At other times, as he read her letter, he felt simply that at
least in the moment of writing it she had been with him. But in one of
the last she had said (to excuse a bad blot and an incoherent sentence):
"Everybody's talking to me at once, and I don't know what I'm writing."
That letter he had thrown into the fire....
After the first few weeks, the letters came less and less regularly:
at the end of two months they ceased. Ralph had got into the habit of
watching for them on the days when a foreign post was due, and as the
weeks went by without a sign he began to invent excuses for leaving the
office earlier and hurrying back to Washington Square to search
the letter-box for a big tinted envelope with a straggling blotted
superscription.
Undine's departure had given him a momentary sense of liberation: at
that stage in their relations any change would have brought relief. But
now that she was gone he knew she could never really go. Though his
feeling for her had changed, it still ruled his life. If he saw her in
her weakness he felt her in her power: the power of youth and physical
radiance that clung to his disenchanted memories as the scent she used
clung to her letters. Looking back at their four years of marriage he
began to ask himself if he had done all he could to draw her
half-formed spirit from its sleep. Had he not expected too much at
first, and grown too indifferent in the sequel? After all, she was still
in the toy age; and perhaps the very extravagance of his love had
retarded her growth, helped to imprison her in a little circle of
frivolous illusions.
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