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Of fine and admirable beginnings.

Five years ago, we came to make an Eden on these shores.

And had things gone as we hoped,

I truly believe we would have remained here happily,

dying peacefully in old age.

When Friedrich and I left Germany,

ours was a flight to total solitude.

At the time, neither of us could have imagined...

that others would intrude upon our island paradise.

Nor could we have foretold the strange and sinister drama...

that would be unleashed upon us all,

a drama that over five short years...

would leave our dream in fragments...

and send my dear companion, Friedrich, to his grave.

[ Man ] I find it very mysterious...

how on a little island like that all these people can disappear.

[ Woman ] You can't rule out the fact...

that somebody actually took the law into their own hands...

because it was the only way to bring sanity back to the island.

[Man #2 ] That is the passion of the whole thing is that it just never got solved.

[ Woman ] Floreana is just one mystery on top of another.

[Speaking Spanish]

[ Train Approaching ]

[ Man Reading] Patience, as Nietzsche says,

is the most difficult of virtues.

My decision to leave behind my lucrative practice of medicine...

and go into solitude is not a rash inspiration.

For 20 years, the idea has been maturing in my mind.

Now, at the age of 43, my time has come.

Organized society appears to me as a huge impersonal monster,

forging ever new chains with which to shackle its members.

Civilized man works only for money,

while the world chases madly after the ephemeral and the valueless.

Fortunately, in Dore, I have found a woman...

who fully embraces my point of view.

[ Reading As Dore] With all the strength and obstinacy in me,

I have defended myself against preconceived notions...

of bourgeois homemaking.

The German woman has been content...

to model herself through the ages as the hausfrau,

her horizon bounded by the four walls of a few stuffy rooms.

The emptiness and frustration of such an existence poisons the spirit.

[ Reading As Friedrich ] Dore and I are turning our backs on civilization.

We have mapped out a plan to permanently migrate...

to an uninhabited spot on the earth's surface--

the Galépagos.

The explorer William Beebe has declared these islands to be "the world's end"...

and it is this isolated archipelago on which we have set our hopes.

[ Reading As Dore] To the consternation of all our friends and relatives,

Friedrich has left his wife, and I, my husband.

Love, in the ordinary meaning of the word,

does not convey my feeling for this man.

Friedrich is my teacher and my guide.

Friedrich is my fate.

[ Man ] Because my grandfather told it to me...

and my father told it to me,

I have to tell the truth.

Friedrich was a genius.

But he, without any doubt, like all genius people,

he had also his dark sides.

He was influenced by the philosophy of Nietzsche,

that you only have yourself.

He wanted to go away because he didn't love the human being.

Nietzsche didn't love the human being.

But he should have known also what Goethe said,

that you cannot leave the civilization without being punished.

You will be punished.

If you go alone on an island,

there can happen terrible things.

And though I think the--

the Galépagos tragedy was programmized,

like a movie,

from the beginning to the tragic end.

[ Reading As Dore] On July 4, 1929,

Friedrich and I sailed from Amsterdam,

and we rejoiced as the world disappeared behind us.

A four-week journey across the open seas brought us to Guayaquil, Ecuador,

where we were forced to spend the entire month of August waiting...

for the only schooner that sailed between the mainland and Galépagos.

Then, at last, we were truly on the way to our promised land.

Seeking total isolation, we avoided the island of San Cristobal,

for it serves as an outpost of the Ecuadorean government.

Nor did we choose Santa Cruz,

whose shores were already dotted with the houses of a dozen or more European settlers.

Instead, we sailed to the uninhabited island of Floreana,

where our nearest neighbors would be more than 60 miles away.

As I caught my first glimpse of Floreana '5 rugged shore,

not a shadow of fear or regret clouded my certainty...

in our decision to settle here.

It was September 19, 1929,

and we were alone at last.

[ Squawking ]

[Chirping]

[ Reading As Friedrich ] The shore was a dead and thorny waste.

But an hour's walk inland revealed to us...

a leafy sea of greenness.

In the center of this fertile basin welled up a clear spring,

to support a lush growth of vegetable life.

We had found the ideal spot for our future home.

[Octavio Speaking Spanish]

[ Reading As Friedrich ] Our immediate concern is to tame this wiid jungle...

and to make from it a garden.

There we will plant the seeds we've brought from Germany,

which are so crucial to our sustenance.

Dore and I are both vegetarians.

We do not eat meat as a matter of principle.

Although this work is the hardest I have ever undertaken,

I approach it with the utmost joy...

for it ls the fulfillment of a dream.

[ Reading As Dore ] Friedrich '5 herculean achievements...

rouse my ambition to do likewise,

but I find that my efforts pale beside his.

My weakness and infirmity frustrate me.

When I first met Friedrich,

I had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis...

and told my illness was incurable.

But Friedrich was not like my other doctors.

When he took over my care,

he talked about the power of thought...

and told me that I need not submit to illness...

if I would learn to think in a way that would make me well.

That was all well and good in Germany,

but here on Floreana,

sometimes I find myself literally unable to go another step.

[ Reading As Friedrich ] I must frequently remind Dore that Nietzsche says,

"To live is to suffer.

To survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.”

We cannot expect to find a paradise anywhere...

unless we are willing to create it.

[ Reading As Dore] I pull myself together and struggle on,

resolving to let no trifle interfere with the fulfillment of our great mission.

[Birds Squawking]

[Insects Buzzing]

I would have a very hard time leaving family, friends,

the place I grew up and all that and just departing forever...

to some godforsaken corner of the world.

Like my parents did.

Why would people do that, you know?

To leave civilized world and come out to a rock.

[Chirping]

[ Woman ] Well, you asked me what brought us to the Galépagos.

Our life had no meaning.

We wanted to leave Europe.

We wanted to leave Belgium.

You know how you live in a city.

You have to be your rank and your work, and you buy a car.

And we didn't like that.

It's a utopia. It's a desire.

It may be naive. It may be, um,

a dream.

Probably it was a dream,

but we made it very real. [ Laughs]

[ Barking ]

[ Man ] As far as I understood, my father said he went out to find paradise.

To get away from the glittering shit, he said.

Get away from the world and get away from Hitler.

My father was very anti-Hitler.

Hitler was coming to power.

And my grandfather, he wanted his boys out of Germany.

He had read about the Galapagos Islands.

So he sold his little farm, gave the boys the money,

and they went over the border to Denmark...

and they bought this boat and sailed away.

My father was a real islander.

He didn't want all this movement towards, you know,civilization.

[ Man ] My father, yeah, he was very, very independent.

She was a real pioneer type too, obviously.

I think it applies to most people coming to a place like this.

They-- They left everything behind.

There is a certain winnowing process, you might say,

of people moving to a place like this.

Lots of times it's going to be people that don't really fit in,

don't find it easy to be part of a regular society.

Which is probably gonna make it not as easy...

for them to get along with other people.

[ Reading As Dore] We've now been here a year and a half,

and Friedo has begun to assume the appearance of a human habitation.

Yet, though our aim was to lead a life of contemplation,

the ceaseless manual toll has dulled the edges of our spiritual life.

Our Eden is no place of rest, as I had thought it would be.

And neither is this Eden a peaceful one.

Friedrich is seemingly eternally dissatisfied with everything I do...

and at times the conflict between us bursts out into something horrible.

[ Reading As Friedrich ] I want to see Dore as more than other frail and cowardly women.

