Line 768:  address

At this point my reader may be amused by my allusion to John Shade in a letter (of which I fortunately preserved a carbon copy) that I wrote to a correspondent living in southern France on April 2, 1959: 

My dear, you are absurd.  I do not give you, and will not give you or anybody, my home address not because I fear you might look me up, as you are pleased to conjecture:  all my mail goes to my office address.  The suburban houses here have open letter boxes out in the street, and anybody can cram them with advertisements or purloin letters addressed to me (not out of mere curiosity, mind you, but from other, more sinister, motives).  I send this by air and urgently repeat the address Sylvia gave you:  Dr. C. Kinbote, (not “Charles X. Kingbot, Esq.,” as you or Sylvia, wrote; please, be more careful—and more intelligent), Wordsmith University, New Wye, Appalachia, USA.

I am not cross with you but I have all sorts of worries, and my nerves are on edge.  I believed—believed deeply and candidly—in the affection of a person who lived here, under my roof, but have been hurt and betrayed, as never happened in the days of my forefathers, who could have the offender tortured, though of course I do not wish to have anybody tortured. 

It has been dreadfully cold here, but thank God now a regular northern winter has turned into a southern spring.

Do not try to explain to me what your lawyer tells you but have him explain it to my lawyer, and he will explain it to me.

My work at the university is pleasant, and I have a most charming neighbor—now do not sigh and raise your eyebrows, my dear—he is a very old gentleman—the old gentleman in fact who was responsible for that bit about the ginkgo tree in your green album (see again—I mean the reader should see again—the note to line 49).

It might be safer if you did not write me too often, my dear.