Coromo, Chapter 2, parts 600 - 603

600. Dear Coromo, I am sorry that we could not come to see you this year, we are all in Aruba because there are golf courses here, perhaps when your resort finishes its golf course project we will come back again. My sister's husbands were very angry and disappointed that your resort had pictures of a golf course, but not the real thing. But, you were the real thing, and I will always remember reading "The Decameron" with you. I am engaged to a very nice man, he is a lawyer with a good practice, please don't write to me anymore.

601. It is hard for me to write this passage about Coromo. It is true his ideas about the third sister were only a fairy tale. During the year while they had been writing back and forth he had never once said anything about his vague ideas of how they could have a life together, the idea seemed absurd, and yet he never stopped thinking about it. Was he in love? If a person spends all day every day thinking about someone, I suppose they are.

602. Since his ideas about his friend were so obviously impractical it did not take him a long time to accept his situation. He resisted all impulses to write back or to plead and argue. He deleted all of the younger sisters e-mail messages and it took an hour to do it, but then he moved  them back to the in-box. Nothing cheered him up, and he said to himself, "Now I am going to be sad for a year and a half, there is no escaping it." He was correct, except that it was an under-estimation.

603. Given his mood, he entirely forgot about Tallulia and her interest in his set of six paintings, but she did not forget about him. A day before she was planning to leave for New York she again asked him if he would sell her his paintings. "What do you want them for?" he asked. "I think they are charming, and I am going to frame them and give them to my grandchildren." She lied, I mean, she replied.