of intrigue and subtleties don't deserve a little worry as well.
If it were my dying day, I'd swear before god and all the heavenly
hosts whatever they are that I've been a good wife to you, and I'd
laugh to myself as I swore to think how little you realize it--
you know that I do most of what I do for you well, and that I
rarely grouse and when I have it's been as a kind of joke, the
Josephs and Noise and all the social parties where I feel stupid
and lost etc-- and that I x_x_xx have arranged and run well a
charming household, and have become a dignified and extraordinary
personage in Shanghai and that I follow around your sports and
enjoy myself at them most of the time, and that inover three years
since we went back on our last leave, I haven't complained or
resisted but have given in and worked like a thousand slaves to
make an int resting life for myself and a special situation for us
both in Shanghai.. You like I think, the 'glamour' that I have
that sets me apart from most of the other women you see, but you
don't want to know what it comes from, and the only reason I have
it is because of all the inside of me which you don't want to know
or realize or see exposed, and which hasn't stretched its legs
as a matter of fact since then last time I was with B and G-- through
whom in that xxx other illness in Berlin, I 'gave all' in the
state of weakness and спair that the illness provoked.. And
that shall episode in Berlin, which you asked me never to mention
and which I don't-- suppose I had done something equivalent
to that--you'd probably never have had trust in me again! Which
would be bad for business..

It isn't your fault of course that I can't arrange
a life of my own that is as much mine as the life you lead in China
is now out there. It's just that the kind of people I've always
taken to, and loved, and the kind of things that make me happy
arent to be done or found ot there. If you knew the bliss
me of talking an hour with G, of his tea party with people
sitting about on the floor and wandering here and there talking
their idiotic heads off, any word of which I, catching, without
any connection to the rest, moves me almost to tears. If you KNEW
how I enjoyed Alberts dinner, in the crowded chinese restaurant,
listening to talk about Mexico, the new excavations, to talk a
about what the new world is going to be like, laughing over our
trip to Soochow, it all sounds silly, and unimportant, but there
someth ng so precious about it-- to me, and so easy and natural;
then, going on to Albrts and wandering from room to room looking
at his lovely objects, drinking beer and ginger ale, and then
coming home. I used to think enough years OUT of a habit
would break it. I used to say eventually in China I'll be another
person for my blood will turn around and flow backward as every
thing else in China is on the reverse from our ways-- and then
I want long for these other times and ways and people but I have
made a habit and life of the new... After five years I come also
almost with rapture to my old haunts, enchanted for me only be
cause they were the scenes of my old friendships and joys and grie
grief. And if I go back to China, and if I am well, and go on
living more or less for enough years to matter-- I'm not
going to try to change any more but I'm going to return without
resistance to whatever is left of me of what I was-- and I swear
that both you and I will be better for it, and that I'll find
that way, the place for myself in China that I've been trying to
find but wrongly by trying to reshape or change myself to fit into
whatever spot I could find there, which seemed the least out of
proportion and shape with my character and temperament.

15

I'm going to use blackmail pure and simple, if you don't come to Florida to see my parents who write every day imploring, begging pleading that you come, I don't show you the letters any more because I resent so that they have to plead, I shall certainly tell every body that you refuse to come to see my parents perhaps for the last time..at least they say they are sure it will be the 1st time for with the fairly fatal illness I have withered and aged, and only cling to life now, my moth r says, to try to help and protect these two tragic and stricken young people I don't see why people shouldn't know, I protect you over and over in one thing after another, I went through ten thousand hells from Java to Europe for five weeks, each moment having to restrain my self from jumping overboard and not doing so often ONLY to save and spare you-- I went through ten thousand hells in Vienna, after motoring days with you along the Riviera when I was almost insane with fear and worry and anxiety to get to a doctor and know the worst but I didn't want to deprive you of the few days scenery you craved-- I went through ten thousand more hells going by myself to the doctor going through every minute of all the ordeal alone, telling you nothing sparing you every thing I could-- wanting to die when I knew the worst, wanting to die only because I knew you'd never love me again as you did because you'd think of your own affliction, and not of mine-- which has been true ever since You've never in all your life suffered ONE minute as I suffered hour after hour day after day week after week over this ghastly thing that's happened to me, do you help me bear it, do you offer me tenderness or consolation or compensation, or any reward for having spared you those months of worry and pain-- no you only cry for five minutes and then forget everything. I get so weary of your tears without any action following them, if you feel so badly that you can cry so quickly why don't you remember longer, and do something to help me, try to accustom yourself to it, make it easier for me to bear, not make me feel like a monster, a criminal each doctor I've seen I've told that I can't bear it, each doctor I've asked since to give me some kind of position so that if my life with you becomes unbearable I can release myself from this world-- each says to me for shame for shame, how can you talk that way, we have so many cases, the husband always is that much more loving and tender to his wife to make up to her for the great tragedy to make her realize that he loves her more than ever to make her feel the flesh is nothing but love is all-- I laugh to myself, the truth is I know that I should have died, I know it so well, I know that you'll never accept me, that aslong as we live together

I'll feel like a rat in a corner, scuttling to run off and hide whenever you are around-- I'll feel ashamed and guilty and deformed as long as we are together, because that's what YOU think in your mind, and I am afraid and shamed and too humble to ever be a proud person again. Doesn't that make YOU ashamed, don't you ever face yourself and see what you're doing to me, don't you love me enough to rise above the fact that my body is no longer whole, but that you love me in spite of and more than that Can't you find it in your heart to give me that consolation and reward? I've done everything I could for you to spare you, I've said little of what I've felt about your treatment of RM-- it seemed incredible to me that you'd add that to my ordeal, so soon after I came out of hospital, I thought you'd probably rejoice that

I had her for a kind of compensation, so soon after the

dreadful operation-- but you only added one more sorrow and despair to my life, I despair to