I cannot relax the sternness of her education.

For us, there is only discipline.

We must conquer by will.

[ Fritz ] The letters that Friedrich wrote home--

He never wrote in his letters any nice thing about her.

He was only describing her disease.

My father was shocked...

because there was nothing written of love.

Even nothing about, uh--

pity.

Yes?

Look, for Dore,

Friedrich was something like a god.

But, Dore surely began...

to have another image of Friedrich.

[ Reading As Dore] Friedrich does not see...

that I need to be loved and treated kindly.

He spends each hard-earned minute of spare time on his philosophical work...

and is unconscious of everything else.

As solace, I turn to my burro,

lavishing on him all the care and attention I have to give.

[ Reading As Friedrich ] Dore '5 attachment to wiid creatures...

is a source of great disappointment to me.

She thinks that her love of animals is good and admirable,

but her affection for them is...

nothing but a flattering of the animal within herself.

[ Reading As Dore] I confess that I do spend a great deal of time...

with my dear burro.

Sometimes, however, even he is not enough.

Often I feel that I should go mad with joy...

if any other human being should come into sight.

Even a cannibal.

Even a bloodthirsty buccaneer.

[ Woman ] No school.

No doctor.

No stores. No medicines to be bought.

No communications hardly at all.

If the world had gone under out there,

we wouldn't have known a thing.

[ Blowing ]

I'm Carmen Angermeyer from Galépagos.

I'm a housewife here.

And I've lived here, I think,

74 years.

My father was a very practical person.

And my father said--

"There's going to be war," he said.

"I can smell it," he said.

He came out to the Galépagos because he read some...

of Dr. Ritter's articles and stories.

So he decided to have a look.

He thought for him it was very nice,

but for women and children, it was no good, he said.

And my mother thought that she might like it here.

And so we came in '34.

I was six.

The only thing I didn't have was playmates.

That was about the only thing that was missing.

Occasionally a fish boat would come.

And of course the ship, once in a while,

went to take some cargo, some foodstuff and so on.

Mail, which is so important.

That made everybody furious--

a ship came and had forgotten the mail bag.

And then you got the letters later.

They were almost a year old the next time the ship came.

[ Reading As Dore] The cargo boat put in at Post Office Bay...

for the first time in six months,

bringing a parcel of mail from Germany, as well as several newspapers.

It seems that our letters home to Germany have been leaked to the press.

People in many countries have read garbled and exaggerated accounts...

of who we are and what our aims have been in fleeing civilization.

I feel as if the things we hold most sacred...

have been dragged mercilessly through the mire...

and that Friedrich and I have been made to look...

like a pair of eccentrics escaped from some psychological zoo.

[ Man Reading] Log entry. January 3, 1932.

Aboard the research vessel Velero III.

[ Chattering ]

We are a crew of 20 scientists...

under the command of Captain Allan Hancock,

Los Angeles oilman, banker, expert seaman, philanthropist...

and patron of pure science.

I am John Garth, entomologist,

known to my shipmates as ”Bugs.”

Our mission here in the Galépagos...

is to collect and document the rarest of biological specimens.

But today, we are stopping on the island of Floreana for a very different reason--

to visit the modern-day Adam and Eve rumored to be living there.

Accounts of this hermit couple describe them...

as nudists, cavemen, eccentric philosophers.

We look forward to meeting them with much curiosity.

We were shocked to find that, contrary to all the lurid reports,

the Rltters are actually one of the most clever couples in the world.

Dr. Ritter has devised many tools and methods...

to wrest what they can out of this arid land.

Many photographs and moving pictures were taken.

Indeed, when Dr. Ritter demonstrated his new shower bath,

at least six cameras covered the event.

Call them freaks, if you like,

but they have had the courage to put their theories to the test...

and make a practical experiment.

We insisted they pay a visit to the Velero,

and despite their professed dislike of human society,

they eagerly took us up on this invitation.

We welcomed the Ritters aboard with classics of German music.

Dore was moved to tears by our concert...

and seemed more than a bit nostalgic for her native land.

The doctor, on the other hand,

looked uncomfortable with her emotional display...

and tried to distract her with a lecture on the psychological unity of music.

Before sending the Ritters back to shore,

Captain Hancock pressed them to tell him of any provisions they lacked.

Initially, Dr. Ritter would only admit to needing lamp oil by which to write.

But in the end, he also accepted gifts of soap, rice,

chocolate, cooking oil, a stove...

and even a Winchester rifle.

For all their claims of self-sufficiency,

they both seemed quite glad as they left the ship, laden with this bounty.

[ Reading As Dore ] As the Velero crew took us back to Floreana,

I thought wistfully of the lovely music...

that we should probably never hear again...

and of the sympathetic new friends who were leaving us all too soon.

[ Reading As Friedrich ] The visit by Captain Hancock and his scientists...

was well and good.

They are like-minded people.

But should others turn up intending to disrupt our solitude...

in a more permanent fashion,

we will not be so hospitable.

We shall resolutely resist the establishment of any community.

[Jacqueline] We certainly didn't come with the same attraction...

that nowadays the thousands of visitors that come here.

That was not why we came here.

When we came here in the Galépagos,

we were on our OVVFI.

It was just rocks and a few houses.

We could take land what we wanted.

People told us that, um, people who come here and want to have...

a piece of land, it's about 200 hectares.

Free. Just take it.

[ Man ] What I always felt from Mom and Dad was...

they wanted a place that was primitive enough...

to not have people tell you what to do or what to not do.

To find that kind of paradise,

you have to look for a place you never hear of.

Because if you hear about it--

It doesn't exist. It's obviously out to the world...

and it's bound to be sentenced to not be a paradise anymore.

[Jacqueline] I don't like to use that word "paradise."

Why the people are always using that--

Well, you were looking for-- No.

We were not looking for a paradise. Please.

No, not a paradise, but-- We were looking for a place...

where we were our own masters and that it depends on ourself.

[ Gil ] And that's exactly what you found.

Well, I don't know. If there is a paradise, I hope it's nicer than this.

[Birds Singing]

[Bird Calling]

[Chirping]

[Chirping Continues]

[ Squawking ]

[ Reading As Dore] I do not know why it is...

that certain events cast ominous shadows long before they come about.

But so it was with me before the Wittmers came.

The weather was perfect. The garden growing well.

And yet, something within me refused to be quieted.

Then, one morning, far out at sea, we saw a schooner,

which seemed to be approaching Black Beach.

[Woman Reading] I felt terribly alone that day in August 1932...

when we first landed on Floreana.

Surely no more forlorn and forbidding place could be imagined than this island.

My husband, Heinz, and I did not speak.

We felt too downhearted.

Yet, there was no going back.

We had invested all our savings on equipment and supplies...

and in so doing had burnt our bridges.

It might be months before another ship put in here.

And even if a ship did come,

we could hardly get back to Germany on the 20 marks we had left between us.

[ Man Reading] I must admit that this landscape is not encouraging.

It is certainly no South Sea paradise,

and the weight of the decision to come here rests heavy on my shoulders.

My son, Harry, from my first marriage, has always been delicate...

and last spring his health took a turn for the worse.

It was then that I came across Friedrich Ritter's articles in the Cologne newspapers.

While reading his words, I realized that the Galépagos is our solution.

If the Ritters could do it, so could we.

We too can leave city life behind us...

and give Harry a healthy Swiss Family Robinson existence.

