Dear Marion,

Thank you for your letter. Before going on to more important matters,
I must debrief myself before the events of this long tiring day vanish
in amnesia. I slept lightly and awoke early, rehearsing over and over
again what I might tell the judge at the hearing. By six a.m. I was up.
I wrote an early morning letter to my friend Cynthia Behrman. Then I
dawdled reading the NY Times on the Internet. At nine-thirty I started
to pack ny briefcase with a few legal records and my Loeb Library
edition of the Odyssey Since I have no waterproof dress shoes, I covered
what I have with rubber boots; these I would remove prior to the hearing,
once I was in the courthouse. Not to be forgotten: my keys, my wallet,
my MBTA senior citizen's pass, my cell phone, gloves, hat.  By ten o'clock
I had it all assembled and was on my way. The sidewalk was choked with
snow, and five foot high ridges of snow - like models of an alpine
landscape, lined the narrowed street which was awash with slush. I
had started to walk on the left side facing traffic, when Mr. Traniello,
a neighbor whose dog has for years favored our front lawn as his favorite
"rest area", pulled up next to me in his beaten-up 20 year old Buick
station wagon and insisted on driving me to the bus stop. I was early,
the bus was late, but after twenty minutes of waiting on the ice-capped
sidewalk, we made connections.  No sooner had the bus started to careen
down Concord Avenue than I noticed that I had forgotten to dress up in
a necktie, that article of dress which distinguishes the lawyer in the
courtroom from the evildoer about to be led off to jail. It occurred to
me, that since I was so very early, I should take the time before getting
on the subway in Harvard Square to celebrate my day in court by stopping
at the Coop to buy a necktie. That boutique, however, is not what it used
to be. The hall in which 64 years ago, men's clothing was offered for sale
had been converted into a large bookstore, with sections and divisions and
of course books and books too numerous to count. After keeping me waiting
for five minutes, a saleslady put down the telephone and answered my inquiry.
No, neckties were no longer sold by the Coop. I thanked her politely and
wandered out onto Massachusetts Avenue and into the slush. A good time, I
thought, after so many years, to make the rounds of Harvard Square.
Albiani's, the dirty-spoon restauant I knew had long since disappeared, -
but not from my memory of feasting there for lunch day after graduate
school day, on spaghetti, tomato sauce, a hard roll, and a glass of water,
all for thirty five cents, eschewing the luxury of meatballs which would
have increased the cost by a nickel.  I turned into Church Street looking
for a haberdashery with neckties, and finally espied a promising
establishment at the corner of Brattle Street. Yes, said the very
youthful salesman, they did sell neckties, which I found less than
attractive, and the price was $25, which happened to be ten dollars
more than my mental necktie budget provided. I nodded appreciatively
as I rejected the offer, ashamed once again that my stinginess had cast
some small shadow, however fleeting, over the expectations of one of my
fellow human beings. At that late juncture, 11 o'clock already, it dawned
on me that although lawyers wear neckties in court, plumbers don't, and a
tieless appearance would hardly jeopardize and perhaps enhance the chances
of my latest motion.  Since the hearing was set for 2 p.m. and the subway
ride to Government Center was half an hour at most, with so much memory
waiting to be refreshed, I decided this was the time for an anniversary
visit to the Yard.  At the corner of Boylston I nodded to the ghost of
the Wursthaus, long since replaced by a more modern and much less colorful
establishment, a restaurant which I myself had never frequented, but
where I had located the encounters of Doehring and Murphy, two protagonists
of my novel Die Andere. A few hundred feet to the east, the Bank where
Dorothea, die Andere herself, had worked and from which she had been
abducted into the caverns of the adjacent subway station von dem
Ophthalmoluegner, as Murphy had called him. Across the curve which
Massachusetts Avenue, die Staatsallee in the novel, describes at this
point the long since dismantled subway exit from which Joachim Magus
emerged on his arrival, trying to find "das Eulenhaus."

I entered the Yard through the same gate through which I had
lugged my heavy black suitcase sixty-five years earlier,
walked past the window of the first floor bedroom, Matthews Hall 3,
where I had spent my first 2 semesters at Harvard. Walked under the bare
elms past Weld and University Halls, and stood next to Memorial Church
looking first at the grand but totally humorless facade of Widener, then
to Richardson's dungeon-like Sever Hall, where I failed my mid-term
calculus exam. I walked back under the west side of Widener, could no
longer identify the window of Professor Vietor's study where I prepared
the newspaper extracts for his Nietzsche book of which his final illness
prevented him from even making a beginning. Then out through the 
Wigglesworth arcade to Massachusetts Avenue, where the aspect of the
J. August haberdashery, - which Klemens says dates to the days of
Teddy Roosevelt - reminded me of the necktie I had been too cheap to buy.
The store was packed with Chinese and Japanese students, as if Harvard
had been transported to the Far East. However, the only ties they sold 
were emblazoned with Veritas shields, such as I've never worn. Too old
now. The saleman directed me to a mens clothing store around the corner
on Holyoke Street, with a display of many tasteful and attractive ties
in the window. An elderly salesman was ready to help me. I enquired about
the price. From sixty three he said to a hundred thirty five. I smiled
gently and said, I take it the quotation is in dollars rather than cents.
That's correct, he said, and returned my smile.

