ows of guests dealt with
things like gravy on their plates,--elusive, mobile things that are not
caught without a struggle. Why, if I can manage to apply myself to
fiddling with half that skill and patience I shall be back home again
in six months!

I'm so sleepy, I must leave off and go to bed. I did sleep this
morning, but only for an hour or two; I was too much excited, I think,
at having really got here to be able to sleep. Now my eyes are
shutting, but I do hate leaving off, for I'm not going to write again
till Sunday, and that is two whole days further ahead, and you know my
precious mother it's the only time I shall feel near you, when I'm
talking to you in letters. But I simply can't keep my eyes open any
longer, so goodnight and good-bye my own blessed one, till Sunday. All
my heart's love to you.

Your Chris.

We have supper at eight, and tonight it was cold herrings and fried
potatoes and tea. Do you think after a supper like that I shall be
able to dream of anybody like you?

_Sunday, May 31st, 1914.

Precious mother,

I've been dying to write you at least six times a day since I posted my
letter to you the day before yesterday, but rules are rules, aren't
they, especially if one makes them oneself, because then the poor
little things are so very helpless, and have to be protected. I
couldn't have looked myself in the face if I'd started off by breaking
my own rule, but I've been thinking of you and loving you all the
time--oh, so much!

Well, I'm _very_ happy. I'll say that first, so as to relieve your
darling mind. I've seen Kloster, and played to him, and he was
fearfully kind and encouraging. He said very much what Ysaye said in
London, and Joachim when I was little and played my first piece to him
standing on the dining-room table in Eccleston Square and staring
fascinated, while I played, at the hairs of his beard, because I'd
never been as close as that to a beard before. So I've been walking on
clouds with my chin well in the air, as who wouldn't? Kloster is a
little round, red, bald man, the baldest man I've ever seen; quite
bald, with hardly any eyebrows, and clean-shaven as well. He's the
funniest little thing till you join him to a violin, and then--! A
year with him ought to do wonders for me. He says so too; and when I
had finished playing--it was the G minor Bach--you know,--the one with
the fugue beginning:

[Transcriber's note: A Lilypond rendition of the