Nicholas Nickleby and the Approach of Autumn

Today was Gi.'s, Ge.'s and J.'s first day of school, and Mama's first day back at work. The fact that the Canadian summer holidays are two weeks longer than the ones in Berlin doesn't seem to have made much of a difference. It does feel a little unusual for me that we haven't been frolicking around outside, swimming in Elk Lake, and spending our days in sweltering heat tempered by electric fans, but since our environment is now so different, I hadn't thought about it until now. Besides, autumn has been setting in generally; the air is cool, the fragrance of woodsmoke lay on the air and hazelnut clusters have fallen from a tree in the Kleistpark, and a golden hue is beginning to glow on the green acorns of the oaks outside the window.

Speaking of autumn, I was seized by a mournful mood and by the desire to poetize three days ago, and wrote this brief and very premature farewell to the season:

Swept are the leaves by the thinning winds of winter,
The branches stripped off, leaf by leaf, of life and all that made life fair.
Spent gold glory and crimson splendour brown and wrinkle on the ground;
The fruits of a long and bountiful summer drop and sink into the soil.
Pale purple crocuses mourn the fallen beauty on its earthen tomb
Until their time to wilt and fade comes in its fateful turn.
The billowing pomp of August clouds gives way to sullen grey;
The hopping, chirping birds take wing and leave us, flying far away.

Anyway, after school J. and I walked to the Kleistpark and became deeply absorbed as I read aloud the ninth chapter of Dickens's Nicholas Nickleby. It is the chapter where the unmarried and rather desperate, frivolous Miss Squeers decides to give matrimonial chase to the eponymous hero, and invites him to tea, with her friend Matilda Price and John Browdie, the Yorkshire man to whom the friend is betrothed. The chapter begins in silly flirtation and ends in a rupture between the friends and a most violent mood on the part of Mr. Browdie. J. and I both thought that Nicholas was thoughtless, rather snobby, and even rude, but his rueful reflections at the end redeemed him. And J. remarked, and I agreed, that Dickens does make his bad characters too evil and his good characters too good. Nicholas clearly has his weaknesses, but I don't think that they improve by contrast with the Squeers' depravity. Besides, I think that Dickens is too severe on harmless vulgarity; I was left with a small sympathy for the two ladies, but the portrait of John Browdie was a highly uncharitable caricature (or so I thought) of the stereotypical loutish rural working-man. As I'm reading, I also remember how Charlotte Brontë loyally depicted Yorkshire in Shirley, and I think it a pity that Dickens should portray it as an English Siberia, in every aspect from climate to culture.

Tales of Felons and of Fairies

Today I went out twice, as befits a rainless Sunday.

At perhaps six o'clock J. and I walked to the Kleistpark, where we played badminton rather badly, and read E.T.A. Hoffmann's Das Fräulein von Scuderi. J. read out loud, and I made corrections or explanations where necessary. We are at the point where Desgrais tells Mademoiselle de Scuderi that Olivier Brusson (who was imprisoned for the murder of René Cardillac) will only speak to her about the murder, and that the authorities want her to agree to an interview with Brusson. The Mademoiselle vigorously refuses to act as a tale-bearer for the law, but agrees to the interview. In the meantime Madelon Cardillac, the betrothed of the unfortunate suspect, is still probably weeping violently in her refuge in the Mademoiselle's home. I find the dramatic descriptions of Madelon's agony rather jarring, but I suppose that the constant lamenting and despair is excusable in light of the fact that her father has just died violently and that her fiancé is incarcerated on suspicion of causing it.

I do like how well E.T.A. Hoffmann depicts the peculiarly ambiguous feelings about crime -- grief if one is its victim, fear if one may be its victim, the rise of a mob mentality against the perpetrators, pity and horror, and on the other hand a certain callous sensationalist interest. But, as far as I remember, he doesn't describe the sensationalist interest. I, as the reader, do experience it, not about the murders so much as about the resolution of the identity of the murderer. Yet I wasn't callous enough not to be quite uncomfortable when the Mademoiselle remarked, à propos of the men who feared being murdered as they brought jewels to their mistresses, "A lover who fears thieves is not worthy of love." (The whole situation seems so absurd anyway. I'd say that a mistress who cannot do without jewellry, or a lover who believes that he must supply her with it, even at the threat of his life, is a very stupid person indeed. The sensible thing would have been to give other presents, like paintings, flowers, or good books -- if the lady could read.)

