Dear Cyndy,

This is the second installment of my letter.

My last and third patient of the day has just left.
He is a 70 year college professor on whose left eye
I operated 40 years ago. The most successful operation
I've ever done, - and he knows it. I wish I could say
everything I've done had turned out as well. It hasn't, 
and I can only pray that my sins will be forgiven.

Again I spent most of the day editing my appellate brief.
As I reflected on your qualms, it occurred to me, that
with all its contrived artificiality, legal reasoning
demonstrates a fundamental propensity to dispassionate
logic which is lacking in other varieties of literary
analysis, dominated as they are in general by spiritual
imperatives, and by esthetic criteria in particular.
I admit enjoying the exercise of emotionally unfettered
reason. I hope you don't consider it a DUA (my father-in-law's
acronym for Deliberately Unfriendly Act, if I append a draft
of my brief to this letter.  I don't expect you to read ANY
of it, but if you read even a single page, as always, 
criticisms and comments are very welcome. No, I'm not
Prometheus, I'm not bringing fire - or even plumbing to
mankind, - and I don't expect to be crucified. I expect
to be ignored, to be dismissed as a crank, with a per
curiam opinion: Judgment affirmed, without comment.

As for family stories with which you don't want to 
bore me, I'm much interested without being curious.
The stories of my family which I have occasion to tell
seem in the telling to take on an epic, impersonal aura,
as if the sometimes painful memories were sublimated
by being translated into "history". Try it: you might
end up writing a very good book.

About your impending visit, you should keep an open mind.
Rightly or wrongly, I consider you and Elizabeth and Joanna
family who require no ceremony and no formality. If you
decide on the day you come that you would like to stay,
Joanna and Elizabeth can help me to make up some beds,
distribute towels, washcloths and soap to what ever bathroom(s)
you'll use, help to prepare the meals and wash the dishes.
To my mind, it's all very direct and simple. If you don't
stay overnight, I'm not offended. As a matter of fact, if
you don't even want to take the time for a meal, and just
deposit Joanna's belongings with or without Joanna, I'm
not offended either. If you need to be piloted to the
turnpike, - that's easy, I know the way, and you can just
follow my car. Life, it seems to me, is inherently simple
and easy, if one doesn't make it difficult.

Stay well, don't fall, and give my best to Ned.
I think he's wise NOT to have an operation as long as he
can walk. Pain is part of life; if one learns to accept it,
pain is almost always bearable.

Jochen