Letter 13

Read by Delia Corrie

17 June 1932 Berlin-Charlottenburg

Today is announced the engagement of the last spinster but one. I am the last now that my sister Sophie Hopkinson has succumbed. The result as far as I am concerned is Garde Reine, because it would now be impossible to find a bridesmaid. Je suis desolee – Anyway, Thea and I have spent a couple of days in hectic celebration in Berlin. The Opera. Salome – Oscar Wilde – Music Richard Strauss-. It’s a gruesome production.

After that we seated ourselves in an open-air café on Unter-den-Linden and ate ices while we watched the passer-by. It’s rather fun, one sits practically on the pavement. As a matter of fact, it was still early as Salome began at eight and was finished at 9.40, so when we arrived at Tiergrten we went for a walk through the black, black trees (which was highly imprudent, as the Tiergarten is known to be dangerous) before going to bed. When we got in Thea ate gooseberries and biscuits and I broke two plates while trying to juggle them into my wardrobe. Altogether we weren’t as silent as we might have been. I slept on the sofa with the surplus inches (feet end) supported on a couple of chairs out sideways. This morning I attended a lecture and met Thea afterwards in the Tierkindergarten. It’s really rather engaging – all baby animals, and all extremely tame. There were two baby elephants –. You probably don’t now that when a baby first begins to crawl it nearly always recedes from the object it wishes to attain. Well, one baby elephant was quite big, 2 and a half years old, and because it teased the littler one (who was very young) it was chained by the leg. But the foolish infant, in an effort to get to the keeper in the opposite direction kept on walking backwards into his big brother, who immediately caught the wretched child’s tail in his trunk and bit it hard. Hereupon the unhappy victim let off a roar which was answered from all quarters by terrified or sympathetic 2, 3, 4 or 5 year olds (human this time

Did I ever tell you of the strange student who looked exactly like a beetle, and hoped we should meet again, and how I nearly stabbed myself with the bread knife while dining with Segalle? Probably not – it was all rather dull. Stupid! I really took up my pen to tell you something interesting, amusing or untrue, but it’s slipped my memory again.