on the finger of my fiancée. And my romantic dreams about good-looking young men, about doctors and sensual cures.
No, I’m not going to read Božena’s letter. It would hurt me too much. I have persecuted an unhappy and defenseless woman, as defenseless and unhappy as I am myself. With one huge difference: my legacy to posterity will be a few police reports, whereas Božena’s work will always be read. Maybe they’ll even be reading her stories a hundred years from now or more. No matter how much they spy on you, Božena, no matter how much hunger and misery they subject you to, and how much they distance you from your friends, people will always admire and respect you. You are important for the simple reason that they pay you such attention, that they create these piles of paper full of reports about your life, that you merit the cost of informers and spies like myself. What will happen when I am gone? Why, look, there will be a burial attended by my father and siblings and nobody else. Afterward they’ll have lunch in a restaurant and will raise a toast, perhaps, to the memory of poor, unhappy Vítězka, who reveled in her fifteen minutes of glory when she worked as a police informer. Maybe somebody will shed a tear. Then they’ll go back home, and the next day everything will be as before and Vítězka? Vítězka will gradually be forgotten.
And how about for you, Božena? Your readers will organize a funeral worthy of a queen. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of people will turn up to say their farewells. They will mourn you for months on end, publicly and in private. Later, they’ll write books about you, they will delve into your parents’ lives and will take such an interest in you that you could well be a planet spinning in the universe. Perhaps someday one of those shining stars will even bear your name. For men and women both, you will always be Mnemosyne, an untouchable goddess, mother of the muses, the most beautiful statue in the ancient world. That is the difference between we two wretched women: I am common, banal; and you, surprising, prodigious, unique.
Deep down, are you as unhappy as you seem? No. You have dreams that you believe in with an obstinacy made of steel. In the letter now in my hand, you write to your sister, I suppose about this most recent doctor and lover of yours: “Although he has hurt me, I believe in him. I believe in him, even though it might all be nothing but a sham. Don’t break up my dream, don’t spoil my poetry.”
Yes, Božena, you have your dream world, full of beauty, love, and poetry, which nobody can take from you. Your dream world, as attractive as the real one is ugly, gives you strength to keep going. You are not afraid of human evil or police harassment. Like the girl in your folktale who gets her strength from the fantastical world hidden in a willow tree, your folktales are full of supernatural powers that bring harmony and justice to the world. You, in turn, give sweetness and consolation to the world, but above all you give it to yourself! I, too, dream. And I dream of love, but do I know any men except those who are already your admirers, Božena? Do I have any other choice but to imagine myself with your devotees? Do I have any other possibility beyond that of projecting myself onto you, of projecting you onto me? Of an attempt to become you? And to write about. . . about your lovers, about my lovers?
It doesn’t stop raining. We are at the tail end of winter; the snow makes a slushing sound when trodden. It’s better not to go outdoors unless absolutely necessary, or to do so only in the evening when merciful darkness hides all that dirt. She ought to be happy: she has managed to get her publisher to pay her some money. She should buy something for dinner, at least for her children. But she doesn’t have enough strength to do so. She would prefer to sit on the pavement or in front of a church. Yes, in front of a church like that ancient sage with whom she had flown between the chimneys. What would he advise her to do now?
After days, weeks, of sadness that she found all but unbearable, under the weight of which she had collapsed,