, cannot know, waiting for me now to tell them what I know because they believe that I know something, at least much more than they know, because I’d been with Roithamer longer than anybody and on such an intimate footing, as they know, meaning an intense closeness such as is very often regarded by outsiders as a kind of total absorption in the other man, they were waiting for me to explain to them here and now, sitting with them at their table, what was as yet unclear to them, even if it was not at all clear to them what it was that was unclear to them, waiting for me to solve for them a riddle or various riddles concerning Roithamer which they could not solve, because I was equipped like no one else to judge the worth or worthlessness of the various assumptions or suppositions, because I was, so they thought, even if they did not say so because they clung stubbornly to their silence, while ever more intently staring at me, believing that they had got me not only into their charge but under their control, Roithamer’s best friend who had the key information, so they felt it was time to learn from me more about my friend, who had also been Hoeller’s friend, more than they knew themselves, that is, but for me it was the other way around, after all, I was hoping to find out more about Roithamer from them, especially from Hoeller himself, who must, as I thought, know more than I did at least about Roithamer’s final days, about the last fourteen days in his life, since Hoeller had after all spent those last days, if not always in his company, still always in Roithamer’s vicinity, perhaps Hoeller even was, in the last analysis, Roithamer’s closest confidant, I felt that Hoeller must know crucial things about Roithamer which I did not know, and so we were probably each waiting for the other to say something about Roithamer which he himself hadn’t known, Hoeller waiting to learn something from me which I didn’t know, couldn’t know, while I was waiting for Hoel er to tell me something he didn’t know, couldn’t know, because Hoeller’s friendship, his ties with Roithamer were quite as close as mine, the friendship was probably equally intense in both cases, though the friendship was in each case entirely different in kind, because I’m not Hoeller and Hoeller, conversely, isn’t me. But in the expectation that we, Hoeller and I, would find out something we didn’t know about Roithamer from each other, time passed and soon a whole hour had gone by and Hoeller’s wife had meanwhile risen from the table and taken the empty plates out to the kitchen, the children had followed her out, through the kitchen door we were aware of the dishwashing and the children’s footbaths, while Hoeller and I remained seated at the table treating each other to a copious silence. The thing was, I didn’t want to broach the subject of Hoeller’s having been the one who discovered Roithamer hanging from a tree in the clearing, not yet, the time to speak of it hadn’t quite come, nor did I have any intention to be the first to speak of it, before Hoeller saw fit to broach this delicate and in fact terrible topic. I’d known for a long time, had in fact heard it from one of my hospital visitors, the farmer Pfuster, that Hoeller had found Roithamer in the clearing and had personally cut him down from the tree with his own hands. Roithamer had been missing for some time, he could not be found either at Altensam or at Hoeller’s house for eight days after his sister’s funeral, but both families, the Altensamers and the Hoellers, had assumed that he’d gone back to England without telling anyone, which would have been entirely unlike him, though of course I too was waiting for him there all that time, and without a word from him, despite the fact that we had agreed he would send me word to my Cambridge address every second day, besides, Hoeller should have noticed that Roithamer’s things, the clothes he was wearing on his back, that is, were not in the garret and where could he have gone without his clothes, anyway, it ought to have occurred to Hoeller soon enough that Roithamer must have had some mishap, because it certainly was most peculiar that he had gone away without saying good-bye, to anyone, and then those missing clothes, it’s true the Altensamers for their part had inquired after Roithamer at Hoeller’s but nobody did anything, probably because both families, the Hoellers at the Aurach and the Roithamers up at Altensam, had assumed, after all, that Roithamer had long since gone off to England, until Hoeller went once more to Altensam to ask if they knew anything of Roithamer’s whereabouts, and this time he, Hoeller, had found Roithamer in the clearing between Stocket and Altensam. Not a word from Hoeller about the fact that he personally had found him, nor did I bring it up, since my arrival that afternoon I had several times avoided pronouncing the word clearing, in fact, even though I needed the word clearing several times if I was to make myself understood in a matter I had mentioned. But everyone knows of course that it’s a shock to come upon a hanged man, and in this case it was, naturally, a terrible shock. While I felt I had a right to find out more about our friend’s last days from Hoeller, Hoeller expected to find out more about Roithamer from me, and since both of us kept waiting the whole time for the other to say something, naturally something about our friend Roithamer, we said nothing at all the whole time. I only kept wondering what Hoeller could be thinking about, while Hoeller probably was wondering what I could be thinking about, but in each case it had to be something to do with Roithamer, what else. That this was where he had spent his evenings and, as Hoeller told me, often the whole night, in this room, which was built by Hoeller quite in the style of the old traditional Aurach valley rooms, the floors were made of well-seasoned larch wood planks, so that it was always a pleasure to look at the floor, and Roithamer had often sat here alone till dawn, only listening to the torrential roar of the Aurach, withholding himself from scientific paperwork, so as not to slip into taking notes here as well, where the atmosphere was just as favorable to his ideas and his scientific work as it was upstairs in Hoeller’s garret, and possibly go on to doing more than taking notes, so that he would succumb to his scientific, his intellectual pursuits even down here in Hoeller’s family room which, unlike Hoeller’s garret which served Roithamer’s intellectual purposes, was meant to serve only eating and drinking purposes, it was enough that he let his intellectual work consume him utterly up in the garret, that he daily exhausted himself mentally up there, down here he had been able to relax, sharing food and drink with the Hoellers, and the children were always sure to divert him, everyone knows that he got along well with the Hoeller children, he knew all their ways, unlike other brain workers who have no idea how to behave with children, Roithamer had excellent rapport with children, as befitted his character, he had been able to spend hours with the Hoeller children in the Hoeller family room, playing with them, telling them stories, fairy tales he’d made up himself, that came to him in the telling, so that their spontaneity made them extraordinarily effective, when the children had to go wash up in the kitchen, or to bed, they always begged and pleaded to be allowed to stay, as all children do, though they could not prevail against the Hoeller child-raising routine, so then Roithamer was left alone with Hoeller at the table and they either fell into conversation or else they did not fall into conversation, it was only when such talk, very often of the simplest descriptive kind, or else of a philosophical kind, came about in the most spontaneous way that the two men left alone in the room, Hoeller and Roithamer, continued it. Roithamer had often told me about these conversations. All our talks were always