"I had one great
month of life. Even you cannot have had more in all your years of the
world than I in my month! And then he returned to his work again. He
was very busy, you understand, a great man, even then, in the world of
letters. He could not come to see me, could not leave; but he wrote
every day. He will never put into his book such words as he wrote me; he
gave me more than he has ever given the world. It may have his books. I
have read them, but I have his very soul in these letters!
"I told you he made me believe that I could write. 'What was I, what was
I,' I used to ask myself, 'to be lifted from this to his height?' And
then I had a secret, which began in that thought. I wrote a novel. It is
eight years back now. I never mentioned it in my letters. I knew it was
good, as good as his own work. He would be so proud! He talked of
publishing-houses, books, authors. I had not forgotten one word. I sent
it to a house, one of the largest and best, and it was accepted. It is
strange, but I was not at all surprised. Somehow I had never doubted it
would be accepted. And then I went to the city alone for a day. I had
only a little time; it seemed to me the greatest act of my life to be
there, where he was, yet not to see him! But you see I had planned it
all in those long nights when the autumn storms would not let me sleep.
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