- Posted on: 13 January, 2023
- 18 Years Old
- Christopher Isherwood
- #18 #1939 #Female #Goodbye to Berlin #Natalia Landauer #Novel
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Natalia Landauer 18
Natalia Landauer, as I saw her, for the first time, three days later, was a schoolgirl of eighteen. She had dark fluffy hair; far too much of it — it made her face, with its sparkling eyes, appear too long and too narrow. She reminded me of a young fox. She shook hands straight from the shoulder in the modem student manner. “In here, please.” Her tone was peremptory and brisk.
The sitting-room was large and cheerful, pre-War in taste, a little over-furnished. Natalia had begun talking at once, with terrific animation, in eager stumbling English, showing me gramophone records, pictures, books. I wasn’t allowed to look at anything for more than a moment;
“You like Mozart? Yes? Oh, I also! Vairy much! . . , These picture is in the Kronprinz Palast. You have not seen it? I shall show you one day, yes? . . . You are fond of Heine? Say quite truthfully, please.” She looked up from the bookcase, smiling, but with a certain schoolmarm severity: “Read. It’s beautiful, I find.”
I hadn’t been in the house for more than quarter of an hour before Natalia had put aside four books for me to take with me when I left — Tonio Kroger, Jacobsen’s stories, a volume of Stefan George, Goethe’ s letters. ‘”You are to tell me your truthful opinion,” she warned me.
