Your letter has made me very happy. Thank you for it. You know, it is still here, in my room, sounding, like music that has been played. “Be well.” And I am ashamed that I broke down in my last letter. That night I went to bed with pneumonia. That was why I was so depressed. Of course I am still in bed but it does not matter. All is well.

We are quite alone here to-night. It is so far away and still. Everything is full of silent life—complete with its shadow. From the sea there comes a soft ruffled sound and its beat is regular and soft like the beat of mowers cutting through a deep meadow.

Yes, one day when we have enough money we shall meet somewhere and talk quietly for as long as we wish—It will happen, I think.

Your loneliness is precious to you, I know. Does it disturb it to know you are dear to me? Do not let it. It is such a quiet feeling. It is like the light coming into a room—moonlight—where you are sitting.

I shall try and get well here. If I do die perhaps there will be a small private heaven for consumptives only. In that case I shall see Tchehov. He will be walking down his garden paths with fruit trees on either side and tulips in flower in the garden beds. His dog will be sitting on the path, panting and slightly smiling as dogs do who have been running about a great deal.

Only to think of this makes my heart feel as though it were dissolving—a strange feeling.

Lawrence wrote from Florence. He said Florence was lovely and full of “extremely nice people.” He is able to page 316 bear people so easily. Often I long to be more in life— to know people—even now the desire comes. But immediately the opportunity comes I think of nothing but how to escape. And people have come to see me here—What are they? They are not human beings; they are never children—they are absolutely unreal Mechanisms.

And those people in England—When one goes away the memory of them is like the memory of clothes hanging in a cupboard. And yet the beauty of life—Koteliansky—the haunting beauty of “the question”—Sometimes when I am awake here, very early in the morning, I hear, far down on the road below, the market carts going by. And at the sound I live through this getting up before dawn, the blue light in the window—the cold solemn look of the people—the woman opening the door and going for sticks—the smell of smoke—the feather of smoke rising from their chimney. I hear the man as he slaps the little horse and leads it into the clattering yard. And the fowls are still asleep—big balls of feather. But the early morning air and hush. And after the man and wife have driven away some little children skurry out of bed across the floor and find a piece of bread and get back into the warm bed and divide it. But this is all the surface. Hundreds of things happen down to minute, minute details. But it is all so full of beauty—and you know the voices of people before sunrise—how different they are? I lie here, thinking of these things and hearing those little carts…. It is too much. One must weep.

Forgive a long letter.

I do not know if M. is coming. I have sent him several wires asking him not to come. It is not at all a good idea.