30 April.
Yesterday I received a letter from my aunt. It was sent after me from
Rome and dated two weeks back. I cannot understand why they kept it so
long at Casa Osoria. My aunt was sure I had gone to Corfu, but thought
I might have returned by this, and writes thus:--
"We have been expecting to hear from you for some time, and are
looking out with great longing for a letter. I, an old woman, am too
deeply rooted in the soil to be easily shaken, but it tells upon
Aniela. She evidently expected to hear from you, and when no letter
came either from Vienna or Rome, I saw she felt uneasy. Then came your
father's death. I said then, in her presence, that you could not think
now of anything but your loss; by and by you would shake off your
trouble and return to your old life. I saw at once that my words
comforted her. But afterwards, when week passed after week and you did
not send us a single line, she grew very troubled, mostly about your
health, but I fancy because she thought you had forgotten her. I, too,
began to feel uneasy, and wrote 'poste restante' to Corfu, as we had
agreed. Not getting any reply, I am sending another letter to your
house at Rome, because the thought that you may be ill makes us all
very unhappy. Write, if only a few lines; and, Leon, dear, pull
yourself together, shake off that apathy, and be yourself again.
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