Goodbye To Berlin

Isherwood’s friend, Fritz Wendel, introduces Isherwood to Sally Bowles, an English actress who sings at the Lady Windermere. Sally and Isherwood make plans to see each other again, but Isherwood initially believes Sally has (wrongly) assumed that Isherwood is a wealthy man after hearing Sally gossip about her past affairs.

Isherwood meets Sally at her apartment and Sally tells Isherwood about how she came to Berlin: she moved from England with her friend, Diana, an older actress and “the most marvelous gold-digger you can imagine” (30). Diana eventually moved to Paris with a banker and left Sally in Berlin. Sally also tells Isherwood that she is 19 years old—Isherwood had believed she was about 25.

Isherwood doesn’t understand why Sally is living where she’s living and believes Sally could get a much better apartment for the money she’s paying. Sally explains that she doesn’t want to leave her apartment because she gets along with the landlady well and fears the landlady would commit suicide if Sally left her. Sally makes it a point to tell Isherwood that she has never slept with Fritz and that she knows Isherwood isn’t rich.

When Sally visits Isherwood at his place for tea, she casually mentions that she “didn’t sleep a wink last night” (34) because of her new lover.