My dearest Lister,

I’m happy to report that you’d hardly know me. Dismality is magicked into merrimality! I have resumed my celebrated style of wearing a white satin ribbon in my hair. I sleep much less but feel better rested. Really, I have here everything I need; I am a little world unto myself. My brain teems with maggots of interesting information, and I have questions and speculations and contemplations enough to keep myself diverted till the end of time. Having gained the summit of life, like a mountain-climber I pause for breath, and with a serene and beatific eye, I survey below me all the turmoils and trials of society, and congratulate myself on having withdrawn from it. Everyone sees noon at their own door, and I see clear sparkling day on all sides.

On afternoon strolls with my fellow lodgers—well, let’s be frank and call them patients, or those among the patients capable of walking in a straight line, rather than galloping, scuttling, creeping, or rolling around on the ground—I can’t help but notice that I’m the object of admiring stares. I suppose I stand out from the others, a bird of bright plumage in dun company. Unless I’m flattering myself, the locals here have begun to imitate my manners, remarks, attitudes, and habiliments. In this humble hamlet, my air of metropolitan fashion must make me an uncommon butterfly. I bestow smiles in all directions, and would honour the handful of shops with my generous patronage if Matron Clarkson wouldn’t always insist on hurrying us on.

Back at the house—our asylum in the truest sense, our retreat, our refuge, our haven from harassing circumstances—I snatch any chance to play, though those patients plagued by headaches can’t seem to bear even the delightful strains of my Purcell, Cramer, Clementi, unless I mean Corelli, and the “Rondo alla Turca,” which I’ve learned to finger with an astounding rapidity. I like to accompany myself as I sing our old favourite, “Che farò”: What shall I do, where will I go without my love? The other day a lady newly arrived took exception to my music, or perhaps was roused to fiery jealousy by my command of the ivories, and sank her teeth into my shoulder, but I laughed, and played on. See, the mad don’t always lose their teeth!

When I’m barred from my instrument, I go into the garden and climb up on Mount Parnassus. Can you guess what I mean by that? The little hillock, the mound that allows a commanding view over the road. I stand like a nightingale, chanting old tunes. If Matron Clarkson insists on leading me inside, I only smile, as nothing can crush my radiant spirits. I devote hours on end to playing quite silently on a desk—“Piano! Piano!” as Mrs. Tate used to hiss—and, you’ll marvel to hear, I’ve invented fourteen original tunes in one night, one of them (with eight variations) entitled “Welly’s Farewell” as a fond allusion to the nickname I gave you in days gone by, comparing you to our hero Major-General Wellesley, who’d so distinguished himself against the Marathas in India, long before he won the title of Duke of Wellington, which by happy chance sounds like “Welly” too!

Geometry I expect to understand thoroughly in a month—those fascinating angles that call to mind the intricate maze of life. Also you’ll approve the fact that I’m reading all of Shakespeare aloud, in the most carrying voice I can muster, to strengthen my lungs. Next I mean to go through the history and geography of Italy, Greece, both parts of Turkey, and all of Asia. Strange countries for to see, see, see, Strange countries for to see. I’ve taken a notion to roam across the whole world this way, on paper, in preparation; since now our Enemy has been toppled by your namesake Welly at Waterloo, I may finally think of voyaging in person.

An impossible ambition, considering my lack of rank or protection? Well, one never knows, and who can tell? Prison doors have sprung open without warning; we must turn our backs on despair’s bony frame and cling to the soft, bending limbs of hope. Perhaps I’ll persuade you to come travelling with me, Lister, pistols in bag, as my companion and guard? When we were fourteen you vowed to go everywhere; I hope you haven’t forgotten. Why might you and I not revel and feast on the banks of the fabled Arno, as we dreamed, but also the Danube, the Moskva, even the Indus and the Ganges?

At this moment I see you as clear as the ink on this page. You seem to laugh at me for my too tender memory, but is this not a mighty power, that whether in the midst of bustle or in solitude, I can conjure up the image of my dear one, miraculously unchanged as the corpse of a saint?

If you and I could only meet in person, I could use my tongue instead of my pen, and speak with that warm eloquence that flows but frigidly on paper. Everything lost may be restored. As inevitably as the constellations turn, you must come back to me, Lister—you, the bright star that’s guided me along the stormy coasts. Every rap at the front door makes me cock my ear. Could it be