He clearly delighted in ‘learning’ and not just the social trivia of life but about books, music, painting and everything which filled the house and the garden into which he had ‘wandered’. The thing which worried Leni the most was the inescapable fact that he seemed to be busy trying to assume the kind of background which she had been at great pains to reject for herself.

At night he generously shared with her whatever nuggets of wisdom and learning he had gleaned during the day: and she would appear to be dutifully grateful, careful not to correct him if he were wrong, or show him that most of the time she knew these things already. Most of the time. Not all. For they were dealing with very different cultures. English and German. A chasm lay between them. So for much of the time she was able to listen with suitable awe to things which were, indeed, absolutely new to her; for the rest she kept her tongue still and just nodded her head. All this ‘learning’, however, didn’t prevent him from taking the greatest pleasures in the physical, sensual things of this existence, like long, lazy mornings on the terrace of ‘La Civette’, the pool in the afternoons, the simple elegance of the meals which Bruna prepared, the wines they drank, the picnics which she also packed for them to take up into the hills or along the coast when the splendours of the villa grew overwhelming; for even he discovered that too much could be, too much. And then there were the baths. She would always, and she couldn’t think why, equate three baths a day, or anyway, two, with the ultimate in luxury and decadence. Even at Schloss Lamsfeld once a day was considered normal, if extravagant, unless one had been riding or working the fields, and she dated the corrupting, for she could consider no other word, of Marcus from the moment that he discovered unlimited hot water, bowls of wrapped soaps, and piles of crisp, fresh towels.