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to go to the library, from which I returned laden with books.
    I had old-fashioned notions about Alma Mater and the professors. Soon I realized that I could get nothing out of them. I often felt as if eunuchs were tussling with hermaphrodites. Schizophrenia was trumps. The natural sciences were encoded, history and the humanities politicized. The theologians were still lagging behind Darwin or even Copernicus and, swinging their train-oil lamps, they actually plumed themselves on their boldness. Pedagogical eros was lacking altogether; it was replaced by a kind of complicity. Where were the times when an electrical aura emanated the instant the professor appeared?
    I would never have dreamed that I would long for the barracks; but even when Stellmann was yelling at us, there was still a demonic atmosphere. Not only Konigsberg was a ruin, but also Heidelberg, Tubingen, Gottingen. They were still dominated physically, spiritually, and morally by the gray factory-style of the nineteenth century, whether one entered a laboratory, a school, or a hospital. Plus the nightmarish sense that this could only be a thin skin with something monstrous hatching underneath.
    I lacked a friend to share my sorrows and yearnings, someone to converse with. I missed Jagello; though we lived in the same city, we were further apart than antipodes.
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    But what good did it do? Our farmers say that you can't ask an ox for more than a piece of beef. So I focused on what was offered, and the subjects I chose were advertising, statistics, computer technology, insurance, journalism.
    My situation improved considerably when I married Bertha. We had met in the student restaurant. At first, our relationship seemed casual, but soon it deepened. Bertha was not only a good lover physically and mentally, but also a reliable companion. Being both cultured and practical, she knew how to give our life a framework in which we felt good. Granted, she had to break off her studies — classical languages. Nevertheless, they came in handy: she compiled the catalogues in a second-hand bookshop; however, she also had to help out in the store and at the cash register.
    We kept to ourselves in one ofthe many-storied apartment houses, as if in a cell; we had no friends and only the unavoidable acquaintances. We could call ourselves happy, aside from the fact that Bertha was usually quite exhausted when she returned from the bookshop. This profession too calculates more with machines than with the mind; nevertheless, the work is more draining than it used to be — that is how we are hoodwinked by the machine world.
    I often felt sorry for her when I saw her in the evening, as she pulled herself together at the table. I had done the shopping, no cans, and had prepared the meal, except for the spices; plus a glass of wine. These are happy hours; we relish our own delight in the other's delight.
    We had the weekends, and then vacations: Mallorca, Sicily, Tunisia. Above all, my studies were gradually coming to an end, and I hoped I would soon find a profession.
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    And indeed I did, although I began with a modest, perhaps even slightly disreputable job. Let me fill in the background.
    I remember my grandfather as a small, wiry man. He was also my godfather; I was named Friedrich after him. He went straight from the Liegnitz Barracks into the first of the great wars, fighting until the end — initially at the front lines, then on Mackensen's staff. He liked talking about the Rumanian campaign; those were still operations in the old style. He extended the war after the Treaty of Versailles by joining a Free Corps and distinguishing himself in a skirmish — at Annaberg, I believe.
    This contributed to our family's holding on to its property for another thirty years.
    I am not well-versed in these dates, for, while I am enthralled by history, my studies only went up to 1888, the Year of the Three Emperors. For me, that year marks the onset of the labor pains of Titanism, the