Dear Marion,

Your letter advising me to tone down my criticism of the
Nantucket administrative establishment lest I be thought
by the judges to be some sort of nut must be on my Belmont
computer; I can't find it here, but your criticism for which
I am grateful, - as for all criticism -, has been much on
my mind. Am I in error when I hear in it a faint echo of
Onkel Fritz' (and Onkel Heinz') deference to authority?
My social status, I fear, is beyond repair, cannot be
salvaged, and what I say, - or write -, or refrain from
saying or writing, is not likely to make it much better
or much worse. I derive satisfaction from observing the
deceptions and self-deceptions of the administrators and
the judges, and surviving, after a fashion, in the 
interstices.

Our summer plans are as yet very uncertain, depending as
they do on the outcomes of the two hearings, the one
before the Plumbing Board presumably in the first half
of June; the one befor Judge Macdonald on August 29.
If it were feasible for you to arrange your trip to 
France so that you would be in Boston in the last week
of August, our planning would be simplified. Otherwise
we would try to adapt to your schedule. It's possible
that we might be in Belmont during the last half of July
and all of August in any event.

I haven't succeeded in resuming work on the novel yet;
but I'm going to try again, right now. Good night.

Jochen