Angle of Repose - Wallace Stegner [62]
We were not in the gay set of San Francisco, but we were what seemed to me gay, after the mine. We drove on the sands below the Cliff House and through the Park. I greatly enjoyed being whirled past the long lines of spray, flashing in the sun. The water came to the horses’ feet, the sea line was dark keen blue against the sky. The weather was perfect all the while we were there, the evenings very lovely, moonlight softened by fog. We were out a good deal–receptions, dinners, etc. They are very learned about cooking in San Francisco-people seem to expect as a matter of course things which we consider luxurious. Oliver and I spent all our money immediately, and only stopped because we had no more to spend.
Pray give my love to your dearest mother. She was very kind to think of me. We cannot help thinking it natural that we should be forgotten. You cannot think what a bond it was between me and the ladies I met in San Francisco–our loving remembrance of our old homes. They are all young married women who followed their husbands out here. All had a certain general line of experience–all could tell the same story of homesickness, of the return, and, alas, of the strange change which made the old seem new and unfamiliar. It made me feel like crying to hear them speak of it. “We do not forget,” they all said, “but they have no place for us when we return. We must be reconciled, for what we left behind us can never be ours again. We have lost our life in the East–we must make a new life for ourselves here.” They were charming women, well-bred, gentle, and very adaptable. They would go anywhere in the world where their husbands’ businesses made it necessary, and make a home. But I fancied in all of them a lingering sentiment for the old home, a pathetic sense of being aliens in the new. I am determined not to share their misfortune. I should feel lost if I thought this country would see me old.
I know that you and Thomas are both growing in ways both deep and broad. It makes me tremble a little, for I am not conscious of any growth in myself, and I cannot let you grow away from me. I am so afraid when you see me again you will find me poor and common.
New Almaden, Dec. 11, 1876
Darling Augusta–
Unless your eyes trouble you, dear Augusta, please read this to yourself.
I have followed your advice in one of the two ways in which you recommended me to be anticipating the evil day that is coming –as to the hardening of the nipples–but I do not know what you mean by using oil. Is it the abdomen that is to be rubbed? I begin to have a painfully stretched feeling–would oil relieve that?
I spoke to you about the advice Mrs. Prager gave me about the future. Of course I know nothing about it practically, and it sounds dreadful–but every way is dreadful except the one which it seems cannot be relied on.
Mrs. P. said that Oliver must go to a physician and get shields of some kind. They are to be had at some druggists’. It sounds perfectly revolting, but one must face anything rather than the inevitable results of nature’s methods. At all events there is nothing injurious about this. Mrs. Prager is a very fastidious woman and I hardly think would submit to anything very bad–and yet, poor thing, it is an absolute necessity for her. She is magnificently womanly and strong looking, but really very frail. These things are called “cundrums” and are made either of rubber or skin.
May I tell you of a queer thing that happened in San Francisco? I went to church with Mr. Prager on Thanksgiving morning–Oliver had an appointment with some men in town. Mrs. P. did not feel well enough to go. It was a mild, soft morning, the hill was very steep, the air very relaxing, like our first mild weather in spring, when the damp sea winds blow. We sat through the first part of the service but the organ made me feel strangely. Its throbbing seemed to stifle me and for the first time that pulse within me woke and throbbed so strongly it took away my breath. Mr. Prager sat on one side of me and Mr. Ashburner on the other. I thought I should faint and leaned against the seat. Everything grew dark and I did not know anything for a minute