with all possible means; he had bought my novels from Mrs. Münchmeyer; they were his righteously purchased property, payed for in cash, with which he could do whatever he wanted. The newspapers were biased against me. My Münchmeyer novels were described as trashy. I realised that a lawsuit against the Münchmeyers was unavoidable, and asked my wife for the documents I would need for this. I have already said that I had kept Münchmeyer's letters. Their contents had constituted such strong evidence in a lawsuit against Münchmeyer that I simply had to win it. These letters were, together with other thing of equal importance, kept in a specific drawer of my desk. Before my departure, I had especially informed my wife about this drawer and its contents, I had especially explained the purpose of the letters and had instructed her to make sure that not even the smallest piece of paper would get lost. When I now in Cairo asked her about these documents, she reassured me that they were still lying there just as I had entrusted them to her. Nobody had touched them. This calmed me down, because it meant a sure victory in the lawsuit. When my wife assured me of this, Mrs. Plöhn was with us and heard it. She gave her an astonished look, but said nothing. At this time, I did not particularly notice this; but later, remembering this astonished, wide-eyed, disapproving look, I knew just too well what it was meant to say. What had happened was that one evening my wife had come to Mrs. Plöhn and had told her that she had just burnt our marriage certificate, on account of the omen it constituted. And some time later, she had told her in the same laughing manner that she had now also taken the documents from the desk drawer and had burnt them; by this, she wanted to prevent me from suing the Münchmeyers. Mrs. Plöhn had been horrified by this, but was unable to change the fait accompli. Now, when she had to listen to this assurance of my wife that the letters still existed untouched, the first rupture of that internal split occurred in her, which did not become externally evident until nothing could be kept secret any more. We travelled to Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and returned home via Constantinople, Greece, and Italy. During this time, my wife had, upon repeated questions, always stuck to her story that the documents were still lying, perfectly unharmed, in the drawer in question. She finally became angry and refused to permit any further mentioning of the subject. But when I came home and the first thing I did was to go to desk, I found the drawer - - - empty! Being held responsible for this, she declared that she had indeed burnt and destroyed the letters. She had always been a friend of the Münchmeyers and still was their friend today. Though she knew that I was right, she would not stand for me suing the Münchmeyers. Therefore, she had burnt the papers. You can imagine how I felt, but I