Letter to a Wound, poem

The maid has just cleared away tea and I shall not be dis-
turbed until supper. I shall be quite alone in this room, 
free to think of you if I choose, and believe me, my dear, I 
do choose. For a long time now I have been aware that you 
are taking up more of my life every day, but I am always 
being surprised to find how far this has gone. Why, it was 
only yesterday, I took down all those photographs from my 
mantelpiece—Gabriel, Olive, Mrs. Marshall, Molim, and 
the others. How could I have left them there like that so 
long, memorials to my days of boasting? As it is, I've still far 
too many letters. (Vow. To have a grand clearance this 
week-hotel bills-bus tickets from Damascus, presenta- 
tion pocket-mirrors, foreign envelopes, etc.)
   Looking back now to that time before I lost my "health" 
(Was that really only last February?) I can't recognize my- 
self. The discontinuity seems absolute. But of course the 
change was really gradual. Over and over again in the early 
days when I was in the middle of writing a newsy letter to 
M., or doing tricks in the garden to startle R. and C., you 
showed your resentment by a sudden bout of pain. I had 
outbursts, wept even, at what seemed to me then your in- 
sane jealousy, your bad manners, your passion for spoiling 
things. What a little idiot I was not to trust your more 
exquisite judgment, which declined absolutely to let me go 
on behaving like a child. People would have tried to explain
it all. You would not insult me with pity. I think I've 
learned my lesson now. Thank you, my dear. I'll try my 
hardest not to let you down again.
   Do you realize we have been together now for almost 
a year? Eighteen months ago, if anyone had foretold this to 
me I should have asked him to leave the house. Haven't I 
ever told you about my first interview with the surgeon?
He kept me waiting three-quarters of an hour. It was rain- 
ing outside. Cars passed or drew up squeaking by the curb. 
I sat in my overcoat, restlessly turning over the pages of 
back numbers of illustrated papers, accounts of the Battle of 
Jutland, jokes about special constables and conscientious 
objectors. A lady came down with a little girl. They put on 
their hats, speaking in whispers, tight-lipped. Mr. Gangle 
would see me. A nurse was just coming out as I entered, 
carrying a white-enamelled bowl containing a pair of scis- 
sors, some instruments, soiled swabs of cotton wool. Mr. 
Gangle was washing his hands. The examination on the 
hard leather couch under the brilliant light was soon over. 
Washing again as I dressed he said nothing. Then reach- 
ing for a towel turned, "I'm afraid," he said. . . .
   Outside I saw nothing, walked, not daring to think. I've 
lost everything, I've failed. I wish I was dead. And now, 
here we are, together, intimate, mature.

   Later. At dinner Mrs. T. announced that she'd accepted 
an invitation for me to a whist-drive at the Stewarts' on 
Wednesday. "It's so good for you to get out in the evenings 
sometimes. You're as bad as Mr. Bedder." She babbled on, 
secretly disappointed, I think, that I did not make more 
protest. Certainly six months ago she couldn't have brought 
it off, which makes me think what a great change has come 
over us recently. In what I might call our honeymoon stage, 
when we had both realized what we meant to each other 
(how slow I was, wasn't I?) and that this would always be 
so, I was obsessed (You too a little? No?) by what seemed 
my extraordinary fortune. I pitied everybody. Little do you 
know, I said to myself, looking at my neighbour on the bus, 
what has happened to the little man in the black hat sitting 
next to you. I was always smiling. I mortally offended Mrs. 
Hunter, I remember, when she was describing her son's
career at Cambridge. She thought I was laughing at her. 
In restaurants I found myself drawing pictures of you on 
the bottom of the table mats. "Who'll ever guess what that 
is?" Once, when a whore accosted me, I bowed, “I deeply 
regret it, Madam, but I have a friend." Once I carved on 
a seat in the park "We have sat here. You'd better not.”
   Now I see that all that sort of thing is juvenile and silly, 
merely a reaction against insecurity and shame. You as 
usual of course were the first to realize this, making yourself 
felt whenever I had been particularly rude or insincere.
   Thanks to you, I have come to see a profund significance 
in relations I never dreamt of considering before, an old 
lady's affection for a small boy, the Waterhouses and their 
retriever, the curious bond between Offal and Snig, the 
partners in the hardware shop on the front. Even the 
close-ups on the films no longer disgust nor amuse me. On 
the contrary they sometimes make me cry; knowing you has 
made me understand.
   It's getting late and I have to be up betimes in the morn- 
ing. You are so quiet these days that I get quite nervous, 
remove the dressing. No I am safe, you are still there. The 
wireless says that the frost is coming. When it does, we 
know what to expect, don't we? But I am calm. I can wait. 
The surgeon was dead right. Nothing will ever part us. 
Good-night and God bless you, my dear.
   Better burn this.