0012 W H Auden
0013 Berlin-Dahlem
0014 Hubertusbaderstrasse 43
0015 Deutschland·

0016 Dec 23rd

0017 Berlin.Dahlem
0018 Hubertusbaderstrasse 43

0019 Dear Stella:
0020 It was sweet of you to think of me at
0021 Christmas ,especially since it's a little einsam here.
0022 Am beginning to know some local inhabitants. Oddly enough,
0023 the ones I can talk to most easily ar from Ost-Berlin,
0024 The most awful thing about the Bifkes is that
0025 they are so much nicer under a little Druck.
0026 When they feel their oats they are so apt to become
0027 uppish.
0028 If I'd known,I'd have warned you about The
0029 National Review. I once reviewed a Charles Williams
0030 book for them - never again. Of course you're right
0031 about the lib-labs ostrich attitude to those who
0032 wish to destroy them, but one cannot let one's name
0033 be associated with shits.
0034 Torture is the iniquity which utterly bewilders me.
0035 I know something about the evil in my own heart and
0036 []in the sort of people I knowmeet, but I cannot conceive of myself
0037 or them torturing anybody. Where do the torturers
0038 come from? What class? Whom do they marry?
0039 Have you ever met one? To what pubs do they go?
0040 much love and best wishes for 1965
0041 Wystan