In a German Pension
by Katherine Mansfield
Contents
GERMANS AT MEAT
Bread soup was placed upon the table.
“Ah,” said the Herr Rat, leaning upon the table as he peered intothe tureen, “that is what I need. My ‘magen’ has not been inorder for several days. Bread soup, and just the right consistency. I am a goodcook myself”—he turned to me.
“How interesting,” I said, attempting to infuse just the rightamount of enthusiasm into my voice.
“Oh yes—when one is not married it is necessary. As for me, I havehad all I wanted from women without marriage.” He tucked his napkin intohis collar and blew upon his soup as he spoke. “Now at nine o’clockI make myself an English breakfast, but not much. Four slices of bread, twoeggs, two slices of cold ham, one plate of soup, two cups of tea—that isnothing to you.”
He asserted the fact so vehemently that I had not the courage to refute it.
All eyes were suddenly turned upon me. I felt I was bearing the burden of thenation’s preposterous breakfast—I who drank a cup of coffee whilebuttoning my blouse in the morning.
“Nothing at all,” cried Herr Hoffmann from Berlin. “Ach, whenI was in England in the morning I used to eat.”
He turned up his eyes and his moustache, wiping the soup drippings from hiscoat and waistcoat.
“Do they really eat so much?” asked Fräulein Stiegelauer.“Soup and baker’s bread and pig’s flesh, and tea and coffeeand stewed fruit, and honey and eggs, and cold fish and kidneys, and hot fishand liver? All the ladies eat, too, especially the ladies.”
“Certainly. I myself have noticed it, when I was living in a hotel inLeicester Square,” cried the Herr Rat. “It was a good hotel, butthey could not make tea—now—”
“Ah, that’s one thing I can do,” said I, laughingbrightly. “I can make very good tea. The great secret is to warm theteapot.”
“Warm the teapot,” interrupted the Herr Rat, pushing away his soupplate. “What do you warm the teapot for? Ha! ha! that’s very good!One does not eat the teapot, I suppose?”
He fixed his cold blue eyes upon me with an expression which suggested athousand premeditated invasions.
“So that is the great secret of your English tea? All you do is to warmthe teapot.”
I wanted to say that was only the preliminary canter, but could not translateit, and