Sternberg Letter to Emma Draft

Content

Physical description: Folded once, sealed with pale blue wax bearing the Sternberg crest. The paper is very fine, but the handwriting is less assured than Sternberg’s usual hand. Slightly rushed, or slightly careful, which amounts to the same thing. Delivered by a liveried servant who waits for no reply.

Vienna, the 13th of August

Dear Miss Wentworth,

I understand your party leaves Vienna tomorrow. I will not trouble you with a visit. You have had enough of my company, and I have given you more cause than I care to enumerate to be glad of my absence.

I owe you an apology which I find I cannot make in person, because the words arranged themselves better on paper than they did in my mouth when I attempted the exercise this morning in front of a mirror.

I behaved badly. Not once, but consistently, and with a dedication that in any other pursuit would be admirable. I pursued you when you did not invite it. I made a public display of attentions you had not encouraged. I forced a quarrel upon a man whose only offence was that he loved you more honestly than I did, and I did it because his honesty embarrassed my vanity. Lieutenant Wyndham was right to call me to account. I will not pretend the result did not sting, but I will say that it was deserved, and that the sting has done me more good than all the compliments Vienna has ever paid me.

I do not ask your forgiveness. That would be one more imposition, and I have imposed enough. I ask only that you believe I am capable of recognising what I did, which is perhaps more than you expected of me. If so, we are in agreement. I did not expect it of myself.

I wish you well on your journey. I wish Lieutenant Wyndham well also, and I mean it, which surprises me more than it will surprise you.

Your servant,

Sternberg

Context

The letter arrives at Palais_Kinsky the morning of departure, delivered by a Sternberg servant. It is addressed to Emma. If opened in company, everyone present hears it.

Thomas won the duel. This letter is Sternberg’s apology, and it is infuriating precisely because it is gracious. A boorish letter, a petulant letter, a letter that excused itself, would be easy for Thomas to dismiss. This one is worse. Sternberg names his own behaviour, owns it without self-pity, and acknowledges Thomas directly (“Lieutenant Wyndham was right to call me to account”). He even wishes Thomas well, and the sentence confesses that the generosity surprises him, which makes it feel genuine rather than performed.

Thomas will hear: a man who can articulate what he did wrong, make a clean apology, and be witty about his own humiliation. Thomas won the duel with a pistol. Sternberg is winning the aftermath with a pen. Thomas’s love is volcanic, obvious, and inarticulate. Sternberg’s apology is everything Thomas’s love is not: controlled, self-aware, and elegant. The fact that Sternberg addresses it to Emma rather than to Thomas is the final provocation. He apologises to her for what he did to Thomas, as though Emma is the one whose opinion matters.

Prop Notes

If running physical props: fold a sheet of good paper once. Seal with blue wax if available (or any colour other than red). No enclosed gift this time. The apology is the thing.

Relationships

• Authored by Maximilian von Sternberg — A farewell that says everything by saying nothing directly
• Addressed to Emma Wentworth — Intimate without impropriety. The subtext is deafening.