HERZOG

“Overcome by the need to explain, to have it out, to justify, to put into perspective, to clarify, to make ammends,” an aging college professor begins to spend all his time writing letters to hundreds of people both living and dead, famous and anonymous. He never mails the letters, and sometimes doesn't even write them down. The compulsive letter writing begins to take over his entire life.

First Sentence:
“If I am out of my mind, it's all right with me, thought Moses Herzog.”



Late in spring Herzog had been overcome by the need to explain, to have it out, to justify, to put in perspective, to clarify, to make amends.

At that time he had been giving adult-education lectures in a New York night school. He was clear enough in April but by the end of May he began to ramble. It became apparent to his students that they would never learn much about The Roots of Romanticism but that they would see and hear odd things. One after another, the academic formalities dropped away. Professor Herzog had the unconscious frankness of a man deeply preoccupied. And toward the end of the term there were long pauses in his lectures. He would stop, muttering "Excuse me," reaching inside his coat for his pen. The table creaking, he wrote on scraps of paper with a great pressure of eagerness in his hand; he was absorbed, his eyes darkly circled. His white face showed everything – everything. He was reasoning, arguing, he was suffering, he had thought of a brilliant alternative – he was wide-open, he was narrow; his eyes, his mouth made everything silently clear – longing, bigotry, bitter anger. One could see it all. The class waited three minutes, five minutes, utterly silent.