Dear Fraülein,—
I promised that I would appeal to your reason. This is what I am doing, and I picture to myself a sensible, a very sensible young lady as reading these lines. I shall talk very frankly with you. You must also be perfectly frank, not only with me, but also with yourself, putting on no mask, affecting no pose—least of all those of virtue, such as belong only to the heroines of Gartenlaube novels. Real life must be taken and lived in another way, if one is reasonable, and that you are, my lovely Franka!
Now, listen: I have fallen violently in love with you. I saw you in the street and followed you. I made inquiries about you and your circumstances. I know the whole story; you are without family and without means, and are on the very threshold of bitter poverty. I also know that you are endeavoring to find a paying situation, for I followed you when you went to the employment office.
Tell me, really, would you, with your striking beauty, take up with a wage employment, be a dependent? Now there is one thing that I might have done: I might have tried little by little to sneak into your good graces and then ... but it goes against my grain to play the elderly Don Juan. I am aware that I no longer have the appearance to warrant my attempting to win young maidens’ hearts; but I can make a reasonable maiden happy: that is, I can offer her a care-free life, a life full of enjoyments. Only, there is to be no misunderstanding: this is not an offer of marriage. I am a confirmed old bachelor and I propose to remain one. What I offer you is better than the fortune of being the wife of an unloved and jealous old husband, for if you wished to deceive him it would entail great worry in hiding it and it might cause a damaged reputation besides.
I offer you freedom,—perfect liberty,—the unobtrusive society of a lively man, not without wit, who will, as they say, “look after you” as long as you will permit him to do so. First and foremost he offers you luxury. Listen: luxury. That means the essential element of beauty, the only atmosphere for a creature like you. A splendid villa in the cottage-quarter, servants, a carriage of your own, gowns, jewelry: everything of this sort I lay at your feet. This does not imply a retired and restricted life—not at all: in your salon we shall receive my friends and their lady friends,—artists and writers and interesting foreigners: it shall be a real salon where everything sparkles with intellect, music, and gayety; also theaters and concerts to your heart’s desire. And in summer: journeys, trips to the seashore, the mountains....
As you see, Franka, child, a horn of plenty filled with delights is going to be poured out for you. Only do not be a narrow-minded Philistine; only no “principles” and moral commandments after the type of ancient almanac stories or complimentary gift literature for girls of riper age. Life, my dear young lady, is entirely different from the stale moralities that find their expression in the samplers of old maids and that are honored in the tea-table chatter of suburban aunties, as they turn up their eyes in holy horror!—Life wants to be boldly grasped, to be conquered with joyous pride; above all, to be enjoyed.
Such an opportunity is not offered to many of your sex; how many, in spite of youth and beauty, must, if they are poor, waste their lives in degrading, wearisome, laborious occupations, struggling with all sorts of privations, only at last to take up with some rough husband who will make her wretched—unless, indeed, the terrible, abominable fate overtakes her, of which possibly you know nothing, of becoming a victim of the international white-slave traffic which not infrequently makes use of intelligence offices....
Was it not your good genius, your guardian angel, that has so disposed matters that an elderly man, heart-free and wise in experience, has crossed your path, has fallen in love first with your pretty face, then with your whole admirable personality, that this man has no other obligation than the disposition of a very large estate, and that he in fond expectation of your summons signs himself
Your humble Slave?
Malhof.