Would you like another cup of tea, dear?

“A dignified American woman with close-cropped gray hair, whose living room in Culoz was dominated by a large portrait of her painted by Picasso, sent a note to Seventh Army headquarters along with a fruitcake baked by her companion, Alice B. Toklas. ‘We have waited for you all so long and here you are,’ wrote Gertrude Stein. ‘I cannot tell you enough what it means to see you to hear you to have you here with us.’ (Of Stein’s prose, an American officer wrote: ‘I understand that she puts together a lot of repetitions which have significance only to those whose minds are in a higher sphere than mine.’)” – Rick Atkinson, The Guns at Last Light