The Oberforsterei is a low white house with a clearing round it in which potatoes have been planted, and a meadow at the back going down to a stream, and a garden in front behind a low paling, full of pinks and larkspurs and pansies. A pair of antlers is nailed over the door, proud relic of an enormous stag the Oberforster shot on an unusually lucky day, and Frau Bornsted was sewing in the porch beneath honeysuckle when we arrived. It was just like the Germany one had in one's story books in the schoolroom days. It seemed too good to be true after the Lutzowstrasse. Frau Bornsted is quite a pretty young woman, flat rather than slender, tall, with lovely deep blue eyes and long black eyelashes. She would be very pretty if it occurred to her that she is pretty, but evidently it doesn't, or else it isn't proper to be pretty here; I think this is the real explanation of the way her hair is scraped hack into a little hard knob, and her face shows signs of being scrubbed every day with the same soap and the same energy she uses for the kitchen table. She has no children, and isn't, I suppose, more than twenty five, but she looks as thirty five, or even forty, looks in England.
I love it all. It is really just like a story book. We had supper out in the porch, prepared, spread, and fetched by Frau Bornsted, and it was a milk soupvery nice and funny, and I lapped it up like a thirsty kittenand cold meat, and fried potatoes, and curds and whey, and wild strawberries and cream. They have an active cow who does all the curds and whey and cream and butter and milk-soup, besides keeping on having calves without a murmur,"She is an example," said Frau Bornsted, who wants to talk English all the time, which will play havoc, I'm afraid, with my wanting to talk German.
She took me to a window and showed me the cow, pasturing, like David, beside still waters. "And without rebellious thoughts unsuited to her sex," said Frau Bornsted, turning and looking at me. She showed what she was thinking of by adding, "I hope you are not a suffragette?"
The Oberforster put on a
thin green linen coat for supper, which he left unbuttoned to mark that he was off duty, and we sat round the table till it was starlight. Owls hooted in the forest across the road, and bats darted about our heads. Also there were mosquitoes. A great many mosquitoes. Herr Bornsted told me I wouldn't mind them after a while. "Herrlich ," I said, with real enthusiasm.
And now I'm going to bed. Kloster was right to send me here. I've been leaning out of my window. The night tonight is the most beautiful thing, a great dark cave of softness. I'm at the back of the house where the meadow is and the good cow, and beyond the meadow there's another belt of forest, and then just over the tops of the pines, which are a little more softly dark than the rest of the soft darkness, there's a pale line of light that is the star-lit water of the Haff. Frogs are croaking down by the stream, every now and then an owl hoots somewhere in the distance, and the air comes up to my face off the long grass cool and damp. I can't tell you the effect the blessed silence, the blessed peace has on me after the fret of Berlin. It feels like getting back to God. It feels like being home again in heaven after having been obliged to spend six weeks in hell. And yet here, even here in the very lap of peace, as we sat in the porch after supper the Oberforster talked ceaselessly of Weltpolitik. The very sound of that word now makes me wince; for translated into plain English, what it means when you've pulled all the trimmings off and look at it squarely, is just taking other people's belongings, beginning with their blood. I must learn enough German to suggest that to the Oberforster: Murder, as a preliminary to Theft. I'm afraid he would send me straight back in disgrace to Frau Berg.
Good night darling mother. I'll write oftener now. My rules don't count this fortnight. Bless you, beloved little mother.
Your Chris.
Schuppenfelde, Monday, July 13th
I got your letter from Switzerland forwarded on this morning, and like to feel you're by so much nearer me than you were a week ago. At least, I try to persuade myself that it's a thing to like, but I know in my heart it makes no earthly difference. If you're only a mile away and I mayn't see you, what's the good? You might as well be a thousand. The one thing that will get me to you again is accomplished work. I want to work, to be quick; and here I am idle, precious days passing, each of which not used for working means one day longer away from you. And I'm so well. There's no earthly reason why I shouldn't start practising again this very minute. A day yesterday in the forest has cured me completely. By the time I've lived through my week of promised idleness I shall be kicking my loose box to pieces! And then for another whole week there'll only be two hours of my violin allowed. Why, I shall fall on those miserable two hours like a famished beggar on a crust.