THIRD YEAR

July 31st. Yesterday was my birthday, the thirteenth. Mother gave me a clock with a luminous dial which I wanted for my night-table. Of course that is chiefly of use during the long winter nights; embroidered collars; from Father, A Bad Boy’s Diary, which one of the nurses lent Hella when she was in hospital; it’s such a delightfully funny book, but Father says it’s stupid because no boy could have written all that, a new racquet with a leather case, an awfully fine one, a Sirk, and tennis balls from Dora. Correspondence cards, blue-grey with silver edge. Grandfather and Grandmother sent a basket of cherries, red ones, and a basket of currants and strawberries; the strawberries are only for me for my birthday. Aunt Dora sent three neckties from Berlin for winter blouses. In the afternoon we went to the Par.-Berg. It would have been awfully jolly if only Mother could have gone too or if Hella had been there.

August 1st. I got a letter from Ada to-day. She sends me many happy returns, for she thinks it is on the 1st of August, and then comes the chief thing. She is frightfully unhappy. She writes that she wants to escape from the cramping environment of her family, she simply can’t endure the stifling atmosphere of home. She has been to St. P. to see the actor for whom she has such an admiration, he heard her recite something and said she had real dramatic talent; he would be willing to train her for the stage, but only with her parents’ consent. But of course they will never give it. She writes that this has made her so nervous she feels like crying or raving all day long, in fact she can’t stand so dismal a life any longer. I am her last hope. She would like me to come to stay with them, or still better if she could come and stay with us for two or 3 weeks, then she would tell Mother about everything, and perhaps it might be possible to arrange for her to live with us in Vienna for a year; in the autumn Herr G., the actor, is coming to the Raimund Theatre and she could begin her training there. At the end of her letter she says that it rests with my discretion and my tact to make her the happiest creature in the world! I don’t really know what I shall be able to do. Still, I’ve made a beginning; I said I found it so frightfully dull—if only Hella were here, or at least Ada, or even Marina. Then Mother said: But Marina is away in the country, in Carinthia, and it’s not likely that Ada will be able to come. Father, too, is awfully sorry that I find it so dull, and so at supper he said: Would you really like Ada to come here? Certainly her age makes her a better companion for you than Dora. You seemed to get on better together last year. And then he said to Mother: Do you think it would bother you, Berta, to have Ada here? and Mother said, “Not a bit; if Gretel would like it; it’s really her turn now, Dora came with me to Franzensbad, Oswald is having his walking tour, and only our little pet has not had anything for herself; would you like it Gretel?” “Oh yes, Mother, I should like it awfully, I’ll write directly; it’s no fun to me to carry about that little brat the way Dora does, and jolly as the Bad Boy’s Diary is I can’t read it all day.” So I am writing to Ada directly, just as if I had thought of it and wanted her to come. I shall be so frightfully happy if it all comes off and if Ada really becomes a great actress, like Wolter whom Mother is always talking of, then I shall have done something towards helping Vienna to have a great actress and towards making Ada the happiest creature in the world instead of the unhappiest.

August 2nd. In my letter I did not say anything to Ada about our having been ennobled, or as Dora says re-ennobled, since the family has been noble for generations; she will find out about it soon enough when she comes here. Mother keeps on saying: Don’t put on such airs, especially about a thing which we have not done anything particular to deserve. But that’s not quite fair, for unless Father had done such splendid service in connection with the laws or the constitution or something two years ago, sometimes sitting up writing all night, perhaps he would never have been re-ennobled. Besides, I really can’t see why Father and Mother should have made such a secret about it last winter. They might just as well have let us know. But I suppose Father wanted to give us a real surprise. And he did too; Dora’s face and the way Oswald cleared his throat!! As far as I can make out no one seems to have noticed what sort of a face I was making.

August 3rd. I’ve found out now why Dora is so different, that is why she is again just as she was some time ago, before last winter. During the 4 weeks in Fr. she has found a real friend in Mother! To-day I turned the conversation to Viktor, and all she said at first was: Oh, I don’t correspond with him any more. And when I asked: “Have you had a quarrel, and whose fault was it?” she said: “Oh, no, I just bade him farewell.” “What do you mean, bade him farewell; but he’s not really going to America, is he?” And then she said: “My dear Rita, we had better clear this matter up; I parted from him upon the well-justified wish of our dear Mother.” I must say that though I’m awfully, awfully fond of Mother, I really can’t imagine having her as a friend. How can one have a true friendship with one’s own mother? Dora really can’t have the least idea what a true friendship means. There are some things it’s impossible for a girl to speak about to her mother, I could not possibly ask her: Do you know what, something has happened, really means? Besides, I’m not quite sure if she does know, for when she was 13 or 15 or 16, people may have used quite different expressions, and the modern phrases very likely did not then mean what they mean now. And what sort of a friendship is it when Mother says to Dora: You must not go out now, the storm may break at any moment, and just the other evening: Dora you must take your shawl with you. Friendship between mother and daughter is just as impossible as friendship between father and son. For between friends there can be no orders and forbiddings, and what’s even more important is that one really can’t talk about all the things that one would like to talk of. All I said last night was: “Of course Mother has forbidden you to talk to me about certain things; do you call that a friendship?” Then she said very gently: “No, Rita, Mother has not forbidden me, but I recognise now that it was thoughtless of me to talk to you about those things; one learns the seriousness of life quite soon enough.” I burst out laughing and said: “Is that what you call the seriousness of life? Have you really forgotten how screamingly funny we found it all? It seemed to me that your memory has been affected by the mud baths.” She did not answer that. I do hope Ada will come. For I need her now just as much as she needs me.

August 4th. Glory be to God, Ada’s coming, but not directly because they begin their family washing on the 5th and no one can be spared to come over with her till the 8th. I am so glad, the only thing I’m sorry about is that she will sleep in the dressing-room and not Dora. But Mother says that Dora and I must stay together and that Ada can leave the door into the dining-room open so that she won’t feel lonely.

August 7th. The days are so frightfully long. Dora is as mild and gentle as a nun, but she talks to me just as little as a nun, and she’s eternally with Mother. The two dachshunds have been sold to some one in Neulengbach and so it is so horribly dull. Thank goodness Ada is coming to-morrow. Father and I are going to meet her at the station at 6.

August 8th. Only time for a word or two. Ada is more than a head taller than I am; Father said: “Hullo you longshanks, how you have shot up. I suppose I must treat you as a grown-up young lady now? And Ada said: Please, Herr Oberlandesgerichtsrat; please treat me just as you used to; I am so happy to have come to stay with you.” And her mother said: “Yes, unfortunately she is happy anywhere but at home; that is the way with young people to-day.” Father helped Ada out and said: “Frau Haslinger, the sap of life was rising in us once, but it’s so long ago that we have forgotten.” And then Frau Dr. H. heaved a tremendous sigh as if she were suffocating, and Ada took me by the arm and said under her breath: “Can you imagine what my life is like now? Her mother is staying the night here, and she spent the whole evening lamenting about everything under the sun” (that’s what Ada told me just before we went to bed); but I did not pay much attention to what Frau H. was doing, for I’m positively burning with curiosity as to what Ada is going to talk to me about. To-morrow morning, directly after breakfast!

August 12th. For 3 days I’ve had no time to write, Ada and I have had such a lot to say to one another. She can’t and won’t live any longer without art, she would rather die than give up her plans. She still has to spend a year at a continuation school and must then either take the French course for the state examination or else the needlecraft course. But she wants to do all this in Vienna, so that in her spare time she can study for the stage under Herr G. She says she is not in love with him any longer, that he is only a means to an end. She would sacrifice anything to reach her goal. At first I did not understand what she meant by anything, but she explained to me. She has read Bartsch’s novel Elisabeth Kott, the book Mother has too, and a lot of other novels about artistic life, and they all say the same thing, that a woman cannot become a true artist until she has experienced a great love. There may be something in it. For certainly a great love does make one different; I saw that clearly in Dora; when she was madly in love with Viktor, and the way she’s relapsed now!! She is learning Latin again, to make up for lost time! Ada does not speak to her about her plans because Dora lacks true insight! Only to-day she mentioned before Dora that whatever happened she wanted to come to Vienna in the autumn so that she could often go to the theatre. And Dora said: You are making a mistake, even people who live in Vienna don’t go to the theatre often; for first of all one has very little time to spare, and secondly one often can’t get a seat; people who live in the country often fancy that everything is much nicer in Vienna than it really is.

August 14th. Just a word, quickly. To-day when Ada was having a bath Mother said to us two: “Girls, I’ve something to tell you; I don’t want you to get a fright in the night. Ada’s mother told me that Ada is very nervous, and often walks in her sleep.” “I say,” said I, “that’s frightfully interesting, she must be moonstruck; I suppose it always happens when the moon is full.” Then Mother said: “Tell me, Gretel, how do you know about all these things? Has Ada talked to you about them?” “No,” said I, “but the Frankes had a maid who walked in her sleep and Berta Franke told Hella and me about it.” It has just struck me that Mother said: how do you know about all these things? So it must have something to do with that. I wonder whether I dare ask Ada, or whether she would be offended. I’m frightfully curious to see whether she will walk in her sleep while she is staying here.

August 15th. Hella’s answer came to-day to what I had written her about the friendship between Mother and Dora. Of course she does not believe either that that is why Dora bade farewell to Viktor, for it is no reason at all. Lizzi has never had any particular friendship with her mother, and Hella could never dream of anything of the sort; she thinks I’m perfectly right, one may be awfully fond of one’s parents, but there simply can’t be any question of a friendship. She would not stand it if I were so changeable in my friendships. She thinks Dora can never have had a true friendship, and that is why she has taken up with Mother now. The Bruckners are coming back on the 19th because everything is so frightfully expensive in Gastein. After that most likely they will go to stay with their uncle in Hungary, or else to Fieberbrunn in Tyrol. For Hella’s name day I have sent her A Bad Boy’s Diary because she wanted to read it again. Now we have both got it, and can write to one another which are the best bits so that we can read them at the same time.

August 20th. Last night Ada really did walk in her sleep, probably we should never have noticed it, but she began to recite Joan of Arc’s speech from The Maid of Orleans, and Dora recognised it at once and said: “I say, Rita, Ada really is walking in her sleep.” We did not stir, and she went into the dining-room, but the dining-room door was locked and the key taken away, for it opens directly into the passage, and then she knocked up against Mother’s sofa and that woke her up. It was horrible. And then she lost her way and came into our room instead of going into her own; but she was already awake and begged our pardon and said she’d been looking for the W. Then she went back to her own room. Dora said we had better pretend that we had not noticed it, for otherwise we should upset Ada. Not a bit of it, after breakfast she said: “I suppose I gave you an awful fright last night; don’t be vexed with me, I often get up and walk about at night, I simply can’t stay in bed. Mother says I always recite when I am walking like that; do I? Did I say anything?” “Yes,” I said, “you recited Joan of Arc’s speech.” “Did I really,” said she, “that is because they won’t let me go on the stage; I’m certain I shall go off my head; if I do, you will know the real reason at any rate.” This sleep-walking is certainly very interesting, but it makes me feel a little creepy towards Ada, and it’s perfectly true what Dora has always said: One never knows what Ada is really looking at. It would be awful if she were really to go off her head. I’ve just remembered that her mother was once in an asylum. I do hope she won’t go mad while she is staying here.

