Dear Marion,

Thank you for your letter and for your tolerance of my eccentric
ruminations on the lives of animals and our ambiguous relationships
to them. Your thoughts on this topic seem to me consistently humane
and reasonable. There's no disagreement. The circumstance that I
tend to focus on the incongruities and discontinuities of my
experiences, far from necessarily laudable, is perhaps a propensity
to be deplored. I much admire the lucidity of your exposition,
especially in the context of what I perceive as the gradual unraveling
of my own meditations, whether in consequence of the recent strains
and stresses of my life, whether the reflection of incipient mental
breakdown, or whether simply the result of old age, will become
apparent with time.

The past week has been unusually hectic, and although I've made much
effort, I've not entirely succeeded in restoring the equanimity which
is prerequisite for being productive.  Last Monday morning, as so often,
I drove Klemens to the airport. On Tuesday morning, my childhood friend
Helmut Frielinghaus walked up to the door. He had written to me - by e-mail -
that he was coming.  Had asked and accepted my advice on various medical
issues related to his trip, but had declined our invitation to spend the
nights in our house rather than in a hotel. Although the visit was very
cordial, there seemed initially to be less in the way of experience and
ideas to be exchanged than on his two or three previous visits. After I had
explained to him the Court's decision and its consequences, Helmut asked
abruptly and unexpectedly whether we could take him to Nantucket the
following day, Wednesday. He wanted very much to see the island. And so
we went.  Margaret and I backed out of the driveway at 5:45 a.m., after
less than five hours' sleep, picked up Helmut at his hotel at 6:15,
and were on our way to Hyannis before sunrise. The weather was cold, but
sunny.  Since none of the plumbers to whose answering machines I had
spoken, had returned my calls, I made a second attempt while sitting in the
waiting room at the ferry terminal, at finding someone who would prepare my
plumbing for that inspection which the Appeals Court ordained should be
one of integrity and fairness. Again, the only responses to my calls were
from answering machines, except for one: a Mr. Liffey, who said he would
meet me at the house at 12:30, about an hour after the boat had landed.
When we arrived at the house, the lock was frozen, making it impossible to
insert the key. Because of the cold, I had asked the taxi driver to wait
until we were in the house. While I was considering what to do next, the
taxi driver melted the ice with the heat of his breath.  Mr. Liffey arrived
on time. A genial, friendly, talkative Irishman who has worked on Nantucket
for 10 years.  I was not surprised that he condemned everything I had done
as being in violation of the plumbing code, inasmuch as he was certain that
the plumbing code was something a non-plumber like myself could not
understand in spite, or perhaps because of the circumstance which he readily
admitted, that he himself did not quite understand it. My demeanor was, to
borrow the words of my father-in-law, hellishly pleasant. I thanked Mr.
Liffey for his advice, saying what he told me was exactly what I needed to
hear. His conclusion was that my entire installation should be removed and
replaced. I agreed that such a drastic procedure might indeed be necessary,
and asked him for his estimate. In the friendly and relaxed conversation
that ensued he ventured various dogmatic assertions about plumbing which,
although I knew them to be incorrect, I left unchallenged.  It occurred to
me later that just possibly his competence was marginal, and that after he
had destroyed all my plumbing, Mr. Liffey would discover himself unable to
replace it. Various scenarios of what would I do then, haunted my imagination.
Mr. Liffey also seemed unsure of himself.  He muttered that the he didn't
think I would want to pay what he proposed to charge; but he promised to
e-mail me his estimate nonetheless.  As of now I have had no further word
from him. Margaret and Helmut were audience to much of my conversation with
the plumber.  I couldn't resist remarking to Helmut, - who as you may know
is a professional editor, - on the analogy between Mr. Liffey's rejection of
my plumbing because I was not a licensed plumber, and his, Helmut's rejection
many years ago of my novel as being unpublishable because I was out of touch
with the contemporary German literary ambience.  Helmut said the comparison 
embarrassed him, but he was not offended. He was charmed by the openness
of the landscape, and particularly by the house whose many windows
