I have just received your letter, and since I have nothing to do 
at the moment, I shall scribble you a few lines. Our office has 
been considerably improved. Up to now it was always very 
annoying to have to dash straight to the desk from a meal, when 
you are so dreadfully lazy, and to remedy this we have fixed up 
two very fine hammocks in the packing-house loft and there we 
swing after we have eaten, smoking a cigar, and sometimes having 
a little doze. I am convinced you will find this arrangement most 
suitable. Today I also had a letter from Roth, he will be back next 
Sunday [after] an absence of 4 months. So that you know: 1,700 
marks banco at 137 per cent are 776 talers 24 groats louis d’or. I 
have checked it, it is quite correct. Herewith an engraving. 

An old connoisseur of wines who has been given sour wine to 
drink. The one next to him is the commercial traveller from 
whom he bought the sour wine. I will also draw you a picture of 
the hair style for young gentlemen here: 

The fellows look like calves 

Confound it! When I had written this I went home to eat, and 
when I came back I lit a cigar to lie down in the hammock. But it 
immediately broke down under me and when I went to hammer 
new nails in, the infamous Derkhiem called me, and now I can’t 
get away from the office again. 

Thank God, I did have my siesta after all. I stole out of the 
office and took cigars and matches with me and ordered beer; 
then I went to the upper packing-house loft and lay down in the 
hammock and swung very gently. Then I went to the middle 
packing-house loft and packed two cases of platillas, and at the 

same time I consumed a cigar and a bottle of beer and sweated 
profusely, for it is so warm today that in spite of barely having got 
rid of a cold I want to go swimming in the Weser again. The other 
day I bathed and had a fellow row after me, and thus I swam four 
times across the Weser in one go, which no one in Bremen will so 
easily imitate. 

Confound it! For two reasons: first, it is raining, second, my 
amiable young principal? simply will not leave the office, and so I 
must let my cigar go out again. But I will chase him away all right. 
Do you know how I do it? I go into the kitchen and call out very 
loud: “Kristine, a cork-screw!” Then I open a bottle of beer and 
pour out a glass for myself. If then he has but half a groat’s worth 
of honour in him, he must go out, for that means as much as “Be 
off, Don Guillermo!” 

So you now speak English so splendidly? Just wait, when you 
come home again I will teach you Danish or Spanish so that you 
can speak with me in a language the others don’t understand. 
Danske Sprag fagre Sprag, y el Espatiol es lengua muy hermosa.” Or 
would you prefer Portuguese? 
O portugues he huma lengoa 
muito gracgosa, e os Portuguezes 
sad. nacad =muito respeitavel. 
But since you have not yet 
got so far I will spare you 
that. 

Here you can see my ham- 
mock, containing myself smok- 
ing a cigar. 

I have just heard that an- 
other 500 cases of sugar, 
that is, 250,000 lbs., have 
been sold. That can sweeten 
many a cup of coffee. Who knows whether the sugar in your cup 
won’t come from the same case from which I had to take samples! 
But all your sugar on the Rhine comes from Holland, where it is 
made from lumps, lumps of sugar, not of cotton-rag. 

Soon there will be big manoeuvres in Falkenberg, 3 hours from 

here, where the Bremen, Hamburg, Lübeck and Oldenburg 
troops, a whole regiment all together, will show their tricks. They 
are poor, pathetic things, three of them together have not as much 
moustache as I have when I have not had a shave for three days; 
one can count every thread in their coats and they have no sabres, 
but Speckddle. A Speckaal is 2 smoked eel, but in soldiers’ language 
it is a leather scabbard for the bayonet which they carry instead of 
a sabre. For if they put the bayonet on the end of the rifle, these 
poor creatures would be very likely to run each other through the 
mug with it when they were marching, so they are sensible enough 
to carry it on their backs. They are miserable fellows, Kashubs and 
Ledshaks. 

I just can’t think what else to write about. 

God knows, my matter’s melted all away, 

Yet I must fill this page up anyway, 

Although it takes me pliers to pull it out; 

And since by writing verses one can say 

Little, and make it go a long, long way, 

I end with rhyming doggerel, though I fear 

That Pegasus, outraged, will surely rear 

And throw me forcibly upon the sand. 

The sun is setting. Darkling lies the land, 

Save where through Western cloud-veils, bright and 
clear 

Blazes the sunset’s incandescent brand. 

It is a solemn, holy fire up there, 

Flaming upon the tombstone of a day 

That brought us many a thing so loved and dear, 

Now dead and gone from us. The night holds sway 

And gently draws her star-shot mantle over 

Earth’s territories, near and far away. 

And silence reigns. Birds in their nests seek cover, 

Beasts hide in brushwood on the forest floor. 

The midges’ dizzy evening dance is over; 

Closed for the night is Life’s enchanting door. 

As on the Third one of the Seven Days, 

When only trees had been created for 

Earth’s ornament, and beasts were yet to graze 

In the green fields—so, ’midst the leaves again 

Only the wind intones his hoary lays. 

It is the Almighty’s Spirit, who doth rain 

On Earth a torrent of tremendous song. 

He drives the storm on wings of cloud and rain, 
He blows eternally, forever young, 
But me, I’ve puffed the rhymes out of my lungs. 

Full stop. If you understand it you are educated and can put a 
word in. 

Adios, yours, 

Friedrich 
Bremen, Aug. 20, 40 
Aug. 25. Roth came back the day before yesterday.