Dear Cyndy,

Ever since I e-mailed my last letter, my conscience has been telling
me that I should have been more careful not to offend you. The fact:
I've been afflicted with mild melancholy for the past several weeks,
and have been unable to comply with what I hope are my usual standards
of politeness. In any event, I don't much like myself, and I like my
writing even less. If I wrote that I don't know whether I should
expect you to read either my letters or my writing, I'm back in the
trap from which I was just trying to extricate myself.

I'm much dissatisfied with Chapter 51. The dialogue about theory
is not persuasive, and I've decided to delete it. I'm presently
preoccupied with the composition of a somewhat formal essay on
epistemology and ethics which I shall ascribe to Katenus and which
will appear in a separate chapter or in an appendix.  Perhaps the
ideas will obtain an existence of their own and may become topics
of discussion or dispute, but without the need for further detailed
exposition.  I'll send you the URLs as the effort proceeds, and you
may then read or not read as suits your convenience.

Last night, I couldn't find Margaret's hearing aids. Rebekah,
who was keeping house next door while Klemens, Laura and Leah
were skiing in New Hampshire, had invited us for dinner. To
make conversation possible, Margaret and I both wore our hearing
aids, and afterwards Margaret asked me to put hers away, and
so I did, or thought I did. An hour later the 2x$350 miniatures
could not be found. We spent two hours searching in all the rooms,
in all the closets, on all the shelves, in all the bureau drawers,
where I might have absentmindedly placed them. Without avail.
The replacement cost was serious enough, but even worse was my
obvious loss of memory. I had no inkling of having placed the
hearing aids anywhere at all. There was nothing to do but go to bed.
I slept fitfully, my mind skipping from the lost hearing aids to
the hearing, six weeks from now, in my Nantucket controversy,
wondering whether I would have the wits to pull it off. In my
imagination I spoke with my friend, the harpsichord maker whom
in the first two decades after we moved to Belmont, I would
regularly visit in his shop. The last time I saw him, he told
me he was selling his business because a physician whom he had
consulted had advised him that he was developing Alzheimer's
disease. I think doctors are at their most destructive when they
pretend they have prophetic powers. As a matter of fact, in this
week's medical journal there is a strong recommendation that _all_
elderly patients be subjected to formal psychological testing
for possibly incipient dementia, even if, and especially if, they
have no signs or symptoms and appear in perfect mental health.
My response is nothing but contempt for my profession. This morning,
Margaret found one of the hearing aids on the floor in front of
the shelf where we store medications. That's where I must have
inadvertently deposited them last night. A few minutes later,
behind a bag stuffed with recyclable paper, I found the other
hearing aid. My lost memory, unfortunately, I still can't locate.
Maybe, if I'm patient, it too, will show up.
Please give my best to Ned.  Good night.
Jochen