1Never have I complained more of my engagements, which have not allowed me either to accompany you when you set out for Campania for the sake of your health, or to follow you at once after you had gone. 2For now especially I longed to be with you, so that I might trust my own eyes as to what strength, what flesh you were putting on, and whether, in short, you were enjoying the pleasures of your retreat and the richness of the region without harm. 3Indeed, even if you were strong, I should not miss you without anxiety; 3for it is a tense and anxious thing to know nothing for a time about someone you love most ardently.
4But now the thought both of your absence and of your illness terrifies me with an uncertain and shifting anxiety. 4I fear everything, I imagine everything, and, as is the nature of those who are afraid, I picture most of all the things I most dread. 5So all the more earnestly I beg you to relieve my fear every day with one or even two letters. 5For I shall be calmer while I am reading, and shall be afraid again as soon as I have read. 5Farewell.