XIVA LETTER
Theyhad put out the lights. Even the night-light at the far end of the hall was turned low, but sentences wrote themselves out on the ceiling; a pause, then a sentence; a pause, then another.
‘... Could it have been the wine she gave us at supper—the barefooted old woman? I was so very thirsty!... I can’t understand. I can’t believe, yet I distinctly remember insisting that I ride that horse.... I was so horribly frightened—except when I was near you.... I couldn’t help seeing how the others turned to you.... Won’t you please believe I never acted like that before?... It was because you were so firm—that I could breathe better where you were.... And in the car—it was like hanging on a cross, wasn’t it?... Oh, won’t you get word to me that you forgive?’
‘... Could it have been the wine she gave us at supper—the barefooted old woman? I was so very thirsty!... I can’t understand. I can’t believe, yet I distinctly remember insisting that I ride that horse.... I was so horribly frightened—except when I was near you.... I couldn’t help seeing how the others turned to you.... Won’t you please believe I never acted like that before?... It was because you were so firm—that I could breathe better where you were.... And in the car—it was like hanging on a cross, wasn’t it?... Oh, won’t you get word to me that you forgive?’
Such a stillness around each sentence.