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little to do with an act of retching.
    Of course it is finally clear to me now that I am not going to show you this. You have too much to bear as it is and its egoism would be unpardonable. I am making a story of myself to myself. This will help me. At least I think it will. Like one who suddenly finds himself at sea and is sick; after the bout—what relief! But there are many bouts—before he finds his sea legs and is well again. Isn’t that a satisfactory literary figure? But it’s a mysterious ship. The queer thing about it all, Ranald, is that I must write it to you. If I hadn’t you, I couldn’t write. Writing would be impossible, unthinkable. Oh, utterly. What would happen to me then—but I black out. I can afford to, for you are. Which is very marvellous. Also the writing to you will keep me within certain bounds. I know what they are. Also—for I must be honest or all would be mockery—I feel that I am doing this for you. And I am not just thinking selfishly of my getting well for your sake and mine. It’s far deeper than that. But I cannot tell you yet. I cannot even write it. I am only hoping that I may some day.
    It is after midnight. The house is very quiet and outside the quietness reigns. There should be great healing in this quietness. I wonder if I should put out my light and chance going to sleep without help? I feel I might. I hardly dare risk it. I’ll take only one tablet. Good night, Ranald.
5
    I had a lovely sleep. Is there anything more exquisite in the world than wakening from a perfect sleep? The light is new; it greets you. Honestly, Ranald, it does. There is a glance in it, like the glance of laughing eyes, and the sky is blue, and the old wind is wandering about fresh as clover. It’s there! you think. That other world is there. It has found you with its sly mirth. It’s here.
    It was here all the time, of course, but when you have lost it you don’t believe it’s anywhere. An illusion or delusion that any psychologist can explain away without the slightest difficulty. Nae bother, as Hamish used to say. How is he? Did he have his picture show? Do tell me. I never could understand what he meant by time; I got lost in his words as in a wood. The only thing I understood was his distrust of people who could explain things slickly. When I saw that momentary sobering come to his face like a dry wind, and heard his Ay! he’s a know-all, I never could help laughing. Then he looked and laughed himself. Roared. It was always an exhilarating moment. The trees in the wood were scattered about and the sun came in. Many thought his pictures mad. I remember when a certain one—I cannot even write his name—dismissed them with know-all expression and smile as private phantasies, I could have slain him. All I managed was to retort that I preferred Hamish’s private phantasies to most men’s public thoughts. Then, knowing I was getting at him, he looked at me, and the know-all expression and smile conveyed with insinuating silence: So that’s the way the wind is blowing? A crush on Hamish! And he showed he enjoyed the news. It was at such a moment, Ranald—and this was before the break came—that I knew that I too wanted destruction for its own sake. That awful uprising desire to catch with your hands and tear asunder, to destroy. Remember that night, the race of the two cars? As the excitement and the hectic laughter grew—faster! faster!—what were we all racing upon but destruction? And when the excitement became intolerable and Julie screamed her mad challenge and we crossed the fatal border in our minds, what were we all rushing upon but self-destruction? We knew the craving. I saw it in a face that haunts me. The unbearable craving for the final obliterating crash.
    I stopped there and went out for a walk. It angered me that I could not even begin to tell you of beautiful real things without getting messed up by