not expect, indeed …”
“It is expressed in legal style, and sounds coarser than perhaps he intended. But I must disillusion you a little.
There is one expression in the letter, one slander about me, and rather a contemptible one. I gave the money last night to the widow, a woman in consumption, crushed with trouble, and not ‘on the pretext of the funeral,’ but simply to pay for the funeral, and not to the daughter—a young woman, as he writes, of notorious behaviour (whom I saw last night for the first time in my life)—but to the widow.
In all this I see a too hasty desire to slander me and to raise dissension between us. It is expressed again in legal jargon, that is to say, with a too obvious display of the aim, and with a very naive eagerness. He is a man of intelligence, but to act sensibly, intelligence is not enough.
It all shows the man and … I don’t think he has a great esteem for you. I tell you this simply to warn you, because I sincerely wish for your good …”