No, I will not open it. I do not wish to know what he writes.... It is
a long letter.

* * * * *

My nerves are quiet. But I often lie awake, and my sleep is broken. The
stars are shining over my head, and I never before experienced such a
sense of repose and calm. Is this the effect of the stars, or the
letter?

I am forty-two! It cannot be helped. I cannot buy back a single day of
my life. Forty-two! But during the night the thought does not trouble
me. The stars above reckon by ages, not by years, and sometimes I smile
to think that as soon as Richard returns home, the rooms in our house in
the Old Market will be lit up, and the usual set will assemble there
without me.

The one thing I should like to know is whether Malthe is still in
Denmark.

I would like to know where my thoughts should seek him--at home or
abroad.

I played with him treacherously when I called him "the youth," and
treated him as a mere boy. If we compare our ages it is true enough,
but not if we compare feelings.

Can there be anything meaner than for a woman to make fun of what is
really sacred to her? My feelings for Malthe were and still are sacred.