Being that 'feverish' describes perhaps your temperament most, having observed the licking fire between each word of your fresh letter to me, allow your good friend Kildare to offer up a possible cure to cool the brow, and whet once again the lagging appetite...

Yes...to answer your question...I have indeed been out in daylight and under the sun. Indeed, most relentlessly 'pursued' by the sun, or so I imagined, for whilst in Italy I took heed of her position often. As I would jolt, so too the sun would jolt. As I paraded, she her harp strummed and upon mine ears lavished music, honeyed phrases interspersed with an occasional bitter sting. 'Tis not indeed the most horrific of experiences, to be her subject by the by. I should say I quite enjoy to feel her dance upon a face; crevices, troughs and fine-line furrows I had long forgotten existed. Which reminds me...I should purchase a lofty looking glass! How my face has aged, in some strange terms.

I have cast manys a glance across your charcoal renderings, and were I a fly or microscopic being, I would find my way to ramble relentlessly along each startling stroke upon this your landscape sun, all the while twisting in curvature as did your artful finger song. 'Twould be a remarkable journey for me! But for now, for I have no immediate scheme to become a wanderlustful fly...two eyes and considerable concentration must suffice.

Our late letters have crossed each other Freake. And so, this late telegram, which I trust you shall receive intact. The Hoar this week received my letter with instructions to dispatch same to you, and she delivered, with her other rotten mitt, your letter to me. I shall wish to write of Italy and my time there more, and intentions to do so shall be fulfilled soon. Yet I could not go another night without responding to your timely communique...

Please, with regard to Mr. Ratner and our rooms at Maiden Lane, conduct whatever business you wish to with him. Two months rent it shall be, and I trust this matter comes to finality, for it seems a thorn, and to be plucked, chewed between teeth, and hawked from the gob. But for now, I wish to speak of Ilona Darvasti, this queer fish who tempers you...

It has turned about in thought that this beauty may 'of you' want, yet what? She, as you say, may be engaged in some malevolent mischief, or that at least something is afoot with her. Then if your sketch be an accurate portrayal of her face, step back and study your very stroke...those quizing eyes, that mincing little lip curl, her jutting jaw itself! What raven sheers its wings above the root, as does She with her hair? For even I can see that something war-worn, withered and mean clings to her ice-white skin, and all this from your sketch! I would upon your conscience plead, with this one supposition...

What if she were Dead? How would it be that you might wake upon this news?

For if it 'not' be love that gouges out your eyes so that you no longer see this snipe-nosed femme with vampire clarity, then for certain your answer to the above shall flow easily...flying from your sneering lips as it should upon the news that 'any other' fair-weather filly has bitten into her last plum!

My wondrous Casper, I remain fascinated with the 'seemingly inconceivable nature' of this impaling spell Ilona Darvasti has upon your chest delivered.

I know you well enough to have within my sights the gaping hole into which you shall throw yourself for a period, if it comes about that Ilona Darvasti suddenly 'no longer appears', whether frequently or on sporadic occasion. And then what? To be dragged back into her wretched half-life? Surely there must be a sandwich missing from her dainty picnic pantry...for what dithering wiseacre would to the oil-skinned Croat be so consistently twinned?

Now is perhaps not the time to reacquaint yourself with her, for I suspect she shall reappear once more, as if her trail to you was abstract in its entirety! And when she revisits you, speak perhaps more with her of the Croat, for it may be so that he upon her strings is tugging.
 

Forever, For So It Appears, Kildare.

Mordi Kildare, 8th August 2001, Dublin Ireland.