THREE LETTERS FROM LYDIA TO SALOMON (1886)
No. 1
Upsala, March 19, 1886 [Lydia is living in Uppsala, doing her organist training.]
Dear Salomo.jpg) n!
Thank you for your letter today, it hurts me so much that I’ve given you this sorrow, but believe me when I say to you, that I have suffered as well and still do after this break-up. I don’t understand myself, and before I’ve learnt to I can and should not be attached to anyone. You must forget me, promise me that Salomon. I won’t come to Jönköping anymore, so you don’t have to see me.
It’s not your failures Salomon that have caused this, it’s my own personality that stands in the way for both mine and other's happiness. I’m not the right person to be married, because I’m moody and strange. I want to take my graduation and then make myself a living. Once more I ask you to forget me and forgive me for the sorrow that I might have caused you.
May God bless you and give you a wife whom, better than I, can fulfill her duties. I deserve blame from everyone, and I take it as a fair punishment for my frivolity. Thank you for not blaming me. Let me keep regarding you as a dear brother, asks Your always affectionate
Lydia
No. 2
April 6, 1886
Dearest Salomon!
Thank you for your last letter, which moved me more than I can say. Thank you for being so faithful, thank you for not misunderstanding me. I have now for a while […] been enveloped by agonies and self-reproach, because of the things I’ve done to you. But you believe me, don’t you, when I say once more that I acted frivolously this Christmas, I have now for a time been bitterly regretful and been almost despairing.
With this kind of feelings I couldn’t keep seeing you as your fiancée. Therefore I told you all the truth, although I knew it would hurt you. Forgive me for causing you these bitter experiences. You can comfort yourself with the fact that I haven’t had a good time myself.
Do you want to come to Upsala this Easter? If you can and have the time, come because I have to talk to you, have to see you. Try. If you for example would come on Easter Eve and stay over the Easter Days you would not leave anything undone. I wish it so much. If you don’t have the time to come, I will go home for Easter, because we have to really meet each other. I don’t have more time today, please forgive me. Answer me as soon as possible and trust me when I say that I really want to see you.
Your friend
Lydia
No. 3
Upsala, July 17, 1886
Dear Salomon!
My last letter in which I thanked you for kindly inviting me to Stockholm, was written in such haste because I just had a few minutes before the mail train was to leave, that I’m sure that you read it with a feeling that I ungraciously turned down your invitation. That was however not the case, because I very well understood what your intentions were. Wasn’t it just to keep, despite what’s happened between us, that friendship and devotion, that always made my visits to your home so joyful.
I ‘m sure you want to think of me in another way than as a friend. I hold you as such and therefore it hurts me to see and experience that you suffer so because of me. Could I make you happy. God knows that I would like to. I don’t want you to get your hopes up, but when I saw you on Sunday so sorrowful, I realized that you very much loved me. I thought then that if God wants our union, I know I will love Salomon as much as he loves me.
I wanted to say this to you but I couldn’t. Anyway, don’t get your hopes up, but try to forget me. I will pray for you and you shall pray as well. Salomon, won’t you? I thought I ought to write this to you, as I replied very quickly to your letter from Stockholm. Let the things I now have said stay between the two of us, I ask you to. Forgive me all the pain that I’ve caused you.
Yours sincerely
Lydia
Ask Mrs Lindman to not be angry with me. Tell me, is she very angry?
Letter in original (no. 1): page 1,page 2-3
Letter in original (no. 2): page 1, page 2-3
Letter in original (no. 3): page 1,page 2-3
|
