terre à terre

1. Beckmann is a not very congenial character.

2. Beckmann has the misfortune to be equipped by nature with a talent not for banking, but for painting.

3. Beckmann is hard-working.

4. Beckmann has set about his training to become a European citizen in Weimar, Florence, Paris and Berlin.

5. Beckmann loves Bach, Pelikan, Piper and two or three other Germans.

6. Beckmann is a Berliner and lives in Frankfurt am Main.

7. Beckmann is married in Graz.

8. Beckmann adores Mozart.

9. Beckmann is afflicted with the inexhaustible predilection for the inadequate invention ‘Life’. The new theory about the earth’s atmosphere surrounded by a huge layer of nitrogen makes him heavy-hearted.

10. Beckmann has confirmed, however, that there is a ‘southern light’. The idea of meteors also calms him.

11. Beckmann still sleeps very well.