Dear Marion,

Thank you for your letters. I am touched by the sincerity
of your concern. I admire your advocacy for Margrit. Your
sympathy for her overwhelms you and makes you as oblivious
to what I wrote as if my words were in a language foreign
to you. That's just how Margrit responded, - or failed to
respond to what I would write her. Repetition didn't help
then and it won't help now. We must accept the circumstance
that each of us is very different from the other; and we
must try to come to terms with our differences, although
at times they can be very painful.

I remember nothing about the packet of letters concerning
which you ask. It's reasonable to assume that it consisted
of a set of reproaches or complaints which Margrit had
drafted and initially decided not to mail.

"Gegen die grossen Vorzuege eines anderen gibt es kein
Rettungsmittel als die Liebe." is an epigram from
Ottiliens Tagebuch in Goethes Wahlverwandtschaften. Vorzuege
is best translated as virtues. The meaning of the sentence is
that a person who feels hopelessly inferior cannot find 
happiness except by loving the person whose superiority she
envies. I cite it not to vaunt myself, but to acknowledge
that Margrit's hostility was expressive of profound feelings
of inferiority with which she could not cope.

Your comparison of a great aunt's resentment at not having
an exclusive relationship to her nephews and nieces,
with the chagrin young adults engaged to be married might
feel at parental chaperonage - this comparison will make
it necessary for your psychoanalyst to cancel his or her
summer vacation.

Your advice to wait with gifts to William Nease and 
Georgette Fleischer until the dust has settled is well
taken. I consider it a mistake to ask Ute's advice
or even her permission about settling the estate. The
will that she drafted for Margrit - for $600 - is a
document of monumental incompetence, providing as it
does for two independent "sole executors" of a single
will. An executor needs an original will to present
to a probate court. Margrit's will would properly be
probated in Washington County Virginia, and Aaron
Atkinson who I am newly informed is the other "sole 
executor" would have to travel 680 miles one way
from Toronto to Virginia in order to qualify to
be executor of an estate without assets! Ute, though
she won't send me the will, has agreed to mail me
a copy of the codicil, which should reach Belmont
by the end of the week. Unless the codicil contains
surprises, I'll write to Aaron Atkinson: 1) that there's
no money in the estate; 2) that the estate has in fact
been settled; 3) that I offer to submit an accounting
to him for his approval. If he insists on becoming
executor and on my, in effect, paying his expensess
and his fees, he'll have a legal fight on his hands.

Enough for tonight.

Jochen