A letter from a strange woman

Chapter V, Section V

Now you see, my dear, what a miracle you were, what a seductive mystery you were to me as a child! A man whom everyone feared for him, because he had written books, because he was famous in that other big world, and now suddenly found him a handsome, handsome, happy twenty-five-year-old like a child! Do I still have to say to you that from this day forward, in our building, in my whole world of poor children, there is nothing more intriguing me than you. I have used all the strength of a thirteen-year-old girl, all the stubbornness of entanglement, to spy on your life, to spy on your life. I observe you, I observe your habits, I observe the people you come here, and all this, far from diminishing, increases my curiosity about you personally, because the guests who come to visit you are all kinds of *colorful*, three teachings and nine streams, which reflects the duality of your sexuality*. You come here young men, your classmates, a bunch of ragged college students, and you talk and laugh with them, and you get carried away; sometimes there are wives who come in cars, and once the manager of the opera house, the great orchestra conductor, has come, and I have only seen him standing in front of the sheet music stand with reverence in the past. Then there are the little girls who are still in the business school, and they sneak into the door with a twist and a squeeze. All in all, there were many, many women among the people who came. I don't think anything special about this, but one morning when I went to school, I saw a lady coming out of your house with a veil on her head, and I didn't think it was anything special—I was only thirteen years old, and I listened to and spied on your actions with a feverish curiosity. In the child's mind, it is not known that this curiosity is already love.

But, my dear, that day, that moment, the day, that moment, when I fell in love with you whole and forever, I still remember it vividly. I took a walk with a female classmate and stood at the gate chatting. Then a small car pulled up, and as soon as it stopped, you jumped off the pedal with your agitated, agile gesture, which still makes me fall in love with you, and wanted to enter the door. A subconscious force forced myself to open the door for you, so that I could block your way, and the two of us almost bumped into each other. You looked at me with that warm, soft, affectionate gaze, which was like a veined expression, and you smiled at me—yes, I can't say anything else, but had to say: smile affectionately at my veins, and say in a very light, almost affectionate voice: ?

"Thanks, Miss!"

That's how it went, my dear; but from this moment on, from the moment I felt that soft, veined gaze, I belonged to you. Soon after I learned that for every woman who walked by you, to every female clerk who sold you something, to every maid who opened the door for you, you cast your embracing, attractive, sensual and soul-destroying gaze, the gaze of your innate seducer. I also know that this gaze in you is not a conscious expression of affection and admiration, but because you have affection for women, so when you look at them, you unconsciously make your eyes soft and warm. But my thirteen-year-old didn't feel anything about it: I felt like a fire was burning in my heart. I thought that your tenderness was only for me, only for me, and in this instant, in the heart of my underage, I already felt that I was a woman, and this woman belonged to you forever.