27、September 10,1951

                        Backstage
                        London
                        September 10,1951

Dearheart—
    It is the loveliest old shop straight
out of Dickens, you would go absolutely out
of your mind over it.
    There are stalls outside and I stopped
and leafed through a few things just to
establish myself as a browser before
wandering in. It’s dim inside, you smell the
shop before you see it, it’s a lovely smell,
I can’t articulate it easily, but it
combines must and dust and age, and walls of
wood and floors of wood. Toward the back of
the shop at the left there’s a desk with a
work-lamp on it, a man was sitting there, he
was about fifty with a Hogarth nose, he
looked up and said “Good afternoon?” in a
North Country accent and I said I just
wanted to browes and he said please do.
    The shelves go on forever. They go up to
the ceiling and they’er very old and kind
of grey, like old oak that has absorbed so
much dust over the years they no longer are
their true color. There’s a print section,
or rather a long print table, with
Cruikshank and Rackham and Spy and all those
old wonderful English caricaturists and
illustrators that I’m not smart enough to
know a lot about, and there are some lovely
old, old illustrated magazines.
    I stayed about half an hour hoping your
Frank or one of the girls would turn up, but
it was one-ish when I went in, I gather they
were all out to lunch and I couldn’t stay
any longer.
    As you see, the notices were not
sensational but we’re told they good enough
to assure us a few months’ run, so I went
apartment-hunting yesterday and found a nice
little “bed-sister” in Knightsbridge, I don’t
have the address here, I’ll send it or you
can call my mother.
    We have no food problems, we eat in
restaurants and hotels, the best places like
Claridge’s get all the roast beef and chops
they want. The prices are astronomical but
the exchange rate is so good we can afford
it. Of course if I were the English I would
loathe us, instead of which they are
absolutely wonderful to us, we’re invited to
everybody’s home and everybody’s club.
    The only thing we can’t get is sugar or
sweets in any form, for which I personally
thank God, I intend to lose ten pounds over
here.
    Write me.

                                  Love,
                                  Maxine

注释：
leaf through 迅速翻阅
articulate 明确表达; 口齿清楚
caricaturist 讽刺画家，漫画家
Cruikshank、Rackham、Spy 画家的名字
ish [ ɪʃ ] 词缀： 还行；差不多；有点；不好说；到某种程度（参考："ish"）
one-ish 一点多
apartment-hunting 找房子
bed-sister 这 ... ...
Knightsbridge 骑士桥(伦敦的核心地带)

your Frank : again 哈哈，看来知道的人不少
Maxine 应该是作者的朋友 ，现在在伦敦拍戏。