It was time to go to the courthouse. No wait for the subway or the
green line. I arrived two hours early and sat down on a very hard and 
uncomfortable bench. I read only one page in the Odyssey. Then I dozed
intermittently. The courtroom was kept locked until precisely 2 p.m.
As I walked in, a smallish slender, very well dressed youthful middle
aged man addressed me and introduced himself as George Puzzi, Nantucket's
new lawyer. I suppose out of spite, Kimberly hadn't given him my motion
or memorandum. He had only a hazy notion of what the case was about. To
help him get started, I gave him copies of the documents I had recently
filed. There was no time for conversation.  A court officer intoned "All
rise", as the judge walked in. I'm not much of a ladies' man, but I found
her to be a very attractive woman. Too polite, too intelligent and with 
too much good sense and good taste, to find it necessary to assert her
liberation status. There was not much business. Ours was the third and
last case. She excused herself for asking, contrary to protocol, since
I was the appellant, first to hear from Mr. Pucci, The fact that she did
not want to hear from me at all, far from offending, pleased me. I surmised,
perhaps incorrectly, that my motion had made its point; she recognized its
validity, but wanted to avoid the hard decision by pressing for compromise.
With Mr. Pucci she was very stern when he explained that the Nantucket
authorities did not want my case to become a precendent. "Precedents have
no significance in my court. Tell that to the Nantucket authorities."
The judge - I don't yet know her name - wanted a compromise by next week.
Mr. Pucci asked for 30 days, and she agreed. Another hearing is scheduled
for March 3, at 2 p.m.

After I came home I telephoned Mr Gordon to apprise him
of the latest turn of events. He was obviously pleased to
hear from me. He was less taciturn than ever. The purpose of my
call, I explained, was to put him on notice that Mr. Puzzi thought
he could teach manners to his client, Mr. Ciarmataro, and force
him to issue the plumbing permit and to inspect the plumbing.
I told him of my concern that Mr. Ciarmataro might punish him
if he continued supported my plubing and did not concur with
Mr. Ciarmataro's criticism. I urged Mr. Gordon to look out for
his own interests and to abandon me, if he deemed it best for
himself. It turned out, luckily for me, that he considered
my interests his interests. He was not afraid of Mr. Ciarmataro,
he said, considered himself a much better plumber than the inspector.
He confided to me that he had visited the house before we arrived,
looked through the windows and seen that the studs were bare.
He also admitted that he had spoken twice with Mr. Ciarmataro, 
once before the inspection and then the following day when he
had asked for the plumbing permit and been denied. Mr. Ciamartaro
was chagrined that contrary to his expectations, my plumbing was
substantial and code compliant and did not need to be razed.  Mr.
Gordon stated even more forcefully than in our earlier conversation,
that he believed the plumbing to be more code compliant than
customary on Nantucket and should be approved. He most emphatically
said that any attempt to pressure him to find fault with the
plumbing would only make him more insistent on its quality.
I had the impression that my rebellion against the bureaucracy
is a template according to which he is prepared to express his
own frustrations, and that he is finally finding release for years
if not decades of harrassment by officialdom. I was much heartened,
he's the plumber I need.

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

So far as Goethe and the Magic Flute are concerned, I am as usual
apologetic for my lack of scholarship, for my readiness to speculate
about situations without having gone to the trouble of ascertaining
the "facts". That said, I speculate that Goethe was relatively
insensitive to the unique qualities of Mozart's music. That he 
was impressed, if not shaken by the success of the Magic Flute
with a hundred performances in a short period of time; that Goethe
compared the enthusiastic reception of an opera based on a
poetically inferior text with the success of his own dramatic
productions, Goetz, Egmont, Iphigenia, Tasso, - which though
substantial, could not compare with the success of the Magic Flute.
Always sensitive to popular acclaim, Goethe wanted to get in the
act. If Schikaneders mediocre prose could rouse so much enthusiasm,
shouldn't Goethe's incomparable poetic gifts generate even greater
success? He focussed on the language rather than the music.
Couldn't find a composer for the opera. Persuaded his friend
the musician Zelter to write an overture, - but that's as far
as he got.

And this is as far as I get.
Good night.

Jochen