Several weeks after we began our correspondence, the habit had become something that felt almost like a part of my daily existence.
I began to discern its rhythm. Usually, a letter from Élisabeth would arrive every four or five days. The envelope always bore the same seal, and her handwriting remained elegant, though occasionally appearing slightly more hurried than before.
Each time the academy porter brought a letter to me, I often delayed opening it for several minutes.
It was not because I lacked the desire to read it. Rather, it was because I had begun to relish that small moment before reading—the moment when I knew that a few lines of prose from someone in another city would soon make an ordinary day feel a little different.
One afternoon in the library, I received one of her letters. The envelope was slightly thicker than usual. I opened it slowly.
Adrian,
I am becoming better acquainted with this academy now.
The library is far grander than I had imagined.
They possess a dedicated room for ancient mathematical texts, and some are even older than our own academy. I am certain you could spend half your life there without a moment of boredom.
Their observatory is also quite intriguing.
It is not overly large, but it is high enough to view the night sky with remarkable clarity. I almost find myself wishing that someone with an excessive fondness for numbers were here to explain why most of the stars seem to form such peculiar patterns.
However, it appears this academy still lacks one overly serious mathematics student.
You really ought to come and see it for yourself one day. I am certain there is no rule forbidding a student from another academy to wander these grounds…
— Élisabeth
I read that final portion several times.
You really ought to come and see it for yourself.
The sentence felt light.
Almost like a jest. Yet, for some reason, I could not entirely regard it as such. I imagined what the place she described might look like.
A grander library. A new observatory. Academy gardens I had never seen. And for a moment, a thought that rarely entered my mind suddenly felt remarkably vivid.
What if I actually went there?
The distance between the two cities was not insurmountable.
The journey by carriage would likely take only a few days. I could say that I merely wished to see their library. Or their observatory. Or even just to take a brief stroll through those academy gardens.
However, after a few seconds, the thought began to fade. It was not because the journey was impossible. It was for another reason, far simpler.
I gazed back at the letter in my hand. Élisabeth might have written that sentence as a light-hearted whim—a way to breathe life into our conversation.
But the world did not function with such simplicity. A common student could not simply wander into an academy under the patronage of a noble family. Especially someone from a family such as mine.
I folded the letter back with care. Other students in the library were still reading quietly at their desks.
From the high windows on the western wall, the afternoon light began to spill into the room.
I opened the blank book she had once given me. The first page still held her handwriting.
For the things that cannot always be explained by numbers.
I stared at the sentence for a moment before finally picking up my pen. I began to write a reply to her letter.
I wrote of the academy gardens here, which still looked much the same. Of the wooden bench beneath the ancient tree.
Of how a few new students had begun to frequent the small observatory in the astronomy building.
But when I had nearly finished writing, I paused. There was one sentence in her letter that remained vivid in my mind.
You really ought to come and see it for yourself one day.
I almost wrote something in response to that. Almost. Yet, in the end, I did not. Instead, I merely closed the letter with a far simpler sentiment: that one day, it might be interesting to see the library she had described.
A sentence safe enough to write. Yet quite far from the answer she might have truly hoped for.
When I finished writing, I realised something that unsettled me slightly.
For the first time since we began exchanging letters…
I felt as though I had just declined something.
Even though no one had truly asked.