New Woman, a phrase Ihad heard before often enough in my travels (do not think me vain, it is how the Europeans tend to speak of American things & people) — But at this moment, I believed he meant also new to him — I was claimed, right there in the midst of the parlor & its inhabitants & its upholsteries — claimed as his “new woman,” his enormous grey eyes, that look bigger than other eyes because his face is as broad & stern as a wind-swept sky, telling me — I feared I might convulse from the galvanic shock , I feared others might detect, yet I could not bring myself to remove his hands from my face, dear hands! —
I faintly claimed a migraine , asked for the windows to be opened, & the Springs assisted me home to our hotel.
Rebecca was too careful of my head to provoke me with conversation about our remarkable tea-party, but she did look sideways at me when I said the next morning that I hoped to make another visit to the Poet & his friends. We met him at a private concert that evening — forgive me that, tho’ it was M Chopin & he played his own compositions, I remember not a note! — as Mickiewicz gave me a letter, asking to meet me the following day at the home of a friend, in the afternoon. His letter also said what may shock you, Sophie — It said that I did not have the “right” to my virginity, that I needed to know love if I were to be the true New Woman. He had challenged me at first principles — You, who now know me well, know that I maintained the privilege of virginity both sincerely & also, in the depths of mysoul, as a solace for my failures with such as Mr Nathan. The Poet destroyed my argument with his words, so bold, so clear — the language with which free men & women must speak to one another, as I believe —
You must not be shocked at what transpired, my dear Sophie — He greeted me at the door, we were alone as I had hoped & perhaps feared. Our first words to one another, even as we embraced, were a solemn vow that we had met & been married in a previous life — we had the same happy notion — he said we had been peasants with a homely farm, I said no, he had been a Roman senator & I his wife — we knew that we had lived outside this time, in the past & in the future — that we were married already somewhere in the Universe —.
& What can be called “good” or “bad” after all? There is only the action that arises from one’s true character.
20 June
Cont: The next day I secured a small set of rooms in a side-street near the hotel, belonging to acquaintances who were away from town — & I told the Springs that I needed privacy to write, & nurse my head-aches, during the days. For two miraculous weeks, nearly every day he visited me in the afternoon, as early as he could get away. My rooms were on the second floor; I would slip down to the mews entrance & unlock the back door shortly before he was due — by avoiding the street door we hoped to escape detection — &he would come to me & stay until dusk. I often called him my “bear,” because he was so like a silvery Polish bear, but I also took to calling him, in the style of American slang affection, “Mish.” He laughed & exclaimed he had not known I spoke Polish — when I vowed I did not, he explained that the Polish word for “bear” is mis , pronounced mish . & Then he told me that his word for me is ges, said with a honking noise, something like gensch , & that it means “goose.”
One thing — & I hope this does not offend — we would, in the calm after the storm of love, set to make one another “spit-&-polish” fine — I in my shift, he in his shirt, would clean & trim one another’s nails. I would comb his shaggy mane, clean his ears & neck, snip his stray hairs. He could spend an hour combing my hair — he said it was the color of moonlight. He has terrible scars on his leg & on his head — from when he threw himself from a window years ago, in despair when he had first knew that his
I faintly claimed a migraine , asked for the windows to be opened, & the Springs assisted me home to our hotel.
Rebecca was too careful of my head to provoke me with conversation about our remarkable tea-party, but she did look sideways at me when I said the next morning that I hoped to make another visit to the Poet & his friends. We met him at a private concert that evening — forgive me that, tho’ it was M Chopin & he played his own compositions, I remember not a note! — as Mickiewicz gave me a letter, asking to meet me the following day at the home of a friend, in the afternoon. His letter also said what may shock you, Sophie — It said that I did not have the “right” to my virginity, that I needed to know love if I were to be the true New Woman. He had challenged me at first principles — You, who now know me well, know that I maintained the privilege of virginity both sincerely & also, in the depths of mysoul, as a solace for my failures with such as Mr Nathan. The Poet destroyed my argument with his words, so bold, so clear — the language with which free men & women must speak to one another, as I believe —
You must not be shocked at what transpired, my dear Sophie — He greeted me at the door, we were alone as I had hoped & perhaps feared. Our first words to one another, even as we embraced, were a solemn vow that we had met & been married in a previous life — we had the same happy notion — he said we had been peasants with a homely farm, I said no, he had been a Roman senator & I his wife — we knew that we had lived outside this time, in the past & in the future — that we were married already somewhere in the Universe —.
& What can be called “good” or “bad” after all? There is only the action that arises from one’s true character.
20 June
Cont: The next day I secured a small set of rooms in a side-street near the hotel, belonging to acquaintances who were away from town — & I told the Springs that I needed privacy to write, & nurse my head-aches, during the days. For two miraculous weeks, nearly every day he visited me in the afternoon, as early as he could get away. My rooms were on the second floor; I would slip down to the mews entrance & unlock the back door shortly before he was due — by avoiding the street door we hoped to escape detection — &he would come to me & stay until dusk. I often called him my “bear,” because he was so like a silvery Polish bear, but I also took to calling him, in the style of American slang affection, “Mish.” He laughed & exclaimed he had not known I spoke Polish — when I vowed I did not, he explained that the Polish word for “bear” is mis , pronounced mish . & Then he told me that his word for me is ges, said with a honking noise, something like gensch , & that it means “goose.”
One thing — & I hope this does not offend — we would, in the calm after the storm of love, set to make one another “spit-&-polish” fine — I in my shift, he in his shirt, would clean & trim one another’s nails. I would comb his shaggy mane, clean his ears & neck, snip his stray hairs. He could spend an hour combing my hair — he said it was the color of moonlight. He has terrible scars on his leg & on his head — from when he threw himself from a window years ago, in despair when he had first knew that his
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