The author's views on crime and justice appeal to me very much in general. He particularly stresses that one must not use excessive and indiscriminate force against crime. At the same time he makes one feel the gravity of crime unusually clearly, without a trace of ghoulish interest or prying. I think that one major flaw of murder mysteries is that the enormity of murder is not portrayed clearly enough. This doesn't mean that I want to see or read about sobbing family members. Not only is that extremely insensitive, I also think that it doesn't accurately convey their situation anyway. As I understand it, the effects of bereavement often go beyond sorrow; the loss of a friend or family member can severely change the bereaved person's relations to other people, ability to live his normal life, and even his character in general. What I do mean is that, even if the deceased was unpleasant, his death should still be shown to be a horrid event, not through dramatic depictions of it so much as through a sober tone. As for humour, it may be a coping mechanism, but if one is only reading about a crime and not experiencing it, there is nothing to cope with, so the mechanism is, in my view, superfluous.

* * *

After the trip to the Kleistpark I set off again to the St. Matthäus churchyard. Near the end of the Crellestraße, there were orange marigold blossoms scattered on the sidewalk, and there was a faint scent of roses.* In the graveyard itself there were few people, and the hush of evening had already settled on it. The mass of ivy over the gates is still flourishing green; the grass fresh and tender, with tiny white flies frolicking over it and daisies and dandelions speckling it, and mingled with clover leaves and gentle sprays of yarrow; the crowns of the trees sombre and massive; the trunks dark and strong and shadowy; the lighter grey gravestones and the church-like building offering a soft chiaroscuro effect. White impatiens, begonias in red and white, hydrangeas, and pink roses were blossoming on the graves. The sky was pale blue, and quite covered in thin, irregular whitish clouds. As I sat down, the fragrance of the grass wafted up toward me, and reminded me of Gray's elegy and his phrase, "incense-breathing Morn." When I left again, the setting sun was glowing through the trees.

*(In all other respects the sidewalks were dirty and unromantic enough; I've rarely seen as many dog droppings or encountered as many unsavoury aromas as I did during this excursion.)

* * *

Yesterday night I translated some of the Grimms' fairy tales. Many incomplete translations are floating about on my laptop, but this time I managed to complete "Der Königssohn, der sich vor nichts fürchtete," "Das Rätselmärchen," "Schneeweißchen und Rosenrot," "Die Alte im Wald," and "Jungfrau Maleen." There were, however, some words that I didn't get, like "Lorche" in "Schneeweißchen und Rosenrot," and the dialect in "Jungfrau Maleen." A few years ago, I would try to translate as literally as possible, but now I care more about the fluency of the language and the suitability of words in the context. "Schneeweißchen und Rosenrot" used to be a favourite of mine, but I find it saccharine and preachy now, though it is redeemed by the delightfully misanthropic dwarf. I find "Die Alte im Wald" very intriguing too, because I like the idea of doves bringing keys, and finding fine beds and food and wardrobes inside grand trees.

Altogether one of the greatest charms in fairy tales is the scenes that are presented to the mind's eye. Take, for instance, the dwarf struggling with the great eagle behind the boulder on the heath, or being pulled through the reeds into the rippling waters by a very big and very determined fish; the clean, picturesque, lonely hut shaded over by patriarchal trees, with two beautiful rose bushes growing in front of it; the enchanted garden enclosed in an intricate iron fence and guarded by proud, stately lions; etc. But another charm is the atmosphere. "Jungfrau Maleen" is unusually compelling and deep in that respect. The metaphorical shadow of the tower in which the maiden is immured, and the wastelands of war and the dreariness of exile, the slow and weary passage of time, and the suffering of renunciation (voluntary and involuntary), make themselves felt to the very end.

An Embarrassment of Musical Riches

After having roamed the classical music on YouTube for weeks, it is high time that I write about my favourites again.

On the oft-quoted principle that a million monkeys sitting at a million typewriters for a very long time may produce a great novel, there must be a masterpiece among the myriad films of the "Moonlight Sonata," but I haven't been curious or patient enough to search it.