August 21st. Mother heard it too the night before last. She is so glad that she had warned us, and Dora says that if she had not known it beforehand she would probably have had an attack of palpitation. Father said: “Ada is thoroughly histerical, she has inherited it from her mother.” In the autumn Lizzi is going to England to finish her education and will stay there a whole year. Fond as I am of Ada and sorry as I am for her, she makes me feel uneasy now, and I’m really glad that she’s going home again on Tuesday. She told me something terrible to-day: Alexander, he is the actor, has venereal disease, because he was once an officer in the army; she says that all officers have venereal disease, as a matter of course. At first I did not want to show that I did not understand exactly what she meant, but then I asked her and Ada told me that what was really amiss was that that part of the body either gets continually smaller and smaller and is quite eaten away, or else gets continually larger because it is so frightfully swollen; the last kind is much better than the other, for then an operation can help; a retired colonel who lives in H. was operated upon in Vienna for this; but it did not cure him. There is only one real cure for a man with a venereal disease, that a young girl should give herself to a man suffering from it! (Mad. often said that too), then she gets the disease and he is cured. That made Ada understand that she did not really love A., but only wanted him to train her; for she could never have done that for him, and she did not know how she could propose that to him even if she had been willing to. Besides, it is generally the man concerned who asks it of the girl. And when I said: “But just imagine, what would you do if you got a baby that way,” and she said: “That does not come into the question, for when a man has venereal disease it is impossible to have a child by him. But after all, only a woman who has had a baby can become a true artist.” Franke, who has a cousin on the stage said something of the same sort to Hella and me; but we thought, Franke’s cousin is only in the Wiener Theatre, and that might be true there; but it may be quite different in the Burg Theatre and in the Opera and even in the People’s Theatre. I told Ada about this, and she said: Oh, well, I’m only a girl from the provinces, but I have known for ages that every actress has a child.

23rd. Ada really is a born artist, to-day she read us a passage from a splendid novel, but oh, how wonderfully, even Dora said: “Ada, you are really phenominal!” Then she flung the book away and wept and sobbed frightfully and said: “My parents are sinning against their own flesh and blood; but they will rue it. Do you remember what the old gypsy woman foretold of me last year: ‘A great but short career after many difficult struggles; and my line of life is broken!’ That will all happen as predicted, and my mother can recite that lovely poem of Freiligrath’s or Anastasius Grun’s, or whosever it is ‘Love as long as thou canst, love as long as thou mayst. The hour draws on, the hour draws on, when thou shalt stand beside the grave and make thy moan.’” Then Ada recited the whole poem, and when I went to bed I kept on thinking of it and could not go to sleep.

August 24th. To-day I ventured to ask Ada about the sleep-walking, and she said that it was really so, when she walked in her sleep it was always at that time and when the moon is full. The first time, it was last year, she did it on purpose in order to frighten her mother, when her mother had first told her she would not be allowed to go on the stage. It does not seem to me a very clever idea, or that she is likely to gain anything by it. The day after to-morrow someone is coming to fetch her home, and for that reason she was crying all the morning.

August 25th. Hella was here to-day with her mother and Lizzi. Hella had a splendid time in Gastein. She wanted to have a private talk with me, to tell me something important. That made it rather inconvenient that Ada was still there. Hella never gets on with Ada, and she says too that one never really knows what she is looking at, she always looks right through one. We could not get a single minute alone together for a talk. I do hope Hella will be able to come over once more before she goes to Hungary. Last week they went to Fieberbrunn in Tyrol because an old friend of her mother’s from Berlin is staying there.

August 26th. Ada went home to-day, her father came to fetch her. He says she has a screw loose, because she wants to go on the stage.

August 28th. Hella came over to-day; she was alone and I met her at the steam tram. At first she did not want to tell me what the important thing was because it was not flattering to me, but at last she got it out. The Warths were in Gastein, and since Hella knows Lisel because they used to go to gym. together, they had a talk, and that cheeky Robert said: Is your friend still such a baby as she was that time in er . . . er . . ., and then he pretended he could not remember where it was; and he spoke of that time as if it had been 10 years ago. But the most impudent thing of all was this; he said that I had not wanted to call him Bob, because that always made me think of a certain part of the body; I never said anything of the kind, but only that I thought Bob silly and vulgar, and then he said (it was before we got intimate): “Indeed, Fraulein Grete, I really prefer that you should use my full name.” I remember it as well as if it had happened this morning, and I know exactly where he said it, on the way to the Red Cross. Hella took him up sharply: That may be all quite true, we have never discussed such trifles, and, at that time we were “all, every one of us, still nothing but children.” Of course she meant to include ——. I won’t even write his name. Another thing that made me frightfully angry is that he said: I dare say your friend is more like you now, but at that time she was still quite undeveloped. Hella answered him curtly: “That’s not the sort of phrase that it’s seemly to use to a young lady,” and she would not speak to him any more. I never heard of such a thing, what business is it of his whether I am developed or not! Hella thinks that I was not quite particular enough in my choice of companions. She says that Bob is still nothing but a Bub [young cub]. That suits him perfectly, Bob—Bub; now we shall never call him anything but Bub; that is if we ever speak of him at all. When we don’t like some one we shall call him simply Bob, or better still B., for we really find it disagreeable to say Bob.

August 31st. The holidays are so dull this year, Hella has gone to Hungary, and I hardly ever talk to Dora, at least about anything interesting. Ada’s letters are full of nothing but my promises about Vienna. It’s really too absurd, I never promised anything, I merely said I would speak to Mother about it when I had a chance. I have done so already, but Mother said: There can be no question of anything of the kind.

September 1st. Hullo, Hurrah! To-morrow Hella’s father is going to take me to K— M—in Hungary to stay with Hella. I am so awfully delighted. Hella is an angel. When she was ill last Christmas her father said: She can ask for anything she likes. But she did not think of anything in particular, and had her Christmas wishes anyhow, so she saved up this wish. And after she had been here she wrote to her father in Cracow, where he is at manoeuvres, saying that if he would like to grant her her chief wish, then, when he came back to Vienna, he was to take me with him to K— M—; this was really the greatest wish she had ever had in her life! So Colonel Bruckner called at Father’s office to-day and showed him Hella’s letter. To-morrow at 3 I must be at the State Railway terminus. Unfortunately that’s a horrid railway. The Western Railway is much nicer, and I like the Southern Railway better still.

September 2nd. I am awfully excited; I’m going to Vienna alone and I have to change at Liesing, I do hope I shall get into the right train. I got a letter from Hella first thing this morning, in which she wrote: “Perhaps we shall be together again in a few days.” That’s all she said about that; I suppose she did not know yet whether I was really coming. Mother will have to send my white blouses after me, because all but one are dirty. I’m going to wear my coat and skirt and the pink blouse. I’m going to take twenty pages for my diary, that will be enough; for I’m going to write whatever happens, in the mornings I expect, because in the holidays I’m sure Hella will never get up before 9; on Sundays in Vienna she would always like to lie in bed late, but her father won’t let her.

But whatever happens I won’t learn to ride, for it must be awful to tumble off before a strange man. It was different for Hella, for Jeno, Lajos, and Erno are her cousins, and one of them always rode close beside her with his arm round her waist: but that would not quite do in my case.

September 6th. Oh it is so glorious here. I like Jeno best, he goes about with me everywhere and shows me everything; Hella is fondest of Lajos and of Erno next. But Erno has still a great deal to learn, for he was nearly flunked in his exam. Next year Lajos will be a lieutenant, and this autumn Jeno is going to the military academy, Erno has a slight limp, nothing bad, but he can’t go into the army; he is going to be a civil engineer, not here, he is to go to America some day.

I have time to write to-day, for all 4 of them have gone to S. on their cycles and I have never learned.

It was lovely on the journey! It’s so splendid to travel with an officer, and still more when he is a colonel. All the stationmasters saluted him and the guards could not do enough to show their respect. Of course everyone thought I was his daughter, for he has always said “Du” to me since I was quite a little girl. But to Ada Father always says “Sie.” We left the train at Forgacs or Farkas, or whatever it is called, and Hella’s father hired a carriage and it took us 2 hours to drive to K— M—. He was awfully jolly. We had our supper in F., though it was only half past 6. It was a joke to see all the waiters tumbling over each other to serve him. It s just the same with Father, except that the stationmasters don’t all salute. Father looks frightfully distinguished too, but he is not in uniform.

Here is something awfully interesting: Herr von Kraics came yesterday from Radufalva, his best friend left him the Radufalva estate out of gratitude, because 8 years ago he gave up his fiancee with whom the friend was in love. It’s true, Colonel Bruckner says that K. is a wretched milksop; but I don’t think so at all; he has such fiery eyes, and looks a real Hungarian nobleman. Hella says that he used to run himself frantically into debt, because every six months he had an intimacy with some new woman; and all the presents he gave reduced him almost to beggary. Still, it’s difficult to believe that, for however fond a woman may be of flowers and sweets, one does not quite see why that should reduce anyone to beggary. Before we went to sleep last night Hella told me that Lajos had already been “infected” more or less; she says there is not an officer who has not got venereal disease and that is really what makes them so frightfully interesting. Then I told her what Ada had told me about the actor in St. P. But Hella said: I doubt if that’s all true; of course it is more likely since he was an actor, and especially since he was in the army at one time, but generally speaking civilians are wonderfully healthy!!! And she could not stand that in her husband. Every officer has lived frantically; that’s a polite phrase for having had venereal disease, and she would never marry a man who had not lived. Most girls, especially when they get a little older; want the very opposite! and then it suddenly occurred to me that that was probably the real reason why Dora bade farewell to Lieutenant R., and not the friendship with Mother; it is really awfully funny, and no one would have thought it of her. Hella’s father thinks me charming; he is really awfully nice. Hella’s uncle hardly ever says anything, and when he does speak he is difficult to understand; Hella’s father says that his sister-in-law wears the breeches. That would never do for me; the man must be the master. “But not too much so” says Hella. She always gets cross when her father says that about wearing breeches. I got an awful start yesterday; we went out on the veranda because we heard the boys talking, and found Hella’s great uncle lying there on an invalid couch. She told me about him once, that he’s quite off his head, not really paralysed but only pretends to be. Hella is terribly afraid of him, because long ago, when she was only 9 or 10 years old, he wanted to give her a thrashing. But her uncle came in, and then he let her go. She says he was only humbugging, but she is awfully afraid of him all the same. He keeps his room, and he has a male attendant, because no nurse can manage him. He ought really to be in an asylum but there is no high class asylum in Hungary.

