of delighting in the sight of flowers, let him find, under the trees, a huge cloak to warm himself, let him listen, wonder, read … Still, it was cruel of me, it wasXXX and what was Machiavelli’s tone really when he wrote of the Prince, “let everyone see what you seem, but let no one know you.” he knew He saw the uses of cruelty but thought cruelty should stay hidden, don’t let them know that’s what you are or they’ll try to hurt you, bring you down. Seem to your subjects benevolent, loving. Then hurt who you need to … but in secret… XXXX But I laid him out on a table and my instruments were too blunt, unworthy. And this pain in my head as if something I didn’t even know was protected is now unprotected, something I didn’t think about at all… XXX I still want to go to Italy, to Germany, stillXXXX want XXX
I felt my muteness seeping even deeper and more dark.
The taste of blood back in my mouth, my throat once again an ugly blossom. I couldn’t touch her hand or help her.
my box with the papers being gone
and all being broken
my best love I haven’t heard from you today we have had bad weather
pe Petrarch had many fr dear friends, but the plague ca appeared and
their silent graves were soon all that remained to him of them
I must study—the rest is all nothing
would you buy for me also a gown of a close pink stripe
I do not think that you will XXX find me what I was
he fixed to the binding of his copy of Virgil a record of her death
Claire,
Or, no—I’m not really thinking of you am I? Then who am I speaking to, why do I need to speak to anyone at all? The headaches have … the headaches come more frequently, are stronger. I’m in Italy. Pine forests. Chestnut groves. The fertile valley of Chiavenna. And now Cadenabbia. Mornings I watch the girls walk to their jobs at the silk mill. I watch them and wonder, Do they know they’re being watched? Such distances in me such And always now the light too strong for my eyes and I but a shadow There’s a man here who believes when people pass him on the street they scatter a poisonous powder over him. He grew so frightened he didn’t eat for 10 days. I tried to bring him some tea but he refused me. This morning he finally reached into the deepest corner of a basket of pears, selected one and ate it. such mistrust in us such deformed, peculiar mourning I watched his bony hand, my eyes scattering their poisons, he would have hated it if he knew I watched. Often my hand shakes badly and I don’t know why. Just yesterday I suddenly remembered (after how many years?) that Cervantes lost his hand in battle. Strange to think about that now. My own hand tense, odd, as if burdened by a hidden contempt, but of what? Or as if it’s been in battle also. I try not to think of it, I try … XXXX There’s a sect here that wears woolen clothing even at the height of summer. They’ve done this since the plague when their ancestors pledged that if their village was spared they’d wear only this burdensome dress. The cloth’s a heavy dark-blue with a red stripe around the bottom. Such faithfulness and yet it’s like chains, isn’t it—they were spared but they wear these woolen chains … The mind lets go of so little. I don’t know how to … and … I watch my hand shake and think, what does a hand leave in the end? His hand left me this: “And [softer] constellations [?hover].” Left: “Where Ruin broods over a world” and: “I should not infect my own Mary with dejection.” Left: “leaves no trace of” and “piu fresca che la Maia quando.” All those hours I spent with his copybooks studying, transcribing. Recently I learned the term “silent corrections,” meaning changes a publisher makes to small, assumedly accidental deviations within a text, corrected “silently” for accuracy, without comment: “cunning, intriguing” for “cunning intriguing” or “Mestre” for “Mestri.” “I don’t know why” for “I don’t why.” If there are silent corrections in me, the smallest shiftings, rearrangings, I can barely feel them yet I think they’re there. Everything’s hazy, it’s hard to concentrate, to read, so maybe my mind isn’t correcting itself silently