Anyway, the works of Bach are particularly well represented on YouTube. Today I found Glenn Gould's rendition of the toccata of Partita No. 6. It represents the complexity and grandeur and earnestness that I like about the composer, though works like the Brandenburg Concertos are a better example. I've tried to play the partita myself, and, though I can't say that Gould's interpretation has much in common with my ideal, I admired his take on it. For the beauty of Bach, I turn to "Erbarme dich" (Yehudi Menuhin). The fugue from his violin sonata BWV 1001 is beautiful too (though I think that Henryk Szeryng's concentration is a little off in this film), but too sad, I think. I used to listen to a recording by Nathan Milstein of Bach's sonatas and partitas for the violin, but I thought its atmosphere would be more fitting after the annihilation of the whole human species. I think that Bach can be more unbearably desolate and sad and even hard than any other composer. It was, at any rate, a relief to come across Julian Breams playing the fugue with the warmer tones of the guitar.

That guitar recording led to others with the same instrument. Besides roaming recordings by Julian Bream, John Williams, and Andrés Segovia, I also listened to ones by Li Jie. Li Jie has greater tranquillity and cleaner notes than the others, I think, and though she might not contribute any striking novelty or drama to the realm of guitar-playing, I liked everything she played. Take, for instance, the Serenata Española by Joaquin Malats. Here is Segovia playing five short pieces by Purcell, including one that Mama used to play on the piano.

Then I've also listened to many recordings of Schubert. Besides the fourth movement of the piano sonata D 959, I hear D958, D960 and the rest of D959 often, as played by Alfred Brendel. His playing is nice and clever and lucid, and not unfeeling, but he sometimes seems oblivious to the emotional depths. I think that he is sensitive rather than impassioned, and that he feels uncomfortable with any feeling that is not regulated by a clear mind. So Mozart seems more suitable repertoire for him. Anyway, I've also listened to Maria Callas's "Ave Maria," and like its beautiful clarity very much.

And that brings me to singing. I started out with Joan Sutherland's clips. I can't decide whether her "Tornami a vagheggiar" from Alcina is agreeable or not -- her voice has a strong Australian twang, I think -- but T. and I both like to hum the song now. The best interpretations are, I think, the ones where the listener becomes fond of and remembers the music. Besides, I enjoy her self-caricaturing(?) grande dame presence. Apart from "Tornami," there are arias from Norma, I Puritani, etc. in plenty, but someone has also uploaded the entirety of a pleasant recording of Acis and Galatea, where she sings Galatea. A singer whose darker -- if that is the right term -- voice I like unequivocally is Janet Baker. There is, for example, "When I am laid in earth" from Purcell's Dido and Aeneas (dramatic, and the costume makes her look as if stalagmites were growing from her head). Then I've watched endless Mozart, Rossini, etc. videos with Maria Callas, Cecilia Bartoli, Anna Netrebko, Kiri te Kanawa, etc., but I'm still at the stage where one aria usually sounds much like the last, so I haven't more favourites. On the other hand, I have come to cherish a grudge against the facile flair and common catchiness that the "Habanera" from Carmen possesses, or appears to possess after one has heard it ninety-nine times too often. As for male singers, I will return from opera to Schubert lieder, and say that I like Giovanni di Stefano's rendition of Schubert's "Ständchen" (Schwanengesang No.4), though the film looks hellishly irritating.

Speaking of films that feature musicians, one of my earliest favourite clips is from a 1939 film where Jascha Heifetz plays the Mendelssohn violin concerto in e minor (3rd Mvt.). It's hilarious how much undiluted zeitgeist one can pack into 7 min. 29 sec. Another recording of Heifetz that I particularly like is his Wieniawski Polonaise No. 1, which I listen to when I feel gloomy, because the beginning is so funny that it makes me smile.

On the whole, I do make forays into modern music. But, except for isolated instances, I haven't caught up even to the twentieth century yet. My knowledge of Rachmaninoff, Debussy, Scriabin, Mussorgsky, etc., is still small. From what I have heard of Rachmaninoff's and Tchaikovsky's piano concertos, they seem "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing" (though "fury" is too strong a word); I am fond of other music by them, for instance the Prelude Op. 3 No. 2 (Josef Hofmann). As for non-classical modern music, I think I will allow myself to discover it over time. But I believe that genres of music are like languages; classical music is my mother tongue, and my most natural mode of expression.

