How came I to love you? When my young mind moved toward the mysteries of flesh, it was not your flesh made the search sweet. When my young spirit went upon its journey, knowing there was no end, it was not your spirit made the journey sweet. You have come late upon me: yet all my seeking is dead without you, and all my seeking has come full upon you! When I first saw you, my thought was not to kiss your mouth, but to achieve a knowledge and a power, like your own beauty’s wisdom beyond words. What mystery is this?--And what mystery is my despair to-night? Am I not close to Mildred? Could not a fool see in her luminous candor the dawn of love? There was a danger, and that danger is dead! While it lived.... I pace my room: back and forth from the recessed windows to the wall where stands a little table with a vase holding a white lily. And I try to think. --You must see. You must understand. Yes, yes. I have gone too far to fall back easefully on ignorance. --You must probe. You must understand. Yes, yes. I look at my books. --Not that. I think of Mildred. --Not Mildred.... I stand still: a shudder swarms my skin, draws my throat taut, uprises in my hair.... * * * * * ... the white room larded with books: the face noble and reticent, and the swift births of amaze, of pity, of horror ... indecorous death. Pale hands fluttering up like rebellious dreams--and fallen. * * * * * My own hands bar my eyes.... How do I know this is not morbid nonsense? --What then is sense? I am not so used to murder that this news, passionately close to my love’s life, should not move me. --I do not blame you, that you are moved. “_What can I do?_” I speak these words aloud, and the despair that dwells in them takes shape. Shape of an impulsion. I know already what I am going to do. But I contrive even now to laugh at myself. --Fine man of science, driven by despair. Illogical, driven man! I take off my clothes, and though the night is warm, I shiver in my bed. _f_ I am asleep and dawn is all about me: dawn within me: I am up from bed and I am putting on my clothes. My face in the mirror wakes me. I am half dressed already, and my mind says: “You must not forget to shave.” I see my face. The mirror is by the window, it stands on a highboy in my bedroom. Dawn is a mingling of stirs: whistle of boat in the river fog, rattle of wagon in the gray cool mists turning and twisting, footbeat solitary on the damp hard pavement--this is dawn coming by the window into my room, to my face. I look at my face, and then my face awakes me. I put a fresh blade in my razor and shave swiftly. I take off the underwear of yesterday that my hands, while I slept, put on: I bathe cold: I dress fast.