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fell very far from grace and spent most of their energy getting and
keeping boy friends so that they were much too exhausted to read the
Bible beforeJ retiring. My prayers were all for them, because
I
knew
I was
saved.)
Of course, I hastened to add that I was only twelve at
the time of this spiritual exaltation and that the whole thing had sud–
denly vanished, never to return. Dr. Hoffmann was always attentive
to anecdotes about the Bible Belt, but he knew so little about that
part of America that his interest was more anthropological than any–
thing else and sometimes, in his presence, I felt as if I'd been brought
up in the Fiji Islands. Once I heard him repeat a story I had told hiln
about a prostitute who, during a temporary conversion, had said that
her downfall was due to a compulsion to answer every knock on her
door because she thought the caller might be Jesus. He evidently en–
joyed his picture of this woman very much, but I don't think he
understood that she was entirely serious--or so she had seemed to me
when I heard her harangue on the streets of my home town. I actually
felt, I suppose, that she made as much sense on religion as Dr. Hoff–
mann and I was bewildered that he should find her comical.
The conversation returned to his daughter, but he did not men–
tion the outbtirst that had occurred. His refusal to go over the incident
made me think he had not worked out a satisfactory point of view
toward it. The only thing important about his relation to Elsa was
that she didn't like him and he could hardly have been expected to
recognize that; instead he was under the delusion that everything the
child said was dictated by reason.
Things took a turn for the worse when Mrs. Hoffmann's suffer–
ings became so acute she had to go to Arizona. Elsa was plainly hys–
terical about her mother's departure, but after she acknowledged the
inevitability of the separation she settled down into a morbid resigna–
tion that rather chilled me. Poor Mrs. Hoffmann was terrified by
her new adventure. She hadn't traveled much in America and her
feeling of loneliness was already upon her, even as she planned the
trip. She said, trying to laugh, "They'll think I'm a spy out there."
The actual parting was very touching. At the last moment Dr.
Hoffmann slyly suggested that his wife might do well to take along
some reprints of his articles. I saw the titles of those he chose for her
and they were such things as
Democracy and Christianity
and
Amer–
ican Interpretations of Christ.
Mrs. Hoffmann took them as
if
they
were a kind of passport, which perhaps they were.
Without the mother the house was somewhat changed, but I
