1936 On the Continent

that the cost of living in Estonia is far, far below anything you have ever experienced in other parts of Europe. Apart from your fare to the country, which will naturally depend on distance and the standard of comfort that you select for your journey, you are bound to save money by staying in Estonia if you maintain your accustomed standard of living while you are in the country.

LITHUANIA
by
L. DONNER
    TABLE OF CONTENTS

LITHUANIA
    T HE nerve specialist pushed his spectacles above his eyebrows and smiled at the lady who sat expectantly on the other side of his desk.
    “Madam,” he said, “you’ve no cause for alarm. I’m telling you the truth. Your husband’s nervousness is not a serious matter, he is simply overworked. Fundamentally, he is an actively healthy man. All he needs is rest and relaxation and impressions that constitute a complete change; he needs a few weeks in surroundings that are entirely different from his usual environment. That will put him right. As a matter of fact, everyone ought to have a change like that once a year.”
    “You mean he ought to go to a nursing home or something like that?”
    “God forbid. That would be the worst possible place for him. No nursing home in this case, nor a big city. A big resort with the usual social do’s would also be unsuitable. And I further advise you against dragging your husband from one town to another and from one hotel to another.”
    “But what
are
we to do, then?”
    “I have an idea, madam. I’ve already recommended the same thing to several other patients, and the results have been staggering. Take a boat at the London docks one Thursday soon and go to Lithuania.”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “To Lithuania. Lithuania is a small country on the Baltic coast, wedged in between Germany, Russia, Poland and Latvia, a country which has not yet been opened up for foreign tourist traffic, but which, in spite—or perhaps because of—this, offers all that your husband requires to refresh him. I know it from personal experience.”
    “Do they have good hotels in Lithuania?”
    “If you mean luxury hotels, I must answer in the negative, but if you are satisfied with absolutely clean and friendly establishments set in lovely, restful scenery, then I can safely say yes. Besides, you will get the sort of food that you won’t easily forget. This small country, with its2,300,000 inhabitants, concentrates almost exclusively on agriculture. There is an abundance of the finest butter, the best milk, the tastiest fish. Fowl farming is so highly developed that the Government is hardly able to dispose of the birds. Just imagine, recently part of the civil servants’ salaries was paid in chickens. You will have gathered from all this that although Lithuania offers all that is best in the way of food, it is an incredibly cheap country. You can get a good hotel room with full board at about 7s. per day.”
    “Yes, but what are the people like? I know nothing about these Lithuanians. Will they understand us?”
    “You’re sure to meet people who speak English. The Lithuanians are terribly keen on education. They were oppressed for centuries by various other races; the Russians, Poles and Germans all tried to deprive them of their culture, and just because of that they worked all the harder. And when, after the Great War, Lithuania, together with Latvia and Estonia, the other two Baltic countries, was liberated, the ancient Lithuanian culture flourished again, freely, and with fresh vigour. Your husband speaks German fairly well, and the educated classes in Lithuania are familiar with that language. Apart from that, however, I advise you to listen to the rhythm of the Lithuanian language. You won’t learn it in a few weeks, but you will acquire at least a superficial knowledge of one of the most interesting and euphonious languages in the world. The Lithuanians are not Slavs, as is generally believed, but the descendants of one of the old Aryan races of Europe. Miraculously enough, they have preserved their language for thousands of years, a wonderfully melodious language of the long dead Sanskrit group.”
    “That’s all very well, but surely you don’t think we will go to Lithuania in order to engage in philological studies. As to food, we can obtain good food elsewhere as well, and we need not sail half round Europe in order to get to the sea. We can reach the sea far more quickly and conveniently.”
    “But the sea voyage alone, which takes a