“Now it was necessary again to find some occupation for father that he was still fit for, something that at least would make him believe that he was helping to remove the burden of guilt from our family. Something of the kind was not hard to find, anything at all in fact would have been as useful for the purpose as sitting in Bertuch’s garden, but I found something that actually gave me a little hope. Whenever there had been any talk of our guilt among officials or clerks or anybody else, it was only the insult to Sortini’s messenger that had always been brought up, farther than that nobody dared to go. Now, I said to myself, since public opinion, even if only ostensibly, recognised nothing but the insult to the messenger, then, even if it were still only ostensibly, everything might be put right if one could propitiate the messenger. No charge had actually been made, we were told, no department therefore had taken up the affair yet, and so the messenger was at liberty, so far as he was concerned⁠—and there was no question of anything more⁠—to forgive the offence. All that of course couldn’t have any decisive importance, was mere semblance and couldn’t produce in turn anything but semblance, but all the same it would cheer up my father and might help to harass the swarm of clerks who had been tormenting him, and that would be a satisfaction. First of course one had to find the messenger. When I told father of my plan, at first he was very annoyed, for to tell the truth he had become terribly self-willed; for one thing he was convinced⁠—this happened during his illness⁠—that we had always held him back from final success, first by stopping his allowance and then by keeping him in his bed; and for another he was no longer capable of completely understanding any new idea. My plan was turned down even before I had finished telling him about it, he was convinced that his job was to go on waiting in Bertuch’s garden, and as he was in no state now to go there every day himself, we should have to push him there in a handbarrow.