P.S.: I should note that every one of the videos I've linked to most likely violates copyright. So if you have a better conscience than I, you may not want to click on the links after all.

Gathering of the Clan, 2007

From Friday to this morning Papa, Mama, T., Gi., Ge., J. and I were in Mama's hometown Kevelaer, near the Dutch border, for a compound celebration. Uncle W. and Aunt E. had a wedding anniversary and their son T. had a birthday to mark, and friends as well as family were invited. The invitations, which had come weeks earlier, were enigmatically phrased in the Mafia terminology, and featured a dramatic photo of the Alte Weezer Straße family in suits and sunglasses, posed in front of two big cars, with a cello case and a puddle in the foreground, in an underground parking lot. (The event itself proved agreeably non-violent.)

So, on Friday morning we travelled to Kevelaer. Mama and Ge. went per train, the rest of us by car. I was in a gloomy mood and T. and J. in a gigglesome one and Gi. in his usual quiet one. We arrived at Opa's house in Kevelaer in the late afternoon, visited Uncle M.'s bookshop (formerly our grandmother's) in the shadow of the basilica, and made ourselves at temporary home in the "Halle" behind Opa's house. Then, before we went to sleep, we dropped by the Alte Weezer Straße. As we walked back through the basilica square, we heard singing, which apparently came from some of the Tamil Christian and Hindu pilgrims who filled the square with pleasant confusion on the next day. All of the rows of golden candles at the Kerzenkapelle (candle chapel) were lit.

The true Alte Weezer festivities began on Saturday at 3:00. There were tables and benches with glasses and drinks set out on the patio and the garden in the back; soon the shallow well-pond was filled with cool water and pressed into service as a refrigerator for the beer; and an assortment of edibles was laid out in delicious profusion in the garage. The garden is quite small, but flourishing with chestnuts, conifers, black elderberries, and other plants; there is a swing and a swinging rope and a merry-go-round, a little red house, a habitation for the typically plump, black-spotted white bunny, and a former sandbox in which turtles now roam. So the atmosphere was very nice.

The guests numbered about eighty, but they dispersed themselves over the yard, so the crowd didn't strike terror into one's soul. Nevertheless, T. and J. and I soon beat a retreat to a table in the garden, and stayed at that vantage point for the rest of the evening. Mama and Papa were usually perched on the edge of the ex-sandbox, where they first went to smoke an unusually long cigarillo in Mama's case and a normal cigar in Papa's case. A large table beside us was occupied by W.'s and E.'s children and their friends, the smaller fry were usually playing on the swings and elsewhere beyond us, and many of the guests clustered on the patio and in front of the garage -- including Opa, who had come out despite his doubts and cheerfully occupied a chair at the centre of everything. So we didn't feel unnecessarily shy or distant.

Throughout the afternoon a cousin of Mama (who turned out to be a teacher), two friends of E., and our uncles and their wives and partners all dropped by at our table, and we spoke German with them as well as we could. The conversation tended to be one-sided, since we are bad at finding things to talk about and since we tend to give one-sentence answers to questions, but we liked listening and we did thaw out quite well. Besides the usual topics like school, university, Canada (especially versus Germany), and Berlin, we talked about less immediate subjects like sharks and films too. Intermittently we went to the garage to fill our plates.

In the dusk the keg of beer was broken open (with minor excitement: the spigot broke off the keg, and when an auger was produced and applied, a trickle of foamy beer bubbled out of it and spiked the well) and cocktails came out. Gi. and Ge. were our guinea-pigs; Gi. tried the beer as well as the lime and strawberry cocktails, and Ge. only tried the cocktails, and they agreed that the strawberry shots were better. (I had a sip of the lime drink too.) When it became dark, tealights were put on the tables and dancing began in the living room. I was tempted to go and dance too, but not very much, because I do it terribly. So we simply heard the music (mostly the beat, really) in the background as we talked in the darkness under the stars. At 11:30 or later we went back to the Halle, and dropped off to sleep.

