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 music fragment can be found at the end of this e-text.]

he solemnly shook hands with me and said—­what do you think he said?—­“My Fraulein, when you came in I thought, ’Behold yet one more well-washed, nice-looking, foolish, rich, nothing-at-all English Mees, who is going to waste my time and her money with lessons.’  I now perceive that I have to do with an artist.  My Fraulein ich gratuliere.”  And he made me the funniest little solemn bow.  I thought I’d die of pride.