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she threw down everything she was carrying onto a re-upholstered plush sofa, the springs of which groaned under the impact of the egg-crate, ran to the window—there were four big windows streaming light into the long room—tore it open and leaned out.
    Down below her was the road, a field track of wheel-ruts worn into the sand, overgrown with grass, goose-foot and sow-thistles. And the clover field: now she could smell it, and nothing has such a glorious smell as flowering clover after the sun has been shining on it all day.
    And next to the clover field were other fields, yellow and green, and a few strips of rye that were already cut to stubble. And then came a ribbon of deep green: meadows; and in between willows and poplars and elder there flowed the Strela, here quite a narrow little stream.
    ‘On its way to Platz,’ Lammchen thought. ‘To my Platz where I worked so hard, and was so miserable and lonely, in a flat looking out onto a courtyard, nothing but walls and stones … Here you can see for ever.’
    And then she saw in the window next to hers the face of her young man. He had just settled with the driver who had brought the bed-bag, and was now beaming at her, lost to himself with joy.
    She called to him: ‘Just look at all this. This is a place you can really live …’
    She reached her right hand to him out of her window, and he took it with his left.
    ‘The whole summer!’ she called, and described a half-circle with the other arm.
    ‘D’you see that little train …? That’s the narrow-gauge railwayto Maxfelde,’ he said.
    The driver appeared below. He must have been in the shop, for he hailed them with a bottle of beer. The man carefully wiped the rim with the palm of his hand, bent back his head, called ‘Your good health!’ and drank.
    ‘Cheers!’ called Pinneberg, dropping Lammchen’s hand.
    ‘Now then,’ said Lammchen. ‘Let’s have a look at this chamber of horrors.’
    And, like all such places, very horrid it was. To turn away from observing the clear simplicity of the countryside and see a room in which … Now Lammchen was certainly not spoilt, having perhaps once in her life seen simple, rectangular furniture in a shopwindow in Mainzerstrasse in Platz. But this! …
    ‘Please, Sonny,’ she said. ‘Take me by the hand and lead me. I’m afraid I’ll knock something over, or get stuck and not be able to go forward or back.’
    ‘Oh, I don’t think it’s as bad as all that,’ said he, a little hurt. ‘I think there are some quite cosy corners here.’
    ‘Yes, corners,’ said she. ‘But now tell me, what in heaven’s name is this? No, don’t say a word. Let’s go on. I must examine it at close quarters.’
    They set out on a tour of exploration, which most of the time they had to do in single file, Lammchen never relinquishing her Sonny’s hand.
    The room was a sort of ravine; not all that narrow, but extremely long, rather like a bridle path. Four-fifths of it was entirely filled with upholstered furniture, walnut tables, display cabinets, mirrored consoles, flower-stands, whatnots and a large parrot cage (without the parrot), while in the remaining fifth there was nothing but two beds and a wash-stand. But it was the partition between that and the rest of the room which had attracted Lammchen’s attention. It had been erected to separate the living-from the sleeping-area, but it wasn’t made of plaster-board,it didn’t have a curtain or a folding screen. It was a kind of grapevine trellis of slats extending from ceiling to floor with an arch to go through. Not ordinary plain slats, mark you, but beautifully-stained walnut, each with five parallel grooves carved down it. To stop it looking too naked, this trellis had been wound with paper and fabric flowers: roses, daffodils and bunches of violets. There were also those long green paper garlands that you get at beer festivals.
    ‘Oh God!’ said Lammchen, and sat down. She sat down just where she was