13 Jan January 13, 1945

To A.

Dear Friend, may I call you that?

Here before the threshold, matters and relationships come into clearer focus, and what is real and valid actually dares to reveal itself.  The extent to which we have been placed on shaky and unsteady ground is the extent to which the eye and taste have become clarified and purified along this journey which has taken us beyond the most extreme point of human abandonment.  We no longer touch anything that is not worthy to be touched. […]

I have been unmasked to a great extent in these hard weeks.

If from this lofty height I may bring in another subject, I would like to add incorruptibility.  Our real foolishness comes from corruptibility.  We have allowed ourselves to be bribed.  Believe me, I have been unmasked to a great extent in these hard weeks.  If God calls me home now, I’ll be bringing very little with me, but it will be honest and unconditional and it will be purified from the attractive lies with which we have embellished our life and made it seem easier. Fasting and vigilance according to the law of ultimate reality and the law of Christ is the only thing that remains in the end.  What help and worth was it to me–my will to live, my craving for some “living space” during the dungeon hours of pain and torment, in the appeals from extreme sadness and loneliness in the consecrated hour of my life–when it has come to this:  condemned to death, without honor?

There wasn’t much left, my friend; and most of what had worth came through squeezing out and begging in the hours when I said No to myself—they were unfortunately too few—and these called for strength during the time when power and force said No to me and denied me existence, which sustained me and affirmed me with a holy Yes from within.  Oh yes, there remains on the threshold much regret, much gratitude, many failures and much left undone.

There remain many people to whom I am indebted.  But there’s hardly anyone to whom I did wrong, and that’s a great happiness up here in the lofty heights and close to the end. Thanks and may God reward you for all your trouble and help and unshakeable willingness.  Greetings to Mrs. […] and the children.  May God protect them all during these last stormy weeks.  Thanks and good-bye.

Lotterer (“the dissolute one”)

Oh yes, there remains on the threshold much regret, much gratitude, many failures and much left undone.