This morning we woke up at around eight o'clock, then breakfasted and dressed and packed and everything. We said goodbye to Opa and Uncle M., then Mama and Ge. went off to the train station as Papa and the rest of us stepped into the car and set off home, in good spirits after a most enjoyable weekend.

First we wound our way through Kevelaer and Winnekendonk, with their low rows of brick or white-painted houses, and old-fashioned air. Then, after a "pit stop" at the gas station, we were out in the open, flat terrain, roaring along the highway in our small orange-red Audi. The sun was shining, and fresh green fields and darker green leafy trees met the eye from near and far, the fields were freshly verdant where they were not yellow with remaining hay stalks or bristling with corn, and cows and horses were grazing contentedly. In the smaller roads and paths that run parallel to the highway I saw people taking their Sunday exercise, on horses or on bikes or on foot, and in one case with their dogs.


Industrial Scene, Rhein/Ruhrgebiet

It seemed that in no time, however, we had crossed the Rhine and were at the heart of the Rhein-Ruhr industrial region. The fields and woods were interspersed with landscapes in smokestacks and smelters and warehouses. There were lines of trees along the highway that seemed like ineffectual fig leaves. I'm not sure if they're supposed to be hiding the industrial buildings from the highway, or the highway from the industrial buildings. Perhaps both. Or perhaps they're there for a better reason. T. took many photos of the cooling tower of a power plant, which looms over a portion of the road.


Cooling Tower

Here, as elsewhere, the roads were walled in with sound barriers. In terms of colour and design, they are exercises in bleakness; some are even more depressing than others because they have doors in the middle of them that probably lead to nowhere. The rare exception: barriers composed of glossy transparent plexiglass that is dashingly adorned with blue crests or the like, and that permits the beauty-starved automobilist a view of the verdure beyond. But the only relief for the tedium of the non-transparent walls was vines and graffiti. The vines often looked very pathetic, straggling solitarily up the unyielding wall at long distances from each other. At one spot the plants were plumper and healthier, and full of small white blossoms, but they looked as if they were trying to creep over the wall and get away as quickly as possible. As for the graffiti, I wonder who would take the trouble to spend much time, travel and paint, and to wander out to the middle of nowhere to immortalize such profound messages as "HSR" (or "HSRocks," where space permitted) ten or so times. I suppose it testifies to the potency of teenage boredom.

Near Bielefeld, at any rate, the scene became pastoral again. Small, thickly wooded hills rose and fell, with sloping meadows and fields tucked into them. In one field, it looked as if the golden hay bales were running a race along the furrows to the bottom of the slope. The houses were idyllic though sometimes ramshackle, dark red and dark brown and white, often in a cluster with barns. There were also fields of sunflowers. Along the highway the crests of the hills were sometimes cut off, revealing the dark brown layers of rock. At last there was a beautiful long valley, which was still more like a picture-book than the past countryside, with tree-lined avenues, picturesque villages, and an open and friendly air. Nowhere were there castles or ruins, but it didn't matter. It also didn't matter that there was still the occasional wind-powered generator that, a pale white giant, rose with startling abruptness out of the scenery. Even the wayside shrines of the twin deities of Aral and McDonald's didn't matter so much (except at Irxleben, which looked like a deeply unpleasant place to live).

Valley in Wesergebirge(?)

Then the rolling terrain made way for flat terrain again, and the straggling but full-canopied beeches and oaks and other leafy trees were scattered, and then replaced, with thinner pines. The large white clouds gradually made way for a greyish cloud cover and rain. We stopped at one Raststätte ("rest station") that had a gas station and restaurant and "WC" (toilets). It was not as big as some others, and did not have vast parking lots full of trucks in limbo, nor did it have the odd angular "space-age-esque" architecture that I've come to associate with the Flintstones and Jetsons, and with American diner-restaurants of the 1950s. Anyway, our trip soon resumed and, after a long time, we were near Berlin. Then the traffic became denser. A sign setting the speed limit to 60 km/h became redundant, a police car containing a yawning officer was parked in a closed-off lane, a dark helicopter flew loudly overhead, and signs proclaimed that there was a change of route due to construction.

