Dear Marion,

Your letter about The Farm reminds me that I am like the
miniature pinscher who visited us for five days in Konnarock
last month, in that I have no bark, and am consequently
incapable of sounding the fanfare of trumpets which might
begin to do justice to the story you tell and the way you
tell it and the person who tells it.

Your letter brought to mind, - and don't ask me why, the
lines from Rilke's 9th Duino Elegy. It's a set of instructions
how to describe to the angel what we understand about our
world. The poetry is unavoidably somewhat obscure, and if
you'd like it paraphrased and explained, - to the extent
that I am able, - let me know.

"Preise dem Engel die Welt, nicht die unsaegliche, ihm
kannst du nicht grosztun mit herrlich Erfuehltem; im Weltall,
wo er fuehlender fuehlt, bist du ein Neuling. Drum zeig
ihm das Einfache, das von Geschlecht zu Geschlechtern gestaltet,
als ein Unsriges lebt, neben der Hand und im Blick.
Sag ihm die Dinge. Er wird staunender stehn; wie du standest
bei dem Seiler in Rom, oder beim Toepfer am Nil.
Zeig ihm, wie gluecklich ein Ding sein kann, wie schuldlos und unser,
wie selbst das klagende Leid rein zur Gestalt sich entschlieszt,
dient als ein Ding, oder stirbt in ein Ding -, und jenseits
selig der Geige entgeht. - Und diese, von Hingang
lebenden Dinge verstehn, dasz du sie ruehmst; vergaenglich,
traun sie ein Rettendes uns, den Vergaenglichsten, zu.
Wollen, wir sollen sie ganz im unsichtbarn Herzen verwandeln
in - o unendlich - in uns! Wer wir am Ende auch seien."
_                   Rilke, 9. Duineser Elegie

I think I begin to understand what draws you to the Farm
each weekend.

I'm much appreciative also of the astuteness of your interpretation
of my legal positions. The art - and as I see it, the pathos - of the
law is the translation of matters of life and death into formula and
procedure, determining what is "just" by ascertaining whether the
"i"'s are dotted and the "t"'s are crossed. So I say to the court
in effect, I think you're frivolous and immoral, but if that's the
game you want to play, I'll play it with you, and beat you at it.
The ultimate injustice is that the courts presume to change the rules
in the middle of the game, so that their favorite will win, no matter
what. But then the consequence of this trickery is that it dissolves
the law, and we are home free, so to speak. Prosecuted with sufficient
diligence and relentlessness, the law will rescind itself, and its
provisions will annihilate each other. q.e.d.

Before your letter came, my novel was very much on my mind, and I
was plotting the course of events in chapter 38. But your letter, of
course, has more truth to it, than any novel I could write, and my
mind had no alternative but to give it precedence.

By way of introduction, I should explain the obvious, that all the
characters whom I describe are either facets of myself or reflections
of persons by whom I have been (deeply) impressed. That having been
said, I'll begin to tell the story, which has now bloated to 670
pages of 400 words each. It's like a soap opera, one scene devolving
from the preceeding. I don't know that it will ever end, except
with my own life. Admittedly before ending it may degenerate into
senile babble, if it hasn't already.  I make no presumption of
impressing onto my novel any form, - other than that which is imparted
by the language itself, nor any structure, so that whatever structure
comes to light is the structure of life itself.

My protagonists, Jonathan Mengs and Joachim Magus are on the Island,
It's their third visit. On their first trip five years ago - or so -
I don't pretend to be a chronologist - they encountered an eccentric
character whom I named Maximilian Katenus, a man wealthy in valuable
island real estate, but poor in friends, who attempted to barter land
for friendship with disastrous results, in that the objects of his
generosity, though they accepted his gifts, were deeply embarrassed,
because their jealous neighbors to whom such generosity was otherwise
incomprehensible, accused the donees of accepting Katenus' gifts as
payment for sexual favors. Then, to rid themselves of that opprobium
the donees welcomed and amplified a rumor that Katenus was in fact
involved in an illicit domestic relationship with his housekeeper,
Elly (no last name yet); and since such informal relationships nowadays
are the rule rather than the exception, the gossip had been spiced 
to make it telling, namely with the accusation that on Katenus' part
that relationship was forcible and violent, an accusation denied by
Elly but disturbingly corroborated by two or three of her friends who
have settled on an account very damaging to Katenus, to which they
will swear that Elly confided it to them.  Thus the stage is set for
a moral and legal catastrophe. In a preliminary telephone conversation
Katenus had pleaded with Mengs to come. "Rettet mich, rettet mich,"
he had implored him, and Mengs, at a loss for an explanation of
Katenus' desperation had agreed to come, bringing along as on previous
visits, his junior faculty member Joachim Magus. They had come the
day before; then in the course of a lengthy after-dinner conversation
Katenus had spelled out his predicament. It turned out that Mengs
and Magus had arrived on the weekend preceding the initial hearing
in Katenus' case. Of course they would stay. By now they have spent
the first night in Katenus' Main Street mansion as his guests.
Katenus has lent them one of his automobiles to explore the
Island. I now have Mengs and Magus walking on the beach at
a village I've christened Schacksett, a contraction of its
legal name Schiacksetzingen. (On Nantucket it's "Sconset" as
opposed to "Siasconset".) The language disparities are obvious
reflections of the intellectual/spiritual predicament that
persuades me I must write in German even after 70 years in an
English-speaking environment. 

In any case, my protagonists are even now walking on the beach
at Schacksett. The tide has gone out, the sand provides
them with a firm footing. Each in his own way is overwhelmed
by the enormity of Katenus' predicament, they don't know
what to make of it, or what to say to each other, and
when I found your letter in the e-mail box, I was trying to
listen to the halting and embarrassed exchanges between them
as they watched the low distant breakers on the horizon.

It's Friday, and the soap opera has reached its weekly climax.
I'll let you know soon enough what happens next.

Jochen