When she came the woman said to her I must tell you that I do not keep a cow I only keep a goat. Oh dear said the young Swiss, I come from the mountains where my people ever since I was a baby kept one cow just to nourish me. Oh dear I cannot drink goat’s milk, never never. All right said the woman I will arrange with a neighbor and you shall have your cow’s milk as you want it. The young woman stayed there for three years and lived happily ever after. She married and from time to time she went to see the woman who had been kind to her when she had come there a stranger. Many years later the older woman was sick and dying, and the younger woman went quite often to see her, and then one day a message was brought that the woman was dying and must see her. She went and the dying woman said, before I die I want to tell you, all those years you lived with me I deceived you, it was not true that I got you cow’s milk from a neighbor, I just gave you goat’s milk and you did not know and I did not tell you but now before I die I must tell you, I could not die deceiving you, and they cried together and she died and it was all over.

She told us this because we were all happy, this was in 1943, she had just gotten a cow for herself and her husband and her children and we had just gotten a goat, and we were all so happy and we were telling about it to each other. We said that we had never wanted to taste goat’s milk and now we had and it was more delicate and sweeter and lighter and creamier than a cow, yes she said and she told us her story, and they had a cow now, that is to say that had bought one for a farmer who had just lost his horse which had died, and they did not buy him a new horse they bought him a cow so they could have milk of a cow. Nobody knows unless they have been in it what it is to eat only things cooked in water and now she had a cow and we had a goat a lovely white goat, whose name is Bizerte, because we got it the day of that victory in the morning. I love to walk the goat and now I let it loose a man told me to and I always do whatever they tell me to which is in a way the way it is between fifteen and twenty-four and no more. We laugh very much we are so pleased to have the goat.

Fifteen to twenty-four, yes there was a war there, the Boer war.

Fifteen the time does not pass slowly but a great deal of time there is nothing to do except stand around, in games and in the evening and in the day, stand around, not even get up and sit down but just stand around. And now, just now, everybody has to grow something to eat or run around to find something to eat now in 1943 so it is not like fifteen, but more like twenty-two, at twenty-two, everybody is very busy just to be you.

And that was the time there was the Boer war and it was a shock and a surprise to know that armies could surrender, not many killed and they could surrender and the war not be over. That was the new thing the Boer war told us, the English could surrender even when there was a smaller percent of them dead than there should have been according to statistics before they did surrender but they did not lose the war. And that was a new thing. When they had surrendered like that in our revolutionary war then the war was over, they lost it but in the Boer war when they did like that the war was not over and they had not lost it and that was a new thing. That went very well with my being twenty-two or something very well indeed.

But at fifteen there was no war when I was fifteen no war at all.

Between fifteen and twenty-two it is not natural that some one surrounded by enemies who would not speak to him ate the only piece of chocolate and they were men not boys and they all wanted it. Naturally enough in 1943. When you are fifteen it is rather wonderful that any one can do such a thing, have enemies who will not speak to him and eat the chocolate cake the only piece and all the enemies who would not speak to him wanting it. It is a funny thing about enemies. It does take such a long time to believe in them believe that they are enemies, and then after all nobody really does seem to believe in them believe that they are enemies. It is about when one is fifteen that one first begins to hear about enemies not in books of course books are full of enemies, but in life. What are enemies and what is war, and are there enemies in war or are they not. From fifteen on one can begin to wonder about such a thing, along with eternity and clouds and beauty and faith. Enemies are not important whether they are real or not, I can remember when I was sixteen seeing a play then modern in which a woman or was it a girl had so many enemies among the other women or girls and could I believe it, no I could not. But he who in 1943 ate the chocolate cake he always believed that he had enemies and that enemies were real even when one was fiften. But about war well he was not so sure that enemies are enemies during a war. And perhaps they are and perhaps they are not.

Our two servants, they are sisters, we are just in this house a nice big modern house alone against a mountain with a lovely park all full of bushes and big trees, and firs, and the two sisters one a good cook and the other a very perfect chamber maid, they know all about enemies, in war and in peace. Now in 1943 they have forgotten about peace, perhaps there is no such thing but they know all about enemies in war real enemies and enemies that are enemies. It sounds like the same thing but it is not.

There are so many enemies in Shakespeare.

Between fifteen and twenty-four there is so much time in which you do nothing but stand around and wait for it to happen.