05 October

5 October 1920

Villa Isola Bella Menton, France

Forgive my unworthiness and my failure these last days.
Your letter - surely the most wonderful letter a man ever wrote a woman, or a Boge ever wrote a Wig almost made me cry out: "Forgive me, forgive me".
It is what my suffering has given to me, this letter, the reward of it. I seem to have just a glimpse of something Ive never known before as I sit here thinking of you and me and our love . . . Its as though, looking across the plains, what I had thought was cloud dissolves, lifts and behind it there are mountains. Always a new silence, a new mystery.
My precious love.
You HAVE come here. I mean - the ache of desolation is over. Im not alone. Of course I long for you here, sharing my daily life, but I do not say ‘come'. Its not only on account of the money, Bogey. If I believed at this moment that I was going to die of course I would say ‘come' because it would be unbearable not . . . to have you to see me off on the journey where you know the train drops into a great black hole.
(No, I believe even then I couldnt say ‘come'.)
But what is it? I feel our ‘salvation', our ‘future' depends on our doing nothing desperate - but on holding on, keeping calm (this from me!) and leaving nothing in disorder, nothing undone. The ‘paper' isnt really the paper, I suppose. Its a kind of battle that the Knight has to wage and the Knight is you and me - he's our spirit. Also, my darling I have got the queer feeling that ‘holding on' we declare our faith in the future -our power to win through. This year is the important year for us. You ought, for your future freedom, to be where you are. You ought for THE FUTURE to keep the paper going one more year. [Letter to J. M. Murry in Collected Letters 6 October 1920]