(no subject)
Monsieur Edgeworth -
If you are reading this now, then I must apologize to have left you without an assistant for the time being. How very careless of me-careless even to the last. I hope that a suitable replacement is found, and quickly, because, Monsieur Edgeworth… You work far too much.
That being said, I begin to write knowing full well the trouble the letters left behind from my last stay on this island nearly caused, not just for myself but for another. Perhaps it is my fate to repeat all my worst mistakes, whether or not I am fully conscious of having committed them. That being said, I hold one comfort while I write this-armed, simultaneously, with the knowledge of those few mistakes I have not made, those few acts I have gotten, however unexpectedly, right.
I wish to thank you for your hand in the latter, for your guidance in helping me to commit the second-most important not-mistake that I have ever managed to accomplish in my lifetime. (I believe that we both know what the first one is. There is no reason to elaborate it, I trust.) I know that I shall have no other chance to be the man I once-when I was younger, yet equally foolish as I am now-wished to be. Without the paradigm you have set, in all your actions, with all your strength of character, whatever would I be today? It is not that I am so starry-eyed as to imagine even for a moment that I might really become a man of your caliber, but while aspiring nonetheless to such an end, I believe I have found the caliber of man I might someday have become…if, of course, I ever managed to recognize these things for myself, without such a fine example before me.
Knowing you has made me a far better man than I ever thought possible. There are things I am proud of; things for which I am very glad. Without these, I would not have found, in my little moments, happiness.
It is this happiness I leave to you-really, it is yours, or I believe it should be. Can you imagine that when I first arrived here, I thought myself jaded? Having seen so little while at the same time so much, I truly thought I knew it all. Yet those unnamed, intangible things I had yearned for back home were shown to me in your life here; even in this place, the love you have found and nurtured, the justice and truth you have believed in, answered my silent call. I am honored to have seen what I have. I treasure that lesson, more than anything.
May the two of you be happy together. It means a great deal to me that you are.
All my affection,
Franz d’Epinay
Post Script: If Albert de Morcerf is still on this island after my departure, would you do me the honor of delivering this to him? That, too, would mean a great deal to me. My thanks, for everything.
Albert -
I wish I did not have to leave you. But, as we both know, it was inevitable.
I’m sorry-not for what I did, but for the fact that I will never see you again.
There is little else to say. My first letter, I am sure, was far better written. Writing two seems almost redundant, does it not?
Yours, always,
Franz d’Epinay