offer so panoramic a view of the moors and the ocean. After Mr. Liffey
had driven away, Helmut, Margaret and I went for a short trip through
the surrounding countryside.  When the taxi that was to take us to the
dock arrived, the lock on the outside door was again frozen, but this
time I had access to an electric heater whose blast of warm air readily
melted the ice and made it possible for me to lock the door.  As usual,
we arrived at the wharf about an hour early. While Margaret guarded our
luggage in the warmth of the waitingroom, I took the occasion to walk
with Helmut through downtown Nantucket to the wharf where Ishmael and
Queequeg boarded the Pequod, and up Main Street lined with the great
houses of the whaling captains. The decorative trees along the sidewalks
were festooned with lights, and as we returned to the waiting room,
faint flakes of snow began to fall. The boat, as expected, was only
sparsely populated. Margaret wanted to stretch her legs on one of the
benches in the drug-store like cubicles next to the windows. Helmut and
I sat across the table from each other. Unexpectedly the thoughts and
sentiments that had seemed inaccessible the day before emerged in profusion;
we reminisced about our respective families, about Margrit's ambivalent
rejection of her parents.  Helmut explained his sympathies with Margrit,
because to some degree he also had rejected his family. We talked about
Helmut's brother who is a retired Lutheran minister in the former East
Germany still pining for the utopian socialist state that evaporated as in
a dream; about Helmut's son, unmarried, a prominent Lutheran preacher in
Berlin, about Helmut's daughter who is the personnel manager of a sometime
cigarette manufacturer now diversifying into other consumer goods, and her
husband who, in true 21st century style, is a house-father taking care of
two teenage daughters. Helmut complains that his grand-daughters ignore him,
acknowledging his own contribution to this estrangement, in that he chose to
live abroad many of the years of his grandchildren's childhood. Helmut
lamented, as he always does, the vulgarity and banality of contemporary
German culture.  I ventured the politically incorrect hypothesis about a
possible relationship between aristocracy in society and aristocracy in art.
Before we reached the end of our conversation, the 135 minutes of the crossing
had passed. The drive home from Hyannis was less strenuous than anticipated.
For much of the way, traffic seemed unusually sparse. To ward off somnolence,
I began to sing, my voice much less creaky than expected, snatches of Mozart
arias that came to my mind, "Wenn der Freude Traenen fliessen," and "Hier soll
ich dich nun finden," from the Abduction, "In diesen heil'gen Hallen" and
"Dies Bildnis ist bezaubernd schoen" from the Magic Flute.  I apologized to
Helmut and explained that I was performing not to impress but to stay awake.
He said he understood and didn't mind. He did not say I had a good voice.
He did comment about being surprised that I remembered the texts.
We drove Helmut to his hotel, the John Jeffries House - which the
Eye and Ear Infirmary maintains to provide lodging for family members
of patients who come from far away. Then Margaret and I drove back to
our cold, empty house from which we had left 18 hours before. Although
I was understandably very tired, I slept badly, haunted by Mr. Liffey's
inability to give my plumbing an inspection "of integrity and fairness",
wondering whether his prejudices were harbingers of judgments to come.

I've decided to keep trying. What else can I do? On Thursday, December 23,
Margaret and I will go back. This time I'll take a propane torch and
a hammer to thaw the lock. I plan to use the torch to warm the head of
the hammer, which I'll then hold against the face of the lock, sufficiently
to melt the ice. At 12:30, Mr. Dennis Parks will come to tell me that what
I've done is code violation and must be torn out; at 2:30, Mr. Dave Kinney
has an appointment and will, I expect, corroborate Mr. Parks and Mr.
Liffey's opinions, - or maybe at least one of them will be more generous
and cooperative, perhaps depending on how badly he needs the work.
All in all, an interesting experience; it builds character.

Nathaniel's rehearsals and concerts are scheduled between December 27 and
30th. Therefore Margaret and I won't return to Nantucket until January.
I've set aside Wednesday of each week for the trips, but as yet, I've 
had no word from other plumbers. Time will tell.

I sleep lightly these nights, vaguely anxious about the problems I have
created. Then with the dawn and the light, my self-confidence returns.
Seasons Greetings! - Jochen