write about the kind of life I myself would like to live, which is like the one Božena has had for herself. She has her husband and her children, she publishes one book after another, people read her and worship her, and on top of all that she has dozens of male admirers, maybe even dozens of lovers! They adore her. Božena writes to one of them in a letter: “What you have written to me, about having a right to feel proud because people honor and respect me, you yourself cannot have really believed this even when you wrote it, and now I myself can do nothing but smile as I read it.”
That’s how she replies to her lover’s praises, playing at being a foolish little girl, the goody two-shoes, and delicate flower, to whom success means nothing. And the things she writes next! “A sincere heart, the endeavor to achieve perfection, the striving to help my people to the utmost limit of my capability—these are the only things at which I am superior to normal women, who do no good in the world.”
I will tell the police exactly what I know of you: that you are an illegitimate child, that the people you think of as your parents are not your real ones; that you married an imperial civil servant on purpose to cling to as you pave your way to Vienna, but in Prague, among Czech patriots, you also want to stand out, which is why you won’t stop boring the pants off us with your verses and stories and pretty words about the unity of the Slav peoples. In my police report, I will also include the fact that when only newly wedded you couldn’t bear to be with your husband, that you went in search of male friends and lovers, always in such a way that they helped your literary career; that you used the same criteria when choosing your female friends, who always had to be wealthy girls from good families, like Johanna and Sophie; that your friends are influential, well-known, and respected people, people such as Čelakovský, Purkyně, Erben, and Havlíček; and how you flirted your head off with all of them so they would contribute flattering reviews of your writing in the newspapers. I will not forget to add that you are a heartless mother, your children do not get enough to eat, while you just go on writing, even though you know that if you write you will hurt your family because the imperial police are after you. But above all, I will tell them that you have a lover. I do not know for certain, nor do I care. The police, and eventually society in general, will know that you are a fallen woman. From then on, no one will give you a helping hand, no one! What more is there to be said? I will fill in the details myself. I have a rich imagination and my dreams are in full bloom. Yes, you are a depraved woman who pursues relationships outside wedlock.
But no matter how much this may be the case, if, in the future, people remember ideas from this time, they will be yours. For they are easy to listen to. When you say: “What I long for is love, a true love, but not for one single person, but rather for everybody, for all humanity, a love that asks nothing in return, a love that would improve me, that would bring me closer to truth,” that sounds pretty, very much so, and when seen in an album of memorabilia, next to your phrase “it is better to be a martyr than a good-for-nothing who doesn’t even know why she’s alive,” people will be stunned and they’ll believe it as if it were gospel. They will always read your work, both today and ten years from now and probably a hundred years later as well, they will read your writing and marvel at your ideas and your style, and they will remember your physical appearance. It is far more romantic for a woman writer to be beautiful than disagreeable to look at, even though the latter might have written volume after volume and suffered more.
And what will become of me? What will remain after me? A few reports written for the police, with which I will simply help turn you into a martyr, whereas I will always be a parasite for the coming generations, a shameless woman