Page:Margaret Fuller Ossoli (Higginson).djvu/287

Rh was mild when I set out, but by the fatality that has attended me throughout, in the night changed to a cold unknown in Italy, and remained so all the time I stayed. There was, as is common in Italy, no fireplace except in the kitchen. I suffered much in my room with its brick floor, and windows through which came the cold wind freely. My darling did not suffer, because he was robed in wool. When I first took him in my arms, he made no sound, but leaned his head against my bosom, and stayed so. He seemed to say, how could you abandon me. They told me that all the day of my departure he could not be comforted, always looking toward the door. He has been a strangely precocious infant. I think it was through sympathy with me; and that in that regard it may be a happiness for him to be with these more plebeian, instinctive joyous natures. I saw that he was more serene, that he was not sensitive as when with me, and slept a great deal more.

“You speak of my being happy. All the solid happiness I have known has been at times when he went to sleep in my arms. You say when ——’s beautiful life had been so wasted, it hardly seemed worth while to begin another. I had all those feelings too; I do not look forward to his career and his manly life, it is now I want to be with him, before passion, care, and bafflings begin. If I had a little money I should go with him into strict retirement for a year or two, and live for him alone. This I cannot do; all life that has been or could be natural to me is invariably denied. God knows why, I suppose.

“I receive with profound gratitude your thought of taking him, if anything should happen to us. Should I live, I don’t know whether I should wish him to be an