Letter 3

Read by Delia Corrie

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5.12.’31 – Potsdam

Dear Russell,

Your letter came in the nick of time and cheered me As I believe I have to pay income tax too now. But so far away from my cash as I am I don’t care. In the New Year Mrs. Hop and I are swapping incomes. She is having my English money, and I am having her German. Her brainstorm, not mine. What a curse the pound is! I landed myself in a pretty hole, partly through it and partly through a regrettable moment of idiocy on my part. It was like this: I thought to myself, ‘my child, here are 20 RM. Save them for next month or you won’t be able to buy a season ticket or any stamps’. I then put them in my purse and went into a Berlin Music Shop to look at concert programmes. The result was chaos. In wild excitement I spent practically every pfennig I possessed on concert tickets. Only when I left the shop did I realize that I had about 50pf to buy a 10RM season ticket and carry me through November. First I was scared, then I was depressed because it proved me beyond doubt to be mentally deficient, then I was blind with fury – finally I laughed helplessly and wrote home for more cash. ‘Lord, what fools these mortals be!.’ But cheer up, my girl! The suspenders are in sight (though I can’t afford to buy ‘em) and I am having a new toothbrush on the 20th December.

It would be rather nice if you came at Easter. I am moving into Berlin then, and I would treat you to a real German tea with Berliner Pfannkuchen and Aprelkuchen with Schlagsahne, in my room. I find Potsdam too far. Moreover the worm in the shape of the Graf has turned, and I have to go and practise piano down the road in a house occupied by a deaf couple. They do well to be deaf! You never heard such a piano – it sounds the whole time as though someone were laying a table with spoons glasses and knives in its interior. In addition most of the bass notes continue humming long after all respectable notes are silent.

I have promoted myself to one or two unsavoury modern novels, with Wallenstein by Schiller and Schweitzer’s Life of Bach. The last I have begun three times, and as the first few sentences mean something different to me each time, I have decided it is rather highbrow for me.

What do you think is happening to Family Hov? Mrs H is selling No 10 so poor M. who cannot live in England on £100 p.a. and cannot yet expect any self-respecting school to accept her as a member of its staff, must remain in Germany till an obliging relative leaves her a legacy. And Germany – which is in an unbelievably awful state – will probably become insolvent and M. will be buried under the ruins. But seriously, if it weren’t for the relatives I have fled from (only don’t tell them I said so!) and my education, I’d come away. It really is awful here – whole streets ‘To Let’ and every other person a beggar.

I must just add the inevitable postscript – to my joy and embarrassment I have had my hand kissed twice! The first time I tried to give the young man a hearty British handshake and nearly landed him one on the nose! ….Oh misery! There has been a heavy fall of snow and now it is pouring rain. Oh weh! O weh!

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