"Shame not these woods, by putting on the cunning of a carper." Shakespeare

*

"The first priority ... is to win without fighting." Masaaki Hatsumi 

*

“Currently, I am very occupied with my various pursuits and social entanglements. Yesterday, I briefly captivated an English visitor who had come for a football match; he insisted that I accompany him and projected a series of extravagant expectations onto me. I declined after allowing the situation to unfold just far enough to amuse myself. At present, I am spending two days with a much younger companion, introducing him to my ways of thinking and observing his reactions with interest. I wore the velvet corsage from the photograph in the first chapter yesterday — a garment that once meant more to me than it does now. I intend to draw on our shared story as a source of intensity tonight. After that, I will return to our narrative on Sunday or Monday to write a new chapter fueled by that energy. I am looking forward to reading the piece you sent. You accompany me like a whisper, a melody at the back of my mind.” Nana von Reichenbach

Apostolic Statements

Nana enjoys working with wood. She is not ethereal but fully grounded in the material world. Her aesthetic choices conceal a practiced defense against disruption. Those who fail to understand her style or recognize her flair exclude themselves. Nana does not require comprehension.

Under the seminar title “The Art of Filleting a Puffer Fish,” she could teach how to extract what is valuable without suffering harm. The puffer fish is a poisonous delicacy: fatal if mishandled, exquisite if prepared correctly. The principle is simple — follow the rules, and you may survive the danger and even enjoy it.

Nana approaches Cornelius defensively, avoiding the obvious. She requires heightened concentration, which vanishes once execution becomes routine. Her dark eyes meet his intensity directly. Internal pressure threatens to overwhelm her, yet she orders restraint.

“Not yet,” she says quietly. “Not here.”

Cornelius stands at the edge of losing composure. He wants to remove her from the world, to secure her completely. He demands affirmation of belonging. Nana is moved by the force of his insistence. His readiness to escalate transforms warmth into tension; fear crystallizes at the peak of anticipation.

“Yes,” Nana says — not to words spoken aloud, but to what she has understood. A provisional yes.

She consoles what has been withheld. With deliberate calm, she steadies him, allowing a strategic retreat. This restores balance. The music may continue.

“You still need to find the right word,” she says, “the one that opens this door.”

Cornelius hesitates. Nana fears she has missed the correct tone. Fairy-tale grandeur threatens to collapse. She thinks of Ben, a married admirer, aware that her role there extends beyond serving as a symbol of affirmation. He would enlist her for greater ambitions if permitted. Occasionally she yields slightly — a fragment standing in for the whole.

Ben struggles with a deeply buried inadequacy. His life is meticulously arranged to avoid confrontation. His evasive existence leads to intellectual atrophy.

Why can Cornelius not simply overcome his fear and follow her invitation to play?

She proposes a childish formula, a ritualized gesture of trust and imagination. Discontent creeps in when he does not respond as hoped. Yet Cornelius regains composure with a casually superior gesture, preparing the next move.

“Tell me,” he says, “about a book that has affected you deeply. That will help me understand you.”

Now Cornelius adopts a conventional posture — restrained, analytical, professorial. He knows that genuine fascination emerges from directed attention, gathering material to later deploy.

Nana does not particularly enjoy this turn, but she accepts it. As the orchestrator, she may still direct the scene.

“A biography of Antonin Artaud,” she replies.

Cornelius expects something else. Her fascination with an extreme figure leaves him unmoved. She interprets it differently. As the one in control, she allows herself to redefine the frame.

“That touches me,” she says. “Do you understand that?”

Cornelius understands immediately: an unrestrained willingness to exceed limits, to burn obstacles. He deflects, retreats into moderation, assumes the role of lecturer. The conqueror is pocketed, ready for later use.

Cornelius is undoubtedly the most interesting Germanist far and wide. The reliefs on his hands remind Nana of branching river systems. For this tangible presence within reach, she forgives his hesitation.

“You find yourself elevated,” she observes, “precisely when you practice restraint and construct obstacles. Are you drawn to the idea of abandoning control entirely — of surrendering to your own projections?”

Cornelius reclaims the pulpit of asserted superiority. If this story takes on a demonic dimension, he wants to occupy that role.

How will Nana respond?

Total Willingness to Excess

“The uncanny feminine cannot be domesticated.”

Bourgeois emancipation, it is argued, sought to defend humanity against its own excesses. In The Magic Flute, Sarastro counters the objection that Tamino is a prince by stating: “He is more than that — he is a human being.”

Hans Mayer, writing on Friedrich Hebbel’s Judith (1840), describes the figure as provoking a retreat from Enlightenment ideals.

Hebbel rejected the biblical Judith as a cunning seductress. His Judith is paralyzed by action itself — caught between desire and incapacity, between doing and not-doing.

Nana listens to these words in a seminar room that smells of mold and old fabric. The odor is naïve, like a young animal unaware of danger. She wonders whether Cornelius senses a Judith in her.

For two days, Nana and Cornelius exist in a tunnel of mutual exhaustion. All other connections have been abandoned without ceremony. Their intensity is sustained through language alone. Words become the site of escalation and control. This is the comic side of constant provocation.

Nana supplies Cornelius with material — not to surrender ground, but to fortify her position. Cornelius is valuable in many respects, though his wealth is invisible in his manner. Even so, privilege accelerates intensity, a fact Nana regards with mild embarrassment.

She indulges her preference for silent dialogue in academic settings. She writes of imagination and reality as equal forces, of building something tailored and exacting. Nothing off-the-rack. No compromise.

Sexuality and Truth (Desexualized)

The response to uncertainty, Michel Foucault suggests, is education. In The Confessions of the Flesh (Volume IV of The History of Sexuality), he traces Christianity’s project as one of human refinement through faith and renunciation.

Foucault shows that the regulation of desire predates Christianity. Early Church doctrine borrowed heavily from Stoic principles. Baptism, sin, and penance served as mechanisms of regulation within the community.

Human versatility and inconsistency required discipline. Simplification led to asceticism. By the fifth century, a regulated and reflective practice of self-denial had spread. Monasteries provided architectural structure. Knowledge societies emerged. The first information age began.

At its core, the Church functioned as an academy — a launch center organizing ascents.

What, then, is required for permission to fly?