I must conclude that those four years of undisturbed seclusion and focused concentration have allowed me to advance very, very much. Every book I needed for my studies was available to me. I completed the schedule of my work and then started to carry it out. I wrote manuscripts. As soon as one of them was finished, I sent it home. My parents then acted as middlemen between me and the publishers. I did not write to them directly, because they were not meant to find out, yet, that the author of these tales, they printed, was a prisoner. But one of them nevertheless found out about it, because he visited my parents in person. This was the bookseller of colportage [a] literature H.G. Münchmeyer from Dresden, about whom there is still much more to be said later. He had been a journeyman carpenter, had blown the key-bugle at village dances, and had then become a colporteur. In this capacity, he also came to Hohenstein-Ernstthal and met a maid servant in a neighbouring village, whom he married. This tied him to this area. He got to know its people and also found out about me. The crazy things he was told here he regarded as extraordinarily well suited for his colportage. He came to see my father and sought his acquaintance. Thus, my manuscripts got into his hands. He read them. Some of it was beyond his comprehension. But other parts of it he liked so much, that it, as put it, delighted him. He asked for the permission to print it and got it. He wanted to pay right away and placed the money on the table. But father did not take it. He pushed it back and told him to give it to me in person, after my release. Münchmeyer was very pleased to agree with this. He assured my father that I was the man he needed; he would come to see me after my return home and discuss all the details with me. [a] colportage (French): novels published as a series of booklets and sold to subscribers by door-to-door salesmen (colporteurs). I am telling this and just stating it for a fact for now. For many upcoming events, it is of the utmost importance to know that Münchmeyer did not only precisely know about my past, the truth of it, but had also heard all the lies which had been added to it.