Page:The Masses, Volume 1, Number 1.pdf/7

 my power. So I put on my fur coat, sat down in the light of the flickering lamp and read my engagement letters to you, which I had taken from their eleven years' resting place to send to you.

Emma, dear, I cannot describe the impression the reading of those letters produced upon me. I wept like a child, not only because of the sad ending to so promising a tie, but also because of the change that has taken place in me. There is much in the letters that is immature, much that does not correspond to my present views. But what a fresh, free, warmblo dedwarmblooded [sic] fellow I was! How I loved you! How happy I was! How naïvely, completely I abandoned myself to my happiness! Yes, that was everything—the youthful faith in life, the reckless pursuit of life, the exuberant feeling, which overflowed like a vine in springtime. Until now I thought it was only you who had changed gradually. Now I see I have not remained the same either. And God knows, when I compare the Max of then with the Max of to-day, I needn't hesitate an instant to make up my mind which I prefer.

In the sleepless night lying behind me I tried in every possible way to get myself back into the Max of former years, and I began to have serious doubts whether the difference in your and my opinions and even sentiments are after all so important as they seemed to us; whether above and beyond all that there was not something neutral, something human, which we both had in common, and which we shall always have in common.

Search yourself, dear Emma, and see whether a similar voice does not speak in your soul, too. What happened cannot be undone. But nothing would bring me greater relief in this painful situation than a confirmation of this from you. For your departure has left a gap in my home and in my life which I shall never, never be able to fill.Your very unhappy

.

Mrs. Emma Wiegand to Professor Max Wiegand

, December 27, 1909.



When you asked me questions about receipts and buttons I was glad to answer them. But the questions you ask me in your last letter I must refuse to answer. Do you really believe, you old pedant, that I left your home, which was also mine, only because we disagreed in our opinions and sentiments? If you do, you are fearfully mistaken. I left you because I saw more and more clearly that you no longer loved me. In fact, I had become a burden to you. You wanted to be rid of me. I could see that in everything you said and did. If in that "dignified" scene of seperationseparation [sic] you had found one loving word to say I might still have remained. But you always rode the high horse of a "world philosophy" from which you have now tumbled down so pitifully because you have no servants. I, too, served you faithfully, and you never saw it. I never let the fire go out in your home. It is not my fault if you could not get your home warm again.

Who knows whether you would have noticed the gap which my departure left if you had not happened to miss your fur coat. It was that

 

   

When the mills of men have ground us
 * To the fighting edge of fate.

Who can blame if lying around us
 * Is the wreckage of blind hate?

When for dollars we are broken
 * Like a fagot for a fire.

Who can blame if by that token
 * We inflame in razing ire?

When with being slave and chattel
 * For a pittance we have done,

Who can blame if we give battle?
 * We are many, they are one!

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