Dear Marion,

It's impossible for me to stop.

You will remember that when the PANIC in the police station
parking lot on The Island had subsided, Katenus, Mengs and Magus
were conducted into the office of Police Chief Martin Brandes,
who it turned out was himself a lover of literature, specifically
of literature about the girl detective Nancy Drew and who decides,
upon being invited by Mengs to lecture at the University, to
release the Professor and his assistant, but is persuaded by
police officer Buddy Blevins to hold Katenus on charges of sedition
and terrotist sympathies, on the classical rationale: If thou let
this man go, thou art not Caesar's friend. Accordingly Katenus was
detained, but Joachim refused to leave because he was loyal to Katenus,
and Jonathan refused to leave because he was loyal to Joachim.

On this first night the three find themselves imprisoned in the
Juror's Conference room. Katenus attempts to preserve his emotional
and intellectual equilibrium by starting among the three of them, 
a discussion about the theory of knowledge, a topic which is of 
interest also to Mengs and Magus, although, it turns out, less
compelling for them than for Katenus. As a result, the burden of
the exposition falls on him. They listen, but only absent-mindedly,
and finally fall asleep. Mengs is distracted by day dreams,
he silently recites to himself the details of a long life which
seems to be approaching a turning point.  Joachim, younger and with
fewer memories to occupy his mind, starts to examine the framed
images with which the walls of the jury room are decorated. These
consist of documents such as newspaper clippings, legal motions,
indictments, verdicts and sentences, and pictures of prosecutors,
jurors, witnesses, judges, of the families of the defendants, and
of course of the defendants themselves, in shackles, in prison garb,
on the threshold of execution, and in several pictures, post mortem
photographs of their brains, hearts, livers and kidneys, harvested
for anatomic and physiological studies.  Also pictures and descriptions
of hate parties, social events celebrating the triumphs of justice. 
(If this is not enough to stimulate Joachim's imagination, there is an
unlocked cabinet with court records and documentation going back
several centuries.)  Each of the three men passes the evening in his
own way, then falls asleep on the cot that has been provided by the
police officers, and begins to dream, talking in his sleep.

Katenus dreams that he is in Oslo giving his acceptance speech for the
the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his discovery of the biology of knowledge,
that knowledge is assimilation and a second Nobel Prize in literature
for having discovered the mathematical nature of Leibniz' Monadology and
the theological nature of Leibniz' differential and integral calculus,
effectively bridging the chasm between theology and mathematics. 

Mengs dreams that Katenus has been sentenced to life imprisonment and
has died in prison, and that Katenus' housekeeper Elly has moved to
the Mainland to keep house for him, and he agonizes whether it is
permissible for him to be in love with her.

Joachim dreams that his girlfriend, Charlotte has charged him with
sexual misconduct and that he is defending himself in a proceeding
in which Charlotte is accuser, star witness, prosecutrix, jury forewoman
and judge. After she has sentenced him, Charlotte recants and seeks his
release testifying that her accusation was false, and that she didn't
really intend to accuse him. In consequence of her confession it is
either her freedom or his freedom which will be irrevocably lost. As
he awakens, Joachim doesn't know what he should do, whether he should
sacrifice himself for Charlotte or whether he should sacrifice Charlotte
for himself. He falls asleep again and has a second dream in which the
ghosts of the convicted, among whom he recognizes Katenus, the ghosts
of the accusers, of the prosecutors, of the jurors and the judges are
even now concealing themselves in the jury conference room where he,
Joachim is the maintenance man responsible for order and decorum.

Each of the three men talks, gesticulates and intermittently screams
in his sleep, as he describes his dream to his sleeping comrades,
absurd and unintelligible revelations out of context. For each of the
three, the night has turned into an agonizing ordeal.  In the morning,
the Chief of Police appears as liberator, even for Katenus. He berates
Buddy and Billy that along with Katenus, they also imprisoned Mengs and
Magus, who are to be released and escorted home forthwith. Home is
Katenus' mansion on Main Street where Elly has been in despair waiting
for the return, especially of Katenus, and is now devastated by his
continuing imprisonment.

It's a long, complex but arguably important story, which will require
more than one chapter for its exposition.  Enough of the preface;
it's now time to proceed.

Der Worte sind genug gewechselt,
Laßt mich auch endlich Taten sehn!
Indes ihr Komplimente drechselt,
Kann etwas Nützliches geschehn.
Was hilft es, viel von Stimmung reden?
Dem Zaudernden erscheint sie nie.
Gebt ihr euch einmal für Poeten,
So kommandiert die Poesie.
Euch ist bekannt, was wir bedürfen,
Wir wollen stark Getränke schlürfen;
Nun braut mir unverzüglich dran!
Was heute nicht geschieht, ist morgen nicht getan,
Und keinen Tag soll man verpassen,
Das Mögliche soll der Entschluß
Beherzt sogleich beim Schopfe fassen,
Er will es dann nicht fahren lassen
Und wirket weiter, weil er muß.

Ihr wißt, auf unsern deutschen Bühnen
Probiert ein jeder, was er mag;
Drum schonet mir an diesem Tag
Prospekte nicht und nicht Maschinen.
Gebraucht das groß, und kleine Himmelslicht,
Die Sterne dürfet ihr verschwenden;
An Wasser, Feuer, Felsenwänden,
An Tier und Vögeln fehlt es nicht.
So schreitet in dem engen Bretterhaus
Den ganzen Kreis der Schöpfung aus,
Und wandelt mit bedächt'ger Schnelle
Vom Himmel durch die Welt zur Hölle.

It would be plagiarism, if I signed my name
to these lines from Faust, and I'll leave
you guessing about who's responsible for the
letter.