September 9th. There was a frightful rumpus this morning; the great uncle, the people here call him “kutya mog” or however they spell it, and it means mad dog, well, the great uncle spied in on us. He can walk with a stick, our room is on the ground floor, and he came and planted himself in front of the window when Hella was washing and I was just getting out of bed. Then Hella’s father came and made a tremendous row and the uncle swore horribly in Hungarian. Before dinner we overheard Hella’s father say to Aunt Olga: “They would be dainty morsels for that old swine, those innocent children.” We did laugh so, we and innocent children!!! What our fathers really think of us; we innocent!!! At dinner we did not dare look at one another or we should have exploded. Afterwards Hella said to me: “I say, do you know that we have the same name day?” And when I said: “What do you mean, it seems to me you must have gone dotty this morning,” she laughed like anything and said: “Don’t you see, December 27th, Holy Innocents’ Day!” Oh it did tickle me. She knew that date although she’s a Protestant because December 27th is Marina’s birthday, and in our letters we used to speak of that deceitful cat as “The Innocent.”

The three boys and I have begun to use “Du” to one another, at supper yesterday Hella’s father said to Erno: “You seem frightfully ceremonious still, can’t you make up your minds to drop the ‘Sie?’” So we clinked glasses, and afterwards when Jeno and I were standing at the window admiring the moon, he said: “You Margot, that was not a real pledge of good-fellowship, we must kiss one another for that; hurry up, before anyone comes,” and before I could say No he had given me a kiss. After all it was all right as it was Jeno, but it would not have done with Lajos, for it would have been horrid because of Hella, or Ilonka as they call her here.

Hella has just told me that they saw us kissing one another, and Lajos said: “Look Ilonka, they are setting us a good example.” We are so awfully happy here. It’s such a pity that on the 16th Jeno and Lajos have got to leave for the Academy, where Jeno is to enter and Lajos is in his third year: Erno, the least interesting of the three, is staying till October. But that is always the way of life, beautiful things pass and the dull ones remain. We go out boating every day, yesterday and to-day by moonlight. The boys make the boat rock so frightfully that we are always terrified that it will upset. And then they say: “You have your fate in your own hands; buy your freedom and you will be as safe as in Abraham’s bosom.”

September 12th. The great uncle hates us since what happened the other day; whenever he sees us he threatens us with his stick, and though we are not really afraid, because he can’t do anything to us, still it’s rather creepy. One thinks of all sorts of things, stories and sagas one has read. That is the only thing I don’t quite like here. But we are leaving on the 18th. Of course Lajos and Jeno will often come to see the Bruckners; I’m awfully glad. I don’t know why, I always fancied that they could only speak Magyar; but that is not so at all, though they always speak it at home when they are alone. Hella told me to-day for the first time that all the flowers on the table by her bed one Sunday in hospital had been sent by Lajos; and she did not wish to tell me at that time because he wished her to keep it a secret. This has made me rather angry, for I see that I have been much franker with her than she has been with me.

September 16th. The boys left to-day, and we stayed up till midnight last night. We had been to N— K—, I don’t know how to spell these Hungarian names, and we did not get back till half past 11. It was lovely. But it seems all the sadder to-day, especially as it is raining as well. It’s the first time it’s rained since I came. Partings are horrid, especially for the ones left behind; the others are going to new scenes anyhow. But for the people left behind everything is hatefully dull and quiet. In the afternoon Hella and I went into Jeno’s and Lajos’ room, it had not been tidied up yet and was in a frightful mess. Then Hella suddenly began sobbing violently, and she flung herself on Lajos’ bed and kissed the pillow. That is how she loves him! I’m sure that is the way Mad. loves the lieutenant, but Dora is simply incapable of such love, and then she can talk of her true and intimate friendship with Mother. Hella says she has always been in love with Lajos, but that her eyes were first opened when she saw Jeno and me going about together and talking to one another. Now she will love Lajos for evermore. Next year they will probably get engaged, she can’t be engaged till she is 14 for her parents would not allow it. It is for her sake that he is going into the Hussars because she likes the Hussars best. They all live frightfully hard, and are tremendously smart.

September 21st. Since Saturday we have been back In Vienna, and Father, Mother, and Dora came back from Rodaun on Thursday. Dora really is too funny; since Ada stayed with us and walked in her sleep Dora is afraid she has been infected. She does not seem to know what the word really means! And while I was away she slept with Mother, and Father slept in our room, because she was afraid to sleep alone. Of course no one takes to walking in their sleep simply from sleeping alone, but that was only a pretext; Dora has never been very courageous, in fact she is rather a coward, and she was simply afraid to sleep alone. If Father had been afraid too, I suppose I should have had to come back post-haste, and if I had been afraid to travel alone, and there had been no one to come with me, that would have been a pretty state of affairs. I told them so. Father laughed like anything at my “combinations,” and Dora got in a frightful wax. She is just as stupid and conceited as she was before she fell in love. So Hella is right when she says: Love enobles [veredelt]. Erno made a rotten joke about that when he heard Hella say it once. He said: “You’ve made a slip of the tongue, you meant to say: Love makes fools of people [vereselt].” Of course that’s because he’s not in love with anyone.

September 22nd. School began again to-day. Frau Doktor M. is perfectly fascinating, she looks splendid and she said the same to both of us. Thank goodness she’s the head of our class again. In French we have a new mistress Frau Doktor Dunker, she is perfectly hideous, covered with pimples, a thing I simply can’t stand in any one; Hella says we must be careful never to let her handle our books; if she does we might catch them. In Maths and Physics we have another new mistress, she is a Doktor too, and she speaks so fast that none of us can understand her; but she looks frightfully clever, although she is very small. We call her “Nutling” because she has such a tiny little head and such lovely light-brown eyes. Otherwise the staff is the same as last year, and there are a few new girls and some have left, but only ones we did not know intimately. This is Franke’s last year at the Lyz., she will be 16 in April and has a splendid figure. Her worst enemy must admit that. Dora is having English lessons from the matron, and she is awfully pleased about it, for she is one of her favourites and it will help her too in her matriculation.

September 25th. Yesterday and the day before Mother was so ill that the doctor had to be sent for at half past 10 at night. Thank goodness she is better now. But on such days I simply can’t write a word in my diary; I feel as if I oughtn’t to. And the days seem everlasting, for nobody talks much, and it’s awful at mealtimes. Mother was up again to-day, lying on the sofa.

September 29th. I’ve had such an awful toothache since the day before yesterday. Dora says it’s only an ache for a gold filling like Frau Doktor M.‘s. Of course that’s absurd; for first of all, surely I ought to know whether my own tooth hurts or not, and secondly the dentist says that the tooth really is decayed. I have to go every other day and I can’t say I enjoy it. At the same time, this year we have such a frightful lot to learn at school. The Nutling is really very nice, if one could only understand better what she says, but she talks at such a rate that in the Fifth, where she teaches too, they call her Waterfall. Nobody has ever given Frau Doktor M. a nickname, not even an endearing one. The only one that could possibly be given to her is Angel, and that could not be a real name, it’s quite unmeaning. In the drawing class we are going to draw from still life, and, best of all, animal studies too, I am so delighted.

October 4th. Goodness, to-day when we were coming home from the Imperial Festival, we met Viktor in M. Street, but unfortunately he did not see us. He was in full-dress uniform and was walking with 3 other officers whom neither I nor Hella know. We were frightfully angry because he did not recognise us; Hella thinks it can only be because we were both wearing our big new autumn hats, which shade our faces very much.

October 11th. There was a frightful row in the drawing lesson to-day. Borovsky had written a note to one of her friends: “The little Jewess, F. (that means the Nutling) is newly imported from Scandalavia with her horsehair pate with or without inhabitants.” Something of that sort was what she had written and as she was throwing it across to Fellner, Fraulein Scholl turned round at that very moment and seized the note. “Who is F.?”, she asked, but no one answered. That made her furious and she put the note in her pocket. At 1 o’clock, when the lesson was over, Borovsky went up to her and asked her for the note. Then she asked once more: “Who is F.?” And Fellner, thinking I suppose that she would help Borovsky out, said: “She forgot to write Frau Doktor Fuchs.” Then the row began. I can’t write it all down, it would take too long; of course Borovsky will be expelled. She cried like anything and begged and prayed, and said she did not mean it, but Fraulein Scholl says she is going to give the letter to the head.

October 12th. Continuation; the head is laid up with a chill, so Frl. Scholl gave the note to Frau Doktor M.; that was both good and bad. Good because Borovsky will perhaps be able to stay after all, and bad because Frau Doktor M. was frightfully angry. She gave us a fine lecture about True Good Manners, simply splendid. I was so glad that I was not mixed up in the business, for she did give Borovsky and Fellner a rating. It’s probably true, then, that her own fiance is a Jew. Its horrible that she above all should be going to have a cruel husband; at least if all that Resi told us is true; and I expect there is some truth in it. We are frightfully curious to know whether the Nutling has heard anything about it and if so what she will do.

October 13th. I don’t think the Nutling can have heard anything for she seemed just as usual; but Hella thinks and so do I that she would not show anything even if Frl. Scholl had told her; anyhow it was horridly vulgar; one is not likely to pass it on to the person concerned. Why we think she does not know anything is that neither Borovsky nor Fellner were called up.

October 14th. To-day the needlewoman brought Dora’s handkerchiefs with her monogram and the coronet, lovely; I want some like them for Christmas. And for Mother she has embroidered six pillow-cases, these have a coronet too; by degrees we shall have the coronet upon everything. By the way, here is something I’d forgotten to write: In one of the first days of term Father gave each of us one of his new visiting cards with the new title, I was to give mine to Frau Doktor M. and Dora hers to Frau Prof. Kreidl, to have the names properly entered in the class lists. Frau Prof. Kreidl did not say anything, but Frau Doktor M. was awfully sweet. She said: “Well, Lainer, I suppose you are greatly pleased at this rise in rank?” And I said: “Oh yes, I’m awfully delighted, but only inside,” then she said: That’s right; “Religion, name, and money do not make the man.” Was not that charming! I write the v before my name awfully small; but anyone who knows can see it. What a shame that she is not noble! She would be worthy of it!!

