while she personally wasn't bothered, it might perhaps look
better if I let her go through the door first.) At home, my
private collection was becoming what an American friend
and customer, one Mr Chuck B. Thegze, pleasantly described
as a 'zinger'. (I remember that it was about this time that I
bought the Reinicke milkmaid, with her sprigged skirt and
pannier of flowers. Her fingers were damaged and the cow
had lost a horn, but I wasn't concerned to send her to
Sutcliffe's for restoration. She suited me very well as she
was.) Not only did I feel myself to be in the right occupation
and the right world, but I had achieved a certain individual
standing - and that well beyond Berkshire. My personal enthusiasms
and specialities were beginning to be known and
respected - even consulted. Professional dealers are not admissible
to the English Ceramic Circle, but nevertheless there
were few of its members who were not aware of my detailed
knowledge of the eighteenth-century pottery trade with the
American colonies, just as there were few in the field of contemporary
ceramics who did not know that I carried probably
the best-chosen stock of Royal Copenhagen and Bing
& Gr0ndahl in southern England.
63
I
To sell the world one's own personal joy and to live by
it - who cares whether modestly, passably or well? - surely
there can be no greater fulfilment. Cecil Sharp never became
a rich man. He didn't need to: he achieved something for
which almost all his countrymen, directly or indirectly, are
richer. So did Peter Scott. It seems strange, now, to think
that there was a time, within living memory, when municipal
parks did not contain his beautiful geese and ducks. (We
can call them his.)
I now had quite a circle of acquaintance in Kdbenhavn and
looked forward to my regular visits there. Speaking Danish
helped, of course. I had gone back to it, and was now
reasonably fluent in that noble descendant of old Scandinavian
and Low and High German. I no longer needed to stay in
hotels, for there were plenty of friends ready to put me up,
of whom my favourites were Jarl and Jytte Borgen. Jarl was
a publisher - principally of books on the visual arts - and
from my point of view their flat on Gammel Kongevej was
most conveniently situated.
Sitting at the window this still July evening, with the wind
at last gone from the garden, I see myself once more - was
it really less than three months ago? - finishing breakfast at
Jarl's, surrounded by his collection of modern paintings, and
thinking, over the toast and marmalade, that what I need,
if I am to work off a sizeable load of business correspondence
before the three days' expedition to Fyn arranged by Jytte
to start that very afternoon, is a shorthand-typist who can
cope with German and English as well as Danish. My forwarded
post from England had brought four or five letters requiring
prompt replies. Two were offering me first refusal of
pieces I was fairly sure I could sell at a good profit, while
another, from my solicitor, Brian Lucas, concerned some land
out at Highclere which had belonged to my father, but which
I had decided to sell in order to raise more capital. I also
had letters from collectors in Munich and in Cleveland,
Ohio, which, since they had arrived on the day of my departure
from England, I had brought with me to answer as
soon as possible. Then there was a dealer in Arhus with
whom I had been advised to get in touch - and quite a bit
64
besides. The best way to cope with all this would be to dictate
the lot to some competent woman who could have the
letters ready on our return.
I consulted Jarl, who said he was sure it could be arranged
and began telephoning various friends. I left him at it and
went out with Jytte to the shops. When we got back he said,
'All right, Alan, I think I am fixing your problem with this
nice fellow we know, Erik Hansen, who is a farms exporter.
He says you are coming down to his office and there is this
girl who will do each letter for you in all the languages, if
you are not working too fast. She is a German girl who works
for him and very good, he says. German and Danish no problem,
English quite not so bad. Then when we come back on
Friday, the letters can be easily ready.' (Jarl enjoyed talking
English as much as I enjoyed talking Danish.)
I thanked him warmly, promised Jytte to be back for
lunch, got my letters and papers together and set out for the
address he gave me. It wasn't far - an office in the Panoptikon,
on the corner of Vesterbrogade and Bernstorffsgade and
I went on foot for pleasure, as one often does in a foreign
city. Having walked the length of Gammel Kongevej and almost
into Vesterport, I climbed the steps and stopped for a
few minutes to lean on the concrete parapet and look up the
shining length of Sankt J0rgens S0 and Peblinge S0 rippling
in the sunshine. There were flocks of white seagulls, and a
light north-east wind was breaking the surface into small
waves which slapped the shelving embankment below me.
Two little girls were feeding some ducks. If I'd had a bit of
bread I'd have joined them, for I was light-hearted and in no
particular hurry on this sunny May morning. Strolling on up
Stenosgade into Vesterbrogade, I felt at peace with the
world. For years, I reflected, I had been in no doubt what I
/ wanted to do with my life, but had not known whether I
/? could bring it off. Now, at last, I could be sure that I had
' made more than a good start, and the future looked bright.
It was in this frame of mind that I arrived at the Panoptikon
and went up in the lift.
Mr Hansen, grey-haired, stout and cheerful, made himself
most agreeable and we chatted for some time in a mixture of
65
Danish and English. Like most Danes he was dressed, by
English standards, extremely casually for a day at the office,
and contrived to give the impression that he had just been
to one party, would shortly be off to another and meanwhile
was in no particular hurry about anything so boring as work.
