Dear Cyndy,

Thank you for your letter. I presume to share your satisfaction with that
whirlwind trip to Canaan, which if I understand you correctly must serve
as yet another symbol of a passion for a landscape that has helped to 
define your life. At least, that's how I explain my unbreakable engagement 
to Konnarock, to Nantucket and to this enchanted house where I have drawn 
the wheeled over-the-bed tray to the side of the bed on which Margaret is 
lying asleep, motionless with opened mouth, her breathing alternating 
between rapid deep draughts of air which over-oxygenate the blood, and 
shallow, barely perceptible inhalations which serve to reestablish the 
respiratory equilibrium. It's presumably a reflection of impaired 
neurological homeostasis, which the medical student must identify as  
"Cheyne-Stokes" respirations if she wants a good grade on the examination.
For the past 48 hours Margaret has resumed taking fluids, now about
8 ounces a day. She has been eating almost nothing. I am grateful that
she seems unaware of the depth of her debility. She is unable even to sit
up in bed. When I ask her, "How do you feel?" she replies "Pretty well."

Margaret's sister Janet, who had stayed here for four days, left this
morning. She says she will return on Tuesday, presumably to stay for
three days and three nights before going back to Sharon MA where she
bought a house to grow old in the vicinity of her daughter Anne who is
divorced and has never recovered from a disastrous marriage. Janet's 
husband Robert died unexpectedly of glioblastoma about thirty years ago.
That's a biography on which we should meditate before we complain that 
our lives are difficult.

Katenus has discovered a special interest in Molecular Biology. His
hobbyhorse, as you know, is epistemology, and he says that know-nothing
epistemology is not a bona-fide calling. Therefore he insists on presuming
to try to learn everything, at the same time acknowledging that learning
everything is impossible but failing to see that by purporting to do so, 
he is making a fool of himself. Elly his housekeeper loves him too much 
to tell him the truth. Jonathan, Joachim and Moritz Schwiegel, the most 
recent addition to the Döhringhaus Circle, have too much respect for
Katenus to show him his errors. Therefore I have no choice but to have
Judge Adams, angry once more for Charlotte's lack of appreciation, dump
her at the front door of the Linnaean Street house. Drawing on her
experience at Aletheia Univerfsity, Charlotte will be in the mood to set 
Katenus straight about his folly, and in no uncertain terms.

Now that I've brought you up-to-date on events in the real and imaginary
spheres of existence, let me wish you and Ned a healthy and happy conclusion
to a summer that we hope will not be too hot.

Jochen