October 15th. Oswald has gone to Leoben to-day, he is to study mining, but against Father’s will. But Father says that no one must be forced into a profession, for if he is he will always say throughout life that he only became this or that on compulsion. The other evening Dora said that Oswald had only chosen mining in order to get away from home; if he were to study law or agricultural chemistry he could not get away from Vienna, and that is the chief thing to him. Besides, he is a bit of a humbug; for when he came home from Graz after matriculation he said in so many words: “How delightful to have one’s legs under one’s own table again and to breathe the family atmosphere.” Dora promptly said to him: “Hm, you don’t seem to care so very much about home, for always when you come home for the holidays the first thing you do is to make plans for getting away.” For she is annoyed too that Oswald can travel about wherever he likes. And yet he goes on talking about being “subjected to intolerable supervision”!! What about us? He can stay out until 10 at night and never comes to afternoon tea, and in fact does just what he likes. If I go to supper with Hella and am just ever so little late, there’s a fine row. As for the lectures poor Dora had to endure when Viktor was waiting for her, I shall never forget them. Of course she denies it all now, but I was present at some of them so I know; otherwise he would not have called me “the Guardian Angel.” She behaves now as if she had forgotten all about that, so I often remind her of it on purpose when we are alone together. The other day she said: “I do beg you, Grete (not Rita), don’t speak any more of that matter; I have buried the affair for ever.” And when I said: “Buried, what do you mean? A true love can’t simply be buried like that,” she said: “It was not a true love, and that’s all there is to say about it.”

October 16th. I had a frantically anxious time in the arithmetic lesson to-day. All of a sudden Hella flushed dark red and I thought to myself: Aha, that’s it! And I wrote to her on my black-line paper: Has it begun??? for we had agreed that she would tell me directly, she will be 14 in February and it will certainly begin soon. Frau Doktor F. said: Lainer, what was that you pushed over to Br.? and she came up to the desk and took the black-line paper. “What does that mean: Has it begun???” Perhaps she really did not know what I meant, but several of the girls who knew about it too laughed, and I was in a terrible fright. But Hella was simply splendid. “Excuse me, Frau Doktor, Rita asked whether the frost had begun yet.” “And that’s the way you spend your time in the mathematics lesson?” But thank goodness that made things all right. Only in the interval Hella said that really I am inconceivably stupid sometimes. What on earth did I want to write a thing like that for? When it begins, of course she will let me know directly. As a matter of fact it has not begun yet. We have agreed now that it will be better to say “Endt,” a sort of portmanteau word of developed [entwickelt] and at last [endlich] . That will really be splendid and Hella says that I happened upon it in a lucid interval. It’s really rather cheeky of her, but after all one can forgive anything to one’s friend. She absolutely insists that I must never again put her in such a fix in class. Of course it happened because I am always thinking: Now then, this is the day.

November 8th. On Father’s and Dora’s birthday Mother was so ill that we did not keep it at all. I was in a terrible fright that Mother was seriously ill, or even that — — — — — No, I won’t even think it; one simply must not write it down even if one is not superstitious. Aunt Dora came last week to keep house for Mother. We are not going skating, for we are always afraid that Mother might get worse just when we are away. As soon as she is able to get up for long enough Father is going to take her to see a specialist in the diseases of women; so it must be true that Mother’s illness comes from that.

November 16th. Oh it’s horrible, Mother has to have an operation; I’m so miserable that I can’t write.

November 19th. Mother is so good and dear; she wants us to go skating to take our thoughts off the operation. But Dora says too that it would be brutal to go skating when Mother is going to have an operation in a few days. Father said to us yesterday evening: “Pull yourselves together children, set your teeth and don’t make things harder for your poor Mother.” But I can’t help it, I cry whenever I look at Mother.

November 23rd. It is so dismal at home since Mother went away; we had to go to school and we believed she would not leave until the afternoon, but the carriage came in the morning. Dora says that Father had arranged all that because I could not control myself. Well, who could? Dora cries all day; and at school I cried a lot and so did Hella.

November 28th. Thank goodness, it’s all safely over, Mother will be home again in a fortnight. I’m so happy and only now can I realise how horribly anxious I have been. We go every day to see Mother at the hospital; I wish I could go alone, but we always go all together, that is either with Father or with Aunt Dora. But I suspect that Dora does go to see Mother quite alone, she gave herself away to-day about the flowers, she behaves as if Mother were only her mother. On Thursday, the first time we saw Mother, we all whispered, and Mother cried, although the operation had made her quite well again. Unfortunately yesterday, Aunt Alma was there when we were, and Father said that seeing so many people at once was too exciting for Mother, and we must go away. Of course he really meant that Aunt Alma and Marina had better go away, but Aunt did not understand or would not. Why on earth did Aunt come? We hardly ever meet since the trouble about Marina and that jackanapes Erwin; only when there is a family party; Oswald says it’s not a family gathering but a family dispersal because nearly always some one takes offence.

November 30th. To-day I managed to be alone with Mother. At school I said I had an awfully bad headache and asked if I might go home before the French lesson; I really had. What I told Mother was that Frau Doktor Dunker was ill, so we had no lesson. Really one ought not to tell lies to an invalid, but this was a pious fraud as Hella’s mother always calls anything of the sort, and no one will find out, because Frau Doktor Dunker has nothing to do with the Fourth, so Dora won’t hear anything about it. Mother said she was awfully pleased to be able to see me alone for once. That absolutely proves that Dora does go alone. Mother was so sweet, and Sister Klara said she was a perfect angel in goodness and patience. Then I burst out crying and Mother had to soothe me. At first, after I got home, I did not want to say anything about it, but when we were putting on our things after dinner to go and see Mother I said en passant as it were: “This is the second time I shall be seeing Mother to-day.” And when Dora said: What do you mean? I said quite curtly: “One of our lessons did not come off, and so I took the chance too of being able to see Mother alone.” Then she said: Did the porter let you in without any trouble? It surprises me very much that such very young girls, who are almost children still, are allowed to go in alone. Luckily Aunt came in at that moment and said: “Oh well, nobody thinks Gretl quite a child now, and both of you can go alone to the hospital all right.” On the way we did not speak to one another.

December 5th. For St. Nicholas day we took Mother a big flower pot, and tied to the stick was a label on which Father had written; “Being ill is punishable as an unpermissible offence in the sense of Section 7 the Mothers’ and Housewives’ Act.” Mother was frightfully amused. The doctor says she is going on nicely, and that she will be able to come home in a few days.

December 6th. It was awful to-day. In the evening when we were leaving the dining-room Father said: “Gretl you have forgotten something.” And when I came back he took me by the hand and said: “Why didn’t you tell me that you want so much to see Mother alone? You need not make such a secret of it.” And then I burst out crying and said: “Yes, I need not keep it secret from you, but I don’t like Dora to know all about it. Did she tell you what happened the other day?” But Father does not know anything about my pretended headache, but only that I wanted so much to see Mother alone. He was awfully kind and kissed and petted me, saying: “You are a dear little thing, little witch, I hope you always will be.” But I got away as quick as I could, for I felt so ashamed because of my fibbing. If it were not for Dora I’m sure I should never tell any lies.

December 6th. Father is an angel. He and I went to see Mother in the morning, and Aunt and Dora went in the afternoon. And since Father had to go into the Cafe where he had an appointment with a friend, I went on alone to see Mother and he came in afterwards. Mother asked me about my Christmas wishes; but I told her I had only one wish, that she should get well and live for ever. I was awfully glad that Dora was not there, for I could never have got that out before her. Still, she made me tell her my wishes after all, so I said I wanted handerkerchiefs with “monogram and coronet,” visiting cards with von, a satchel like that which most of the girls in the higher classes have, and the novel Elizabeth Kott. But I am not to have the novel, for Mother was horrified and said: My darling child, that’s not the sort of book for you; who on earth put that into your head; Ada, I suppose? From what I know of your tastes, it really would not suit you at all. So I had to give that up, but I’m certain I should not find the book stupid.

December 11th. Mother came home again to-day; we did not know what time she was coming, but only that it was to be to-day. And because I was so glad that Mother is quite well again, I sang two or three songs, and Mother said: That is a good omen when one is greeted with a song. Then Dora was annoyed because she had not thought of singing. We had decorated the whole house with flowers.

December 15th. I am embroidering a cushion for Mother and Dora is making her a footstool so that she can sit quite comfortably when she is reading. For Father we have bought a new brief bag because his own is so shabby that it makes us quite ashamed; but he always says: “It will do for a good while yet.” For a long time I did not know what to get for Aunt Dora, and at length we have decided upon a lace fichu; for she is awfully fond of lace. I am giving Hella a sketch book and a pencil case; she draws beautifully and will perhaps become an artist, for Dora I am getting a vanity bag and for Oswald a cigarette case with a horse’s head on it, for he is frightfully taken up with racing and the turf.

December 16th. Owing to Mother’s illness I’ve had simply no time to write anything about the school, although there has been a great deal to write about, for example that Prof. W. is very friendly again, although he no longer gives us lessons, and that most of the girls can’t bear the Nutling because she makes such favourites of the Jewish girls. It’s quite true that she does, for example Franke, who is never any good, will probably get a Praiseworthy in Maths and Physics; and she lets Weinberger do anything she likes. I always get Excellent both for school work and prep.; so it really does not matter to me, but Berbenowitsch is frightfully put out because she is no longer the favourite as she was with Frau Doktor St. The other day it was quite unpleasant in the Maths lesson. In the answer to a sum there happened to be 1-3, and then the Nutling asked what 1-3 would be as a decimal fraction; so we went on talking about recurring [periodic] decimals and every time she used the word period, some of the girls giggled, but luckily some of them were Jews, and she got perfectly savage and simply screamed at us. In Frau Doktor St’s lesson in the First, some of the girls giggled at the same thing and she went on just as if she had not noticed it, but afterwards she always spoke of periodic places, and then one does not think of the real meaning so much. Frau Doktor F. said she should complain to Frau Doktor M. about our unseemly behaviour. But really all the girls had not giggled, for ex. Hella and I simply exchanged glances and understood one another at once. I can’t endure that idiotic giggling.

December 20th. Oswald came home to-day; he’s fine. It’s quite true that he has really had a moustache for a long time, but was not allowed to grow it at the Gymnasium; in boarding schools the barber comes every Saturday, and they have to be shaved. He always says that at the Gymnasium everything manly is simply suppressed. I am so glad I am not a man and need not go to Gymnasium. Anyhow he has a splendid moustache now. Hella did not recognise him at first and drew back in alarm, she only knew him after a moment by his voice. We have reckoned it up, and find that she has not seen him since the Easter before last. At first he called her Fraulein, but her mother said: Don’t be silly. It did not seem silly to me, but most polite!!!

December 23rd. Mother is so delighted that Oswald is home again and he really is awfully nice; he is giving her a wonderful flowers-of-iron group representing a mountain scene with a forest, and in the foreground some roe deer as if in a pasture.