[ Reading As Dore ] I confess that I was sadly disappointed...

at our first meeting with the Wittmers.

Frau Wittmer in particular looks to be a rather ordinary type of woman...

who would like nothing more than to devote herself to housekeeping.

It is clear that neither of the newcomers share our spiritual goals,

and I am quite certain that life in the wilderness will soon lose its charm for them.

[ Reading As Margret] Upon our arrival,

Dore immediately began discussing the philosophy of Nietzsche.

I found this a bit absurd.

We want to be settlers in a more ordinary sense.

Our equipment is not Nietzsche, but perseverance and the will to work.

We felt rather out of place and prepared to leave.

[ Reading As Friedrich ] They came expecting to be treated like invited guests,

and the only way we can deal with them...

is to make it clear from the beginning that we consider them intruders.

Wanting them as far from us as possible,

I took them more than an hour's difficult journey up the hiH...

and showed them some old pirate caves with a nearby spring.

[ Reading As Margret] There were the caves.

Three of them together under the slope of a hiH.

I immediately began sweeping the interior of the largest, which would be our new home.

How glad we are that these caves exist.

And yet it concerns us that we are now located so far from Dr. Ritter.

[Octavio Speaking Spanish]

[ Reading As Friedrich ] I find it shocking...

that the Wittmers have come to Floreana to take advantage of my skill as a physician.

I have made it eminently clear that I do not intend to practice as a doctor...

and that I refuse to sit around the caves all day attending to Margret.

I am highly resentful...

and would gladly put all of them on the next boat back to Guayaquil.

[ Reading As Heinz] Ritter's unwillingness to assist us is a great disappointment.

It seems a pity that he should be so unpleasant,

especially as we happen to all be Germans.

[ Reading As Margret] I wonder if Dr. Ritter really grasps that if something goes wrong,

he will carry a heavy burden of responsibility for refusing to give me help.

What kind of doctor could be so heartless?

[Train Approaching]

[Whistle Blows]

N [ Clarinet]

[ Fritz] Dr. Ritter came out of a family...

for which the emperor and the fatherland...

were the most important thing.

So, when the First World War began,

it was naturally that he and also my father...

go to war to defend the fatherland.

They went with flowers on their rifles,

singing, drinking beer,

thinking that this war will be finished in six weeks.

But they ended in these frontline trenches,

seeing the dead and wounded people everywhere around.

Then they begin to understand what really war is.

And, in his philosophy,

Friedrich said that war is fixed...

in the genes of the human being.

It is fixed in the genes,

the character of human being.

Surely, he was scarred by the First World War.

And I think that this changed him a lot.

[Insects Buzzing]

[ Steve] "There's a race of men that don't fit in,

a race that can't stay still.

So they break the hearts of kith and kin...

and they roam the world at will.

They range the field and they rove the flood...

and they climb the mountain's crest.

Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,

and they don't know how to rest.

They say, 'Could I find my proper groove,

what a deep mark I would make.'

So they chop and change and each fresh move...

is only a fresh mistake."

"The Men That Don't Fit In."

That was one of my father's favorite poems.

Robert Service.

[ Barks]

[ Reading As Margret] Today was a day of great excitement.

Our first visitors have come.

This morning I heard our dog barking...

and through the trees, I saw a small, slim woman of about 40...

riding up on a donkey and carrying a revolver.

There were two German men with her,

one thin and blond and the other dark and swarthy.

Both of them appear to be gentlemen-in-waiting, or perhaps even lovers.

What an extraordinary trio.

As the woman dismounted,

she introduced herself as Baroness von Wagner from Paris, by way of Vienna,

and proceeded to make an announcement that was more than a little alarming.

[Woman Reading] Darlings, you know my plans, don't you?

I've come to establish a grand hotel.

It will be called Hacienda Paradiso.

Philippson is my architect and Lorenz my engineer.

After long and mature analysis,

I've come to the conclusion that my project is feasible.

After all, woman is capable of everything,

from the highest to the lowest.

Certainly she is greater and more resolved than the male.

[ Reading As Heinz] What a strange figure the baroness presents.

I think she might have dreams of being a feudal queen,

with servants, retainers and slaves to carry out her slightest wish.

Margret and I gazed at her speechless...

as she announced that she and her men would be living in our orange grove,

beside our little stream.

She said she wouldn't dream of living anywhere else until her hotel is built.

We've hardly been here two months,

and already there are unwelcome neighbors living right outside our door.

[ Reading As Margret] Foregoing any of the normal courtesies,

the baroness marched over to our spring.

She was followed closely by the blond,

who took off her shoes like a devoted servant...

and proceeded to wash her feet thoroughly in our drinking water.

After this ceremony had been completed,

the baroness took her leave to pay her first visit to the Ritters.

[ Reading As Dore] Without waiting for an invitation,

she settled in one of our deck chairs.

She then demanded a cup of tea with an attitude...

that made it clear she regarded Friedo more or less as hers.

The baroness told us of her plan...

to turn Floreana into a kind of Miami for American millionaires.

We are appalled at this profit-making scheme.

The very idea of it casts a sordid blight upon our island.

[ Reading As Friedrich ] I, for one, am disgusted by her theatricals.

If she had a single proper man with her, instead of a pair of servile gigolos,

she could be kept in order without trouble.

As you can imagine, we weren't too pleased to have her giving orders in our house,

and Dore told her so in no uncertain terms.

In the end, the baroness went off highly offended,

breathing fire and slaughter against us.

[ Reading As Dore] She is in one way so trivial and frivolous...

and in another way so sinister.

But unlike Margret Wittmer, at least the baroness ls no little bourgeois hausfrau.

Even as an enemy, she is a person worthy of one's steel.

[ Man, Heavy Accent]

[ Gunshot]

[ Reading As Margret] Today we had a tremendous commotion.

Two Norwegians who live on Santa Cruz Island dropped anchor in Post Office Bay.

One of them, Christian Stampa, shot a small calf,

intending to return with it to Santa Cruz.

Upon hearing the shot, the baroness charged out.

[ Reading As Margret ] "That was my calf," she shouted. "Philippson! "

And Philippson came out, taking up a stand near her.

Both men yielded and fled.

[ Reading As Dore] We were awakened by frantic shouts,

and to my horror I saw Christian Stampa staggering towards our house.

His clothes were torn to ribbons and his face was white and set like iron.

Apparently the baroness had confronted him with violent gestures and a rifle,

yelling that the island is now hers, with everything upon it.

This story has shattered even Friedrich '5 calm.

He has written up a detailed report about the baroness's fantastic behavior.

Stampa is taking this report to the governor on San Cristobal.

[Chirping]

[ Man ] You take 100,000 people and 1,000 people-- island life is exactly the same.

The same sort of mechanics as to society are happening.

My name is Daniel Fitter Angermeyer.

I suppose I'm third-generation Angermeyer.

I was born here in Galépagos.

Small island environments, you always had confrontations...

and, you know, problems going on for years.

"So-and-so did that to me years ago, and so-and-so did this to me years ago,

and you never paid me back that." I mean--

Small island life.

Like the saying goes, "Little town, big hell," basically.

Well, it was part of that factor here too.

So the people who paid, perhaps, a bit too much attention on that factor,

really got-- hit them hard.

There was nowhere to escape.

The people were very friendly, but distant, and so on.

We talked about many things, but each of us in your house.

