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137
The Solitary Summer
·
Elizabeth Von Arnim
122
September
September
9th--I
have
been
looking
in
the
dictionary
for
the
English
word
for
Einquartierung,
because
that
is
what
is
happening
to
us
just
now,
but
I
can
find
nothing
satisfactory.
My
dictionary
merely
says
(1)
the
quartering,
(2)
soldiers
quartered,
and
then
relapses
into
irrelevancy;
so
that
it
is
obvious
English
people
do
without
the
word
for
the
delightful
reason
that
they
have
not
got
the
thing.
We
have
it
here
very
badly;
an
epidemic
raging
at
the
end
of
nearly
every
summer,
when
cottages
and
farms
swarm
with
soldiers
and
horses,
when
all
the
female
part
of
the
population
gets
engaged
to
be
married
and
will
not
work,
when
all
the
male
part
is
jealous
and
wants
to
fight,
and
when
my
house
is
crowded
with
individuals
so
brilliant
and
decorative
in
their
dazzling
uniforms
that
I
wish
sometimes
I
might
keep
a
bunch
of
the
tallest
and
slenderest
for
ever
in
a
big
china
vase
in
a
corner
of
the
drawing-room.
This
year
the
manoeuvres
are
up
our
way,
so
that
we
are
blest
with
more
than
our
usual
share
of
attention,
and
wherever
you
go
you
see
soldiers,
and
the
holy
calm
that
has
brooded
over
us
all
the
summer
has
given
place
to
a
perpetual
running
to
and
fro
of
officers'
servants,
to
meals
being
got
ready
at
all
hours,
to
the
clanking
of
spurs
and
all
those
other
mysterious
things
on
an
officer
that
do
clank
whenever
he
moves,
and
to
the
grievous
wailings
of
my
unfortunate
menials,
who
are
quite
beside
themselves,
and
know
not
whither
to
turn
for
succour.
We
have
had
one
week
of
it
already,
and
we
have
yet
another
before
us.
There
are
five
hundred
men
with
their
horses
quartered
at
the
farm,
and
thirty
officers
with
their
servants
in
our
house,
besides
all
those
billeted
on
the
surrounding
villages
who
have
to
be
invited
to
dinner
and
cannot
be
allowed
to
perish
in
peasant
houses;
so
that
my
summer
has
for
a
time
entirely
ceased
to
be
solitary,
and
whenever
I
flee
distracted
to
the
farthest
recesses
of
my
garden
and
begin
to
muse,
according
to
my
habit,
on
Man,
on
Nature,
and
on
Human
Life,
lieutenants
got
up
in
the
most
exquisite
flannels
pursue
me
and
want
to
play
tennis
with
me,
a
game
I
have
always
particularly
disliked.
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