December 25th. Only time for a few words. Mother was very well yesterday, and it has not done her any harm to stay up so long. I am so happy. We both got a tie pin with a sapphire and 3 little diamonds, they have been made out of some earrings which Mother never wears now. But the nice thing about it is that they are made from her earrings. The satchel and Stifter’s Tales are awfully nice and so are the handkerchiefs with the coronet and everything else. Hella gave me a reticule with my monogram and the coronet as well. Oswald has given Dora and me small paperweights and Father a big one, bronze groups. We really need two writing tables, but there is no room for two. So I am going to arrange the little corner table as my writing table and have all my things there.

December 27th. At the Bruckners yesterday it was really awful. Hella’s mother is perfectly right; when anyone looks like that she ought not to pay visits when she knows that other people may be there. Hella told me the day before yesterday how frightfully noticeable it is in her cousin that she is in an i— c—! Her mother was very much put out on her account and she wanted to prevent Emmy’s standing up. We were simply disgusted and horrified. But her husband is awfully gentle with her; She is certainly not pretty and especially the puffiness under her eyes is horrid. They say that many women look like that when they are pr. She was wearing a maternity dress, and that gives the whole show away! Hella says that some women look awfully pretty when they are in an i— c—, but that some look hideous. I do hope I shall be one of the first kind, if I ever . . . No, it is really horrible, even if it makes one pretty; when I think of Frau von Baldner and what she looked like last summer, yet Father has always said she is a a perfect beauty. Really no one is pretty in an i— c—. Soon after tea Hella and I went up to her room, and she said it had really been too much for her and that she could not have stood it much longer. And we went on talking about it for such a long time, that it really made both of us nearly ill. On Sunday Emmy and her husband are coming to dine with the Brs., and Hella begged me to ask her to dinner with us, or she would be quite upset. So of course she is coming here and thank goodness that will save her from feeling ill. And then she said that I must not think she wanted to come to us because of Oswald, but only for that other reason. I understand that perfectly well, and she does not need to make any excuses to me.

29th. Hella came to dinner to-day, she was wearing a new dress, a light strawberry colour, and it suited her admirably. In the evening Oswald said: “two or three years more, and Hella will look ripping.” It does annoy me so this continual will. Hella’s father simply said of me that I was charming,, and not that idiotic: I was going to become charming. I do hate the way people always talk out into the future. However, Oswald paid Hella a great deal of attention. In the afternoon, when Hella and I were talking about him, I wanted to turn the conversation to Lajos, but she flushed up and said he was utterly false, for since October he had only been to see them once, on a Sunday, just when they were going to the theatre. Of course he says he does not care a jot about the visits unless he can see her alone. She can’t realise that that shows the greatness of his love. I understand it perfectly. But it is really monstrous that Jeno has asked after me only once, quite casually. And he really might have sent me a card at Christmas. But that’s what young men are like. The proverb really applies to them: Out of sight out of mind.

December 30th. Frau Richter called to-day, but only in the morning for a quarter of an hour. Not a word was said about Viktor, though I stayed in the drawing-room on purpose. Dora did not put in an appearance, though I’m sure she was at home. He is extraordinarily like his mother, he has the same lovely straight nose, and the small mouth and well-cut lips; but he is very tall and she is quite small half a head shorter than Mother. We owe them a call, but I don’t much think that we shall go.

December 31st. I really have no time, since this is New Year’s Eve, but I simply must write. Dora and I went skating this morning, and we met Viktor on the ice; he went frightfully pale, saluted, and spoke to us; Dora wished to pass on, but he detained her and said that she must allow him to have a talk, so he came skating with us since she would not go to a confectioner’s with him. She was certainly quite right not to go to a confectioner’s. Of course I don’t know what they talked about, but in the afternoon Dora cried frightfully, and Viktor never said good-bye to me; it’s impossible that he can have forgotten, so either I must have been too far away at the time, or else Dora did not want him to; most likely the latter. I’m frantically sorry for him, for he is passionately in love with her. But she won’t come to her senses until it is too late. I don’t think she has said a word to Mother either. But all the afternoon she was playing melancholy music, and that shows how much she had felt it.

January 2nd. Yesterday I had no time to write because we had callers, pretty dull for the most part, the Listes and the Trobisches; Julie Tr. is such a stupid creature, and I don’t believe she knows the first thing about those matters; Annie is not quite all there, Lotte is the only tolerable one. Still, since we played round games for prizes, it was not as dull as it might have been, and Fritz and Rudl are quite nice boys. In the evening Mother was so tired out that Father said he really must put a stop to all this calling; I can’t say I care much myself for that sort of visits, especially since Dora always will talk about books. People always talk about such frightfully dull books whenever they have nothing else to say. School began again to-day, with a German lesson thank goodness. Though I’m not superstitious in general, I must say I do like a good beginning. Besides, first thing in the morning we met two chimneysweeps, and without our having tried to arrange it in any way they passed us on our left. That ought to bring good luck.

January 5th. Most important, Hella since yesterday evening — — — —! She did not come to school yesterday, for the day before she felt frightfully bad, and her mother really began to think she was going to have another attack of appendicitis. Instead of that!!! She looks so ill and interesting, I spent the whole afternoon and evening with her; and at first she did not want to tell me what was the matter. But when I said I should go away if she did not tell me, she said: “All right, but you must not make such idiotic faces, and above all you must not look at me.” “Very well,” I said, “I won’t look, but tell me everything about it.” So then she told me that she had felt frantically bad, as if she was being cut in two, much worse than after the appendicitis operation, and then she had frantically high fever and shivered at the same time, all Friday, and yesterday — — — tableau!! And then her mother told her the chief things, though she knew them already. Earlier on Friday the doctor had said: “Don’t let us be in a hurry to think about a relapse, there may be other!! causes.” And then he whispered to her mother, but Hella caught the word enlighten. Then she knew directly what time of day it was. She acted the innocent to her mother, as if she knew nothing at all, and her mother kissed her and said, now you are not a child any more, now you belong among the grown-ups. How absurd, so I am still a child! After all, on July 30th I shall be 14 too, and at least one month before I shall have it too, so I shan’t be a child for more than six months more. Hella and I laughed frightfully, but she is really a little puffed up about it; she won’t admit that she is, but I noticed it quite clearly. The only girl I know who did not put on airs when that happened was Ada. Because of the school Hella is awfully shy, and before her father too. But her mother has promised her not to tell him. If only one can trust her!!!

January 7th. Hella came to school to-day in spite of everything. I kept on looking at her, and in the interval she said: “I have told you already that you must not stare at me in that idiotic way, and this is the second time I’ve had to speak to you about it. One must not make a joke about such things.” I was not going to stand that. One must not look at her; very well, in the third lesson I sat turning away from her; then suddenly she hooked one of my feet with hers so that I nearly burst out laughing, and she said: “Do look round, for that way is even stupider.” Of course Dunker promptly called us to order, that is, she told Hella to go on reading, but Hella said promptly that she felt very unwell, and that what she had said to me was, she would have to go home at 12. All the girls looked at one another, for they all know what unwell means, and Frau Doktor Dunker said Hella had better leave directly, but she answered in French—that pleases Dunker awfully—that she would rather stay till the end of the lesson. It was simply splendid!

January 12th. We went to the People’s Theatre to-day to the matinee of The Fourth Commandment. The parting from the grandmother was lovely; almost everyone was in tears. I managed to keep from crying because Dora was only two places from me, and so did Hella, probably for the same reason. Anyway she was not paying much attention to the play for in the main interval Lajos, who had been in the stalls, came up and said how d’you do to Hella and her mother. He wanted to go home with them after the performance. Jeno has mumps, it is a horrid sort of illness and if I had it I should never admit it. Those illnesses in which one is swelled up are the nastiest of all. The Sunday after next Lajos and Jeno have been invited to the Brs. and of course they asked me too, I am so glad.

January 18th. I have not written for a whole week, we have such a frantic lot of work, especially in French in which we are very backward, at least Dunker says so!! She can’t stand Madame Arnau, that’s obvious. For my part I liked Mad. Arnau a great deal better, if only because she had no pimples. And Prof. Jordan’s History class is awfully difficult, because he always makes one find out the causes for oneself; one has to learn intelligently!, but that is very difficult in History. No one ever gets an Excellent from him, except Verbenowitsch sometimes, but she learns out of a book, not our class book, but the one on which Herr Prof. J. bases his lectures. And because she reads it all up beforehand, naturally she always knows all the causes of the war and the consequences. Really consequences means something quite different, and so Hella and I never dare look at one another when he is examining us and asks: What were the consequences of this event? Of course the Herr Prof. imagined that Franke was laughing at him when she was only laughing at consequences; and it was impossible for her to explain, especially to a gentleman!!!!

January 20th. When Dora and I were coming home from skating to-day we met Mademoiselle, and I said how d’you do to her at once, and I was asking her how she (much emphasised) was getting on, when suddenly I noticed that Dora had gone on, and Mademoiselle said: “Your sister seems in a great hurry, I don’t want to detain her.” When I caught Dora up and asked her: “Why did you run away?” she tossed her head and said: “That sort of company does not suit me.” “What on earth do you mean, you were so awfully fond of Mad., and besides she is really lovely.” That’s true enough, she said; but it was awfully tactless of her to tell me of all that—you know what. Such an intimacy behind her parents’ backs cannot possibly lead to happiness. Then I got in such a fearful temper and said: “Oh do shut up. Father and Mother did not know anything about Viktor either, and you were happy enough then. It is just the secrecy that makes one so happy.” Then she said very softly: “Dear Grete, you too will change your views,” and then we did not say another word. But I was awfully angry over her meanness; for first of all she wanted to hear the whole story, although Mad. never offered to tell her, and now she pretends that she did not wish it. If I only knew where to find Mad. I would warn her. Anyhow, this day week at 7 I shall take care to be in W. Street, and perhaps I may meet her, for she probably has a private lesson somewhere in that neighborhood.

January 24th. Mother is very ill again to-day, in spite of the operation. I have decided that I won’t go on Sunday to the Brs. although Jeno will be there, and that I won’t wait about for Mademoiselle on Monday. I have not told Hella anything about this for she would probably say it was very stupid of me, but I would rather not; not because Dora has twice spoken to me pointedly about a clear conscience, but because I don’t enjoy anything when Mother is ill.

January 26th. Mother is an angel. Yesterday she asked Aunt Dora: “By the way, Dora, has Grete put a fresh lace tucker in her blue frock, ready for the Brs. to-morrow?” Then I said: “I’m not going Mother,” and Mother asked: “But why not, surely not on my account?” Then I rushed up to her and said: “I can’t enjoy anything when you are ill.” And then Mother was so awfully sweet, and she wept and said: “Such moments make one forget all pains and troubles. But really you must go, besides I’m a good deal better to-day, and to-morrow I shall be quite well again.” So I answered: “All right, I’ll go, but only if you are really well. But you must tell me honestly.” But in any case I shan’t go to meet Mademoiselle on Monday.

