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r u n n i n g h e a d • 145 • chapter four October –December  B ack in her Jackson garden in October 1944, Welty was still anxious about Robinson, who was volunteering to accompany pilots from his squadron on night missions in northern Italy. The end of the war now seemed much farther off than it had in August when the Allies liberated Paris. The year 1945 brought more of the war’s horrors: firebombing in Dresden and Tokyo, concentration camps in Germany, colossal casualties in the Pacific theater. Roosevelt ’s death on April 12, one day before Welty’s thirty-sixth birthday, struck her as “so personal a thing.” Although V-E day in May was a relief, the war continued in the Pacific, where Welty’s brother Walter was stationed. When the US dropped atomic bombs on Japan, she wrote Robinson, “I only tremble. And you can’t even really tremble for the whole universe” (8.7.45). Against this backdrop of worry and helplessness, Welty’s art had begun to acquire new momentum. Writing about a Delta family was also, for Welty, “so personal a thing,” a way to connect with Robinson, who enjoyed reading about his family’s home region. The characters in her Delta fiction, unlike their author, showed little concern for events that extended beyond their privileged family, and yet Welty grew fonder of these characters the more she wrote about them; she told Russell, “I am not mad at anybody in the story no matter what they do” (5.25.45). Although she called her work in progress a story, its length was exceeding a story’s limits, and it was proving to be more complex and ambitious than any of Welty’s previous works. She told Robinson that it “just fascinates me and works me—Enough, though it’s like garden work and women’s work—never done—” (3.31.45). A synergy among these kinds of work was evident in the letters she wrote that spring. As the months passed and Robin- r u n n i n g h e a d • 146 • son and her brothers were still not home, flowers and wide horizons continued to appear in Welty’s letters as emblems of “the hope that it will end . . . and the world will be gentle again” (2.13.45). ∂ October 20, 1944 Dear John— Are you all right? This nearly kills me—I didn’t know you didn’t need to go . . . I wish I could think of a way to ask you that would prevail, but do ask you so hard, not to go and be in all the worst danger and it not needed—O God I feel shaky and may be stupid in my head but it sounds wild and crazy and overworked to me and I want you to come out of it—quick— Do you remember we love you so—I know you do—but I could just almost think you don’t right now—Could I send you some more picnic lists—call you back—to the earth—I remember I love you and try to think the general will prevail— Write soon—Don’t be in that damned thing— Love Eudora ∂ October 23, 1944 Dear John, your nice long letter—mailed the 16th and came in 8 days— so glad you’re living in the villa now—and I don’t think you’d been up in the air and that was real good to hear—you don’t know. Thanks for writing the intelligence officer—maybe he will know something and can tell you—all my aunt has is the telegrams that the boy1 is a German prisoner. I hope he’s still in Yugo so maybe will get free before so long. Mother said thank you a lot—just that you wrote this man makes her feel better. I missed you so yesterday, out in the country—the Delta beautiful and the October day beautiful and we were riding along—all afternoon, and the warm clear light that falls over the fields and lies on the Yazoo—and the little bayous—the sugarcane and the sorghum bright in the fields—cotton very full and the gins running—little fluffs of cotton lining the roads all the way, spilled out of full wagons—the chinaberry trees turning like a fruit, green on one side and bright golden on the other—the maples red and sweetgums red—the Indian...

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