19/36 Are you sure you are quite well, my child ?" The old endearing epithet! It touched me. I never appreciated it so highly before." "You have no idea how I miss you," he said, taking my fan and drawing his thumb over it, as if he were feeling the edge of his ferula. "The season of summer lingers, but the flowers no longer bloom for me. The birds sing, but their notes have lost their melody. My perception of the beautiful has grown dim, but the remembrance of it can never fade. |