded. I ignore his whispered attempts at conversation by sleeping with my eyes open. For the next four days I say nothing but, “Never ask!” even when he begs to know where he is being taken. My doomed expression and hollow voice cause him exquisite pangs of guilt which keep him busy when the poor fellow is not shaking in every limb and wet with hot or cold perspiration, for he has used up the last of his anti-lethargy pills and has a craving for more. That would be fatal! Luckily he is so ill that he can go nowhere unless I lead him by the arm. He is so dependent that I can leave him for hours in a hotel bedroom while I make arrangements. In a Trieste shipping office I book our passage upon exactly the sort of ship the outchatel recommended. I cannot write its name, for the Russian alphabet is Greek to me, but it sounds like cut use off.
On our way to the docks down a broad but dismal street (it is raining) he suddenly halts us in front of a tobacconist’s shop and says on a desperate note I have never heard before, “O Bella, tell me the truth! Are we going a long voyage on a ship?”
“Yes.”
“Please, Bella!” (and he sinks down on his knees in the streaming gutter) “please give me some money to buy cigars! Please! I am completely out.”
I see the time has come to drop the tragic mask.
“You poor sad Wedder,” I say, helping him kindly up, “you shall have all the cigars you want. I can afford them.”
“Bella,” he whispers, bringing his face close to mine, “I know how you got that money. You sold yourself to that filthy little Russian gambler who tried to seduce you on the night of my glorious victory.”
“Never ask.”
“Yes, you did that for me. Why? I am a stinking midden, a reeking dungheap, a quintessence of shit. You are Venus, Magdalene, Minerva and Our Lady of Sorrows rolled into one—how can you bear to touch me?”
However, four minutes later he looked quite cheerful with a cigar clamped between his gnashers.
So now you know how the Russian merchant navy brought us to Odessa. We are spending three days here while the boat takes on a cargo of beetroots, in which the region abounds. Wedder is no longer a jealous man. He does not mind me going ashore by myself, though he begs me to come back to him as soon as possible. Since I have at last brought this letter up to date, perhaps I will, today.