Dear Marion, The Tragedie of Hamlet Actus Primus. Scoena Prima. Enter Barnardo and Francisco two Centinels. _ Barnardo. Who's there? _ Fran. Nay answer me: Stand & vnfold your selfe _ Bar. Long liue the King _ Fran. Barnardo? _ Bar. He _ Fran. You come most carefully vpon your houre _ Bar. 'Tis now strook twelue, get thee to bed Francisco _ Fran. For this releefe much thankes: 'Tis bitter cold, And I am sicke at heart _ Barn. Haue you had quiet Guard? _ _ Fran. Not a Mouse stirring _ Barn. Well, goodnight. If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus, the Riuals of my Watch, bid them make hast. Enter Horatio and Marcellus. _ Fran. I thinke I heare them. Stand: who's there? _ Hor. Friends to this ground _ Mar. And Leige-men to the Dane _ Fran. Giue you good night _ Mar. O farwel honest Soldier, who hath relieu'd you? _ Fra. Barnardo ha's my place: giue you goodnight. Exit Fran. _ Mar. Holla Barnardo _ Bar. Say, what is Horatio there? _ Hor. A peece of him _ Bar. Welcome Horatio, welcome good Marcellus _ Mar. What, ha's this thing appear'd againe to night _ Bar. I haue seene nothing _ Mar. Horatio saies, 'tis but our Fantasie, And will not let beleefe take hold of him Touching this dreaded sight, twice seene of vs, Therefore I haue intreated him along With vs, to watch the minutes of this Night, That if againe this Apparition come, He may approue our eyes, and speake to it _ Hor. Tush, tush, 'twill not appeare _ Bar. Sit downe a-while, And let vs once againe assaile your eares, That are so fortified against our Story, What we two Nights haue seene _ Hor. Well, sit we downe, And let vs heare Barnardo speake of this _ Barn. Last night of all, When yond same Starre that's Westward from the Pole Had made his course t' illume that part of Heauen Where now it burnes, Marcellus and my selfe, The Bell then beating one _ Mar. Peace, breake thee of: Enter the Ghost. Looke where it comes againe _ Barn. In the same figure, like the King that's dead _ Mar. Thou art a Scholler; speake to it Horatio _ Barn. Lookes it not like the King? Marke it Horatio _ Hora. Most like: It harrowes me with fear & wonder _ Barn. It would be spoke too _ Mar. Question it Horatio _ Hor. What art thou that vsurp'st this time of night, Together with that Faire and Warlike forme In which the Maiesty of buried Denmarke Did sometimes march: By Heauen I charge thee speake _ Mar. It is offended _ Barn. See, it stalkes away _ Hor. Stay: speake; speake: I Charge thee, speake. Exit the Ghost. _ Mar. 'Tis gone, and will not answer _ Barn. How now Horatio? You tremble & look pale: Is not this something more then Fantasie? What thinke you on't? _ Hor. Before my God, I might not this beleeue Without the sensible and true auouch Of mine owne eyes _ Mar. Is it not like the King? _ Hor. As thou art to thy selfe, Such was the very Armour he had on, When th' Ambitious Norwey combatted: So frown'd he once, when in an angry parle He smot the sledded Pollax on the Ice. 'Tis strange _ Mar. Thus twice before, and iust at this dead houre, With Martiall stalke, hath he gone by our Watch _ Hor. In what particular thought to work, I know not: But in the grosse and scope of my Opinion, This boades some strange erruption to our State _ Mar. Good now sit downe, & tell me he that knowes Why this same strict and most obseruant Watch, So nightly toyles the subiect of the Land, And why such dayly Cast of Brazon Cannon And Forraigne Mart for Implements of warre: Why such impresse of Ship-wrights, whose sore Taske Do's not diuide the Sunday from the weeke, What might be toward, that this sweaty hast Doth make the Night ioynt-Labourer with the day: Who is't that can informe me? _ Hor. That can I, At least the whisper goes so: Our last King, Whose Image euen but now appear'd to vs, Was (as you know) by Fortinbras of Norway, (Thereto prick'd on by a most emulate Pride) Dar'd to the Combate. In which, our Valiant Hamlet, (For so this side of our knowne world esteem'd him) Did slay this Fortinbras: who by a Seal'd Compact, Well ratified by Law, and Heraldrie, Did forfeite (with his life) all those his Lands Which he stood seiz'd on, to the Conqueror: Against the which, a Moity competent Was gaged by our King: which had return'd To the Inheritance of Fortinbras, Had he bin Vanquisher, as by the same Cou'nant And carriage of the Article designe, His fell to Hamlet. Now sir, young Fortinbras, Of vnimproued Mettle, hot and full, Hath in the skirts of Norway, heere and there, Shark'd vp a List of Landlesse Resolutes, For Foode and Diet, to some Enterprize That hath a stomacke in't: which is no other (And it doth well appeare vnto our State) But to recouer of vs by strong hand And termes Compulsatiue, those foresaid Lands So by his Father lost: and this (I take it) Is the maine Motiue of our Preparations, The Sourse of this our Watch, and the cheefe head Of this post-hast, and Romage in the Land. Enter Ghost againe. But soft, behold: Loe, where it comes againe: Ile crosse it, though it blast me. Stay Illusion: If thou hast any sound, or vse of Voyce, Speake to me. If there be any good thing to be done, That may to thee do ease, and grace to me; speak to me. If thou art priuy to thy Countries Fate (Which happily foreknowing may auoyd) Oh speake. Or, if thou hast vp-hoorded in thy life Extorted Treasure in the wombe of Earth, (For which, they say, you Spirits oft walke in death) Speake of it. Stay, and speake. Stop it Marcellus _ Mar. Shall I strike at it with my Partizan? _ Hor. Do, if it will not stand _ Barn. 