You see, I am unable to advise you. Perhaps I have no right to take the responsibility upon me. I have often talked by the hour to your future husband. But as far as I can remember, we never touched on the topic of woman in the abstract. Thus it comes about that I am ignorant of what Malthe’s views are.
And yet—Malthe is the father of your child. The father of your unborn child.
Speak, Jeanne, speak openly and without fear. It will be setting up no defence for having yielded to his inclinations, but he will find in it a means of explaining and defending what happened before his time; for Joergen Malthe is not like other men.
If he has thought it right and natural that the woman he loves should become his in the way you have become his, he will think it right and natural that you should have exercised the sovereignty over your person before you knew him. All you have got to tell him afterwards is that you love him and that you have never loved any one but him.
I seem to myself at this moment so very ancient. Such an eternity lies between then and now, but that is as it should be.
Little travelling companion with the red hair, let me see you helping him now in the prime of his manhood to build up his reputation, so that his name will become immortal. You understand how to see—how to enjoy. Pack your infant when it is born in a little trunk with perforated lid, and take it about with you, or leave it behind. Don’t let it be a hindrance or a barrier between you two in your joint lives.
There is a great deal more that I should like to write, but now I must go and dress. You know “Tristan and Isolde” always was my favourite opera.
I was going to urge you not to show this letter to Malthe, but, after all, I leave you a free hand in the matter.
For many reasons I believe that if he saw it the consequences would not be disastrous.
With many embraces. I wish you a happiness that will last through life.