Frl. Hippi is a fat pretty girl, about nineteen years old, with glossy chestnut hair, good teeth and big cow-eyes. She has a lazy, jolly, self-indulgent laugh and a well-formed bust. She speaks schoolgirl English with a slight American accent, quite nicely, to her own complete satisfaction. She has clearly no intention of doing any work. When I tried weakly to suggest a plan for our lessons, she kept interrupting to offer me chocolates, coffee, cigarettes: “Excuse me a minute, there isn’t some fruit,” she smiled, picking up the receiver of the house-telephone: “Anna, please bring some oranges.”

When the maid arrived with the oranges, I was forced, despite my protests, to make a regular meal, with a plate, knife and fork. This destroyed the last pretence of the teacher-pupil relationship. I felt like a policeman being given a meal in the kitchen by an attractive cook. Frl. Hippi sat watching me eat, with her good-natured, lazy smile:

“Tell me, please, why you come to Germany?”

She is inquisitive about me, but only like a cow idly poking with its head between the bars of a gate. She doesn’t particularly want the gate to open. I said that I found Germany very interesting: “The political and economic situation,” I improvised authoritatively, in my schoolmaster voice, “is more interesting in Germany than in any other European country.”

“Except Russia, of course,” I added experimentally.

But Frl. Hippi didn’t react. She just blandly smiled:

“I think it shall be dull for you here? You do not have many friends in Berlin, no?”

“No. Not many”

This seemed to please and amuse her:

“You don t know some nice girls?”‘

Here the buzzer of the house-telephone sounded. Lazily smiling, she picked up the receiver, but appeared not to listen to the tinny voice which issued from it. I could hear quite distinctly the real voice of Frau Bernstein, Hippi’s mother, speaking from the next room.

“Have you left your red book in here?” repeated Frl. Hippi mockingly and smiling at me as though this were a joke which I must share: “No, I don’t see it. It must be down in the study. Ring up Daddy. Yes, he’s working there.” In dumb show, she offered me another orange. I shook my head politely. We both smiled: “Mummy, what have we got for lunch to-day? Yes? Really? Splendid!”

She hung up the receiver and returned to her cross-examination:

“Do you not know no nice girls?”

“Any nice girls. …” I corrected evasively. But Frl. Hippi merely smiled, waiting for the answer to her question.