January 28th. It was Mathematics to-day at school, so I could not write yesterday. We had a heavenly time on Sunday. We laughed till our sides ached and Hella was nearly suffocated with laughing. Lajos is enough to give one fits; it was absolutely ripping the way he imitated the wife of Major Zoltan in the Academy and Captain Riffl. I can hardly write about it, for my hand shakes so with laughing when I think of it. And then, while Hella and Lajos were singing songs together, Jeno told me that every student in the Neustadt has an inamorata, a real one. Mostly in Vienna, but some in Wiener Neustadt though that is dangerous because of being caught. All the officers know about it, but no one must be found out. Then I told him about Oswald’s affair and he said: “Oswald was a great donkey, you’ll excuse me for saying so since he’s your brother; but really he made a fool of himself. He was only a civilian; it’s quite different in the army.” Then I got cross and said: “That’s all very well, Jeno, but you are not an officer yourself, so I don’t see how you can know anything about it.” Then he said to Hella: “I say, Ilonka, you must keep your friend in better order, she is rather inclined to be insubordinate.” She is to make a written note of every act of insubordination, and then he will administer exemplary punishment. All very fine, but it will take two to that.

January 30th. I wish I knew whether Mademoiselle really passed through W. Street again at 7 o’clock on Monday, for she certainly said very distinctly: “Au revoir, ma cherie!” She is so pretty and so pale; perhaps she is really ill, and she must be awfully nervous about — — — That would be terrible. We wonder whether she knows about certain means, but one simply can’t tell her.

February 2nd. I’ve had a wonderful idea and Hella thinks it a positive inspiration. We are going to write anonymously to Mademoiselle about those means, and Hella will write, so that no one can recognise my writing. We think something of that sort must have happened to Mademoiselle, for the other day I heard Mother say to Aunt Dora: “If we had known that, we should never have engaged her for the children; it will be a terrible thing for her parents.” And Aunt Dora said: “Yes, those are the sort of people who hide their disgrace under the water.” It seems quite clear, for disgrace means an illegitimate child. And the worst of it is, that they know that she has done that. We must help the poor thing. And that is why Dora is so indignant all of a sudden. But how can she know? there is nothing to notice yet in Mademoiselle; if there had been I should certainly have seen it, for Hella often says I’ve a keen eye for it. That is quite true, I was the first person to notice it in the maid at Prof. Hofer’s, when even Father had not noticed it.

February 4th. Well, we have written to her, at least Hella has, saying there are such means, and that she will find all the details in the encyclopedia. We have addressed it to F. M. and signed it “Someone who understands you.” Unfortunately we shall never be able to find out whether she got the letter, but the main thing is that she should.

February 7th. What a frightful lot of anxiety a letter can give one! In the interval to-day the school servant came up to me and said: Please are you Fraulein Lainer of the Third. “There is a letter for you.” I blushed furiously, for I thought, it must be from Mademoiselle, but my blushing made Frau Berger think it must be from a young man: “Really I ought to give it to the head mistress; I am not allowed to deliver any letters to the pupils, but in your case I will make an exception. But please remember if it happens again I shall have to hand it in to the office.” Then I said: “Frau Berger, I am quite certain it is not from a gentleman, but from a young lady,” and when she gave it to me I saw directly that it really was not from a gentleman but only from Ada! It really is too stupid of her! At the New Year she reproached me for having broken my word, and now she begs me to enquire at the Raimund Theatre or at the People’s Theatre whether Herr G. is there; she says she can’t live without him in St. P. But in the holidays she told me that she was not in love with him, that for her he was only a means to an end. I’m absolutely certain she said that. Nothing will induce me to go to enquire at a theatre office, and Hella says too that to make such a suggestion is a piece of impudence. I shall just write her an ordinary letter, telling her what a row she might have got me into at school. I really think Ada has a bee in her bonnet, as Father always says.

February 10th. I never heard of such a thing! I was sent for to the office to-day because the school servant had complained that on two occasions I had thrown down some orange peel at the entrance. It’s quite true that I did drop one piece there yesterday, but I pushed it out of the way with my foot into the corner, and as for any other time I know nothing about it. But I see which way the wind is blowing. Frau Berger thought I would give her some money for that letter; just fancy, how absurd, money for a letter like that, I wouldn’t give 20 kreuzer for such a letter. But since then she’s been in a frightfully bad temper, I noticed it on Wednesday when we were wiping our shoes at the door. What I said to the head was: “It happened only once, and I kicked the peel into the corner where no one could tread on it, but I certainly did not do it twice, and Bruckner can confirm what I say.” Then the head said: “Oh well, we need not make a state affair of it, but the next time you drop something, please pick it up.” Frau Berger is furious, and all we girls in our class have decided that while we won’t make more mess than we need, still, we shan’t be too particular. If any one of us happens to drop a piece of paper she will just let it lie. Such cheek, one really can’t stand it!

February 12th. We got our reports to-day. I have not got any Satisfactories, only Praiseworthy and Excellent. Father and Mother are awfully pleased and they have given each of us 2 crowns. Indeed Dora has practically nothing but Excellents, only three Praiseworthies; but she studies frantically hard, and she is learning Latin again with Frau Doktor M. If she is still teaching the lower classes next year, I shall go too, for that way we shall have her for 3 hours longer each week. By the way, Franke has actually got Praiseworthy in Maths. and Physics, though she’s hardly any good. The Nutling seems to give extraordinarily good reports, for twice in the Maths. schoolwork Hella has had an Unsatisfactory, and yet now in her report she has Praiseworthy. With Frau Doktor M. one has really to deserve one’s report, and it was just the same last year with Fr. Dr. St. The worst of all is with Herr Prof. Jordan. Not a single one of us has got an Excellent except that deceitful cat Verbenowitsch. To-morrow the Brs. are giving a great birthday party because of Hella’s 14th birthday. Lajos and Jeno are coming and the two Ehrenfelds, because Hella is very fond of them, especially Trude, the elder, that is she is 2 days older than Kitty, for they are twins!! How awful!!! They only came to the Lyz this year, and Hella meets them skating every day, I don’t because we have no season tickets this year but only take day tickets when we can go, because of Mother’s illness. I am giving Hella an electric torch with a very powerful reflector, so that it really lights up the whole room, and an amber necklace.

February 14th. It’s a good thing that we have the half-term holiday to-day and to-morrow for that gives me time to write all about yesterday. It was simply phenomenal! I went to wish Hella many happy returns quite early, and I stayed to dinner and Lajos and Jeno had been invited to dinner too in the afternoon the 2 Ehrenfelds came and brought a box of sweets, and 3 of Hella’s girl cousins and two boys, one of whom is frightfully stupid and never speaks a word, and several aunts and other ladies, for the grown-ups had their friends too. But we did not bother about them, for the dining-room, Lizzi’s room, and Hella’s room had been arranged for us. Hella had been sent such a lot of flowers that they nearly gave us a headache. At dinner Lajos proposed a toast to Hella and another at tea. Hella was splendid, and in the evening she said to me: “At 14 one really does become a different being.” For in proposing his toast Lajos had said that every 7 years a human being is completely changed, and Hella thinks that is perfectly true. Thank goodness, in 6 1/2 months I shall change my whole being too. There really did seem to be something different about her, and when we all had to blow to extinguish the candles on her birthday cake, all except the life-light in the middle, as a sign that the other years have passed, she really got quite pale, for she was afraid that in joke or through awkwardness some one would blow out her life-light. Thank goodness it was all right. I don’t much care for such things myself, for I’m always afraid that something might happen. Of course I know that it’s only a superstition, but it would have been horribly unpleasant if anyone had blown out the life-light. Openly!! Lajos gave Hella an enormous square box of sweets, and secretly!! a silver ring with a heart pendant. He wanted her to wear this until it is replaced by a gold one—the wedding ring. But she can’t because of her parents, so she begged me to allow her to say that I had given it her, but that would not do either because of Father and Mother. These things are such a nuisance, and that is why no young man will ever go on living at home where one is continually being questioned about everything one has, and does, and wears. After tea we sang: “Had I but stayed on my lonely Hearth” and other sad songs, because they are the prettiest, and in the evening we danced while Hella’s Father played for us; and then Elwira, the tall cousin, danced the czardas with Lajos, it was wonderful. I’ve never known such a birthday party as yesterday’s. It’s only possible in winter; you can never have anything like it on my birthday, July 30th, for the people one is fondest of are never all together at that time. Really no one ought to have a birthday in the holiday months, but always sometime between the end of September and June. I do wish I were 14, I simply can’t wait. Hella’s mother said to Hella, You are not a child any longer, but a grown-up; I do wish I were too!!!

February 16th. We have a new schoolfellow. All the girls and all the staff are delighted with her. She is so small she might be only 10, but awfully pretty. She has brown curls (Hella says foxy red, but I don’t agree) hanging down to her shoulders, large brown eyes, a lovely mouth, and a complexion like milk and roses. She is the daughter of a bank manager in Hamburg; he shot himself, I don’t know why. Of course she is in mourning and it suits her wonderfully. She has a strong North German accent. Frau Doktor Fuchs is simply infatuated with her and the head is awfully fond of her too.

February 19th. Hella and I walked home to-day with Anneliese. She is called Anneliese von Zerkwitz. Her mother has been so frightfully upset by her father’s death that she’ll probably have to be sent to a sanatorium; that is why Anneliese has come to Vienna to stay with her uncle. He is a professor and they live in Wiedner Hauptstrasse. Dora thinks her charming too, the whole school is in love with her, she is going to gym. with us; I am so glad. Of course she won’t stand near Hella and me because she’s so small; but we can always keep an eye on her, show her everything, and help her with the apparatus. Hella is a trifle jealous and says: “It seems to me that Anneliese has quite taken my place in your affections.” I said that was not a bit true, but did she not think Anneliese awfully loveable? “Yes,” said Hella, “but one must not neglect old friends on that account.” “I certainly shan’t do anything of the kind; but Anneliese really needs some one who will show her everything and explain everything.” Besides, the head mistress and Frau Doktor M. placed her in front of me and said to us: “Give her a helping hand.”

February 20th. It’s such a pity that I can’t ask Anneliese here, for Mother has been in bed for the last week. But she is going to Hella’s on Sunday, and since I am going too of course I am frightfully glad. Naturally I would much rather have her here; but unfortunately it’s impossible because of Mother. Dora thinks that Mother will have to have another operation, but I don’t believe it, for such an operation can only be done once. What I can’t understand is why there should be anything wrong with Mother if the operation was successful. Dora is afraid that Mother has cancer, that would be horrible; but I don’t believe she has, because if one has cancer one can’t recover.