And the leitmotif was, "We did it, we had a hard time, and you have to learn."

[Carmen] People had to get going on their own.

They could ask, everybody would help them out.

But everybody expected also that the persons would make an effort, you know,

and learn and go at it,

and not just sit there and ask and expect somebody doing it for them.

I don't know. I cannot give a name to that.

Everyone for himself.

[ Reading As Margret] The first labor pains began on December 30.

"Dear God," I prayed, "let it all go well. "

Heinz wanted to send for Dr. Ritter but I refused to let him,

determined that we'd get along somehow without his help.

The pains were very violent, but the day passed and so did the night.

I got up, walked around a bit and baked a New Year's cake...

before the pains became too agonizing for me to do anything...

but lay and bite hard into my pillows.

That night passed too, and now it was New Year's Day.

It was 72 hours since the pains had started,

and they were more than flesh and blood could stand.

For a moment, everything went black.

I screamed so loud for Heinz that my own voice echoed back through the cave.

I could see one thing quite clearly.

My life was in danger and only a doctor could save me.

"Dr. Ritter," I muttered. "Get Dr. Ritter."

Three long hours passed before Heinz returned with Dr. Ritter.

Ritter examined me and was now a doctor, pure and simple.

He washed his hands a dozen times with antiseptic soap,

and then he performed the operation.

The pain was so cruel, I could have screamed my head off.

But somehow, I managed to bear it in silence.

Then suddenly, I heard a cry.

A short, shrill cry.

It was the first cry of our newborn child.

Dr. Ritter proceeded to congratulate me on my baby son, Rolf.

[ Reading As Friedrich ] Margret was very brave...

and Rolf is certainly a fine, strapping boy.

I hope his upbringing will be stern enough...

to make of him a worthwhile character.

[ Reading As Margret ] Shortly after Rolf's birth,

the baroness came to visit with Philippson and Lorenz.

She had no revolver in her belt that day and seemed in an unusually genial mood.

After congratulating me on my son,

she presented me with clothes she brought from her Paris boutique,

announcing that he must be the "most dapper little man on our island."

♪ O Tannenbaum A'

[ Reading As Dore] The coming of the baby...

created an atmosphere almost like Christmas.

Friedrich and I chose presents for him--

a two-year-old date palm, vegetables, fruits.

For the baroness, we gave kitchen herbs.

All differences and quarrels were momentarily lost...

in a general warmth and goodwill,

and I wanted very much that we should all, from now on,

live in harmony and avoid future conflicts.

s: [ Ends]

[Man Speaking Spanish]

[ Woman ] I was the first European girl born up in the highlands.

And I was a surprise.

Mom didn't know I was on my way.

But then, she celebrated her birthday...

and they all had potato salad.

And in the evening, in the night,

she got a tummy ache and she didn't feel well at all.

And she said, "It must be the potato salad."

But it wasn't.

It was me who was coming.

I have some very good memories, yes.

When I was a little girl, I had two big wishes.

And that was first, a hunting knife,

and then, the gun.

And when I turned 15, I got the gun.

And I turned out to be a good shot.

I only needed one bullet to kill a goat or a pig.

So little by little, I was discovering...

that it was great to grow up like this in a very special way,

and all the liberty I had.

[ Woman ] As a child who grew up here, the Galépagos was my oyster.

I often say that I've reaped all the benefits...

of the decisions that my parents made.

You know, I didn't have to weigh the pros and cons of coming to live here.

I didn't bear the burden of responsibility.

I didn't bear the risk of failure.

I just lived it.

[ Reading As John Garth] Thursday, January 26.

We are back with our friends in the Galépagos,

having returned on our annual scientific voyage.

And this has turned out to be a very unusual day.

Coming ashore on Floreana with gifts and supplies for the Ritters,

we encountered a strange sign, written in what appears to be red lipstick.

[ Reading As The Baroness] Friends, whoever you are,

two hours from here lies the Hacienda Paradise,

a lovely spot where the weary traveler can rejoice...

to find refreshing peace and tranquillity on his way through life.

In Paradise, you have only one name-- friend.

[ Reading As John Garth] We hardly had time to take in this sign...

before a flashing mirror signaled to us from the Ritter homestead.

The captain raced up there in all haste.

He returned about dusk with a wild tale.

There is now a baroness living on Floreana...

with several husbands and a machine gun.

And not long ago, a Norwegian had run to the Ritters for protection,

his clothes torn from his body.

This bears investigation by all hands.

At Captain Hancock's request, Dr. Ritter took the group to the baroness's camp.

The baroness speaks eight languages...

and claims as her uncles no lesser musicians than Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner.

The tales of machine guns and terror do seem far-fetched.

However she has no ideas of good housekeeping or sanitation.

We shuddered at the filth in which she and her lovers live.

Taking leave of the baroness,

Ritter led us up a short trail to a barbed wire fence...

separating her establishment from that of the Wittmers.

Margret Wittmer is quite a homemaker,

an assertion which could not be made of Dore, nor of the baroness.

In the late afternoon, we made the mistake...

of bringing all three of the island's groups aboard the Velero at the same time.

Dore immediately spoiled things...

by mincing no words in telling the baroness what she thought of her.

For a few minutes I feared trouble,

until we averted this by keeping the parties separate for the rest of the day.

Early the next morning, we set ashore at Black Beach anchorage,

where Dr. Ritter appeared with a donkey to pick up our huge pile of gifts.

[ Reading As Margret] Captain Hancock had brought generous presents for the Ritters,

things which we islanders consider among the treasures of the earth.

But when the baroness heard about these presents,

her jealousy was aroused and a war broke out.

Going directly to the Ritters with Philippson,

the baroness demanded that Ritter arrange...

for what she called a fair distribution of the gifts.

Dr. Ritter blew up and threw Philippson headfirst out the door.

It is becoming more and more uncomfortable on Floreana.

[ Fritz] The disaster for him were the rich people who came.

The money. And money destroys any paradise of the world, yeah?

They brought him so many gifts...

and they turned him back to civilization.

And this is the reason, in the philosophy of Friedrich, why people make war.

Only aggression.

And behind aggression,

the wish to have property...

and the wish to have money.

It's the same. It was a war.

More nothing than a war.

[ Reading As John Garth] Sunday, February 6, 1933.

Today we leave Floreana,

and we carry away with us several impressions regarding our friends.

First, the baroness seems to be an accomplished, comely,

quite loquacious, if neurotic and unconventional lady,

who could be very attractive and companionable.

Second, the Ritters not only resent competition in the hermit business,

but are inclined to be troublemakers.

Thirdly, the Wittmer family is really succeeding in living off the land 100%,

something the Ritters have been unable to do...

because of the generosity of Captain Hancock and others.

Lastly, go where you may, you cannot escape the problem of social adjustment.

[ Reading As Dore ] That Sunday, following the departure of the Velero,

unannounced and uninvited, the baroness paid us a call...

with the inevitable Philippson as escort.

She was in a fever of excitement...

at having met the first of the millionaires she hoped to bait.

And, without offering more than a perfunctory greeting,

she stared proudly at us and made one of her silly pronouncements.

[ Reading As The Baroness] Well, Captain Hancock was absolutely charmed...

by my hacienda, and perhaps me,

and when he comes back we're going to make a film.

It shall be called The Empress of Floreana.

[ Laughs] That's me.

