I will
say more about this great, inestimable benefit, which the
imprisonment afforded me, later on. Even today, I am still in
particularly grateful for the fact that I was not prohibited to
obtain books on foreign grammar and to lay, by this, the actual
foundation of my later traveller's tales, which are, as is well
known, not based on any actual travels at all, but were meant to
form an entirely different, up to this point untreated, genre.
But for now, it is not my intention, to elaborate on these studies
of mine, but rather I have to concentrate here solely and in
particular on the fact that the management of the prisoner's
library, which I had been entrusted with, gave me the opportunity
to make most important observations and experiences, under the
influence of which my work as an author has taken on the shape in
which it appears now.
In stating that I got to know what literature, or let me rather
say reading material, the mentality of the general public desires,
I am asking you to take this statement serious.
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