They gave precisely the room he needed to tell his kinsmen the latest news of his state, whatever had been let fall by the doctors after the monthly or general examination: such as that, both to sight and hearing, he had unmistakably improved, but was still not entirely free from infection; that his continued slight excess of temperature came from small infected areas which were certain to disappear without a trace if he had patience, and then he would never need to return hither. He well knew that long letters were neither asked nor expected, it being no humanistic or literary circle to which he addressed himself down there, and the replies he received were equally lacking in expansiveness. They merely accompanied the means of subsistence which came to him from home, the income from his paternal inheritance. Turned into Swiss currency, this was so advantageous that he had never spent one instalment when the next arrived, enclosed in a letter of a few typed lines signed “James Tienappel,” conveying his greetings and best wishes for recovery, together with the same from Granduncle Tienappel and sometimes from the seafaring Peter as well.