[ Friedel ] It was funny, when the yachts started to come more often,

it was always a competition who gets first on board.

And among the Angermeyer brothers, there was rivalry.

So Karl complained that Gus was always getting first there...

and getting the most presents, and so on.

[ TePPY ] My mother, she got everything from the boats.

She wanted luxury, you know. She wanted all the modern life, you know.

My mother's from Ecuador.

She was quite a few years younger than my father. And she had a big dream.

She married this German, blue-eyed, blond-haired young man,

what she thought she was going to Europe.

And she never went there. She lived in the Galépagos Islands on the rock pile.

I think she even came in high-heeled shoes.

My mother was only interested in money, money, money.

The more you get, the better.

She took old rags on to make herself poor...

and went out rowing on this dinghy around from yacht to yacht in the harbor.

And said she had no milk, she had no food for her kids, and everything.

She came back rowing into the dock, put her nice clothes on,

went to town and sold everything for high prices.

Money was everything for my mother.

And my old man was totally the opposite.

He lived off Luft und Liebe und Sonnenschein.

Air, love and the sunshine.

He said money, he didn't need.

"These islands are mine," he said. "I'm the king. I do what I please."

[ Reading As Margret] Today the governor of the Galépagos Islands...

came over from San Cristébal with seven soldiers and an interpreter.

The purpose of his visit was to investigate the accusations against the baroness...

made months ago by Ritter and Christian Stampa.

The governor decided to hold his court of inquiry in the Hacienda Paradiso.

It seems that South Americans are easily impressed by a European baroness...

because in the end, he granted her a title to four square miles of land...

for her hotel.

Afterwards, the governor granted the Ritters and us a title too,

but only for 50 acres each.

Apparently we are only simple settlers, not budding empresses.

[ Reading As Dore] One thing is now certain--

the baroness has won access to the spring at the Wittmers,

which the governor has declared free...

for the common use of both settlements.

Now the Wittmers will have the pleasure...

of being overrun by her and her men at all times...

and with all impunity.

[ Reading as Friedrich ] This decision cannot fail to lead to open war...

between the two households at the caves,

and it will only intensify the baroness's mischievousness.

[Man Speaking Spanish]

[ Reading As Margret ] Mad things are being said about the Galapagos.

Captain Hancock has returned,

bringing newspapers and magazines...

containing stories that astonish us.

Apparently the baroness is not only an empress.

She also has a court of 12 noblemen,

has created a 'Terror regiment”...

and has had Dr. Ritter taken prisoner and led away in chains.

We discuss it later with Dr. Ritter, who laughs heartily.

The baroness laughs about it as well and says...

she wonders who is responsible for such tall tales.

[ Reading As Friedrich ] I told the Wittmers that it is more than probable...

that the baroness herself spread the rumors...

merely to gain attention and create a sensation...

which should then launch her hotel.

[ Reading As Dore] She is revealing herself to be a person...

whose love of sensation will stop at nothing.

And now it seems she has drawn even Captain Hancock into her web.

Friedrich and I are shocked to learn that he really does intend to make a film of the baroness.

He says it is to be a pirate film.

[ Reading As John Garth] January 21, 1934.

We came ashore this morning at Post Office Bay...

where the baroness and Philippson met us for the filming.

Our photographers had planned a scenario...

in which she would figure in more or less a pirate role.

AH hands pitched in,

with First Officer Charles Swett serving as cameraman,

Emory Johnson directing...

and playing the baroness's paramour,

and Ray Elliott, our student zoologist,

taking a secondary female part...

in spite of his miniature and as yet colorless mustache.

[ Projector Whirring ]

[ Reading As Margret] We have just received...

some very intriguing information about the baroness.

Lorenz came to see us today...

and in the strictest confidence explained...

that she is not really a baroness after all.

Apparently, she is married to a Frenchman named Bousquet,

who she left behind in Paris.

She and Bousquet met in Constantinople...

where she was a dancer before the war...

and claims to have been a spy.

Lorenz then met the baroness in Paris...

and the two, with his money, set up a boutique together.

In the course of events they hired Philippson as a salesman.

Now, on Floreana, the roles have been reversed...

and the rest of his party regards Lorenz as being just good enough...

to take care of the livestock and do house chores.

[ Reading As Dore] Although both men continue to sleep with her...

together in one bed when she commands it,

Lorenz has been reduced to little more than a slave.

Curiously, he remains blindly and hopelessly bewitched...

by the baroness.

[ Reading As The Baroness] The man isn't born...

who can resist me,

and I am not afraid to say...

that I find variety the spice of life.

[José Speaking Spanish]

It's a very special picture.

[Chuckles]

[ Fritz] I think this is the only picture that exists from Friedrich...

where he is laughing a little.

Yeah?

And, uh, okay,

this-- this seems...

that there were...

other...

things going on.

Yes?

That there are mixed--

Not only hate.

[José Speaking Spanish]

[Clucking ]

[ Gil ] It's interesting.

The human being isn't as easygoing as nature is.

So growing here in the Galépagos,

with so little human influence, was very easy.

But inevitably you become an adolescent...

and you start getting interested in your own species,

which is of course what happened with me also.

And I started getting lies.

I started getting, you know, deceived.

I started getting all kinds of things that I wasn't used to at all.

And that was hard.

[Tui ] Essentially, to varying extents,

I think all the kids...

that grow up in that situation...

are to some extent misfits.

I certainly feel like...

I'm still a social apprentice.

Just being superficiallycorrect...

is something that doesn't come naturally,

that I never learned the--

You know, I never went to finishing school.

I didn't even go to beginning school.

So how could I finish if I didn't begin?

[ Laughing ] You know?

And I see the pattern reemerge...

in all sorts of different people.

So...

once you become a grown-up,

how do you then identify with,

and most acutely, who do you marry?

[ Friedel ] Marga was married to Carlos Kubler...

and had the beautiful daughter Carmen.

But Marga was very unhappy with Carlos Kubler.

So Marga left him,

left Carlos Kubler...

and, um, later married...

Karl Angermeyer.

And then that was good for Fritz, the youngest.

Fritz married Carmen.

[Gil ] One fine day, Carmen just decided that was that.

She was going to be with Fritz.

And she brought her few belongings along the cliff...

and just dropped them there and waited for him to come back from-- from fishing.

And in the afternoon when he came in,

he disembarked there with Carmen waiting.

And Carmen said, "I'm coming to stay with you."

And he looked at her and he said, "Okay." And that was that.

So I married one brother and she married the other one.

Karl was my father-in-law...

and my brother-in-law.

[Carmen Giggles]

[Man Speaking Spanish]

[ Reading As Dore] The drought began toward the end of February...

and the rains are now months overdue.

Each day we scan the skies...

for some sign of a cloud,

but none come.

Heat such as we have never known scorches every living thing.

We measure 120 degrees in the shade.

The spring, our source of life,

has become a thin trickle of water...

wearily crawling out of its dry bed.

The strong plants have all withered...

and the island is strewn with the carcasses of animals the drought has killed.

It exhales the odors of decay and death.

[ Reading As Friedrich ] Heinz Wittmer comes to see us every week.

His spring too has been reduced to almost nothing,

and his ground is less good than ours.

But he tells us that at the Hacienda Paradise...

things are much worse.

Their garden no longer produces foodstuffs...

and the baroness has run through all of their supplies.

The generous yachts on which her hotel speculation depends...

have stopped visiting our shores.

