Da war ich ganz da. Alles war gut.

“Da war ich ganz da. Alles war gut.” is a phrase of complete presence that first describes a moment in the narrator’s life and later becomes part of how Frieder’s father remembers Frieder. The repetition joins the narrator’s brief sense that everything was all right to Frieder’s account of the time at Auerhaus as the happiest period of his life.

The Narrator’s Moment of Presence

The narrator recalls wanting not to keep drifting along in the same way, and distinguishes that wish from what came next. At the moment described by the phrase, the narrator was fully present and felt that everything was good. That clarity did not resolve into a lasting transformation: the narrator calls it the moment of his academic suicide. The juxtaposition makes the phrase both a record of genuine well-being and a point of contrast with the educational collapse that follows.

Frieder’s Written Memory

At the funeral, Frieder’s father tells those gathered that the time at Auerhaus had been Frieder’s happiest. He says Frieder wrote this in the book. The father’s account gives the phrase a second context: it is not only the narrator’s remembered moment but language Frieder used to describe what the shared house had meant to him.

The Christmas Tree and the Phrase’s Return

Frieder’s father also recalls that Frieder wrote about cutting down the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve. He quotes the line “Da war ich ganz da. Alles war gut.” as Frieder’s written words. The scene places the phrase beside a concrete remembered act, making it part of Frieder’s own account of a time when he felt fully present. By speaking the name Auerhaus aloud, Frieder’s father also acknowledges that the house was his own, even as he recognizes how central it had been to Frieder.