Mrs. van Daan came out with some perfect nonsense. She was recalling the past, how well she and her father got on together and what a flirt she was.
“And do you know,” she went on, “if a man gets a bit aggressive, my father used to say, then you must say to him, ‘Mr. So-and-So, remember I am a lady!’ and he will know what you mean.” We thought that was a good joke and burst out laughing. Peter too, although usually so quiet, sometimes gives cause for mirth. He is blessed with a passion for foreign words, although he does not always know their meaning. One afternoon we couldn’t go to the lavatory because there were visitors in the office, however. Peter had to pay an urgent call. So he didn’t pull the plug. He put a notice up on the lavatory door to warn us, with ‘R.S.V.P. gas’ on it. Of course he meant to put ‘Beware of gas’, but he thought the other looked more genteel. He hadn’t got the faintest notion it meant ‘if you please.’
Yours, Anne
Saturday, 27 February, 1943
Dear Kitty, Pim is expecting the invasion any day. Churchill has had pneumonia, but is improving slowly. The freedom-loving Gandhi of India is holding his umpteenth fast. Mrs. van Daan claims to be fatalistic. But who is the most scared when the guns go off? No one else but Petronella van Daan Jan brought a copy of the bishop’s letter to churchgoers for us to read. It was very fine and inspiring. “Do not rest, people of the Netherlands, everyone is fighting with his own weapons to free the country, the people, and their religion.” “Give help, be generous, and do not dismay!” is what they cry from the pulpit, just like that. Will it help? It won’t help the people of our religion.
