Liebe Margrit,
.PP
.fi
.na
I awoke at 4 a.m. this morning, and couldn't go back to sleep
because I kept thinking about my lost Konnarock vacation,
about the things that I hadn't gotten done and needed to do,
and about mistakes that I had made which needed correction.
And that is why I write to you so soon again.
.PP
I can't make up my mind, whether or not the advice I gave to you
about transferring title of your car to Bill prior to letting him
work on it was valid. Two questions arose in my mind. The first is
Bill's age. I don't know whether he is old enough to take title to a car.
I don't know how old he has to be before the jury would absolve you of
responsibility for giving him a machine to use under circumstances
where there was serious risk of injury. Unless he were twenty-one or older
the legal argument could be made that you were negligent and reckless in
giving him an automobile in such disrepair so that no reasonable person
could believe that he would be able to restore it to a condition where
it could be operated legally and safely on the public highway.
The other factor which I overlooked is the circumstance that
once in Bill's name, it will be awkward and expensive to
register and to insure the car, since Bill is not a resident of Virginia,
and for a young unmarried man, the insurance premium would be
proportionately very high.
.PP
In summary, let me say that I agree that the risk
of Bill's sustaining serious injury is small,
and depends largely on his judgment and experience
if he works by himself, and on the judgment and experience
of his mentor if he works under supervision.
I can certainly imagine cirumstances under which the risk
to each of you would be worth the benefits,
but I can also imagine circumstances where the
assumption of these risks would be sheer folly.
I don't know what you should do;
I don't presume to substitute my judgment for yours;
and whatever you do, I will not be angry or reproach you.
By the same token, you should not be angry with me
for saying what is on my mind.
.PP
It seems to me that
these considerations about the safety and wisdom of the Volkswagen project
are relevant also to the broader issue of trust which you have repeatedly
raised in your complaints that I do not trust you.
Many of my sophisticated Cambridge patients
require me to lay out every facet of a diagnosis
or every step of a proposed operation
before they entrust themselves to me.
Similarly the entirety of the cooperative relationship
between Klemens and myself
which has worked so well for so many years
is based on our habit of conferring in detail about
all but the most trivial actions that either one of us takes.
It is this sharing of experience,
the joint exploration of possibilities,
the joint identification and evaluation of risks and benefits
which engenders such absolute trust.
To say it bluntly: all that is necessary for me to trust you
as I trust Klemens is for you to discuss with me as he does,
what you are doing and what you are about to do.
.PP
I have the impression that the methodical and radical risk-benefit
analysis which Klemens and I are forever carrying on
is not entirely congenial to you, 
that there are some issues which Klemens and I would weigh carefully,
about which you would take a chance, or trust to luck, or trust in God.
Indeed, there is surely some point in the spectrum of deliberation
where rationalization fails
and there is no alternative but to act on intuition.
I suspect that the location of this point is different
for you and me, and that there are some, perhaps many,
decisions which you would make intuitively,
about which I would reason.
If this is the case, then when you ask me to "trust" you,
you are really asking me to let you act intuitively,
to let you trust to chance on my behalf,
to let you place bets for me on the wheel of fortune,
and this is difficult if not impossible for me
possessed as I am by the compulsion to calculate the probabilities.
Where the parties differ in their belief in chance,
or in God as the custodian of chance,
or perhaps better said, where the parties differ
in their reliance on guardian angels,
one party will be offended by the imperatives of explanation
and the other will be offended by the imperatives of faith.
The compromise is obvious: if you will be more forthcoming
with the details of your plans we can think them through together,
and I in return will try to establish a better
working relationship with the guardian angels.
Then perhaps life will be easier for both of us.