What gives this novella even greater poignancy is the fact that the unborn child is actually Delius himself. He was born in Rome in that same year, 1943, and we must assume that he is here describing the predicament of his parents. Rather than condemning them outright, he tries to grasp their deformations, their illusions and their humanity. In doing so, Delius achieves some kind of closure: if not peace with the past, then at least a truce that he can bequeath to his own children (among them the Standpoint columnist Mara Delius). All passion spent, the old 68er has finally learnt the lesson that Goethe, the original German genius, tried to teach nearly two centuries ago. In conversation with his friend Eckermann in 1828, the sage contrasted "the blessings of personal freedom" that he perceived among his young English visitors in Weimar with the oppressive German atmosphere in which "no sooner does a little boy dare to crack his whip or sing or shout than the policeman is there to forbid him". The German genius is more genial now — Gott sei Dank!