Page 146 - Life of Gertrude Bell

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GERTRUDE DELL
travelling almost due west towards the Hijaz railway, within
range all the time of the Ruwalla and Bani Sakhr, but she was
concentrating on the ruins of Qasr al Arnra, Kharana and
Mcshetta, where she found ‘splendid surprises’. She worked on
the inscriptions of the Umayyad palaces at Kharana for two days
and arrived at the railway on January 6th. ‘My letter goes and I
fetch letters.’
Before leaving Damascus she had written to ‘Beloved Domnul’:
‘The world must get along without me for a bit. Anyhow, I shall
be glad to go. I want to cut all links with the world, and this is the
best and wisest thing to do ... Oh, Domnul, if you knew the way
I had paced backwards and forewards along the floor of hell for
the last few months, you would think me right to try any way out.
I don’t know that it is an ultimate way out, but it is worth trying.
As I have told you before it is mostly my fault, but that does not
prevent it from being an irretrievable misfortune — for both of
us. But I am turning away from it now, and time deadens even the
keenest things ... ’
Now she anxiously opened her long-awaited mail. He had left
Albania and was now in London. ‘I wonder where in the great
desert you might be?—I shall miss you more than ever when I
get back to London about December 20th. I shall go to see Lady
Bell ... ’ A letter dated December 23rd said simply: ‘Home to
find 2 letters ... I love your letters.’ Then on the 28th: ‘My dear —
There came this morning your book—and a letter. The book I
have read all day—it’s perfectly wonderful and I love it and you.
I can’t write about it yet — and it would take the book of my soul,
never written, to answer it. I kiss your hands and your feet, dear
woman of my heart. Let it be for a moment... ’ On January 5 th,
from Theberton Hall in Suffolk, ominous reference to domestic
differences: ‘Tonight if you were here would this be a between
time? Should I want to tell you ... of the disappointment of my
relations and my wife that I have not acquired any more letters
after my name? ... Not a bit. I should want to say nothing and
listen,—and then perhaps—ah I think surely —the curtain would
lift that shuts us in so close, and we should drift away happy down
the wind. I don’t know. I’m not going to write you a love letter ...
Where are you? It’s like writing to an idea, a dream ... Is it that
gloom that is so black tonight? Or is it the regret for things lost,
great and splendid things I find in your book, your mind and body,
and the dear love of you, all lost.’ And as an afterthought: