By the way, Nagel brought a friend along who supposedly lives with him in Witte’s bomb-damaged villa on the Elbchaussee. An exotic apparition (here?). Pleasant, but with something faintly disreputable about him. Elegant clothes that don’t seem to belong to him. Fashionably well worn and out of date. Out of the ordinary, at any rate. He’s one of those people whose features you forget sooner than how they affected you. In retrospect, he escapes precise description although leaving a strong impression. Only a sketchy physical description is possible: strongly built, pleasant outward appearance without distinguishing features—perhaps except for very bright, intense eyes; melodious voice; cultivated manner of speaking with unmistakable Austrian overtones, but speaks a vaguely alien German, as if it’s a perfectly learned language but not his mother tongue. Said to be from Romania. I noticed him as I was standing at the window gazing out at the foggy Outer Alster. The clubhouse, originally requisitioned for the exclusive use of officers of the British occupation and now serving the cause of German-English rapprochement, stands almost exactly opposite Witte’s house on the opposite shore. (Witte’s residence in town; his bomb-damaged villa on the Elbchaussee was left standing for the time being as the half-ruined and barely habitable domicile for Nagel and his friend.) Interpolated correction: Nagel lives in the garden house. Only the friend and his wife are in the villa.