being German. But it was a most ridiculous position. I tried to see
it from that side and be amused, but I wasn't amused. While he went
and telephoned to his superiors for instructions he put a soldier to
guard me, and of course the people waiting on the platform for trains
crowded to look. They decided that I was no doubt a spy, and certainly
and manifestly one of the swinish English, they said. I wished then I
couldn't understand German. I stood there doing my best to think it
was all very funny, but I was too tired to succeed, and hadn't had any
breakfast, and they were too rude. Then I tried to think it was just a
silly dream, and that I had really got to Glion, and would wake up in a
minute in a cool bedroom with the light coming through green shutters,
and there'd be the lake, and the mountains opposite with snow on them,
and you, my blessed, blessed little mother, calling me to breakfast.
But it was too hot and distinct and horribly consistent to be a dream.
And my clothes were getting wetter and wetter with the heat, and
sticking to me.

I want to get to you. That's all I think of now. There isn't a train
till tonight, and then only as far as Stuttgart. I expect this letter
will get to you long before I do, because I may be kept at Stuttgart.

Another officer, higher up than the first one, let me go. He was more
decent. He came and questioned me, and said that as he couldn't prove
I wasn't American he preferred to risk believing that I was, rather
than inconvenience a lady belonging to a friendly nation, or something
like that. I don't know what he said really, for by that time I was
stupid because of the sun beating down so. But he let me go, and I
came here to the restaurant to get something to drink. He came after
me, to see that I was not further inconvenienced, he said, so I thought
I'd tell him I was going to marry one of his fellow-officers. He
changed completely then, when I told him Bernd's name and regiment, and
was really polite and really saw that I wasn't further inconvenienced.
Dear Bernd! Even just his name saves me.

I went to sleep on the bench in the waiting room after I had drunk a
great deal of iced milk. My fiddle-case was the pillow. Poor fiddle.
It seems such a useless, futile thing now.

It was so nice lying down flat, and not having to do anything. The
waiter says there's a place I can wash in, and I suppose I'd better go
and wash after I've posted this, but I don