4936. RB to Euphrasia Fanny Haworth
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 29, 189–191.
Florence,
July 20. ’61.
My dear friend, I well know you feel as you say, for her once & for me now. Isa Blagden, perfect in all kindness to me, will have told you something perhaps—and one day I shall see you and be able to tell you myself as much as I can. The main comfort is that she suffered very little pain, none beside that ordinarily attending the simple attacks of cold and cough she was subject to, had no presentiment of the result whatever, and was consequently spared the misery of knowing she was about to leave us: she was smilingly assuring me she was “better”, “quite comfortable—if I would but come to bed”—to within a few minutes of the last. I think I foreboded evil even at Rome, certainly from the beginning of the week’s illness—but when I reasoned about it, there was no justifying fear: she said on the last evening “It is merely the old attack, nor so severe a one as that of two years ago—there is no doubt I shall soon recover”– And we talked over plans for the Summer, and next year. I sent the servants away & her maid to bed—so little reason for disquietude did there seem. Thro’ the night she slept heavily, & brokenly—that was the bad sign—but then she would sit up, take her medicine, say unrepeatable things to me and sleep again. At four o’clock there were symptoms that alarmed me,—I called the maid & sent for the Doctor [1] —she smiled as I proposed to bathe her feet “Well, you are making an exaggerated case of it!” Then came what my heart will keep till I see her and longer—the most perfect expression of her love to me within my whole knowledge of her—always smilingly, happily, and with a face like a girl’s—and in [a] few minutes she died in my arms, her head on my cheek. These incidents so sustain me that I tell them to her beloved ones as their right: there was no lingering, nor acute pain, nor consciousness of separation, but God took her to himself as you would lift a sleeping child from a dark, uneasy bed into your arms and the light. Thank God. Annunziata thought by her earnest ways with me, happy and smiling as they were, that she must have been aware of our parting’s approach—but she was quite conscious, had words at command, and yet did not even speak of Peni who was in the next room– Her last word was—when I asked “How do you feel?” “Beautiful.”
You know I have her dearest interest to attend to at once—her child to care for, educate, establish properly—and my own life to fulfil as properly,—all, just as she would require were she here. I shall leave Italy altogether for years—go to London for a few days talk with Arabel—then go to my father, and begin to try leisurely what will be the best for Peni—but no more “housekeeping” for me, even with my family. I shall grow, still, I hope—but my root is taken—remains.
I know you always loved her, and me too in my degree. Forgive my old peevish ways, which came from being too rich,—I shall trouble nobody with them more—but always be grateful to those who loved her—and that, I repeat, you did.
She was, is, lamented with extraordinary demonstrations, if one consider it: the Italians seem to have understood her by an instinct. I have received strange kindness from everybody. Pen is very well, very dear & good, anxious to “comfort me” as he calls it. He can’t know his loss yet. After years, his will be more than mine, he will want what he never had—that is, for the time when he could be helped by her wisdom, and genius and piety: I have had everything & shall not forget.
God bless you, dear friend: I believe I set out in a week: Isa goes with me,—dear, true heart. You, too, would do what you could for us were you here and your assistance needful. A letter from you came a day or two before the end—she made me enquire about the “Frescobaldi Palace” for you,—Isa wrote to you in consequence. I shall be heard of at 151. Rue de Grenelle, Faubourg St Germn.
Faithfully & affectionately yours
Robert Browning.
Publication: LRB, pp. 64–65.
Manuscript: British Library.
1. Dr. Wilson.
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