you have been badly injured and you are alone and you wake up and you don't know where you are. You begin to cough and you are in spasms. This continues all night. I read your letter over and over and with it I await the light of day. When it arrives I can't sit down because my derriere is too sore. So I lean on something and read your beautiful letter. That would be very comical in a realistic Italian film.
"I very much apologize for causing you sadness. It was just like having bad luck in a race (Bob, Ski, etc.). Please don't think I was careless of W.T.I's interests. You know I love you as much as a person can love another. I suppose there are some well-known types, such as Laura and Petrarch and Heloise and Abelard etc., who could enter the competition. But I love you more than any of them have loved each other and I know how much I have loved you in the time of my death."
They are alive, thankfully. They are alive, I thought closing the drawer. Two days sat at the desk. I had to move.
I went out into the garden. I looked at the plane trees, the oaks, the cedar of Lebanon, mutilated green giants. Over the years the branches had filled up, but they had grown crooked. In memory of the injuries.
Among the empty arches of the Barchessa where once wine was made I looked at the high wall that ended naked and cracked against the sky. Close to that wall, incorporating what remained of Titta the carpenter's room, we had built a few rooms.
Only now, living in such small rooms, did I realize how big and comfortable our house had been.
How good the peacocks had been to find me that day. Accustomed to seeing me go out at snack time to bring them bread crumbs, they promptly showed up...
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