Jerusalem, September 1968

Dotty,

Just a few lines. Always remember--you work because you don't know how to live. If you knew how to live, you would not work, and science wouldn't exist for you. But everybody taught us only how to work, not how to live. I don't know how to live either. I walked my dogs down an unfamiliar path in the woods. The branches touched overhead. Reaching for their food--for light--the trees build beauty. From my food all I can build is memories. I will not be made beautiful by my hunger. What binds me to the trees is something they know how to do and I don't. All that binds the trees to me is my dogs, who love me more tonight than other nights. For their hunger is more beautiful when they are hungry from me. Where does your science fit into this? All you need to know to get ahead in science is the last word in your field. With beauty it's not like that.

Isaac is back. His scars don't show when he's dressed; he's handsome as he used to be and resembles a dog who has learned to sing the Cracow song. He prefers my right breast to my left, and we sleep indecently. He has those long legs with which he bounded up the steps in Wawel, and which he clasps around one knee and the n the other when he sits. He pronounces my name the way it was used in the beginning, before all other users, before it was worn thin by being passed from mouth to mouth. . . . Let's make an agreement: we'll split up our roles. You go on over there in Cracow being a scholar and I will stay here and learn how to live.