out on the western fringes of the town for a five-mile stroll. Here be mansions and swimming pools, set hidden in the woods. But I’m locked out from this elevated set, sunk in the hedgerow tracks turned to bog by thousands of advance cagouled trampers. I squelch and slide over the mire, thinking of sad-eyed Baron Trotta the Third marooned in his borderland garrison town, driven to despair by legions of frogs croaking from the marshes. Those who step from the narrow path through the forest are swallowed up. Trotta frets about his fetters and times, who doesn’t? He haunted my for a few days but I’m moving on swiftly, taking the train to the Magic Mountain, already feeling the tug of it after 30 pages. I read more as an antidote to my own swirling times and doubts over which path to take. Aim for the high ground, I reason. Since cell first divided from cell we’ve been clambering away from the ooze, I sense a lesson in that.