For one reason alone had the activity exercised such a healing, calming effect on my shattered nerves: namely that the replaying of matches between strangers didn't necessitate the insertion of myself into the game; whether black won or white won, it was all the same to me, for after all it was Alekhine or Bogoljubov wrestling for the championship laurels, while I myself, my mind, my soul enjoyed it purely as a spectacle, as a connoisseur of the turning points and elegancies of those games.