Indeed, it was I who finally suggested that perhaps I ought to
be getting on with my dictation.
'Oer yes,' said Mr Hansen. 'Well, you'll find Fraulein Geutner
absolutely excellent. You have much in English?'
'Some. I suppose four or five letters.'
'Well, perhaps a little slower with these, but she is good.
Better than me, for as you will have noticed I am jolly terrible
-'
'No, no, of course you're not -'
'Well, I have been to London a few times, but I don't think
she has. Lige meget!'
'Jeg er overbevist om at hun er glimrende, hr Hansen. It's
really very kind of you. Now, about paying her - or paying
you-'
'Quite out of the question; of course not.'
&nb
sp; 'But really, I must pay either you or her -'
'Certainly you must not. It's the least we can do to help
an Englishman and a friend of Jarl.'
I made a mental note to bring him a couple of bottles of
claret when I called for the letters. Fraulein Geutner would
have to have something, too: what, exactly? Scent? A silk
scarf? Drat the man, why couldn't he just bill me by the
hour? Then I would have been free to say if I didn't like
what I got, and could have bought some more time if it
turned out that I needed it. Probably half the letters would
have to be done again: punctuation, spelling. As likely as
not, what I'd get the first time round would amount to so
many rough copies. Then, suppose Fraulein G. was middleaged
and plain? If her languages and work were so good, this
seemed probable. Perhaps the best thing would be just to slip
her some kroner in an envelope? I'd better consult Jytte:
she'd know best. Courtesy is like a skipping-rope. Everybody
has his own way of playing with it, and it's splendid until you
get your ankles - or someone else's - tangled up.
66
While I was thinking all this, Mr Hansen was conducting
me down a passage and into another room. I had been expecting
that he would either call Fraulein Geutner into his
own office or take me to hers, but apparently he had a different
idea, for this was either a waiting-room or else kept
for some specialized part of the no-doubt-complicated business
of exporting farms. It had a plain, fairly thick, dark-red
carpet, two chintz-covered armchairs, a desk with a nickelplated
cigarette box and two telephones on it, a hard chair
at the desk, a wall-cupboard, some bookshelves a quarter
full of directories and books about agriculture and livestockfarming,
a table covered with some rather old-looking magazines
and a small, brightly lit tank of tropical fish. It made my
teeth feel apprehensive.
'You can be not disturbed here,' said Mr Hansen. 'Please
let me know if you want anything; and don't forget to be
looking in for a drink before you go. She'll be along in a moment.'
And with this he left me.
I sat down at the desk and began looking through my various
letters and arranging them by languages. About a minute
later there was a tap at the door. I called out 'Kom ind!' and
then, for good measure, 'Herein!'
WHAT were my first thoughts, and what did I feel when she
entered the room? In retrospect one attributes to oneself all
manner of feelings, which in reality are accretions of hindsight,
part of our natural desire to dramatize (even to ourselves),
to announce the theme forte con brio. Nevertheless,
I know that I did indeed feel, at the time, an impact hard
to describe - a kind of leaping of my consciousness to a new
level, a swift change both in the quality of my awareness and
the nature of the moment that was passing; as when a scent
or a melody startlingly make one not merely remember, but
actually return to the sensation of being five years old - or in
67
Seville long ago - or plunging into deep water for the first
time. The instant before, I had been about my day's business,
sitting in Mr Hansen's spare office with a sheaf of letters in
front of me. Now I was no longer doing merely this. That
was still there, but somewhere a long way below me. Silently,
some never-before-experienced lens had slid into place and
I, with eyes as it were blinking uncertainly in brilliant light,
was looking through it at a reality which I had never before
been able to perceive. This was no longer the day, or the
place, which I had supposed.
Beautiful? Yes, she was beautiful. I must, since then, have
heard fifty people say that she was beautiful. But I had
already seen beautiful women, perceiving their beauty detachedly,
with both eyes and mind; sometimes praising it, as
a tone-deaf man at a concert may, for the sake of usage and
good manners, and not altogether without sincerity, praise
the music. Not merely were her face and figure physically
beautiful. Her carriage, movement, air were arrestingly graceful
and elegant. Yet even these could not of themselves have
brought about that fracture of the day's continuity which I
am trying to recall. An overwhelming femininity seemed to
radiate from her, surrounding her like an invisible nimbus. Of
what was it composed? Of a certain elusive quality of detachment
and beyondness, so that in some strange way I
felt myself, even though I had risen to my feet, to be looking
up at her; of a floating, quick-glancing self-possession, like
that of a dancer; of mischief and gaiety, and of amusement,
too, in her consciousness of the effect she knew she had on
others (or at all events on men). But yet another constituent
there was - disturbing and ambivalent; a suggestion of something
gypsy-like, even pagan - unscrupulous and ruthless which
would not shrink or hold back where others might
feel themselves bound by the dictates of conventional, civilized
life. In such a respect, as much as in grace and dignity,
might a captive leopard's beauty transcend the boring
ugliness of the sweaty, tobacco-chewing, black-finger-nailed
captors surrounding it. Certainly they have the whip-hand,
but they had better beware, for the marvel they have trapped
and mean to exploit is lethal. The sharp-clawed, instinctive
68
creature does not share their avaricious, purblind world, does
not feel as they do, knows nothing of prudence or weighing
the cost. There is no telling what it knows. Partly it seems
unaware of and indifferent to them, pacing its cage. Partly
it is most terribly vigilant and aware of their intrusion upon
its deadly, cunning innocence.
