Fräulein Schmidt and Mr. AnstrutherVon Arnim, Elizabeth
General
Fräulein Schmidt and Mr. Anstruther
Von Arnim, Elizabeth
British -- Germany -- Fiction; Epistolary fiction; Germany -- Fiction; Love stories; Young women -- Fiction
Everything is natural and everything is clean, except for the person who
is afraid it isn't. Perhaps, dear Roger, you won't, as Papa says, quite
apprehend my meaning; if you cannot, please console yourself with the
reflection that probably I haven't got one.
What you say about the money you'll have dazzles me. Why, it's a
fortune. We shall be richer than our _Bürgermeister_. You never told me
you were so rich. Five hundred pounds a year is ten thousand marks;
nearly double what we have always lived on, and we've really been quite
comfortable, now haven't we? But think of our glory when my hundred
pounds is added, and we have an income of twelve thousand marks. The
_Bürgermeister_ will be utterly eclipsed. And I'm such a good manager.
You'll see how we'll live. You'll grow quite fat. I shall give you
lovely food; and Papa says that lovely food is the one thing that ever
really makes a man give himself the trouble to rise up and call his wife
blessed.
It is so late. Good-night.
R.-M.
Don't take my Goethe-love from me. I know simply masses of him, and
can't let him go. My mind is decked out with him as a garden is decked
with flowers. Now isn't that pretty? Or is it only silly? Anyhow it's
dreadfully late. Good-night.
V
Jena, Nov. 13th.
No letter from you today. I am afraid you are being worried, and because
of me. Here am I, quiet and cheerful, nobody bothering me, and your dear
image in my heart to warm every minute of life; there are you, being
forced to think things out, to make plans for the future, decide on
courses of action, besides having to pass exams, and circumvent a parent
whom I gather you regard as refractory. How lucky I am in my dear
father. If I could have chosen, I would have chosen him. Never has he
been any trouble. Never does he bore me. Never am I forced to
criticisms. He knows that I have no brains, and has forgiven me. I know
he hasn't much common-sense, and have forgiven him. We spend our time
spoiling and petting and loving each other--do you remember how you
sometimes laughed?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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