Ch. 1: May - Page 2

in the train; and Frau Berg came and
opened the door herself when I rang, and when she saw me she threw up
two immense hands and exclaimed, "_Herr Gott_!"

"_Nicht wahr_?" I said, agreeing with her, for I knew I must be looking
too awful.

She then said, while I stood holding on to my violin-case and umbrella
and coat and a paper bag of ginger biscuits I had been solacing myself
with in the watches of the night, that she hadn't known when exactly to
expect me, so she had decided not to expect me at all, for she had
observed that the things you do not expect come to you, and the things
you do expect do not; besides, she was a busy woman, and busy women
waste no time expecting anything in any case; and then she said, "Come
in."

"_Seien Sie willkommen, mein Fraulein_," she continued, with a sort of
stern cordiality, when I was over the threshold, holding out both her
hands in massive greeting; and as both mine were full she caught hold
of what she could, and it was the bag of biscuits, and it burst.

"_Herr Gott_!" cried Frau Berg again, as they rattled away over the
wooden floor of the passage, "_Herr Gott, die schonen Kakes_!" And she
started after them; so I put down my things on a chair and started
after them too, and would you believe it the biscuits came out of the
corners positively cleaner than when they went in. The floor cleaned
the biscuits instead of, as would have happened in London, the biscuits
cleaning the floor, so you can be quite happy about its being a clean
place.

It is a good thing I learned German in my youth, for even if it is so
rusty at present that I can only say things like _Nicht wahr_, I can
understand everything, and I'm sure I'll get along very nicely for at
least a week on the few words that somehow have stuck in my memory.
I've discovered they are:

Nicht wahr,
Wundervoll,
Naturlich,
Herrlich,
Ich gratuliere,
and
Doch.

And the only one with the faintest approach to contentiousness, or
acidity, or any of the qualities that don't endear the stranger to the
indigenous, is _doch_.

My bedroom looks very clean, and is roomy and comfortable, and I shall
be able to work very happily in it, I'm sure. I can't tell you how
much excited I am at getting here and going to study under the great
Kloster! You darling one, you beloved mother, stinting yourself,
scraping your own life bare, so as to give me this chance. _Won't_ I
work. And _work_. _And_ work. And in a year--no, we won't call it a
year, we'll say in a few months--I shall come back to you for good,
carrying my sheaves with me. Oh, I hope there will be sheaves,--big
ones, beautiful ones, to lay