After I had been at my post for about six months, I went one day to the post-office to have a letter registered. The letter was addressed to my friend in Buda-Pesth and contained the money which I owed to him. But it contained something else beside that—the outcry of a heart tortured to death. For the first time I told him of my unbearable position. He wrote back at once. His letter was full of kind reproaches for my silence about so many facts—what he termed my insincerity. He further urged me to leave my place at once, take no situation whatsoever, and give myself up entirely to the study of the English language in order to be able to go in for an examination afterwards. He also returned the money which I had sent, begging me to use it for board and so on. Further sums would follow.
It happened that it was my day out when I received the letter, and I went to see my friend in the home. I showed her the letter from Buda-Pesth, and she greatly urged me to accede to his wishes.
"I know what men are like," she said, "and I feel convinced that that man means to deal honestly with you."
In this way she spoke to me for a long while, and being afraid to take a new situation on account of the cooks, I at last consented. My friend then told me that she had thought of leaving the home, and suggested that we should take one room together.
"It would be cheapest," she argued.
I liked the idea because, as she said, "it was cheapest," and thus it happened that I packed up my things once more and moved into a boarding-house in London, my heart filled with joyous hopes.
It is true that it worried me again to owe money to my friend in Buda-Pesth. I consoled myself, however, with the intention to work very hard in order to pass an examination in the English language very soon, and then—Yes, and then! All at once I stopped to think. The old, well-known hobgoblins appeared once more, and sneered and grinned at me out of every corner. I pulled myself together with all the self-restraint possible, shook off every thought for the future and studied very hard.
The life in the boarding-house was full of interest and liveliness. The boarders belonged to different races and spoke different languages.
There were, for instance, Indians, wearing turbans of white or daintily shaded silk; Chinese, who had, however, sacrificed their pigtails to the fashion of Europe; a former prima donna who had grown too stout for the stage, and showed, with much fondness, photos of herself in stage costumes; a pale, worn-out-looking gentleman from Switzerland who could not put up with the fact that no English girl—unlike some French girls of his acquaintance—would undertake the management of his own household without the usual vows at the altar; a German who could not stand the English cooking; and a young striving musician who was unable to pay for his board and tried to commit suicide every Saturday.
Although the people were polite to me and I liked them very well, I did not really care to associate much with them. Such, however, was not the case with my friend, who used to amuse herself chiefly with the discontented Swiss, in a way that at first surprised, later alarmed, and finally disgusted me. It happened often that I left the dining-room without a word, and sat down on my bed in our little room until my friend came upstairs. She then used to look very gay and began to tell me stories such as I had never heard from her before, and which recalled to me the stories of the cook. I responded but little, whereupon she grew very bad-tempered, and declared I was a dull girl who could never see a joke. Sometimes I felt some sharp reply on the tip of my tongue, but swallowed it down again, thinking that I was perhaps really "dull" and she right after all. I tried to make amends for my behaviour by greater attention and tenderness towards her, showing also much interest for the stories she told me. In reality, however, I found everything most tedious, and would have much preferred to talk about poems. But my friend had declared once for all that she did not care for poems. Thus I tried hard to keep up our friendship, which was no more than a comedy, and should no doubt have kept it up even longer if she had not done something which put an end to my uncomfortable position.