Dear Marion,

Thank you for your letter. Nothing that I could write would 
be helpful or do justice to the perplexities which you describe
concerning Pierre. Please remember that whenever you wish to
come to Belmont, there is a place for you.

Thank you also for your thoughtful comments about Section 6 of
my memorandum. Judge Macdonald is not a logician. He understands
however about proof and about the burden of proof. In a criminal
trial the defendant is presumed innocent unless the prosecutor
proves guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. In a civil trial, the
plaintiff must prove his claims by a preponderance of evidence.
With an inspection, the inspector is both prosecutor and judge.
Neither the code nor the appeals court decision makes any provision
for the owner to participate in the inspection. The responsible
plumber, Mr. Gordon, whose duty might arguably have been to demonstrate
to the Inspector the correctness of the installation was in effect
ejected from the proceedings, when told by the Inspector, You stay
out of this. The practical issue now is: no valid inspection having
been made, and no qualified (unprejudiced) inspector available to
inspect, what happens to the plumbing? Judge Macdonald will tell me
four weeks from tomorrow.

As I may have explained to you previously, I have segregated the 
dialogues about the "philosophy" of my protagonist Katenus in a
separate chapter, at present about 21 pages long. For the past two
days, I've been translating the text into English, a task requiring
little imagination and at which I can work for hours without interruption.
I'm very fond of the English language; it's useful for elucidating
mysteries and for identifying nonsense. Perhaps the circumstance that
I haven't been able to find words to translate Erfahren and Erleben,
might mean that the distinction those two words is spurious.

It's time now for me to get back to work. Please stay well, and take
your time about answering. I'm very patient.

Jochen