During the delay I looked excitedly at license plates, which was easier to do when we were no longer going up to 190 km/h. Earlier I had also tried to decode the region abbreviations on the plates (KLE stands for Kleve, B for Berlin, GE for Gelsenkirchen, etc.), and I had observed after we passed Magdeburg that most of the cars that were going the fastest and weaving in and out of the lanes were from Berlin. Now that the traffic was slower I also looked at the nationalities as indicated by the EU or other stickers. There were many Polish cars, some Dutch, one Russian and one Italian and one French, one Latvian or Lithuanian ("LT"), one from Great Britain and another from Ireland, and so on and so forth. I admit that these censuses would probably have been more profitable and more intelligent if I knew about and had been looking at the mechanics of the cars themselves, but my process was highly amusing nonetheless. By the way, I think it is quite interesting how much more one can get out of travel if one has enough knowledge. Clouds are no longer so boring if one knows meteorology, weeds and trees if one knows botany, the terrain if one knows geology, overhead passes if one knows architectural engineering, etc.

Anyway, as we reached the detour and turned off (onto the A10, I believe), we saw the construction work; chunks of highway stood in odd and funny isolation in the most random places. Unfortunately we could not drive back to Schöneberg through Zehlendorf, but drove for what seemed like ages along the A10, which runs south of Berlin through forests and fields that are eerily devoid of houses or people -- godforsaken, one might say. There were no signs indicating how to get into western Berlin by an alternate route. So we drove on towards Schönefeld up until the exit at Treptow-Köpenick, at which point we found our way back along the route which we take to visit Uncle Pu and Aunt K. in the countryside. The city did, I am afraid, appear chaotic and somewhat ugly as we drove in, by contrast to the previous scenes -- though it looked infinitely preferable to the stretches of industrial wasteland along the Teltower Kanal. As we turned into the Hauptstraße, I noticed that my size references had changed too; we passed along five or six-storey apartment buildings that I'd seen hundreds of times before, and was impressed by their height.

And now we are at home again, comfortably ensconced in front of our respective computers, and, in Papa's and Mama's case, resting in the corner room.

All photos taken Aug. 12, 2007 by me, though third may be by T. (T.'s photos are better, but she might write a blog post and use her photos for it too, so I didn't want to take them.)

Stadtmitte, Anglomania, and Dinner

Today I woke up at around noon, after dreaming that I had to write an entrance exam for History at the FU. Many of the questions were irrelevant to the field, and I didn't know the answer to any. I attempted to answer two or three questions out of ten; nearly everyone else quickly finished their exam and filed out of the classroom, while I sat there and despairingly wondered what the time limit was. This is the first dream of the sort I've ever had, which is why I mention it.

Soon after waking up, I went on an impromptu trip to the Gendarmenmarkt with my sketchbook. I sketch very badly, but I assume that I should learn to do it better -- and I have always liked the old-fashioned practice of capturing interesting buildings and scenes on paper rather than on celluloid.

Descending into the subterranean world of the U-Bahn was not pleasant; as one hurries down the stairs (usually adorned with the coagulated spill of an indeterminate dark liquid), one is often greeted with a billowing warm atmosphere laden with the fruity odour of sewage or something like it, with a heavy hint of gasoline. At least I didn't catch a wrong train, so I reached the Stadtmitte station without incident. I expected to see the Mohrenstraße, which runs along one side of the Gendarmenmarkt, right away, but I managed to reach the Markt just as well by following the Friedrichstraße to the Markgrafenstraße(?). So I approached the square by way of the temporary beer garden beside the Deutscher Dom. The open portals of the Dom beckoned, but I've become stingy in the past year and decided not to risk an entrance fee. The square itself was not too crowded; there was an impressive mass of grey-lined cloud over the Französischer Dom, which served as an emblem of the rainy aspect of the weather, and this aspect was probably what kept the tourist numbers moderate.

I climbed the steps of the Konzerthaus, where a blue carpet ran up the middle. I don't know what sort of message a blue carpet is supposed to send. "You are moderately invited," perhaps. Or, "This way for serenity of mind." But I see the reason for having a carpet there, because it helps relieve the dauntingly high appearance of the stairs. Then I quickly sat down and decided to sketch the sculptures in the centre of the square, beginning with the ornate iron railing around it. It was a slow and painful process, involving a sad travesty of the laws of proportion. But the "people-watching" was good. There were at least three tour groups that passed over the square during my session. The first was an enthusiastic tour guide whose appearance reminded me from afar of Cecilia Bartoli, and who, inter alia, recited an anecdote about Paganini to a group of interested students. She called Paganini a "Star-Geiger," at which I internally shuddered.

