I’ve recovered only slowly from the news about Marc. I’ve written his poor wife. He was in vintage form in his last letter, declaiming that our ideals would in the future have to be fed on “grasshoppers and wild honey, and not on history.” I assume he’s closer now to those Secret Forces in the universe.

As for my risk-taking, on my worst days it’s a form of cynical recklessness. Every so often I give way to an intrepid madness and do things that garner praise. I’ve been put up for a decoration.

Did I once dislike the Russians? Briefly. November or December of last year.

And I disagree, again: Achilles does seem to me the greatest of all the Greeks, not only for his martial supremacy but because of the intensity of his love for his companion. Nothing in him seems nobler than the despair which makes him despise life once he’s lost his beloved. As Lasker-S—once said: When love has gone out of someone’s life, the heart engulfs the head.

Occasionally I think about my own safety. I wonder: What does this chaos hold in store for me. A field hospital? Will I be crippled? Lose my hand? Lose my sight!

And what about you, broken-down friend? Bad back, bad headaches, bad stomach. A deck chair really should be made ready for you somewhere in a garden back in Berlin, half in the shade, with ten glasses of milk within easy reach. Is this impossible? Is there no one to make it possible? What does your doctor say?

I’ve often thought that life for you is something entirely different than it is for the rest of us. Everything’s all or nothing with you. Everything’s very puzzling and absorbing, the way a locomotive is for a small child. The whole world is something you hold in high regard, because it’s good at what it does.

The photo you sent is not reassuring. That pale, drawn visage, those fixed eyes and tall body held straight by force of will all suggest Pluto, God of Shades. Or the Thracian Horseman, that mysterious figure seen riding through the copses by moonlight, carrying away the souls of the dead in the folds of his cloak.

I understand your despair over your father’s letter. You can’t read anything new into it; I wouldn’t try. It’s cordial and heartfelt and brutish, and in my opinion, your only answer can be what someone who loves you would say to him on your behalf: Leave this man alone. He’s attempting to live the way he should. He’s not asking for “accommodation.” He’s only asking for you to speak with him as one human to another, and not close yourself off to him in a fury. This is the only power you have to diminish the sorrow in both your lives.