Dear Marion,

Thank you for the job offer, but I regret that because of other
commitments I can't consider taking the position, however fascinating
I might find a cosmonaut's view of the universe. Also, I don't
think I'd get the job, because sooner or later the authorities
would discover that I'm really not qualified.
Nonetheless, you get an "A" for your Rilke interpretation.
You don't need to bother with the dictionary.

Angels have an important role in Rilke's cosmology and his
perceptions of them have fueled many a Ph.D. thesis.  Vestiges
of his Roman Catholic childhood, they constitute the transcendental
boundary of human experience, not so much of knowledge as of feeling.
He wrote:

"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....

In the cosmos where you and I are newbies, the angel
"feels more feelingly" and our boasts of majestic intuition,
(herrlich Erfuehltem) are not convincing to him.
I interpret the disparagement of majestic intuition
as derogation of traditional German classicism and romanticism.
Notice also that angels are far from sympathetic: indeed,
they are very threatening. The first Duino Elegy begins
memorably:

WER, wenn ich schriee, hoerte mich denn aus der Engel
Ordnungen? und gesetzt selbst, es naehme
einer mich ploetzlich ans Herz: ich verginge von seinem
staerkeren Dasein. Denn das Schoene ist nichts
als des Schrecklichen Anfang, den wir noch grade ertragen,
und wir bewundern es so, weil es gelassen verschmaeht,
uns zu zerstoeren. Ein jeder Engel ist schrecklich.
    Und so verhalt ich mich denn und verschlucke den Lockruf
dunkelen Schluchzens. Ach, wen vermoegen
wir denn zu brauchen? Engel nicht, Menschen nicht,
und die findigen Tiere merken es schon,
dass wir nicht sehr verlaesslich zu Haus sind
in der gedeuteten Welt. Es bleibt uns vielleicht
irgend ein Baum an dem Abhang, dass wir ihn taeglich
wiedersaehen; es bleibt uns die Strasse von gestern
und das verzogene Treusein einer Gewohnheit,
der es bei uns gefiel, und so blieb sie und ging nicht.
    O und die Nacht, die Nacht, wenn der Wind voller Weltraum
uns am Angesicht zehrt -, wem bliebe sie nicht, die ersehnte,
sanft enttaeuschende, welche dem einzelnen Herzen
muehsam bevorsteht. Ist sie den Liebenden leichter?
Ach, sie verdecken sich nur mit einander ihr Los.
    Weisst du's noch nicht? Wirf aus den Armen die Leere
zu den Raeumen hinzu, die wir atmen; vielleicht dass die Voegel
die erweiterte Luft fuehlen mit innigerm Flug.

Again: translation, intepretation and exegesis are free for
the asking.

"Ein jeder Engel ist schrecklich."  Each and every angel is terrifying.
That's the most compelling reason for not wanting the job.

Lines 12 and 13 of this poem:
"dass wir nicht sehr verlaesslich zu Haus sind
in der gedeuteten Welt....
haunted my adolescence and proved to be the key
to my epistemology. I came to terms with the quandary
by writing a book-length manuscript about it, 1960
to 1962, when I was a country doctor in Damascus VA.
Conceived, as you might expect, in German, the original
title: Der Ursprung des Zweifels an der gedeuteten Welt
aus dem ethischen und aesthetischen Bewusstsein des Menschen,
I translated as "Ethical and Esthetic Consciousness
as Sources of Doubt about the Conceptual World." You won't
be surprised that I found no commercial publisher. A college
classmate of mine, then working at the Harvard University Press
told me they would publish it, if I could get faculty endorsement,
and you won't be surprised that I couldn't.

So far as your autobiography is concerned, I would consider
almost any comment I might make as impudent, presumptuous
and in poor taste. Obsessed with literature as I am, your
collaboration with Micha on a novel, - even if only as the
"translator" seems to me (potentially) an epic opportunity
since both of you have lived through so much - so viel erlebt -
and have so much to tell not only to the world, but especially
to each other. In my experience at least, writing is the
transfiguration of life. De nobis fabula narrabitur would
seem to me the apposite epithet.

I started to post on the internet, my filings in the current
litigation, but on second thought, I expunged the link from
my website. My concern is that although Internet publication
of court filings is encouraged and is deemed standard practice,
what I have to report is so derogatory both of the Town of
Nantucket and of the Office of the Attorney General, that my 
publication might strike the Appeals Court as very objectionable,
and might lead, however unjustifiably, to sanctions or fines,
without in any way benefiting my cause. I thought I should
wait with publication until the case is over. However, although
at present not linked to my website, the material is there,
much of it I have previously e-mailed to you. Here is the URL
should you want to look at it. Of course, there's no obligation:

http://home.earthlink.net/~jochenmeyer/litigation/litig_index.html

Continuing now with the prospective synopsis of Chapter 38, 
we last saw Jonathan Mengs and Joachim Magus walking on the
packed sand at low tide on the Schacksett beach, unable to
articulate, even in conversation with each other, their concern
and perplexity at the predicament of Maximilian Katenus. Until
now the beach has been desolate; Mengs and Joachim seem to have
it all to themselves, when they see in the far distance an object
they had not noticed before, which, as they approach each other,
turns out to be a group of people, in fact a cluster of girls,
hopping and skipping, running in circles, playfully advancing
with unexpected rapidity. 

