I don’t know why I always think of Bach first when I write about music.  I think of him first as naturally when I think of music as I think of Wordsworth first when I think of poetry.  I know neither of them is the greatest, though Bach is the equal of the greatest, but they are the ones I love best.  What a world it is, my sweetest little mother!  It is so full of beauty.  And then there’s the hard work that makes everything taste so good.  You have to have the hard work; I’ve found that out.  I do think it’s a splendid world,—­full of glory created in the past and lighting us up while we create still greater glory.  One has only got to shut out the parts of the present one doesn’t like, to see this all clear and feel so happy.  I shut myself up in this bedroom, this ugly dingy bedroom with its silly heavy trappings, and get out my violin, and instantly it becomes a place of light, a place full of sound,—­shivering with light and sound, the light and sound of the beautiful gracious things great men felt and thought long ago.  Who cares then about Frau Berg’s boarders not speaking to one, and the Berlin streets and policemen being unkind?  Actually I forget the long miles and hours I am away from you, the endless long miles and hours that reach from me here to you there, and am happy, oh happy,—­so happy that I could cry out for joy.  And so I would, I daresay, if it wouldn’t spoil the music.

There’s Wanda coming to tell me dinner is ready.  She just bumps the soup-tureen against my door as she carries it down the passage to the diningroom, and calls out briefly, “Essen.”

I’ll finish this tonight.

  Bedtime.

I just want to say goodnight, and tell you, in case you shouldn’t have noticed it, how much your daughter loves you.  I mayn’t practise on Sundays, because of the Hausruhe, Frau Berg says, and so I have time to think; and I’m astonished, mother darling, at the emptiness of life without you.  It is as though most of me had somehow got torn off, and I have to manage as best I can with a fragment.  What a good thing I feel it so much, for so I shall work all the harder to shorten the time.  Hard work is the bridge across which I’ll get back to you.  You see, you’re the one human being I’ve got in the world who loves me, the only one who is really, deeply, interested in me, who minds if I am hurt and is pleased if I am happy.  That’s a watery word,—­pleased; I should have said exults.  It is so wonderful, your happiness in my being happy,—­so touching.  I’m all melted with love and gratitude when I think of it, and of the dear way you let me do this, come away here and realize my dream of studying with Kloster, when you knew it meant for you such a long row of dreary months alone.  Forgive me if I sound sentimental.  I know you will, so I needn’t bother to ask.  That’s what I so love about you,—­you always understand, you never mind.  I can talk to you; and however idiotic I am, and