Dear Cyndy,

Thank you for your letter. I hope that by now you are feeling better. I often
tried to console my patients with the platitude that our problems not only
get worse, they also get better spontaneously; I wish this might be true for
you also.

For the past four weeks I've lived here in Konnarock in blissful solitude.
The separation anxiety which bedeviled my life like a threatening cloud
almost miraculously dissipated with Margaret's death; I feel now that being
alone is the natural state of my existence. When I am not attending to the
necessary chores of housekeeping, I try to work on my novels - volume seven
requires only to be edited; volume eight is at the beginniung - and on my
poetry. I now have eighty-five sonnets which I have read aloud onto a CD,
whose 80 minute capacity they exceed by about 4 minutes. In the car, on the 
way across the mountain to the grocery store, I listen to myself reading my 
poetry. That's an appalling exhibition of narcissism; but I enjoy my sonnets
very much. So why not? It's all the audience I need or want.

In the seven months since Margaret died, I've also spent much time rereading
the pre-nuptial correspondence between us, startled by the many nuances which
I overlooked - or ignored - during the 63 years of marriage. In retrospect I
feel overwhelmed with gratitude for my good fortune. Now there's nothing left 
but to wait patiently for my own end, I hope sooner rather than later.
I know, I know it's un-American to describe what I feel; and I ask you to 
forgive me, but the alternative would be total silence. I'll write again
in a little while and send you and Ned my best wishes.

Jochen