is their order, no matter, I would try first of all to get myself acclimated to the garret up there, to make myself at home first, and only then organize myself with respect to my work on Roithamer’s literary legacy. That he, Hoeller, had put the garret at my disposal for this purpose, was the greatest help to me, just as my recent sickness, from which I have just recovered, even though not quite recovered, is an equally opportune circumstance for my work on Roithamer’s legacy. A stay of four or five days, I said, would give me time to look everything over, and I’d need another four or five days for a more intensive study. More I could not say as yet. Hoeller then gave me his account of finding Roithamer in the clearing and how he had cut him down from the tree, the big linden tree out there. Suddenly there was no problem about getting him to talk, he told me everything, in his own orderly fashion showing signs of Roithamer’s influence, he restricted himself to what was important and necessary, told in proper sequence. His account took a quarter of an hour and as I listened to him I felt that everything was exactly as he said, Hoeller was a so-called truth fanatic, his voice and its rhythms were familiar to me. There was no further sound coming from the kitchen, the children had gone to bed, their mother was still at her sewing machine, audible on the floor above, though it was already nine-thirty, a late hour for the Hoeller house. The rattle of the sewing machine above and the roar of the Aurach below combined in a quite definite musical rhythm. It would be a pleasure for me to take my meals together with the family, I said to Hoeller, then I got up, said good night, and went up to the garret. But I was far from ready for sleep, just like Hoeller who did not go to bed either as I soon noticed, probably because of his insomnia, but went instead to his workshop, his preservatory as Roithamer always called Hoeller’s workshop. I’d expected that if I sat still long enough on the old chair by the door, fighting off the new thoughts that kept coming after I’d forced myself to think through all the old thoughts, to cut them off if necessary or else spin them out to a conclusion if possible, I’d get sufficiently tired out for bed, but it didn’t work and I finally had to get up from the old chair to pace the floor. Suddenly I was full of doubts, had I done the right thing in moving into Hoeller’s garret, in accepting Hoeller’s offer so precipitately, without considering what it would do to me and to my immediate future and in general, all of a sudden I asked myself, what am I doing here anyway? Should I have taken on Roithamer’s papers so soon, perhaps it would be better to go up to the mountains, into a shepherd’s hut up there, far better, probably, for my still convalescent body, the doctors had in fact recommended such a stay in the mountains, for the mountain air, the absolute quiet up there, the doctors would probably have been totally against my staying down here in the damp, the cold, the darkness of the Aurach valley, especially the Aurach gorge, after my premature release from the hospital which was nobody’s idea but mine, I should have aimed to avoid stress of any kind, instead of which I’d moved into Hoeller’s garret, which would be in itself a strain on any organism and any mind, and in addition I’d taken on the burden of working on Roithamer’s legacy, I wondered whether I should not postpone this, leave tomorrow, end my stay in Hoeller’s house early tomorrow morning, I could easily make up some excuse for breaking off my stay, and go up to the mountains. Caught up in this question, whether to break off my stay in Hoeller’s house the next morning or not, always coming back to the decision to leave, then again the decision not to leave, not to start working on Roithamer’s legacy, not now in any case, then again, working on it now is sure to do me good, especially now, I kept pacing the floor in Hoeller’s garret, considering all the advantages of a stay in the mountains and all the disadvantages of staying at Hoeller’s house this time of year and in the Aurach gorge in my present condition, then again I could see only disadvantages in a stay in the mountains this time of year and in my present condition, while seeing only the advantages of staying at Hoeller’s house, swinging like a pendulum between preferring the mountains and downgrading the Hoeller house, and vice versa was rapidly driving me crazy, walking to the window I thought, for instance, that I must have the strength and the guts to pack my things in the morning and leave, no need to lie to Hoeller, I’d tell him the truth, get out of his house and up into the mountains, up to an elevation that would be better for my health than Hoeller’s house, with its atmosphere which, taken all in all, could only make my condition worse, I thought, and then again, turning back from the window toward the door, where I stopped, thinking that it was wrong to move out of the garret again tomorrow, an affront to the Hoellers, only to go up to the mountains, any mountains, which deep down I hated, I’ve simply always hated high altitude mountain landscapes with their distant views, their so-called infinite horizons, I’d be making a mistake to leave the Hoellers’ house for some furnished mountain hut or even a mountain hotel, the mere idea of having to live in such a mountain hut for even the shortest time imaginable, or in one of those horrible mountain hotels, I’d always regarded those mountain huts and mountain hotels as nothing but horrible, and soon I found myself thinking how well off I was here in the company of Hoeller and his wife, together with the Hoeller children, and after all I could stay here without working on Roithamer’s legacy, since I was under absolutely no obligation to work on it, simply to stay here in Hoeller’s garret and in the Hoeller ambience and simply let this atmosphere have its effect on me and to simply let myself go in this atmosphere would at the moment probably be the best thing for me, I thought, the chances were I’d probably be feeling much easier the very next day, it was too much to expect that easing of tension which I had hoped for, expected, on my very first day in Hoeller’s house, such relief, though in fact I needed it immediately, could not come at once, it could come only gradually, perhaps only after a few days, I could find other reading matter than these papers which had to do exclusively with Roithamer and would be constantly reminding me of Roithamer, virtually chaining me to Roithamer, after all there were plenty of other books in Hoeller’s garret, books which need not remind me of Roithamer, as I had noticed as soon as I got here, a few walks along the Aurach, maybe even longer walks out onto the plain, toward Pinsdorf, would help to calm me down, maybe it was simply idleness, perfect idleness that I needed, to put myself into a state in which I could gradually become more and more relaxed, I thought, while hearing Hoeller down there in his workroom, his preservatory, busily filing and honing and sawing away, I had become so accustomed to the roaring of the Aurach that I could hear Hoeller at work all the way up here in my garret, from the various sounds coming up from Hoeller’s workroom I was able to