Something had to be done. What I was experiencing in my idleness cried out for that. I decided to take the plunge and write a long story. Was this really the only way I could accomplish something? I sent Valentin, my son, to my childless sister in her small town in Carinthia and prepared for my work by crisscrossing Europe. Among other things I made use of my friends, who at the time were pretty much the same ones as now; for a long time I have not added anyone to the list. I remained without a permanent residence and accompanied the architect on one of his observation excursions, in the course of which he now and then earned some money as a carpenter, or even just as a day laborer. With the singer I went over my first song lyrics, which he wanted to try to make singable (the phrases were too short for him, or, I am no longer sure which, too long; the song did not suit him). With my priest I parsed the epistles of the Apostle Paul, who according to his own words was a difficult writer, his clauses more complex than those of the Greek Thucydides and even the Roman Livy, and in contrast to the two historians, he did not even have anything to narrate, only something to preach, and that had never been my thing, had it?
