Perhaps I have things quite turned around, and I am to teach you. Tell me, should you prefer Hindi, Telugu, passing Greek or Latin, or a wealthy vocabulary in your native English?
I feel as though I shall write you my last letter before seeing you again and want to pick up where I have left off, with great, uncomfortable pauses where I simply wait for your response. Our conversations will be monstrous, unwieldy things, and we shall drive off all sensible company. And you, bearded and shorn of head, shall be hardly recognizable, and I will feel utterly out of place. I suppose I shall have to give over all of the stories I have been withholding - I spoke of English modesty, and was speaking of course of myself - and then I shall be unrecognizable, too.
Zelma does not know to whom I write, nor do I think she is much concerned with what I do when I am not assisting her. Like a cautious little mouse, of course, I remain nestled in my hidey-hole, scribbling and watching and dreaming. I am beginning to believe that one must be at least forty and possessed of some great accomplishment to be worthy of her special note, though I do not very much like the test of claiming over breakfast, 'I am writing to Theodore Nott,' and waiting to see if she turns on me the critical eye she has in company with her resources, or slurps her coffee without so much as acknowledging that I have spoken. My fondness for such a taciturn creature quite escapes logic.
Six days is a very long time, Theodore. Twelve is even longer.
Disbelieving,
Padma
25 November 1998
Theodore,
Perhaps I have things quite turned around, and I am to teach you. Tell me, should you prefer Hindi, Telugu, passing Greek or Latin, or a wealthy vocabulary in your native English?
I feel as though I shall write you my last letter before seeing you again and want to pick up where I have left off, with great, uncomfortable pauses where I simply wait for your response. Our conversations will be monstrous, unwieldy things, and we shall drive off all sensible company. And you, bearded and shorn of head, shall be hardly recognizable, and I will feel utterly out of place. I suppose I shall have to give over all of the stories I have been withholding - I spoke of English modesty, and was speaking of course of myself - and then I shall be unrecognizable, too.
Zelma does not know to whom I write, nor do I think she is much concerned with what I do when I am not assisting her. Like a cautious little mouse, of course, I remain nestled in my hidey-hole, scribbling and watching and dreaming. I am beginning to believe that one must be at least forty and possessed of some great accomplishment to be worthy of her special note, though I do not very much like the test of claiming over breakfast, 'I am writing to Theodore Nott,' and waiting to see if she turns on me the critical eye she has in company with her resources, or slurps her coffee without so much as acknowledging that I have spoken. My fondness for such a taciturn creature quite escapes logic.
Six days is a very long time, Theodore. Twelve is even longer.