《THURSDAY, MAY 11, 1944》

THURSDAY, MAY 11, 1944

Dearest Kitty,

Since I've left my entire "junk box" -- including my fountain pen -- upstairs and I'm not allowed to disturb the grown-ups during their nap time (until two-thirty), you'll have to make do with a letter in pencil.

I'm terribly busy at the moment, and strange as it may sound, I don't have enough time to get through my pile of work. Shall I tell you briefly what I've got to do? Well then, before tomorrow I have to finish reading the first volume of a biography of Galileo Galilei, since it has to be returned to the library. I started reading it yesterday and have gotten up to page 220 out of 320 pages, so I'll manage it. Next week I have to read Palestine at the Cross- roads and the second volume of Galilei. Besides that, I finished the first volume of a biography of Emperor Charles V yesterday, and I still have to work out the many genealogical charts I've collected and the notes I've taken. Next I have three pages of foreign words from my various books, all of which have to be written down, memorized and read aloud. Number four: my movie stars are in a terrible disarray and are dying to be straightened out, but since it'll take several days to do that and Professor Anne is, as she's already said, up to her ears in work, they'll have to put up with the chaos a while longer. Then there're Theseus, Oedipus, Peleus, Orpheus, Jason and Hercules all waiting to be untangled, since their various deeds are running crisscross through my mind like mul- ticolored threads in a dress. Myron and Phidias are also urgently in need of attention, or else I'll forget entirely how they fit into the picture. The same applies, for example, to the Seven Years' War and the Nine Years' War. Now I'm getting everything all mixed up. Well, what can you do with a memory like mine! Just imagine how forgetful I'll be when I'm eighty!

Oh, one more thing. The Bible. How long is it going to take before I come to the story of the bathing Susanna? And what do they mean by Sodom and Gomorrah? Oh, there's still so much to find out and learn. And in the meantime, I've left Charlotte of the Palatine in the lurch.

You can see, can't you, Kitty, that I'm full to bursting?

And now something else. You've known for a long time that my greatest wish is to be a journalist, and later on, a famous writer. We'll have to wait and see if these grand illusions (or delusions!) will ever come true, but up to now I've had no lack of topics. In any case, after the war I'd like to publish a book called The Secret Annex. It remains to be seen whether I'll succeed, but my diary can serve as the basis.

I also need to finish "Cady's Life." I've thought up the rest of the plot. After being cured in the sanatorium, Cady goes back home and continues writing to Hans. It's 1941, and it doesn't take her long to discover Hans's Nazi sympathies, and since Cady is deeply concerned with the plight of the Jews and of her friend Marianne, they begin drifting apart. They meet and get back together, but break up when Hans takes up with another girl. Cady is shattered, and because she wants to have a good job, she studies nursing. After graduation she accepts a position, at the urging of her father's friends, as a nurse in a TB sanatorium in Switzerland. During her first vacation she goes to Lake Como, where she runs into Hans. He tells her that two years earlier he'd married Cady's successor, but that his wife took her life in a fit of depression. Now that he's seen his little Cady again, he realizes how much he loves her, and once more asks for her hand in marriage. Cady refuses, even though, in spite of herself, she loves him as much as ever. But her pride holds her back. Hans goes away, and years later Cady learns that he's wound up in England, where he's struggling with ill health.

When she's twenty-seven, Cady marries a well-to-do man from the country, named Simon. She grows to love him, but not as much as Hans. She has two daughters and a son, Lthan, Judith and Nico. She and Simon are happy together, but Hans is always in the back of her mind until one night she dreams of him and says farewell.

. . .

It's not sentimental nonsense: it's based on the story of Father's life.

Yours, Anne M. Fran

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