I will expose the facts one by one, very clearly. I will tell you everything I know about my girlfriend and will ask you, afterwards, to tell me if I was mistaken or not. I am addressing myself to you because as an outsider you will be able to be an impartial judge. It is in the interest of my parents and friends for everything to work out. They know me. They know I am impressionable. And they will believe me less than you, who do not know me.
Because you have agreed to hear me out, I must first tell you what happened. You can see from the tone of what I just wrote that I am a sincere man, that I do not lie. I therefore beg you, while I am telling you this story, not to think you need to know my girlfriend’s version before you form an opinion. Only the spineless want to know the pros and cons in order not to take sides. So I am asking you to judge this story simply through what I tell you, otherwise you will cause me great pain.
I shall recount the story you are about to read as if I were not the main character. I shall have no bias. On the contrary, I shall not mention anything that casts me in a good light. I shall lay out clearly everything that does credit to my Henriette. You can see that all I long for is to be wrong.
So I will begin. Pay close attention. Do not skip over anything, because my happiness is at stake. Some other time, I will write a long letter to amuse you, a letter full of youthful imagination. And if it annoys you, do not finish it. It will not matter. But today, I beg you, pay attention. At the risk of repeating myself, let me say yet again that my happiness is in your hands.
* * *
My girlfriend is as sweet as an angel. I must tell you that, although she was pure when she gave herself to me, she did not wait until we were married to abandon herself and I am open-minded enough not to reproach her for this. It would be human enough for me to use this fact to degrade her in your eyes. Believe me, I see nothing in this proof of love that could allow what my dear Henriette did to be predicted. If she gave herself to me without our being married, it is my fault.
A thousand signs prove to me that my girlfriend adores me. She has forgiven me what many women would never have forgiven. Even though she is beautiful, she recognizes that a man’s lapse is not as great as a woman’s. Naturally, she did not say this to me, but I felt, deep down inside, she knew it. When in the past I did what I should not have done, she was not angry with me, but rather, with man’s very nature. And this fact alone demonstrates my girlfriend’s immense goodness.
There are additional signs that make her pure in my eyes. Other men do not exist for her. I believe I can discern, from certain details, from certain attitudes, that they repulse her just as they do me. She often says exactly what I would say about a man were I a woman. She could not invent these feelings if she did not have them. And this is another reason why I love her so much.
A few times I asked her what she would do if I lost a leg. And she always responded ardently that she would love me just as much.
Please forgive me for providing such details but, when you want to prove a woman loves you, they are necessary.
There is something else that proves her love, and that is the way she admires me. She takes all my opinions for her own. Sometimes, when I have not finished voicing my opinion on a subject, embarrassed by the difficulty I have expressing myself, she will finish my thought differently from how I would have. As soon as she realizes this, she stops herself and is even ready to contradict herself until we agree. Is this not the mark of great love, to show such self-abnegation? Do you believe that if my adored Henriette did not love me she would follow my line of thinking in this way, step by step? No, of course not.
That’s not all. So many things at every moment of the day and night demonstrate her love. When we are lying next to each other, I am always the first to turn away. Candy, cake, fruit—she always goes without in order to offer them to me and, if I don’t take them, because I know how fond she is of them, she insists with so much love that I would be hurting her if I continued to refuse them. Nothing exists for her. She sees all of life through me. And when she arrives late for one of our dates, do not think it is because she is trying to be coy. She wants to imitate other women. She forces herself to be late because she is a woman and sometimes she is afraid she will lose me if she is not enough of one.
No, my Henriette, you did not do that, and yet...
One day she asked me if I ever had the feeling when I was away from her that I had not been as kind to her as I could have been. Without thinking, I said no. How can you detect in a question asked in an ordinary voice everything that someone expects from your answer? She became a bit sad. She did not say anything right then, but later in the evening she told me I was not kind, that I did not love her as much as she loved me. And she added that whenever she was away from me, she had the impression she had not pleased me enough.
Often she reminds me of things I said that I had forgotten and that she had thought about for a long time without my suspecting. Her sweet little brain works tirelessly to make me happy.
With her, as with little children, I never mention death. But I have the feeling if I asked her to die with me, she would. She led me to understand as much without pronouncing the word “death,” out of modesty.
Now that you are familiar with my girlfriend from what I have said about her, I ask you to believe the portrait I have painted of her. Everyone will only have good things to tell you about her. Love has not deformed my judgment. This is how she is. And although it may be difficult to believe the portrait that one person paints of another, it is less difficult than believing in true love.
* * *
You know her well now, or at least you know how much she loves me, and that is what is important. So I am going to tell you what happened.
This is what happened. Two months ago, I was not feeling well. It was a Friday. The day was a cold one, but the sun was shining in the blue sky. We’d had lunch at home. We were just finishing up when Henriette came over to me and kissed me.
“Darling, will you let me take a little walk?”
“Of course.”
“I’d like to buy a few things.”
“Shall I come along?”
“Why not, my darling?”
Then she changed the subject, busied herself with this and that and, picking up one of my books, sat down in an armchair. Jokingly, I said to her:
“You’re going to know that one by heart!”
Indeed, she only reads the books I have written, and since there aren’t many, she reads them over and over.
“That’s what I want, my love. I am jealous of your thoughts.”
I did not really understand what she meant, but I felt she was trying to make me understand that my work represented a rival to her.
I know that, even though she loved me very much, what she said was not completely sincere. She said it because women are supposed to be jealous of their husbands’ work. But I am indulgent. What is the use of taking offense at that? One shouldn’t ask too much of a woman. And then again, this lack of sincerity is also a kind of love.
She sat back down and continued reading. Although she admired my writing, she closed the book before the end of a chapter, stood up, and said to me:
“You are really amazing! You notice everything. Well, I’m going out, darling.”
“Don’t you want me to come with you?”
“Yes, of course. But wait, there is still something at the end of your book that I want to reread. You know, the story about the unfaithful wife. It’s amazing. Don’t tell me you haven’t been acquainted with a woman like her.”