A LETTER TO RALPH FROM PARIS

                      

Dear Ralph:

    Thanks for your message telling me that Amber and Renni have been found. I'm glad to hear that both of them were unharmed. I'm going to leave Paris one week from today. I want to come home. I've not told you about this before, but I wasn't being entirely truthful when, on our prior communications, I related my supposed "well-being" to you. I've met a girl here. She's a woman really, of course. And she's a mysterious woman. Actually, she's probably best described as simply a woman of Paris. She's a female form who epitomizes the dark haired, sleepy eyed feminine persona one might come to know and fall in love with here in this city of light with its sad cafes and lonely walks along the Seine. And she believes she personifies what most of mankind perceives as this French city's "enlightenment," but I fear what she really projects is all of humanity's unanswered questions, as well as all of its substantiated and unsubstantiated doubts and fears. 

    And I know how much you've done for my (our) city over the years. And rest assured, you have my respect and trust. Obviously, if that weren't the case, I should have never permitted you to send me here to Paris to begin with. Actually, when you initially told me of your plans to dispatch me here, I was apprehensive, and wondered why Rashon Leyf and F. John Surells might not have come here instead. After all, Amber and Renni are supposedly the loves of their lives. And given that, it seemed natural to me that they then should have sought their own loves here in Paris. But when you told me about the massive undertaking they were then involved in i.e. writing themselves, and organizing what others had written into a book to be entitled "The Students of the Highway," I then understood why probably I should go here on their behalf. 

    But I'm in trouble here Ralph. I fear I've fallen in love with a woman distant, aloof, and not easily understood. And every day that passes now it seems I want her more. Yes, I'll admit it, I desire her more daily, but somehow I also know that I'm daily falling deeper and deeper into some sort of pit, out of which I fear I may never ascend. And that's why I'm leaving Paris next week. I'll leave with a broken heart, but at least I'll know what my fate in life will then probably be, rather than risking my future here where my destiny might turn out to be the maximum joy or sadness I could ever possibly know. 

    Her name is Valerie. She says she loves me. She wants me to stay here in Paris with her for the rest of my life. She says she'll always love me more than any American woman could, and that she'll always extend her heart completely to me, and show the greatest care for me. But somehow, I just can't trust her - though I certainly love and desire her.  I'll see you soon. 

                                                                                                                    Corzer