February 23rd. It was heavenly at the Bruckners! Anneliese did not come until 4, for they don’t have dinner until 3. She wore a white embroidered frock with black silk ribbons. Hella’s mother kissed her with tears in her eyes. For her mother really is in a sanatorium because is suffering from nervous disease. Anneliese is living with her uncle and aunt. But she often cries because of her father and mother. Still, she enjoyed herself immensely in the round games, winning all the best prizes, a pocket comb and mirror, a box of sweets, a toy elephant, a negro with a vase, and other things as well. I won a pen-wiper, a double vase, a pencil holder, a lot of sweets, and a note book, Hella won a lot of things too, and so did her two cousins and Jenny.

Then we had some music and Anneliese sang the Wacht am Rhein and a lot of folk songs; her voice is as sweet as herself. She was fetched at 7, I stayed till 8.

March 1st. To-morrow Hella and I have been in vised to Anneliese’s. I am so awfully glad. I shall ask Mother to let me wear my new theatre blouse and the green spring coat and skirt. The temperature went up to 54 degrees to-day.

March 3rd. Yesterday we went to Anneliese’s. She shares a room with her cousin; she is only 11 and goes to the middle school, but she is a nice girl I expected to find everything frightfully smart at Professor Arndt’s, but it was not so at all. They have only 3 rooms not particularly well furnished. He has retired on a pension, Emmy is their granddaughter, she lives with them because her father is in Galicia, a captain or major I think. It was not so amusing as at Hella’s. We played games without prizes, and that is dull; it is not that one plays for the sake of the prizes, but what’s the use of playing if one does not win anything? Then they read aloud to us out of a story book. But what Hella and I found exasperating was that Anneliese’s uncle said “Du” to us both. For Hella is 14, and I shall be 14 in a few months. But Hella was quite right; in conversation she said: “At the High School only the mistresses say Du to us, the professors have to say Sie.” Unfortunately he went away soon after, so we don’t know whether he took the hint. Hella says too that it was not particularly entertaining.

March 9th. Oh dear, Mother really has got cancer; of course Father has not told us so, but she has to have another operation. Dora has cried her eyes out and my knees are trembling. She’s going to hospital on Friday. Aunt Dora is coming back on Thursday and will stay here till Mother is well again. I do so dread the operation, and still more Mother’s going away. It’s horrible, but still lots of people have cancer and don’t die of it.

March 22nd. Mother is coming home again tomorrow. Oh I am so glad! Everything is so quiet in the hospital and one hardly dares speak in the passages. Mother said: “I don’t want to stay here any longer, let me go back to my children.” We went to see Mother in hospital every day and took her violets and other flowers, for she was not allowed to eat anything during the first few days after the operation. But it’s quite different now that she’s home again. I should have liked to stay away from school to-day, but Mother said: “No, children, go to school, do it to please me.” So of course we went, but I simply could not attend to my lessons.

March 24th. Mother is asleep now. She looks frightfully ill and still has a lot of pain. I’m sure the doctors can’t really understand her case; for if they had operated properly she would not still have pain after the second operation. I should like to know what Mother has been talking to Dora about, for they both cried. Although Dora and I are on good terms now, she would not tell me, but said she had promised Mother not to speak about it. I can’t believe that Mother has told Dora a secret, but perhaps it was something about marrying. For Dora only said: “Besides, Mother did not need to say that to me, for my mind was quite made up in any case.” I do hate such hints, it’s better to say nothing at all. As soon as Mother can get up she is going to Abbazia for a change, and most likely Dora will go with her.

March 26th. Mother and Dora are going to Abbazzia next week. Dora thinks I envy her the journey, and she said: “I would willingly renounce the journey and the seaside if only Mother would get well. And this year when I have to matriculate, I certainly should not go for pleasure.” I’m so awfully miserable that I simply can’t wear a red ribbon in my hair, though red suits me best. I generally wear a black one now, but since yesterday a brown one, for Mother said: “Oh, Gretel, do give up that black ribbon; it looks so gloomy and does not suit you at all.” Of course I could not tell Mother how I was feeling, so I took the brown one and said the red ribbon was quite worn out.

April 12th. I never get my diary written. It’s so gloomy at home for Mother is very bad. Oswald is coming home to-morrow for the Easter holidays and Mother is looking forward so to seeing him. I was to have gone with Hella and her father to Maria-Zell, for this year they are probably going to take a house for the summer in Mitterbach or Mitterberg near Maria-Zell. But I am not going after all, for I don’t feel inclined, and I think Mother is better pleased that I should not; for she said: “So I shall have all my three darlings together here at Easter.” When she said that I wanted to cry, and I ran quickly out of the room so that she might not see me. But she must have seen, for after dinner she said: “Gretel, if you really want to go with the Bruckners, I should like you to; I should be so glad for you to have a little pleasure, you have not had much enjoyment all the winter.” And then I could not stop myself, and I burst out crying and said: “No, Mother, I won’t go on any account. All I want is that you should get quite well again.” And then Mother cried too and said: “Darling, I’m afraid I shall never be quite well again, but I should like to stay until you are all grown up; after that you won’t need me so much.” Then Dora came in and when she saw that Mother was crying she said that Father had sent for me. He hadn’t really but in the evening she told me that Mother’s illness was hopeless, but that I must not do anything to upset her or let her see what I was feeling. And then we both cried a lot and promised one another that we would always stay with Father.

May 16th. Mother died on April 24th, the Sunday after Easter. We are all so awfully unhappy. Hardly anyone says a word at mealtimes, only Father speaks to us so lovingly. Most likely Aunt Dora will stay here for good. It’s not three weeks yet since Mother was buried, but in one way we feel as if she had already been dead three years, and in another way one is always suddenly wanting to go into her room, to ask her something or tell her something. And when we go to bed we talk about her for such a long time, and then I dream about her all night. Why should people die? Or at least only quite old people, who no longer have anyone to care about it. But a mother and a father ought never to die. The night after Mother died Hella wanted me to come and stay with them, but I preferred to stay at home; but late in the evening I did not dare to go into the hall alone, so Dora went with me. Father had locked the door into the drawing-room, where Mother was laid out, but all the same it was awfully creepy. They did not call me on the 24th until after Mother was dead; I should have so liked to see her once more. Good God, why should one die? If only I had been called Berta after her; but she did not wish that either of us should be called after her, nor did Father wish it in Oswald’s case.

May 19th. When Mother was buried, one thing made me frightfully angry with Dora, at least not really angry but hurt, that she should have gone into church and come out of church with Father. For I have always gone with Father and Dora has always gone with Mother. And while poor Mother was in hospital, Dora went with Aunt. But at the funeral Father went with her, and I had to go with Aunt Dora. A few days later I spoke to her about it, and she said it was quite natural because she is the elder. She said that Oswald ought to have gone with me, that that would have been the proper thing. But he went alone. Another thing that annoys me is this; when Aunt Dora came here in the autumn, Dora and I sat on the same side of the table at dinner and supper, and Aunt sat opposite Mother, and when Mother took to her bed her place was left vacant. After she died Oswald sat on the fourth side, and now for about a week Dora has been sitting in Mother’s place. I can’t understand how Father can allow it!

May 19th. At dinner to-day no one could eat anything. For we had breast of veal, and we had had the same thing on the day of poor Mother’s funeral, and when the joint was brought in I happened to look at Dora and saw that she was quite red and was sobbing frightfully. Then I could not contain myself any more and said: “I can’t eat any breast of veal, for on Mother’s burial day — — —,” then I could not say any more, and Father stood up and came round to me, and Dora and Aunt Dora burst out crying too. And after dinner Aunt promised us that we should never have breast of veal again. For tea, Aunt Dora ordered an Ulm cake because we had eaten hardly anything at dinner.

May 26th. To-day is the first day of Dora’s written matriculation. Father wanted her to withdraw because she looks so ill, but she would not for she said it would be a distraction for her and that she would like to finish with the High School. Next year she is to go to a preparatory school for the Gymnasium. She ought really to go to a dancing class, for she is nearly 17, but since she is in mourning it is quite impossible and of course she does not want to go anyhow. The head thought too that Dora would withdraw from the examination because she is so overwrought, but she did not want to withdraw. The staff were so awfully sweet to us after Mother’s death, at least the women teachers were. The professors don’t bother themselves about our private concerns, for they only see us for 1 or 2 hours a week. Frau Doktor Steiner, from whom we don’t have any lessons this year, was awfully sympathetic; I saw plainly that she had tears in her eyes, and Frau Doktor M. was an angel as she always is! We did not go to the spring festival on May 20th, though Father said we could go if we liked. Hella and Anneliese were awfully anxious that I should go; but I would not, and indeed I shall never go to any more amusements. No doubt the others enjoyed themselves immensely, but for Dora and me it would have been horrible. In the evenings I often fancy to myself that it is not really true, that Mother has simply gone to Franzensbad and will be back soon. And then I cry until my head aches or until Dora says: “Oh Gretel, I do wish you’d stop, it’s awful.” She often cries herself, I can hear her quite well, but I never say anything.

June 4th. So Dora looks upon Mother’s death as a sign of God’s displeasure against Father! But what could we have done to prevent it? She said, Oh, yes, we did a lot of things we ought not to have done, and above all we had secrets from Mother. That is why God has punished us. It’s horrible, and now that she is always speaking of the eye of God and the finger of God it makes me so terribly afraid to go into a dark room, because I always feel there is some one there who is eying me and wants to seize me.

June 8th. Father is in a frightful rage with Dora; yesterday evening, when I opened the drawing-room door and there was Father coming out, quite unintentionally I gave a yell, and when Father asked what was the matter I told him about God’s displeasure; only I did not tell him it was against him, but only against Dora and me. And then Father was frightfully angry for the first time since Mother’s death, and he told Dora she was not to upset me with her ill-conditioned fancies, and Dora nearly had an attack of palpitation so that the doctor had to be sent for. Aunt came to sleep in our room and we both had to take bromide. To-day Father was awfully kind to us and said: “Girls, you’ve no reason to reproach yourselves, you have always been good children, and I hope you always will be good.” Yes, I will be, for Mother’s eye watches over us. Hella thinks I look very poorly, and she asked me to-day whether perhaps . . . . ?? But I told her that I would not talk about such things any more, that it would be an offence to my Mother’s memory. She wanted to say something more, but I said: “No, Hella, I simply won’t talk about that any more. You can’t understand, because your mother is still alive.”

