Letter from an Unknown Woman recap

A Viennese novelist receives a final letter from an unnamed woman who has loved him since she was a neighboring adolescent. Removed from Vienna by her mother's remarriage, she later returns and contrives to meet him, but he treats their brief affair as another passing encounter. She bears his son without telling him and supports the child independently, accepting help from other wealthy men while remaining emotionally devoted to R. Years later she encounters R. again, and he once more desires her without recognizing her; only his servant remembers. After their son dies of influenza and she becomes gravely ill, she writes the history he never knew. The annual white roses she sent for his birthday do not arrive, and R. is left with an indistinct sense of a life and love he repeatedly overlooked.

On returning to Vienna, the novelist R. opens a long unsigned letter addressed to him by a woman who says he has never truly known her. She recounts how, as an adolescent in his apartment building, she became absorbed in his life and idealized him from a distance. Her mother's remarriage took her to Innsbruck, but she eventually returned to Vienna and waited near his home until he noticed her. R. spent several nights with her and then departed on a trip, never understanding who she was or how much the meetings meant to her. She became pregnant and raised their son without contacting him, determined not to bind him through obligation. To provide well for the child she accepted relationships with prosperous admirers, yet continued to regard R. as the center of her private life. Years later they met in public, and he invited her home without recognizing her as either his former neighbor or the young woman he had once loved briefly. His servant alone showed recognition. The letter is prompted by the death of her son from influenza and by her own likely fatal illness. She reveals that she sent R. white roses on every birthday. When R. finishes reading, the absent flowers and his servant's grief make him understand that the unknown woman has died, although he can recover only uncertain images of her.

The woman explains that her son, R.'s unacknowledged child, has died during an influenza outbreak and that she is now seriously ill herself. She expects the letter to reach R. only after her death. She asks for no recognition or restitution, but tells him that the annual white roses he has received on his birthday came from her and asks him to continue buying them in remembrance. R. finishes the letter shaken by fragments of memory rather than a clear recognition of the life described. His old servant's reaction shows that the servant does remember her. R. also notices that the customary birthday roses are absent, making the loss tangible only when it is too late for him to answer the woman who loved him.