I will try to tell you what I have felt since reading your letter. All is so disgustingly calm in me now. But listen, I believe I have had a little glimpse this afternoon of what it is to _feel_; and because of that knowledge I now am not afraid to tell you that I claim something of God and life--that I can get it if you can. This has been very strong in me at moments, but, as I tell you, I have not yet learned to hold my glimpses of truth--they seem to come to me, and as quickly disappear.
I began to read your letter, and I cannot describe to you the convulsion that came over me. It seemed that I had the feeling of an empty skull on a desert; such a feeling--you can never have it! All the horror and despair! I tried to form my thoughts and tell myself it was not true. I tried to pray, and I did pray--out loud--and asked God to give me strength to read the letter.
I tried to use all the penetration I was capable of, to find out one thing, whether you were purely and unreservedly sincere in it. I wondered whether you really wished to live your life alone, but could not find the courage to tell me so. I firmly believe that no failure in the future, no disgust or helplessness, could ever bring me the complete anguish of those moments.
Can you realize what such a thing meant to me, Thyrsis?
Last spring, I had succeeded in bringing myself into an almost complete state of coma--I saw that I could do nothing, and because I would not endure such profitless pain I drugged myself to sleep. And you, you fiend, waked me up; and may your soul be thrice cursed if you have only pulled the doll to pieces _to see what it was made of!_ Know, you that have a soul which says it lives and suffers--that I can’t go to sleep again! There is no joy for me in mother or father, in friends or admiration--I can tolerate nothing that I tolerated before you came with your cursed or blessed fire!
Also, if you do not marry me, or if I do not find some man who has your strength and desire for life, and who will take me and help me to learn, I shall die without having lived.--And I cried out in misery--only forty-two years, only forty-two little years, and I shall be an old woman of sixty! Only forty-two years in which to learn to live!