Indeed, as weeks become months...

and still no ships appear on the horizon,

the baroness's disappointment has been driven to extremes.

[ Reading As Dore] Lorenz has told us...

of fearful quarrels at Hacienda Paradiso.

He has received so many terrible beatings...

that he cannot bear to stay there any longer.

Yet if Friedrich and I were to take him in,

it would only bring a mountain of trouble upon us from the baroness.

[ Reading As Margret] After Ritter refused him,

we saw we should have to give Lorenz the asylum he desires.

And now the baroness comes to our gate each day...

calling out for him.

Time and again Lorenz is enticed by her and disappears to the hacienda.

Hours later he returns and sits at our table, crying.

[ Reading As Dore] It may be that in a wild place like Floreana,

the primitive character in each person comes out,

so that everybody shows his own true face--

a rare sight in this world, and rather disconcerting.

Although Heinz Wittmer is a quiet and thoughtful man,

yesterday he talked himself into a raving fury against the baroness.

We had never seen him in this state before,

and when he was done he turned to Friedrich and said,

"We must all get together and do something.

It is no use appealing to the governor.

We've got to take things into our own hands now."

Something has also changed in Lorenz.

I now sense in him a fierce and burning desperation.

I wonder whether there might conceivably be a limit...

beyond which even this captive cannot be driven.

[Octavio Speaking Spanish]

[Birds Calling]

[ Squawking ]

[Clucking ]

[ Reading As Dore] We continue to suffer under this oppressive drought...

and for months we haven't seen a soul...

but for Heinz Wittmer on his weekly visit.

There is an atmosphere of gathering evil...

closing in upon the island.

Ten days ago, Friedrich and I were resting in the stillness of the intense heat...

when all at once a long shriek gashed the silence.

It was an outcry of such panic and terror that it was hardly human,

and yet it was a woman's voice.

It froze the marrow in our bones.

We expected to hear footsteps rushing down the path toward us,

but no one came.

And I said, "Perhaps the drought is playing havoc with our nerves. "

The next day was the day when Wittmer usually called,

but he did not come.

Then yesterday,

Margret Wittmer appeared instead.

She was not with her husband, but with Lorenz,

and she told us the strangest story.

It sounded almost to have been rehearsed.

[ Reading As Margret] Three days ago,

we heard the sounds of visitors at the baroness's compound...

and soon after Madame herself appeared at the gate, asking for Lorenz.

When I told her that Lorenz was out with Heinz, she said,

"Please tell him that friends of ours have sailed in,

and we're going to Tahiti with them.

I hope that the South Seas will be a better place to realize my plans.

Lorenz is to look after the things I've left behind...

till I either return or send word.

Auf Wiedersehen, or perhaps good-bye.”

Then she turned on her heel and strode away in her riding costume.

It seemed too good to be true,

and I told myself that it was only talk.

But later that day Lorenz went to the hacienda and the house was empty.

Deserted.

To convince himself that they had really left,

he went to check Post Office Bay.

After that we did not see Lorenz for two days,

and when he returned this morning...

he said that all he found at Post Office Bay...

were footprints and donkey tracks in the sand.

There seems to be no trace of them on the island.

The baroness and Philippson are gone.

[ Reading As Dore] As Margret Wittmer ended her story,

Lorenz assumed an oddly matter-of-fact voice and coolly asked us...

if we would buy some of the baroness's things from him.

He says she left him no money and he is burning to get off the island.

I find it curious that he feels free to sell her things so quickly,

but in the end...

Friedrich and I decided to go to Hacienda Paradiso,

thinking there might be something useful for us to buy there.

On our way we stopped to see the Wittmefls new house.

It was the first time I'd been there,

and almost immediately...

my eyes fell upon a beautiful pink damask tablecloth.

I had seen it before-- at the baroness's.

[ Reading As Friedrich ] The whole story seems like nothing but lies...

from beginning to end.

Certainly Margret's mention of the yacht does not completely satisfy me.

I've not seen a ship in weeks,

and if there'd been one here I'd surely have seen it.

[ Reading As Dore] The Hacienda Paradise...

was hardly more than a stone's throw away from the Wittmer's house.

Lorenz and the Wittmers led us through the door...

and I nearly screamed at the sight before my eyes.

[Octavio Speaking Spanish]

[ Reading As Dore] On her bedside table...

there was an ashtray containing the remains...

of the long-stemmed Russian cigarettes the baroness always smoked.

And, tellingly, beside this ashtray...

lay her most beloved possession.

[Octavio Speaking Spanish]

[ Reading As Dore ] The baroness had often spoken of this one small possession.

She'd told me that she never went anywhere without it.

And yet there it was.

Chilled, I hung back in the doorway.

[ Reading As Margret] Dr. Ritter immediately began opening...

various chests and boxes.

Why has he taken it for granted so readily...

that the baroness will not be coming back?

Sinister suspicions...

have begun to surface in my mind.

I wonder if perhaps Dr. Ritter and Lorenz...

share some terrible secret.

[ Reading As Dore] I no longer have the least doubt...

but that the baroness and Philippson were murdered.

I feel a great pity for the baroness.

While she lived I would have given anything to see her leave the island.

But now that she is dead,

I would give just as much to see her back again.

And I know that henceforth...

I shall be possessed by the dread...

that Friedrich and I will be the next victims...

of the murderer who stalks Floreana.

It is plain to me that for the moment our very lives depend...

on our keeping our suspicions to ourselves.

[Claudio Speaking Spanish]

When you get down to it, everybody had a motive to kill the baroness.

There are people in this world...

that just beg to get killed.

[Octavio Speaking Spanish]

I don't think that there's any doubt...

that Lorenz did away with them some way or another.

[Chuckles] Simply, guns are available, you know,

and suddenly, bang, bang, you know--

Well, Lorenz-- I doubt if Lorenz did it.

[ Gil ] Personally, I could clearly feel...

that Margret Wittmer knew a whole bit more.

She well may have had to help out...

at precisely hiding the body...

or something of the sort.

Many things could have happened, you know.

She could also maybe have gone off to Tahiti and sank with the boat and never got there.

I would suspect that old man Wittmer did it. [Chuckles]

[ Gil ] It's hardly mentioned at all the possibility of suicide.

But looking at the way she lived and everything, I think it's very possible.

[Thunder Rumbling ]

[ Reading As Friedrich ] The first rains came on April 21.

And we have come back to life...

here on Floreana.

Lorenz's desire to leave the island and make his way back to Germany...

has reached a fever pitch.

Today I helped him write a few lines of English...

to be nailed to the barrel at Post Office Bay.

His message--

"There is a young man on Floreana who begs any ship...

for an opportunity to leave this island.

I live inland off the trail that is marked in red.

Signed, Rudolf Lorenz."

[ Reading As Margret] Months have passed...

without a single ship touching our shores.

But today a boat has come at last--

a boat for Lorenz.

It is the Dinamita, a small fishing vessel...

owned by a Norwegian living on the island of Santa Cruz,

a man named Nuggerud.

Nuggerud has agreed to take Lorenz as far as Santa Cruz,

where he'll be able to catch the ship for Guayaquil.

Meanwhile, Nuggerud has a journalist on board,

a Swedish writer named Rolf Blomberg.

Blomberg wants to have a look at Floreana...

and expressed the intention of visiting the baroness.

