Bad weather, or bad weather at a stretch to the thirtieth of June. Isn’t that well said? Oh yes, I know a smattering of English already; just to show that I can, I’m reading An Ideal -Husband with the aid of a dictionary. War is going wonderfully! Bobroisk, Mogilef, and Orsa have fallen, lots of prisoners.
Everything’s all right here and tempers are improving. The super optimists are triumphing. Bep has changed her hair style, Miep has the week off. That’s the latest news.
Yours, Anne
Thursday, 6 July, 1944
Dear Kitty, It strikes fear into my heart when Peter talks of later being a criminal, or of gambling; although it’s meant as a joke, of course, it gives me the feeling that he’s afraid of his own weakness. Again and again I hear from both Margot and Peter: “Yes, if I was as strong and plucky as you are, if I always stuck to what I wanted, if I had such persistent energy, yes then...!”
I wonder if it’s really a good quality not to let myself be influenced. Is it really good to follow almost entirely my own conscience?
Quite honestly, I can’t imagine how anyone can say: “I’m weak,” and then remain so. After all, if you know it, why not fight against it, why not try to train your character? Their answer is: “Because it’s so much easier not to!” This reply rather discouraged me. Easy? Does that mean that a lazy, deceitful life is an easy life? Oh no, that can’t be true, it mustn’t be true, people can so easily be tempted by slackness... and by money.
I thought for a long time about the best answer to give Peter, how to get him to believe in himself and, above all, to try and improve himself, I don’t know whether my line of thought is right, though!
I’ve so often thought how lovely it would be to have someone’s complete confidence, but now that things have reached that stage, I realise how difficult it is to think what the other person is thinking and then to find the right answer. More especially because the very ideas of ‘easy’ and ‘money’ are something entirely foreign and new to me. Peter’s beginning to lean on me a bit and that mustn’t happen under any circumstances. It’s difficult enough standing on one’s own feet, but it’s even harder to do so remaining true to your character and soul. I’m just drifting around, have been searching for days, searching for a good argument against that terrible word ‘easy,’ something to settle it once and for all. How can I make it clear to him that what appears easy and attractive will drag him down into the depths, depths where there is no comfort to be found, no friends and no beauty, depths from which it is almost impossible to raise oneself?
We all live, but we don’t know the why or the wherefore. We all live with the object of being happy, our lives are all different and yet the same.
We three have been brought up in good circles, we have the chance to learn, the possibility of attaining something, we have all reason to hope for much happiness, but... we must earn it for ourselves. And that is never easy. You must work and do good, not be lazy and gamble, if you wish to earn happiness. Laziness may appear attractive, but work gives satisfaction.
I can’t understand people who don’t like work, yet that isn’t the case with Peter, he just hasn’t got a fixed goal to aim at, and he thinks he’s too stupid and too inferior to achieve anything. Poor boy, he’s never known what it feels like to make other people happy, and I fear I can’t teach him that either. He has no religion, scoffs at Jesus Christ, and swears using the name of God inappropriately. I’m not orthodox either but it hurts me every time I see how deserted, how scornful, and how poor he really is.
People who have a religion should be glad, for not everyone has the gift of believing in heavenly things. You don’t necessarily even have to be afraid of punishment after death; purgatory, hell, and heaven are things that a lot of people can’t accept, but still a religion, it doesn’t matter which, keeps a person on the right path. It isn’t the fear of God but the upholding of one’s own honour and conscience. How noble and good everyone could
