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other occupation) he merely devoted the time that was absolutely necessary to get them written, which was essentially a function of their thickness, because (since things had so transpired that this had become his occupation) he had to aim to write books that were as thick as possible, out of carefully considered self-interest, since the fee for thicker books was fatter than that for slimmer books, for which—since they were slimmer—the fee was correspondingly slim (proportionate to their slimness) (regardless of their content) (in accordance with MoE Decree No.1/20.3.1970 concerning terms and conditions for publishing contracts and authors’ royalties, as issued by the Ministry of Education with the assent of the Treasury, the Ministry of Labour, the president of the National Board of Supply and Price Control, and the National Trades Union Council).
    Not that the old boy was burning with longing to write a new book.
    It had simply been quite some time since a new book of his had been published.
    If this were to continue, his very name would sink into oblivion.
    Which, in itself, would not have concerned the old boy in the slightest.
    Except that—and there was the rub—he had to be concerned about it in a certain respect.
    In not so many years he would reach the age at which he might become a retired writer (in other words, a writer who had earned enough from his books not to have to write any more books) (though he could do, of course, if he still had the wish to).
    That, then—if he stripped away all the vague abstractions, and he was a stickler for the concrete and tangible—was the real goal of his literary labours.
    But in order not to have to write any more books, he would still have to write a few more.
    As many more as he could.
    For if he were not to lose sight of the real goal of his literary labours (that is, that he might become a retired writer, or in other words, a writer who had earned enough from his books not to have to write any more books), then it was to be feared that the degree of oblivion into which his name was falling might affect—to wit, adversely—the factors determining his pension (about which factors he had no precise information, but he reasoned, perhaps not entirely illogically, that if a bigger royalty was to be expected for a thicker book, then more books should yield a bigger pension) (which, in the absence of more precise information, as has already been indicated, was just speculation, if not entirely illogical speculation, on the old boy’s part).
    So that was why the old boy had to be concerned, even if in other respects he was not in the slightest bit concerned about the fact in itself, that his very name was sinking into oblivion.
    Consequently, despite not burning with any longing to write a new book, he ought to have settled down to it long ago.
    Only he had no clue what. (This, incidentally, had already happened to him on other occasions, though only with any regularity since writing books had become his occupation (or rather—to be more precise—since things had so transpired that this had become his occupation) (seeing as he had no other occupation).
    And yet it was a just a question of a single book.
    Any old book, just so long as it was a book (the old boy had long been aware that it made no difference at all what kind of book he wrote, good or bad—that had no bearing on the essence of the matter) (though as to what he meant by the essence the old boy either knew only too well or had no idea at all) (at least we are forced to this conclusion by the fact that, standing and thinking in front of the filing cabinet as he was, this thought, among others, was running through his head, though he gave not the slightest sign of wishing to clarify the essence of this notion—of the essence—if only for his own purposes).
    But the old boy did not have so much as a glimmer of an idea, little as that may be, for the book he needed to write.
    Despite having done truly