Dear Marion,

The literary debris that I have been sending your way
will be ample explanation, if nothing else, for any limitation
in my writing to you. With the settlement of Margrit's affairs
at least temporarily behind me, and my little speech to the
Appeals Court for Wednesday morning practiced over and over
again to the stage of inanity, I have permittred myself to
be vigorously distracted by the inquiries of Renate Haertle
of the Nibelungen Realschule in Braunschweig. If you object
to excercising your German, let me know, and I can easily
enough arrest the barrage in your direction.

This evening Rebekah came over with a DVD of a German film
with English subtitles about a woman who was in a coma when
the Berlin Wall fell and whose health required her to be
protected from knowledge of the true state of affairs
concerning the reunification of the Germanys, her family
going to great lengths to fashion for her a contrived, false
artificial environment. I didn't say anything derogatory
to Rebekah about this film that had earned first prizes
for everything imaginable; but I was not impressed, and
understood more clearly than ever, how remote my own artistic
concerns are from what is presently fashionable in Europe.

You are, of course, correct when you note the oscillations
of intentions, - yours and mine, - but it seems reasonable
to point out that some of the logical instability derives from
the ambiguity of language, as for example, the indefiniteness
of "exaggeration", which may sometimes mean an escape from the
truth into the absured, and then at other times, the approximation
of truth by escaping from spurious mediocrity to something
more real.

Another aspect is the dialectic dynamics of truth, which can
sometimes only be approximated by the pendulum that swings
between thesis and antithesis. When Emerson said that consistency
was the hobgoblin of little minds, he was speaking as a disciple
of Hegel, although he didn't know it.

My mother-in-law, about whom you asked, and I had great respect
for each other. I liked her very much; and so far as I know, she
never objected to me in any respect. She had four children
and more grandchildren than I am able to count, and I think
I was somewhat at the periphery of her concerns; but that's
understandable, and nothing to complain about.

I expect to keep on writing, and you'll read from me perhaps
sooner than you have a need for a letter. For now, good night.

Jochen