'Tis heere _ Hor. 'Tis heere _ Mar. 'Tis gone. Exit Ghost. We do it wrong, being so Maiesticall To offer it the shew of Violence, For it is as the Ayre, invulnerable, And our vaine blowes, malicious Mockery _ Barn. It was about to speake, when the Cocke crew _ Hor. And then it started, like a guilty thing Vpon a fearfull Summons. I haue heard, The Cocke that is the Trumpet to the day, Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding Throate Awake the God of Day: and at his warning, Whether in Sea, or Fire, in Earth, or Ayre, Th' extrauagant, and erring Spirit, hyes To his Confine. And of the truth heerein, This present Obiect made probation _ Mar. It faded on the crowing of the Cocke. Some sayes, that euer 'gainst that Season comes Wherein our Sauiours Birch is celebrated, The Bird of Dawning singeth all night long: And then (they say) no Spirit can walke abroad, The nights are wholsome, then no Planets strike, No Faiery talkes, nor Witch hath power to Charme: So hallow'd, and so gracious is the time _ Hor. So haue I heard, and do in part beleeue it. But looke, the Morne in Russet mantle clad, Walkes o're the dew of yon high Easterne Hill, Breake we our Watch vp, and by my aduice Let vs impart what we haue seene to night Vnto yong Hamlet. For vpon my life, This Spirit dumbe to vs, will speake to him: Do you consent we shall acquaint him with it, As needfull in our Loues, fitting our Duty? _ Mar. Let do't I pray, and I this morning know Where we shall finde him most conueniently. Exeunt. Dear Marion, The ghost, the subject of our contention, is National Socialism, the violence and destruction, that National Socialism revealed and wreaked in the souls and in the societies that were its victims. In contemplating, in attempting to understand and to interpret what we have seen, - and what we see, - you and I are like the band of soldiers in the opening scene of Hamlet, to only some of whom the ghost appears - and speaks. To others it is silent, even invisible. Here as there, the disparity in apperception is itself a frightening phenomenon, and might conceivably turn out to be as frightening as the ghost itself. On the floor next to me stands a new-old very heavy and somewhat sluggish computer. It's processor claims no more than 750 megahertz. Klemens made it a contribution to my junk shop, because his children complained it was too slow for their animated psyches. After reprogramming and testing, I will wrap it in an old quilt, strap it to hand-truck, drive with it to Hyannis, where I will persuade the Steamship Authority employees that it's just another bicycle, - literally true, - the hand truck has two wheels, - and for a mere six dollars, roll it onto the freight deck of the ferry which will take us to Nantucket, where it will replace my surveillance computer which is on strike. Haven't been able to retrieve an image since October 16. My frantic, puerile wrestling with these sophisticated electonics reminds me of the basement of my Konnarock childhood, where games with simpler electric toys distracted me from the haunting memories of - you guessed it - National Socialism, and the sombre realities of family life fraught, so it seemed to me, with dissension and unhappiness. Whether or not the ghost will ultimately also appear to you, or whether I will ultimately accept it to have been a figment of my bruised imagination, - or whether ultimately we will reach an amicable agreement to disagree, time will tell. My next programming task: to install the configuration files for the routines that control the camera, then to modify the booting procedure, so that when the telephone switch turns on the machine, it will dial the Internet connection and send to my website the dynamic IP address that has been assigned to it. I retrieve that address: "local IP address 4.154.229.168" is the message, the last one, I received on October 16. Then with the command: "ssh 4.154.229.168" I log on to the Nantucket computer from Belmont, from Konnarock, or from anywhere else, and with the simple instruction: "motion -s" direct it sequentially to obtain images from the four cameras. Playing with such toys, you will agree, is far more edifying than trying to distinguish Bush from Hitler, Rove from Goebbels, Cheney from Goering, Rumsfeld from Himmler ... and above all, to distinguish my American patients, with their explanation that Bush didn't intend Abu Ghraib, from my father's German patients, Herr und Frau Bohndorf who had the stationery store an der Siegfriedstrasse, who piously assured my parents with respect to Dachau and Buchenwald: "Der Fuehrer will das nicht." Jochen