If I may advise you, Jeanne, I should suggest your leaving the future to take care of itself, till you are established in peace and quietness in some pretty neighbourhood. What do you say to Provence? At the moment you are nothing but a bundle of nerves, and I have half a mind to come across and do what I can to help you. But I am too lazy. To do anything to help people when it involves trouble, is not my métier; for you, even, I cannot take trouble, though I love you.
But if there is anything on your mind, please let me know what it is, for, as I said before, I am unable to make sense out of the nonsense you have written. Write as often and at as great length as you like, and the day will come, I hope, when I shall at last grasp your meaning. Is it a human being that is lacking, one with whom you can really talk? I am experiencing every day a crowd of little stupid things, that keep me going in a most agreeable fashion. But I am chiefly taken up with cherishing and cultivating my own precious appearance. Altogether, I was much more alive when we two sat together in our White Villa on the island, and saw the leaves falling from the trees.
Your
Elsie.
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Jeanne ... Malthe ... Jeanne ... Malthe.
Jeanne and he ... he and Jeanne....
I must try to understand it. Those two....
And, it was the child of these two, their child, I wanted to adopt....
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