318. It Is Noon On a Summer Day

It is noon on a summer day and the weather is so
hot that one does not know what to do with oneself.
One keeps waving one's fan, but there is not a
breath of cool air; then, just as one is hurrying
to put one's hands in a bowl of iced water, a
letter arrives. It is written on a sheet of fine,
brilliantly red paper and attached to a Chinese
pink in full bloom. Without thinking, one lays
aside one's fan (which was not doing much good in
any case) and imagines how deeply one's friend must
feel to have taken all this trouble on such a
suffocating day.