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39 Elsworthy Road
London N. W. 3
June 6, 1938
Dear Friend
I haven't been giving you much news these past weeks. To make up for this, I am writing you the first letter from the
new house, even before the new notepaper has arrived. Everything is still unreal, as in a dream. This could be a wonderful fulfilment of a wish dream if we hadn't found Minna seriously ill with a high temperature on our arrival. The outcome is still uncertain. You probably know that we didn't all leave at the same time. Dorothy was the first, Minna on May 5, Martin on the fourteenth, Mathilde and Robert on the twenty-fourth, ourselves incidentally not until the Saturday before Whitsunday, June 3. With us came Paula1 and Lün, the latter as far as Dover, where she was taken into quarantine by a friendly vet. Dr. Schur,2 our family doctor, was to have accompanied us with his family, but at the eleventh hour he was unfortunate enough to require an appendix operation, with the result that we had to content ourselves with the protection of the lady pediatrician,3 whom Anna brought along. She looked after me very well, and in fact the difficulties of the journey did manifest themselves in my case with painful heart fatigue, for which I was given liberal doses of nitroglycerin and strychnine. The tedious customs investigation in Kehl we were spared by a miracle. Over the Rhine bridge and we were free! The reception in Paris at the Gare de I'Est was friendly, somewhat noisy with journalists and photographers. We spent from 10 A.M to 10 P.M in Marie's4 house. She surpassed herself in tender care and attention, returned to us part of our money and refused to allow me to continue the journey without some new Greek terracotta figures. We crossed the Channel by the ferryboat and caught sight of the sea for the first time at Dover. And soon we were in Victoria station, where the immigration officers gave us priority. Our reception in London was a very cordial one. The more serious papers have been printing bri