When they are about 50 yards away, the girls link hands
to form a cordon extending from the water's edge to the foot
of the dunes. Mengs and Joachim are rooted in amazement,
and then try to circumvent the human barrier, Mengs by
tip-toeing through the shallow outwash, Joachim by stomping
through the uncompacted sand of the dune.  But the vigilant
girls head them off, forming a tight circle in which Mengs
and Joachim are trapped.  "I have a cell phone," one of them
says. "If you touch any one of us, I'll call the police to
have you arrested for you know what. You're trapped."
And then another one, with a loud clear, trumpet like
soprano voice starts singing:

"Ein Netz fuer Maenner flechte ich,
ich fing sie gross und stark fuer mich,
dann sperrte ich sie bei mir ein,
und alle Maenner waeren mein."

"wenn alle Maenner waeren mein,
so kaufte ich brav Whisky ein
dem welcher mir am liebsten waer,
dem gaeb ich gleich den Whisky her.

"und liebte er mich zaertlich dann
waer ich sein Weib und er mein Mann;
Den anderen schnitt ich klip und klap
Mit dieser Scher' die Haare ab."

and singing with operatic bravura she twirled a pair of large
red scissors around the index finger of her right hand.

Before the two men were able to contrive a plan to escape, 
the chainlink that confined them had changed to a semicircle,
its open side abutting the ocean whose tidal flow had now
reversed itself and was flooding in.  "So now we'll herd you
into the sea," declared one of the girls, and the others joined in:
"Into the water, into the water with the two of you."
When Mengs and Joachim stood their ground, the circle around
them closed again.  "You're caught, you're prisoners,
there's no escape." If only one of you touches one of us,
I'll call the police; they'll take you to jail, and there
you can hold hands with Max Katenus.  They began to chant:

Hold hand with Max Katenus,
What did Elly tell you?
Elly told me just what she told you
and you and you and you.
Five witnesses against one.
Max's goose is cooked,
Elly's day is done.

The girls had erupted in as frenzy.  There seemed no way
of stopping them.  Finally, when Mengs and Joachim were at
their wits' end, they thought they heard the sound of a motor,
a jeep perhaps, a beach buggy.  The girls' chanting shifted,
"The beach patrol, the beach patrol," they shouted,
this time addressing not their prisoners but each other,
they dropped each others' hands and scurried off separately,
each by herself, into the dunes.

The two men were once more alone. They were free.
There was indeed a beach buggy in sight but off in the distance,
approaching them, drawing closer, albeit much more slowly than
either of them might have wished.  It was the beach patrol,
and as it was about to pass, Mengs waved to the patrolman to stop.

"Is any thing wrong?" the policeman asked.  But before Mengs had
time for any complaint, the policeman started to explain and
to apologize.  "I saw them from the distance, they were at it again.
It's shameful, it's disgraceful, but there's nothing can be done
about it. It's a gang, a gang of girls, rich and well connected
that's why we can't do anything. Half of them have fathers who
are captains of industry and finance, worth billions of dollars
who fly to the Island in their private jets; the other half are
the daughters of our selectmen, of our judges, of our commissioners.
They do whatever they wish, no one can stop them, especially since
they have an agreement with the Town Clerk to testify to anything
the Town wants proved. So Monday they'll be in court to testify 
against that poor chap Katenus and his housekeeper. It's disgusting,
it's nauseating. But there's nothing anyone can do. I would advise
you to leave the beach before I'm out of sight, because it seems
that they don't like you, and before you know it, you'll be in
as much trouble as poor Katenus. Be careful, watch out, take care,
and have a good weekend."

======================

So much for fantasy, irony and satire. Admittedly very much like
a cartoon, and expressionistic. With what literary qualities, if any,
I can imbue it when I render it in German, remains to be seen.
The closest literary prototype that immediately comes to mind
is the imagination of Heinrich von Kleist, as in Das Kaethchen von
Heilbronn, Nichael Kohlhass, Amphytrion ... Stylistically, it seems
important to minimize the extravagance and to create characters
whose viciousness and malice is amalgamated with self-righteousness
and spurious virtues. I'll keep working on it, and I apologize for
importuning you with such premature presentations. I also apologize
for the absence of politically correct feminism.

Jochen