[ Man Reading] When no grim pirate queen bearing a revolver...

came to greet us in Post Office Bay,

we quickly made our way to the Wittmers' house...

where Lorenz informed us that the baroness had ”disappeared.”

I managed to get from them the mysterious story,

which did not quite add up--

the yacht nobody had seen,

Lorenz selling the house and all its contents to the Wittmers and the Ritters.

In any event,

it had been four months since the island queen's disappearance...

and we appear to be Lorenz's liberators,

come to take him away from paradise...

and return him once again to earth.

[ Reading As Dore] Blomberg quizzed us incessantly about the baroness,

and it was through this man...

that the story of her disappearance went out into the world.

Friedrich and I hinted at what we thought,

but we were careful and did not feel yet...

that we could say much on the matter.

For his part, Lorenz looked gloomy.

Just before setting sail...

he whispered to me in a low tone,

"I don't know why, but I'm afraid of this trip somehow.”

[ Reading As Margret] Dr. Ritter came to us today,

bringing some mail that was left in Post Office Bay a few days ago.

Among the letters is an alarming note from Blomberg in Santa Cruz.

[ Reading As Rolf] The three of us set sail...

for Santa Cruz Island.

However, along the way,

we passed a big ship on a hard tack for San Cristébal.

Lorenz saw this ship as his chance to get to the mainland quickly.

So as soon as we anchored here on Santa Cruz,

he began begging Nuggerud to set out at once for San Cristébal...

so he could catch the ship before it left for Guayaquil.

[ Carmen ] Lorenz, I just saw him when he came ashore.

It was a very unfriendly day of July.

Rough seas.

You felt that he wanted nobody.

He just stalked off, you know, went off with his suitcase.

And he was very much in a hurry to go on that boat.

And Nuggerud said, "I can't."

[ Reading As Blomberg ] Nuggerud was not very keen on the subject,

for it was Friday the 13th.

[ Reading As Blomberg ] However, Lorenz kept pleading,

and finally, after he offered 50 sucres for the trip if they left at once,

Nuggerud agreed.

Just at daybreak on the 13th, we saw them set sail.

I am sorry to say that no one has seen them or the Dinamita since.

[ Reading As Margret] We are shattered.

Boats have gone out in search of the Dinamita...

in hopes that they have been stranded on one of the other islands.

But so far there's been no trace of them.

There has been no news either from Tahiti...

where the baroness and Philippson were supposed to be going.

Everyone seems to have disappeared without a trace.

[ Seal Barking ]

[ Friedel ] I was dreaming about leaving the island.

I had looked on the map...

and seen that the Galépagos were there,

just like little spots from a fly.

I was very keen on seeing the world.

And on the beach I had a friend-- Teppy Angermeyer.

We used to talk together and discuss.

And he said, "I want to get away from here."

And then I used to say, "Me too. But how?"

And then he said, "Well, we need a boat."

[ TePPY ] My older brother had left.

He met a girl on a yacht and fell in love and her parents helped my brother out of here.

So I wished to go out and see the world also.

You get to that age where you get curious and you want to see it.

[ Friedel ] So we were dreamers.

But life was getting sort of complicated for me.

Our neighbors, the Kastdakzns, had one son, Ni.

He was 15 years older than me and he needed a wife.

In fact, we got rings on.

But I was getting cold feet...

and was wondering how can I get out of this...

difficult situation.

Because I did not love Alf.

And suddenly there was a very special solution.

Here came this yacht sailing with Forrest Nelson on board.

And he asked me to come with him and he asked me to marry him.

And then I thought quickly, "Oh. This is an adventure!

This is a good idea. Why not try it?"

And, uh, so I did.

[Chuckles] They were a bit upset.

"Oh, you are just adventurous and you are irresponsible," they said.

I said, “Okay.

I'll accept that and be irresponsible.

And I'm going. Bye-bye?'

And that was it.

I started a complete new life.

It was a great adventure and he put me on as a sailor.

I thought it was quite romantic.

And from Galépagos we sailed all the way up to San Diego.

It was great and I was very, very happy,

and I thought he wanted to continue sailing...

and maybe sail around the world...

and stop and work some places...

and earn a little money to go on.

But the reality was that in San Diego he wanted to sell the boat...

and he wanted to come back to the Galépagos...

and start a hotel.

And so we did.

This was in 1960...

and there was not a single hotel.

I felt sad.

But I couldn't say anything.

I was so young.

And so I just accepted it.

But my heart was bleeding.

[ Reading As Dore] Only four adults remain on the island,

and a strange mood has come over Friedrich.

Yesterday he turned to me and said,

"I think I shall go on to my end on Floreana.

I have found here what I came to find,

and this is where I hope to die.”

Happily, this new mood...

has allowed us to find harmony and peace together,

and Friedrich has become considerate and tender.

A stillness that we have never known before unites us.

[ Reading As Margret ] Dr. Ritter visited today and confided to us...

that he and Dore are always quarreling now...

and it is getting on his nerves.

He says that the poor woman's not herself and has become extremely difficult.

[ Reading As Heinz] Dr. Ritter tells us that they are running short of food.

The rains that broke the drought have come too late to save his crops.

Even their source of eggs is gone.

Dore fed his chickens spoiled pig meat...

and now they are all dead.

Margret and I visited Friedo today...

and found the doctor boiling these dead chickens for future use.

He offered us a jar of the chicken,

insisting that the poison had been boiled out.

We thanked him hastily and refused the offer.

[ Reading As Dore] Yesterday, with great reluctance,

we decided that we must overcome our aversion to meat...

and have one of the boiled chickens for dinner.

We took every possible precaution in preparing the poultry.

Friedrich tried only a little.

I ate more of it.

A few hours later...

Friedrich lay down, complaining of feeling rather ill.

Soon nausea set in and agonizing pains.

The whole of that night was spent trying to stem the tide of poison,

which was overwhelming his body.

At dawn he asked me to read Nietzsche to him...

and when I came to one of his favorite passages he said in a faint voice,

"Mark those lines, Dore.

Remember them always in memory of me.”

Despair surged over me.

Friedrich was dying.

And what could I do at Friedo alone?

[Octavio Speaking Spanish]

[ Reading As Dore] By the time Margret and I got back to Friedo,

Friedrich '5 tongue was so badly swollen that he could no longer speak clearly.

I sat beside him through the night,

praying that somehow he might get well again.

At dawn, Friedrich suddenly sat up.

He stretched out both his arms toward me.

All trace of pain and torment had vanished from his face,

which was transfigured with a look so lucid,

so triumphant, so calm, so tender...

that I could only gaze and gaze upon him like one who sees a miracle.

But then he fell back on the pillows,

and before I was able to utter a sound...

he was gone.

[ Reading As Margret] When Dore and I reached Friedo,

Friedrich looked as if he was in excruciating pain.

His one comprehensible remark was to point out the bitter irony...

that he, a vegetarian,

was dying from meat poisoning.

Then he made an immense effort,

felt for the pencil and paper by his bed...

and wrote his last sentence--

"I curse you with my dying breath.”

With that he looked up at Dore, his eyes gleaming with hate.

He struggled against the shot of morphine that Dore gave him...

and repelled with blows and kicks...

every effort she made to touch him.

Hours went by like this...

until he at last collapsed on his pillows and was gone.

[ Reading As Heinz ] The next day, Harry and I buried Dr. Ritter's body.

