Do not be afraid of my words; a dead woman wants nothing any more, neither love nor pity nor comfort. I want only one thing from you: I want you to believe everything that my pain tells you here, seeking refuge with you.

It consisted of about two dozen sheets, more of a manuscript than a letter and written hastily in an agitated, feminine hand that he did not know.

I have only you, who never knew me, and whom I have always loved.

[...]

— but I am summoning up all my strength to speak to you once, just this one time, my beloved who never knew me.

[...]

I speak only to you; for the first time I will tell you everything, the whole story of my life, a life that has always been yours although you never knew it.

— oh, I recollect every detail with passion. As if it were today, I remember the very day, no, the very hour when I first heard your voice and set eyes on you for the first time, and how could I not? It was only then that the world began for me. Allow me, beloved, to tell you the whole story from the beginning. I beg you, do not tire of listening to me for a quarter of an hour, when I have never tired of loving you all my life.

By some common instinct, the whole building hated that family, and when something suddenly happened to them — I think the husband was jailed for theft — and they had to move out, bag and baggage, we all breathed a sigh of relief.