Yet at this moment all these things were like so many
bursting stars of a rocket, here and gone, flashing before
me and leaving me dazzled; uncertain, after the burst, of
numbers and colours, and conscious only of a style that disconcerted
me, seeming as it did to confer upon me, as an
immense and gracious favour, this typist girl s presence. It
was like Miranda the other way round - I had never before
seen a real woman.
I have not the least recollection of what she was wearing.
She spoke first, and in English. 'You are Mr Desland?'
'Er - yes, that's right. And you're Fraulein Geutner? Sehr
nett, dass Sie mir mil diesen Briefen helfen wollen.'
'Not at all. Mit Vergnugen.'
'Bitte, setzen Sie sich.'
Common coins; clods of earth; mouthfuls of water; slices
of bread; sounds made by tongues, no different from myriads
of everyday words, and as fitting as any for greeting. The
neon tetras flickered and darted in the tank, and I watched
them, trying to collect my thoughts.
"Which would you like to do first, Fraulein Geutner? The
English ones? Will they be more difficult for you?'
She crossed her legs and opened her book on her knee.
'Es ist mir egal.' And with this there went a smile, not at
me, but down-glancing, as though to herself or to some invisible
companion, suggesting that the kind of communication
I was speaking about was unimportant in the light of
some other kind, of which she herself would have the arranging
and which would be taking place in some region beyond
my control. Bathetically, I found myself thinking of Groucho
Marx - 'I'm a man and you're a woman. I can't think of a
better arrangement.' But it was partly beyond her own control,
too. She was no more flirting than roses flirt with bees.
I struggle to bear in mind that I did not yet know that this
69
was Kathe. I was not thinking, that morning, in terms of
relating this experience to myself or to anything which I intended
to do. It was as though, while out and about, I had
come across some wonderful bird or flower not only unknown
to me, but so arresting as to put the day's dull business
in the shade. Thus, I still remember clearly the time
and place where (at the age of twelve) I first saw a morning
glory in full bloom on a trellis, and I remember nothing else
of that particular day. Similarly, I remember the first occasion
when I saw a peacock spread its tail. Such experiences are
self-sufficient, and in memory blot out our simultaneous
chores, our grubbing for pennies and daily bread. And yet and
yet these analogies fall short. When, as a boy, Elgar obtained
the score of Beethoven's First Symphony from the
public library and, as he himself has told us, comprehended
the scherzo with a kind of wondering incredulity, there was
much besides that he did not as yet comprehend, and it concerned
himself. The experience, though jewel-like, was not
inorganic.
I dictated my letters in a somewhat distracted manner. Although
my thoughts were not running on notions of Fraulein
Geutner outside the office, I nevertheless remained bewildered
by an obscure sense of the incongruity of what we were
doing with all that I have tried to describe. Was it Diirer
who made a drawing of Mary Magdalen in the garden, addressing,
with a puzzled air, a figure who is certainly dressed
as a gardener and carries a spade and hoe? I do not mean
to be irreverent. This is the nearest I can get to explaining
my state of mind. Fraulein Geutner was taking shorthand.
Something numinous was present, but I did not know what.
The time came at length when I held the door open, saying
something like 'Vielen Dank. I'll call on Friday and perhaps
we might meet again then, just to have a quick look through
them, if you won't be too busy?'
She smiled again, this time directly at me. 'I shall not be
too busy.' But she was not, or so it seemed, speaking of the
letters. It was as though she had said, 'I'm not too busy to
see those who can feel and acknowledge what I am.'
I returned to Mr Hansen, as invited. He, of course, asked
70
whether all had gone well. I replied that I felt sure it had,
and that no doubt I would become pleasantly certain when
I saw the letters. Then, vaguely seeking, I suppose, for some
light -to be thrown on what had taken me by surprise, I
added, 'Very attractive girl.'
'Yes, nice girl, isn't she?' he answered. 'Quite brightens up
the place, really. What would you like - sherry? Or I have
gin, or some Scotch whisky?'
'Good heavens,' I thought, 'it's not possible! He doesn't
know!' Yet obviously there was nothing to do but leave it
at that. Leave what at what, anyway?
The jaunt to Fyn, in perfect May weather, was beautiful.
The Store Baelt was smooth and blue, and the Kors0r ferryboat
crossed it like a clockwork toy in a child's bath. I have
always thought St Knud's cathedral at Odense among the
most splendid medieval buildings in northern Europe. In its
pure Gothic brickwork there is a severe formality which
seems to express - by anticipation, as it were - the latent
Protestant ideal. It has an admirable restraint, and a kind of
no-nonsense quality which has never failed to move me. I
have sometimes tried to imagine what might have happened
if Knud (who is buried under the altar) had lived to carry
out his intention of disputing with William the Conqueror