8 November 1920
Dearest Irene,
I have a new activity, evening classes at Birkbeck College, it’s a college for working men, they’re nearly all men, but I try to look sensible. I am studying German, my class is small, nobody wants to learn German at the moment. It means that two nights a week I don’t have to have dinner with her – and if I want to escape, I can pretend I have an extra class.
Our lecturer is a dear man called Mr Smith. He asked me to see an exhibition with him last Saturday, and we had high tea in Lyons Corner House in the Strand. We had poached eggs and a pot of tea and talked about German literature. He lives with his mother in west London. I couldn’t help smiling because it was so different to dining with David at the Ritz, but David couldn’t talk about Goethe as Mr Smith can. He asked me to call him Alan, outside class. I asked him to call me Sophia.
I’m glad you’re so rich in Germany with all that English money. I hear some impoverished English people go and live in the most magnificent hotels in Germany because the pound is worth so much – should we send Mamma to live in the Adlon? Lately she’s cheered up because Edward has become friendlier, comes to visit her, has some scheme he wants to involve her in. We think he may have lost his job.
Give my best love to your darling husband.
Fia