It is all so hard to put in words, Carley. To lie down with death and
get up with death was nothing. To face one's degradation was nothing.
But to come home an incomprehensibly changed man--and to see my old life
as strange as if it were the new life of another planet--to try to slip
into the old groove--well, no words of mine can tell you how utterly
impossible it was.
My old job was not open to me, even if I had been able to work. The
government that I fought for left me to starve, or to die of my maladies
like a dog, for all it cared.
I could not live on your money, Carley. My people are poor, as you know.
So there was nothing for me to do but to borrow a little money from my
friends and to come West. I'm glad I had the courage to come. What
this West is I'll never try to tell you, because, loving the luxury and
excitement and glitter of the city as you do, you'd think I was crazy.
Getting on here, in my condition, was as hard as trench life. But now,
Carley--something has come to me out of the West. That, too, I am unable
to put into words. Maybe I can give you an inkling of it. I'm strong
enough to chop wood all day. No man or woman passes my cabin in a month.
But I am never lonely. I love these vast red canyon walls towering above
me. And the silence is so sweet. Think of the hellish din that filled my
ears. Even now--sometimes, the brook here changes its babbling murmur
to the roar of war. I never understood anything of the meaning of nature
until I lived under these looming stone walls and whispering pines.
So, Carley, try to understand me, or at least be kind. You know they
came very near writing, "Gone west!" after my name, and considering
that, this "Out West" signifies for me a very fortunate difference. A
tremendous difference! For the present I'll let well enough alone.
Adios. Write soon. Love from GLEN
Carley's second reaction to the letter was a sudden upflashing desire
to see her lover--to go out West and find him. Impulses with her were
rather rare and inhibited, but this one made her tremble. If Glenn was
well again he must have vastly changed from the moody, stone-faced,
and haunted-eyed man who had so worried and distressed her. He had
embarrassed her, too, for sometimes, in her home, meeting young men
there who had not gone into the service, he had seemed to retreat into
himself, singularly aloof, as if his world was not theirs.