ng about the grass
near the house, an automatic bon-bon machine in the form of a brooding
hen, and an automatic weighing machine, both at the top of the very
steps leading down to the nook that had been the night before enchanted,
and, worst shock of all, an electric bell piercing the heart of the very
beech tree under which I had sat. But the beauties are so many and so
great that if a few of them are spoilt there are still enough left to
make Lauterbach one of the most delightful places conceivable. The hotel
was admirably quiet; no tourists arrived late, and those already in it
seemed to go to bed extraordinarily early; for when I came up from the
water soon after ten the house was so silent that instinctively I stole
along the passages on the tips of my toes, and for no reason that I
could discover felt conscience-stricken. Gertrud, too, appeared to think
it was unusually late; she was waiting for me at the door with a lamp,
and seemed to expect me to look conscience-stricken. Also, she had
rather the expression of the resigned and forgiving wife of an
incorrigible evil-doer. I went into my room much pleased that I am not a
man and need not have a wife who forgives me.

The windows were left wide open, and all night through my dreams I could
hear the sea gently rippling among the rushes. At six in the morning a
train down at the station hidden behind the chestnuts began to shunt and
to whistle, and as it did not leave off and I could not sleep till it
did, I got up and sat at the window and amused myself watching the
pictures between the columns in the morning sunlight. A solitary mower
in the meadow was very busy with his scythe, but its swishing could not
be heard through the shunting. At last the train steamed away and peace
settled down again over Lauterbach, the scythe swished audibly, the
larks sang rapturously, and I fell to saying my prayers, for indeed it
was a day to be grateful for, and the sea was the deepest, divinest
blue.

The bathing at Lauterbach is certainly perfect. You walk along a
footpath on the edge of low cliffs, shaded all the way from the door of
the hotel to the bathing-huts by the beechwood, the water heaving and
shining just below you, the island of Vilm opposite, the distant
headland of Thiessow a hazy violet line between the misty blues of sea
and sky in front, and at your feet moss and grass and dear common
flowers flecked with the dancing lights and shadows of a beechwood when
the