Amalia’s Secret

Sortini’s methods more comprehensible to you, and less monstrous; compared with Klamm’s they’re comparatively reasonable, and even for those intimately affected by them much more endurable. When Klamm writes a loving letter it’s much more exasperating than the most brutal letter of Sortini’s. Don’t mistake me, I’m not venturing to criticise Klamm, I’m only comparing the two, because you’re shutting your eyes to the comparison. Klamm’s a kind of tyrant over women, he orders first one and then another to come to him, puts up with none of them for long, and orders them to go just as he ordered them to come. Oh, Klamm wouldn’t even give himself the trouble of writing a letter first. And in comparison with that is it so monstrous that Sortini, who’s so retiring, and whose relations with women are at least unknown, should condescend for once to write in his beautiful official hand a letter, however abominable? And if there’s no distinction here in Klamm’s favour, but the reverse, how can Frieda’s love for him establish one? The relation existing between the women and the officials, believe me, is very difficult, or rather very easy to determine. Love always enters into it. There’s no such thing as an official’s unhappy love affair. So in that respect it’s no praise to say of a girl⁠—I’m referring to many others besides Frieda⁠—that she gave herself to an official only out of love. She loved him and gave herself to him, that was all, there’s nothing praiseworthy in that. But you’ll object that Amalia didn’t love Sortini. Well, perhaps she didn’t love him, but then after all perhaps she did love him, who can decide? Not even she herself. How can she fancy she didn’t love him, when she rejected him so violently, as no official has ever been rejected? Barnabas says that even yet she sometimes trembles with the violence of the effort of closing the window three years ago. That is true, and therefore one can’t ask her anything; she has finished with Sortini, and that’s all she knows; whether she loves him or not she does not know. But we do know that women can’t help loving the officials once they give them any encouragement, yes, they even love them beforehand, let them deny it as much as they like, and Sortini not only gave Amalia encouragement, but