We wrapped it up in a piece of linen cloth...

and transported it to a spot in the garden where we had prepared a grave.

We then buried him between the stones...

that he had removed from the ground with so much trouble.

[ Reading As Margret ] As Heinz placed a simple cross on Dr. Ritter's grave,

I wondered to myself...

about Dora's inexplicable delay in coming to get us...

once she saw he was so ill.

Why on earth did she wait so long...

when every moment was so vital?

Also, while Dore assured me that she had eaten the meat too,

she never looked anything but perfectly normal.

[ Reading As Dore ] The linen I had brought from Germany...

made Friedrich '5 shroud.

The atmosphere was now full of ghostliness...

and I became possessed not only with the feeling...

that the island was a haunted ground,

but that I should be its next victim.

That night I took out pen and paper.

"Friedrich is dead," I wrote to Captain Hancock.

"Please help me."

[José Speaking Spanish]

[ TePPY ] I find it very mysterious.

And as a child, because we had very little with deaths here and this sort of thing,

then you worry, you know.

You can kind of get afraid and think, you know, "What's it all about?"

[Jorge Speaking Spanish]

[Laughing]

[ Reading As John Garth] Sunday, December 2, 1934.

Just before Thanksgiving, Captain Hancock's telephone rang late in the night.

It was the press.

Two bodies have been found dead beside an overturned boat...

on the black lava sands of Marchena Island.

A few days later we were on our way south,

our ship steering straight for the Galépagos.

This time, as the holidays are upon us,

several wives joined our crew.

At 2:00 p.m. today we dropped anchor...

and climbed ashore on Marchena,

that strange, dead remnant of an ancient volcano...

which stands 60 miles north ward of its nearest Galépagos neighbor.

Far above the reach of the waves...

we could see the wreck of a dinghy and a bamboo pole...

on which an old gray coat had flown as a distress signal.

Slowly, soberly,

we climbed the hard-packed sand...

and therein front of us a gruesome sight presented itself--

the mummified form of Nuggerud, the Norwegian sea captain.

A short distance away lay all that was left of Lorenz.

He was dressed just as when we last saw him.

I would have known him anywhere--

knit sweater, gray vest,

overalls cut to shorts and hand-stitched at the knees.

As I gazed on Lorenz's body,

I could not help but wonder if I was looking into the face...

of the murderer of the baroness and Philippson.

But if so, what swift retribution...

to overtake him in the very act of fleeing from his crime,

and what seeming injustice...

to involve Nuggerud, an innocent man,

in such a horrible death.

[ Reading As John Garth] Tuesday, December 4, 1934.

At 5:00 a.m. we reached Floreana...

and a signal from Friedo showed that our approach had been observed.

Captain Hancock hurried up the trail...

and came back with the startling news that Dr. Ritter is dead.

Dore considers it an act of providence that our arrival is so timely.

When asked about the baroness and Philippson,

Dore talks of hearing screams...

and alludes to the occurrence of terrible events,

but she is too distraught to give us anything in the way of details.

Unsatisfied with Dora's account,

we proceeded to the Wittmers so we could hear their version of these happenings.

We were startled to find the baroness's tin roof...

now residing atop the Wittmefls home.

The captain queried Heinz and Margret,

who maintain that the baroness and Philippson boarded a yacht to Tahiti.

I felt as if I were watching Sherlock Holmes at work,

but after much relating and many questions,

the captain reached no definitive conclusions.

[ Reading As Dore] I have decided to leave Floreana with Captain Hancock.

I do not know what I will do back in the world again,

but go I must.

I have packed the few possessions that I treasure,

carefully gathering all of Friedrich '5 writings.

I said good-bye to Friedrich '5 grave,

but I did not feel as if I were leaving him there.

In some strange way that I cannot find words for,

I do not feel that he is truly dead.

I have put Friedo under the charge of the Wittmers...

as long as they might stay upon the island.

They said they would look after it for me well and truly.

We and the Wittmers were never friends,

but we have been something more than merely neighbors.

I wish them well on Floreana.

[ Reading As John Garth] Friday, December 7th, 1934.

Today we left Floreana with Dore aboard the Velero.

Our first stop was Santa Cruz,

where we were met by a German, Kubler,

and his little girl Carmen.

[ Carmen ] I saw her.

I saw her when she came on the Velero.

She went ashore with the Hancocks and she seemed to be sad.

She must have been sad, just suddenly having to leave like that.

[ Reading As Dore] My last act on the islands...

was to meet with the governor,

who took my deposition...

and wrote out a death certificate for Friedrich.

In doing so, a great calm filled my soul.

I return to the world...

determined to publish Friedrich's great philosophical manifesto.

It was his dearest wish,

and he was one of the world's true geniuses.

He must live on through me.

[ Reading As Heinz ] The day after the departure of the Velero,

we received a copy of El Universo...

from a Guayaquil reporter.

In it is printed an article written by Dr. Ritter...

in which the doctor,

in telling about the disappearance of the baroness, says...

that "we," Margret and I, know all about it.

Now we know that Dr. Ritter was trying all along...

to direct suspicion towards us.

We would like to ask many questions,

but as Dr. Ritter is dead he can give no explanation.

His lips are sealed forever.

[ Reading As Margret] We have transferred...

all of the valuable things at Friedo to our place,

and Friedo now looks mournful and neglected.

The upkeep of its garden is too much for Heinz,

who is depressed by our recent experiences with human cussedness.

Indeed, it is hard for me to forgive Dr. Ritter.

There are some things you cannot forgive--

not at once anyhow.

Meanwhile, the others have all gone...

and we alone remain on the entire island of Floreana.

We do not mind this solitude,

for it is the life we have chosen for ourselves,

and on the whole we are well content.

When we look out over our land,

we become filled with a just pride...

and can truthfully say we have accomplished something considerable...

in two and a half years.

Already there are two generations of Wittmers on this island...

and a flourishing farm.

We have named our house Asilo de Ia Paz...

after a settlement that was here earlier.

It seems to be a fitting name,

for we have had peace all the time we have been living there.

[Tapping]

[ Carmen ] It's changed very much because the old people--

a lot are gone.

The Divines are gone.

Andre is gone.

Karl and my mother are gone.

Gus is gone.

Fritz is gone.

Just about from every household...

at least somebody is gone.

And, uh, now...

what were the younger people are the old folks now.

I guess Jacqueline and I, we're the two oldest...

from the old times still.

[Jacqueline] I don't say that I want to go back to that old time...

because I'm getting older.

You know? It was not really an easy life.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

And besides that, we never found what we were dreaming of.

It was not complete.

[Gil] Paradise, in this world, is duly unreal.

I think the people are too easygoing.

They-- They come and visit the islands.

They pay their ticket. They come over. They live on a boat.

They go to the restaurant. They come and visit me and they say, "Oh, beautiful."

They leave and they say, "You live in a paradise."

I couldn't agree any more.

Unfortunately, it includes myself. [ Laughs]

[ Friedel ] Paradise is not a place.

It's a condition.

That's my philosophy.

And, um, I think that was one of the things...

that happened on Galépagos.

People found out that...

paradise is not a place.

[ Fritz] Look, one thing is very important.

Wherever you go,

if you go out of the society,

wherever you go...

you bring you rself.

And if you are the problem,

you can go wherever you want.

You will have problems.

Yeah. Because you are the problems.

And you take these problems with you.

Yeah.

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