Your grateful, happy Anne
Monday, 20 March, 1944
Dear Kitty, This morning Peter asked me if I would come again one evening and said that I really didn’t disturb him, and if there’s room for one there’s room for two. I said that I couldn’t come every evening, because they wouldn’t like it downstairs, but he thought that I needn’t let that bother me. Then I said that I would love to come one Saturday evening and especially asked him to tell me when there was a moon. “Then we’ll go downstairs,” he answered, “and look at the moon from there.”
In the meantime a little shadow has fallen on my happiness. I’ve thought for a long time that Margot liked Peter quite a lot too. How much she loves him I don’t know, but I think this is wretched. I must cause her terrible pain each time I’m with Peter, and the funny part of it is that she hardly shows it.
I know quite well that I’d be desperately jealous, but Margot only says that I needn’t pity her.
“I think its so rotten that you should be the odd one out,” I added. “I’m used to that,” she answered, somewhat bitterly.
I don’t dare tell Peter this yet, perhaps later on, but we’ve got to talk about so many other things first.
I had a little ticking off yesterday evening from Mummy, which I certainly deserved. I mustn’t overdo my indifference towards her. So in spite of everything, I must try once again to be friendly and keep my observations to myself.
Even Pim is different lately. He is trying not to treat me as such a child, and it makes him much too cool. See what comes of it!
Enough for now, I’m full to the brim with Peter and can do nothing but look at him!
Evidence of Margot’s goodness: I received this today,
Dear Anne When I said yesterday that I was not jealous of you I was only fifty per cent honest. It is like this, I’m jealous of neither you nor Peter. I only feel a bit sorry that I haven’t found anyone yet, and am not likely to for the time being, with whom I can discuss my thoughts and feelings. But I should not grudge it to you for that reason. One misses enough here anyway, things that other people just take for granted.
On the other hand, I know for certain that I would never have got so far with Peter, anyway, because I have the feeling that if I wished to discuss a lot with anyone, I should want to be on rather intimate terms with him. I would want to have the feeling that he understood me through and through without my having to say much. But for that reason it would have to be someone whom I felt was my superior intellectually, and that is not the case with Peter. But I can imagine it being so with you and Peter.
You are not denying me anything which is my due, do not reproach yourself in the least on my account. You and Peter can only gain by the friendship.
My reply:
Dear Margot, I thought your letter was exceptionally sweet, but I still don’t feel quite happy about it and nor do I think that I shall.
At present there is no question of such confidence as you have in mind between Peter and myself, but in the twilight beside an open window you can say more to each other than in brilliant sunshine. Also it’s easier to whisper your feelings than to trumpet them forth out loud. I believe that you are beginning to feel a kind of sisterly affection for Peter, and that you would love to help him, just as much as I. Perhaps you will still be able to do that sometime, although that is not the kind of confidence we have in