I do wish that English words were loved wisely, and not too well, in Germany. All my snobbish instincts are called forth by the endless "star," "power," "management," "timing," etc., and the disservice done to the English language by borrowing so overwhelmingly from the pedestrian or business-related portion of its vocabulary, and using it in pedestrian or business-related contexts. For some reason I'm deeply prejudiced against big business, especially in the German context; it seems to me to be a compound of mercenary spirit, mumbo-jumbo about "teamwörk," and endless sucking up to everything anglo. Besides, I've spoken English for sixteen years, and, much as I love it, it is, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, not more "cool" or more expressive than any other language. That said, I don't mind at all when Germans speak English with English-speaking people, or when they use individual words for a reason other than the desire to show off, be "cool," and/or be modern.

Anyway, to return to the Gendarmenmarkt, there was another tour group where the guide had a British accent. It's so nice to hear English spoken again. There were also two tourist buses that rolled by. As I drew, sparrows and pigeons hopped around me (the pigeons fortunately kept a greater distance). After I had given up trying to depict the iron railing and marble sculpture base, had passed by the sitting sculptures entirely, but had finished the figure that stands in the centre of the sculptures, I packed up and started home. I passed the Hanns Eisler music academy, and picked up a black booklet with gaudily dramatic photos of a theatre presentation, which contains in it the events of the coming season. Then I found Stadtmitte again (via the Mohrenstraße this time) without a problem.

But as I passed down a long tunnel to the U6 platforms, there was a cluster of young people trying to get others to subscribe to the Berliner Zeitung (I had already encountered this desperate species twice before). One of them put out his arm against the wall, so that I effectively couldn't pass, displaying rather more effrontery than the other two vendors. Eying the copy of the paper in his arm, I said that I already have a subscription (well, my parents do, but it's basically the same thing). "To the Berliner Zeitung?" "Yes." "Are you satisfied with it?" With the pleasant consciousness that I was about to be permitted to continue on my way, I no longer felt so victimized and uncomfortable, so I smiled a little as I answered, "Yes." And then I went on, not entirely without further irritation because another of the students asked me something that I couldn't hear. I guess that, when I have lived in the city longer, I will develop a "Noli me tangere et noli me parlare" air, or a dry and ready wit, that will more rapidly extricate me from such situations.

After I came home, I browsed the Guardian, New York Times, New Yorker, and Globe and Mail websites, reading an article or more in each. I also checked up a cooking blog (I prefer cooking in the imagination these days), the Sartorialist blog, and the Writer's Almanac. The online reading was short today, because I wisely resolved three days ago to restrict my Project Gutenberg time to four hours per day. That may still seem like a long time, but it means that I must spend well over eight hours per day with more meaningful pursuits. The day before yesterday the self-discipline required was astonishingly minimal, but yesterday the effort was considerable. Today, in local time, has thus far consisted of only two hours and thirty-five minutes (or so the computer tells me), so there has been no effort at all.

Anyway, I also cooked dinner with Ge.'s help. It was a sadly heterogeneous meal of eggs with anchovies, canned green olives with lemon paste, spaetzle, homemade plum cake, and hot chocolate. The making of the plum cake was moderately exciting because I forgot to put in the sugar until the dough was kneaded and put into a bowl to rise. I wondered why the dough looked excessively grey and bubbly, then I had a "eureka" moment as I spotted the pre-measured sugar on the table. So I kneaded in the sugar post hoc, and it was magical how quickly the dough became smooth, resilient and healthily beige. The rolling of the dough was also "interesting." The handle of the rolling-pin is a nuisance when the dough is on a cookie sheet with raised edges, and there was no plain round jar available, so I ended up using a mug for the task. The only part of the meal that I cooked in an orthodox manner was the eggs; I once read in a New York Times article that the eggs should be cooked in water that is at a simmer and not at a rolling boil, so I tried it this time with good results. The shell separated from the egg beautifully.