[ Just beneath her post script, with handwriting slightly less respectable and slightly more scrawled: ]
I’m sure the sea thinks itself vast, limitless, eternal, and entirely deserving of adoration from the tiny people skimming around on top of it. Or perhaps it thinks: rudders tickle, and someone make the fish stop squirming, and everyone please stop pissing in me.
[ The limitations of metaphor.
The rest is on the next page, and back to being neatly written. Her meaning didn’t escape him; it’s tucked into a pocket, also metaphorically, for if/when he reaches a juncture in his arguments with himself where her good grace matters. ]
You have a generous heart, Alexandrie. Of course it can multitask well. But I would not have you devote even a sliver of it to worrying about me right now. You can worry about me later; I will signal you when it is time.
You must also not worry about Byerly being cross with you. He told me before I saw you had written.
If you must worry about something, I recommend pirates, storms, and Antivan Crows. I have heard recently, too, of an Antivan opera singer who caused someone’s ears to bleed. Almost certainly nonsense, but you might carry beeswax in case.
Perhaps I shall worry about my parasol, which was snatched up by the wind to-day and is even now being conveyed to parts unknown.
[ Next to the words, a small drawing of a very small parasol among a few fluffy clouds. ]
Although there is little I can do about a playfully pilfered parasol and I try to only worry about things I might have the power to affect, and whether or not affecting them should be good to do. When I see a storm, or a pirate ship, or a Crow, or my parasol again, or hear the first notes of "Ah! Le frecce volano" [ a famed and perniciously shrill aria from the end of L'Elfo e la Fanciulla, written back when it was popular to stretch out other country's folk ballads interminably. (Since he'd 'sung' her Girl From Red Crossing.) ] I shall commence fretting.
(Of course, if the Crow is come to kill me and I see them with enough time to worry before they make attempt, I will fret a little less as they are not a very good Crow.)
This to say that since I have done, now, what I may, I shall not worry after you until such time as I receive your signal...
Which I humbly request not be the first notes of "Ah! Le frecce volano".
[ There’s no answer forthcoming. He’s busy, he’s lonely, he’s thinking. But he does come back after several days to add to her parasol drawing: a little misshapen fleck of ink, with spread wings, so a tiny little bird has caught it in the sky. ]
[ It is eminently missable, but if Bastien should happen to look the next morning—or any time thereafter—he will find that the bird has gained an equally tiny companion in the sky nearby. ]
added a moment later
no subject
I’m sure the sea thinks itself vast, limitless, eternal, and entirely deserving of adoration from the tiny people skimming around on top of it. Or perhaps it thinks: rudders tickle, and someone make the fish stop squirming, and everyone please stop pissing in me.
[ The limitations of metaphor.
The rest is on the next page, and back to being neatly written. Her meaning didn’t escape him; it’s tucked into a pocket, also metaphorically, for if/when he reaches a juncture in his arguments with himself where her good grace matters. ]
You have a generous heart, Alexandrie. Of course it can multitask well. But I would not have you devote even a sliver of it to worrying about me right now. You can worry about me later; I will signal you when it is time.
You must also not worry about Byerly being cross with you. He told me before I saw you had written.
If you must worry about something, I recommend pirates, storms, and Antivan Crows. I have heard recently, too, of an Antivan opera singer who caused someone’s ears to bleed. Almost certainly nonsense, but you might carry beeswax in case.
B.
no subject
[ Next to the words, a small drawing of a very small parasol among a few fluffy clouds. ]
Although there is little I can do about a playfully pilfered parasol and I try to only worry about things I might have the power to affect, and whether or not affecting them should be good to do. When I see a storm, or a pirate ship, or a Crow, or my parasol again, or hear the first notes of "Ah! Le frecce volano" [ a famed and perniciously shrill aria from the end of L'Elfo e la Fanciulla, written back when it was popular to stretch out other country's folk ballads interminably. (Since he'd 'sung' her Girl From Red Crossing.) ] I shall commence fretting.
(Of course, if the Crow is come to kill me and I see them with enough time to worry before they make attempt, I will fret a little less as they are not a very good Crow.)
This to say that since I have done, now, what I may, I shall not worry after you until such time as I receive your signal...
Which I humbly request not be the first notes of "Ah! Le frecce volano".
—A
no subject
no subject