Today I found a nice message from Elise, which ends with her thanks for my postcard from Motovun. The postcard itself was a standard tourist affair, my text included. But the first paragraph of Elise’s message is of special interest. Here it is in its entirety:

“Women! I could have conquered all of Europe, but I had women in my life!” Henry I, 1183, as spoken by Peter O’Toole in The Lion in Winter. I don’t know if you rent movies; probably have no television. But if you do and if you haven’t seen it in the last ten years, it’s good fun, great acting. Obviously that line reminded me of you. Even though I know that, figuratively speaking, you’ve done better than Henry. You have conquered, despite your women.

I responded at once that Schopenhauer would have been most pleased with her assessment of my greatest failing. Men’s greatest failing, that is. Sex only detracts from better things in life. The trouble is that there are ever fewer things sex can detract from, as witnessed by old Henry’s lament. To wit, Europe has long been conquered.