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1017 Oiso, Japan Dear B.B., This is an exceptionally cold winter. As I suffer from high blood pressure since my return from U.S.A. in May last year, this cold winter is not good for me. I am leading as quiet life as possible in this country-side. How are you getting on? I think of you very often, although I cannot write so often as I wish. To write in English is an effort for my enfeebled body, & in my family, there is no one who can write letters in English in my stead. How are you? I do hope that you are well and healthy! About the Japanese edition of your Italian Painters, all preparations are over! You may have heard from Horovitz already. I have got four best translators in Japan. I could not let Miwa participate in the work, because we intend to begin translation soon & Miwa is not here. I am going to supervise the whole work & moreover I will write a long preface to the book, in which I want to explain to the Japanese public the importance of BB for Italian studies. In Japan Italian studies have been so little done that even such an [sic] self-evident fact as BB’s importance for such studies has to be well explained. Please ask Nicky to write to me a short outline of BB’s life and also to send me a list of books published by BB. Although I know them in a general way, I must make my knowledge of BB’s life and BB’s bibliography exact, so that I do not make any mistake in my Preface. Also please send me a photograph of yours. Your photograph which you gave me in 1924, when I left Florence after my first stay, I still have it always on my desk. But it is a little too old to be used in the coming Japanese Edition. So please send me a recent photo of yours. And also please send me photos of I Tatti, its beautiful outside with gardens & trees, & its interior with library & collections. I want to use them possibly as illustrations for my preface & also eventually for some articles on BB, which I shall write at the time, when Japanese edition comes out. (As there is no more space on this letter paper I stop short.) My love to you and also to Nicky. Yukio Yashiro |
