Jena, Nov. 6th.
Dear Roger,—This is only to tell you that I love you, supposing youshould have forgotten it by the time you get to London. The letter willfollow you by the train after the one you left by, and you will have itwith your breakfast the day after to-morrow. Then you will be eating themarmalade Jena could not produce, and you'll say, 'What a veryindiscreet young woman to write first.' But look at the Dear Roger, andyou'll see I'm not so indiscreet after all. What could be more sober?And you've no idea of all the nice things I could have put instead ofthat, only I wouldn't. It is a most extraordinary thing that this timeyesterday we were on the polite-conversation footing, you, in yourbeautiful new German, carefully calling me gnädiges Fräulein at everysecond breath, and I making appropriate answers to the Mr. Anstrutherwho in one bewildering hour turned for me into Dear Roger. Did youalways like me so much?—I mean, love me so much? My spirit is ratherunbendable as yet to the softnesses of these strange words, stiff forwant of use, so forgive a tendency to go round them. Don't you think itis very wonderful that you should have been here a whole year, livingwith us, seeing me every day, practising your German on me—oh, wasn't Ipatient?—and never have shown the least sign, that I could see, ofthinking of me or of caring for me at all except as a dim sort of younglady who assisted her step-mother in the work of properly mending andfeeding you? And then an hour ago, just one hour by that absurdcuckoo-clock here in this room where we said good-by, you suddenlyturned into something marvellous, splendid, soul-thrilling—well, intoDear Roger. It is so funny that I've been laughing, and so sweet thatI've been crying. I'm so happy that I can't help writing, though I dothink it rather gushing—loathsome word—to write first. But then youstrictly charged me not to tell a soul yet, and how can I keepaltogether quiet? You, then, my poor Roger, must be the one to listen.Do you know what Jena looks like to-night? It is the most dazzling placein the world, radiant with promise, shining and dancing with all sortsof little lovely lights that I know are only the lamps being lit inpeople's rooms down the street, but that look to me extraordinarily likestars of hope come out, in defiance of nature and fog, to give me aglorious welcome. You see, I'm new, and they know it. I'm not theRose-Marie they've twinkled down on from the day I was born tillto-night. She was a dull person: a mere ordinary, dull person, climbingdoggedly up the rows of hours each day set before her, doggedly doingcertain things she was told were her daily duties, equally doggedlycircumventing certain others, and actually supposing she was happy.Happy? She was not. She was most wretched. She was blind and deaf. Shewas asleep. She was only half a woman. What is the good or the beauty ofanything, alive or dead, in the world, that has not fulfilled itsdestiny? And I never saw that before. I never saw a great many thingsbefore. I am amazed at the suddenness of my awaking. Love passed throughthis house today, this house that other people think is just the samedull place it was yesterday, and behold—well, I won't grow magnificent,and it is what you do if you begin a sentence with Behold. But reallythere's a splendor—oh well. And as for this room where you—whereI—where we—well, I won't grow sentimental either, though now I know, Iwho always scoffed at it, how fatally easy a thing it is