Penelope Eckhart

Penelope Eckhart

Art by Essi Välimäki

Tomás Sánchez (Cuban, b. 1948)

"The Witness" ("El Testigo"), 2000

Oil on linen, 60 x 48 cm. (23 ⁵/₈ x 18 ⁵⁷/₆₄ in.)

Private Collection

"I suddenly knew instinctively—Penelope was dead...

I froze, pale. The realization made my hair stand on end. If I escape, what will happen to Penelope? Even if this game was rife with magic and other fantastical things, the dead couldn't come back to life."

VADTD — 166-167

So a while back I won a cheap eBay auction listing for a collection of love letters from the first world war.

They arrived today, and…the listing was WAY more than I expected for the price I won it for. There’s over 100, and they’re not just from WWI, but from 1906 (earliest I’ve found so far) through to 1915.

Charlie writes to his girlfriend, Gertrude. This is the most beautiful, lovesick stuff I’ve ever read. He sends her so many letters, sometimes twice a day, and lots of poems. He seems to have been an artist, as he talks a lot about small exhibitions of his stuff, and included a flyer for one. He also talks about how her parents don’t approve of them and how he’s desperately awaiting the day they’ll be married.

I haven’t found the latest of the letters, but the fact it’s up until 1915 and then stops…doesn’t give me hope for a happy ending.

This man continuously refers to his precious beloved Gertie as his queen and goddess, and whilst most of it is sickly sweet, there’s some raunchy stuff too, with him talking about how he can’t wait until they have a little house together and can ‘please each other all day’…

There’s. So many.

I’m going to put them in order by date, read them through, and then maybe even transcribe them so we can find out a bit about Charlie and Gertie’s love story.