June 12th. It is awful; just when I did not want to think any more about such things, there comes an affair of that very sort! I’m in a frightful mess through no fault of my own. Just after 9 to-day a girl from the Second came in to our Mathematic lesson and said: “The head mistress wishes to see Lainer, Bruckner, and Franke in the office directly.” All the girls looked at us, but we did not know why. When we came into the office, the door of the head’s room was shut and Fraulein N. told us to wait. Then the head came out and called me in. Inside a lady was sitting, and she looked at me through a lorgnon. “Do you spend much time with Zerkwitz?” asked the head. “Yes, said I,” and I had a foreboding. “This lady is Zerkwitz’s mother, she complains that you talk about very improper things with her daughter; is it so?” “Hella and I never wanted to tell her anything; but she begged us to again and again, and besides we thought she really knew it anyhow and only pretended she didn’t.” “What did you think she knew, and what did you talk to her about?” broke in Anneliese’s mother. “Excuse me,” said the head, “I will examine the girls; so Bruckner was concerned in the matter too?” “Very seldom,” said I; “Yes, the chief offender is Lainer, the girl whose mother died recently.” Then I choked down my tears, and said: “We should never have said a word about these matters unless Anneliese had kept on at us.” After that I would not answer any more questions. Then Hella was called in. She told me afterwards that she knew what was up directly she saw my face. “What have you been talking about to Zerkwitz?” Hella would not say at first, but then she said in as few words as possible: “About getting babies, and about being married!” “Gracious goodness, such little brats, and to talk about such things,” said Anneliese’s mother. “Such corrupt minds.” “We did not believe that Anneliese did not really know, or we should never have told her anything,” said Hella just as I had; she was simply splendid. “As regards Alfred, we have nothing to do with that, and we have often advised her not to allow him to meet her coming home from school; but she would not listen to us.” “I am talking about your conversations with which you have corrupted the poor innocent child,” said Frau von Zerkwitz. “She certainly must have known something about it before, or she would not have gone with Alfred or wanted to talk about it with us,” said Hella. “Heavenly Father, that is worse still; such corruptness of mind!” Then we were sent out of the room. Outside, Hella cried frightfully, and so did I, for we were afraid there would be a row at home. We could not go back into the Mathematic lesson because we had been crying such a lot. In the interval Hella walked past Anneliese and said out loud: “Traitress!!” and spat at her. For that she was ordered out of the ranks. I stepped out of the ranks too, and when Frau Professor Kreindl said: “Not you, Lainer, you go on,” I said: “Excuse me, I spat at her too,” and went and stood beside Hella. All the girls looked at us. It was plain that Frau Prof. Kreindl knew all about it already for she did not say any more. In the German lesson from 11 to 12 Frau Doktor M. said: “Girls, why can’t you keep the peace together? This continual misconduct is really too bad, and serves only to make trouble for you and for your parents and for us.” Just before 12 Hella and I were summoned to the head’s room again. “Girls,” she said, “it’s a horrible business this. Even if your own imaginations have been prematurely poisoned, why should you try to corrupt others? As for you, Lainer, you ought to be especially ashamed of yourself that such complaints should be made of you when your mother has been buried only a few weeks.” “Excuse me,” said Hella, “all this happened in the spring, and even earlier, in the winter, for we were still skating at the time. Rita’s mother was pretty well then. Besides, Zerkwitz was continually pestering us to tell her. I often warned Rita, and said: ‘Don’t trust her,’ but she was quite infatuated with Zerkwitz. Please, Frau Direktorin, don’t say anything about it to Rita’s father, for he would be frightfully upset.”

Hella was simply splendid, I shall never forget. She does not want me to write that; we are writing together. Hella thinks we must write it all down word for word, for one never can tell what use it may be. No one ever had a friend like Hella, and she is so brave and clever. “You are just as clever,” she says, “but you get so easily overawed, and besides you are still quite nervous because of your mother’s death. I only hope your father won’t hear anything about it.” That stupid idiot dug up the old story about the two students on the ice, a thing that was over and done with ages ago. “You should never trust anyone,” says Hella, and she’s perfectly right. I never could have believed Anneliese would be such a sneak. We don’t know yet what was up with Franke. As she came in she put her finger to her lips, meaning of course “Betray nothing!”

June 15th. The school inspector came to-day. I was at the blackboard in the Maths lesson, when there was a knock at the door and the head came in with the Herr Insp. For a moment I thought he had come about that matter, and I went as white as a sheet (at least the girls say I did; Hella says I looked like Niobe mourning for her children). Thank goodness, the sum was an easy one, and besides I can always do sums; in Maths and French I am the best in the class. But the Herr Insp. saw that I had tears in my eyes and said something to the head; then the head said: “She has recently lost her mother.” Then the Herr Insp. praised me, and like a stupid idiot I must needs begin to howl. The head said: “It’s all right L., sit down,” and stroked my hair. She is so awfully sweet, and I do hope that she and Frau Doktor M. will say a word for me at the Staff Meeting. And I do hope that Father won’t hear anything of it, for of course he would reproach me dreadfully because it all comes so soon after Mother’s death. But really it all happened long before that. The way it all happened was that Hella’s mother went away to see Emmy, her married niece, who was having her first baby. And then it was that we told the “innocent child” (that’s what we call the deceitful cat) everything. Hella still thinks that the “innocent child” was a humbug. That is quite likely, for after all she is nearly fourteen; and at 14 one must surely know a great deal already; it’s impossible that at that age a girl can continue to believe in the stork story, as Anneliese is said!!! to have done. Hella thinks that I shall soon be “developed” too, because I always have such black rings under my eyes. I overheard Frau von Zerkwitz say, “Little brats;” but Hella says that the head hemmed loudly to drown it. Afterwards Hella was in fits of laughter over the expression “little brats” for her mother always says about such things; Little brats like you have no concern with such matters. Good Lord, when is one to learn all about it if one does not know when one is nearly 14! As a matter of fact both Hella and I learned these things very early, and it has not done us any harm. Hella’s mother always says that if one learns such things too early one gets to look old; but of course that’s nonsense. But why do mothers not want us to know? I suppose they’re just ashamed.

June 16th. Yesterday evening after we had gone to bed, Dora said: “What were you really talking about to Z., or whatever her name is? The head called me into the office to-day and told me that you had been talking of improper matters. She said I must watch over you in Mother’s place!” Well that would be a fine thing! Besides, it all happened when Mother was still alive. A mother never knows what children are talking of together. Dora thinks that I shall have a written Reprimand from the Staff Meeting. I should hate that because of Father; that would mean another fearful row; although Father is really awfully sweet now; I have not had a single rowing since Mother first got ill. It’s quite true that death makes people gentle, but why? Really one would have thought people would get disagreeable, because they’ve been so much distressed. Last week the tombstone was put up and we all went to see it. I should like to go alone to the cemetery once at least, for one does not like to weep before the others.

June 18th. The “innocent child” does not come to gym. any longer, at least she has not been since that affair. We think she’s afraid, although we should not say anything to her. We punish her with silent contempt, she’ll feel that more than anything. And thank goodness she does not come to play tennis. I do hate people who are deceitful, for one never knows where to have them. When a girl tells an outright cram, then I can at least say to her: Oh, clear out, don’t tell such a frightful whacker; I was not born yesterday. But one has no safeguard against deceitfulness. That’s why I don’t like cats. We have another name for the “innocent child,” we call her the “red cat.” I think she knows. Day after tomorrow is the school outing to Carnuntum. I am so excited. We have to be at the quay at half past 7.

June 21st. The outing was lovely. Hella was to come and fetch me. But she overslept herself, so her mother took a taxi; and luckily I had waited for her. I should like to be always driving in a taxi. Dora would not wait, and went away at a quarter to 7 by electric car. At a quarter to 8 Hella came in the taxi, and just before the ship weighed anchor (I believe one ought only to say that of a sailing ship at sea, but it does not matter, I’m not Marina who knows everything about the navy), that is just at the right moment, we arrived. They all stared at us when we came rushing up in the taxi. I tumbled down as I got out of the car, it was stupid; but I don’t think they all noticed it. Aunt Dora said that for this one day we had better put off our mourning, and Father said so too, so we wore our white embroidered frocks and Aunt Dora was awfully good and had made us black sashes; it looked frightfully smart, and they say that people wear mourning like that in America. I do love America, the land of liberty. Boys (that is young students) and girls go to school together there!! — — — But about the outing. In the boat we sat next Frau Doktor M., she was awfully nice; Hella was on the right and I was on the left, and we sat so close that she said: “Girls, you’re squashing me, or at least you’re crushing my dress!” She was wearing a white frock and had a coral necklace which suited her simply splendidly. When we were near Hainburg Hella’s hat fell into the Danube, and all the girls screamed because they thought a child had fallen overboard. But thank goodness it was only the hat. We went up the Schlossberg and had a lovely view, that is, I did not look at anything except Frau Doktor M. because she was so lovely; Professor Wilke was with us, and he went about with her all the time. The girls say he will probably marry her, perhaps in the holidays. Oh dear, that would be horrid. Hella thinks that is quite out of the question because of the German professor; at any rate it would be better for her to marry Professor W. than the other, because he is said to be a Jew. “Still, with regard to all the things that hang upon marriage, it’s the same with every man,” said I. “That’s just the chief point, you little goose,” said Hella. And Frau Doktor M. said: “Do you allow your chum to talk to you like that? What is the chief point?” I was just going to say: “We can’t tell you that,” when Hella interrupted me and said: “Just because I’m her chum I can talk to her like that; she would not let anyone else do it.” Then we went to dinner. Unfortunately we did not sit next “her.” We had veal cutlets and four pieces of chocolate cake, and as the Herr Religionsprof. went by he said: “How many weeks have you been fasting?” Before dinner we went to the museum to see the things they had dug up in the Roman camp. The head mistress and Fraulein V. explained everything. It was most instructive. In the afternoon we went to Deutsch-Altenburg. It was great fun at tea. Then we had games and all the staff joined in, the Fifth had got up a comedy by one of the girls. We were all in fits of laughter. Then suddenly there came along a whole troop of officers of the flying corps, frightfully smart, and one of them sat down at the piano and began to play dance music. Another came up to the head and begged her to allow the “young ladies” to dance. The head did not want to at first, but all the girls of the Fifth and Sixth begged her to, and the Herr Rel. Prof. said: “Oh, Frau Direktorin, let them have the innocent pleasure,” and so they really were allowed to dance. The rest of us either danced with one another or looked on. And then, when Hella and I were standing right in front, up came a splendid lieutenant and said: “May I venture to separate the two friends for a little dance?” “If you please,” said I, and sailed off with him. To dance with a lieutenant is glorious. Then the same lieutenant danced with Hella and in the evening on the way home she said that the lieutenant had really wanted to dance with her first, but I had been so prompt with my “If you please” and had placed my hand on his shoulder. Of course that’s not true, but it is not a thing one would quarrel about with one’s best friend, and anyhow he danced with both of us. Unfortunately we were not able to dance very long because we got so hot. Oh, and I had almost forgotten, a captain with a black moustache saluted Frau Doktor M., for they know one another. She blushed furiously; so he is probably the man she will marry, and not Herr Prof. Wilke and not the Jewish professor. He would please me a great deal better. They were all so awfully smart! Before we left a lieutenant brought in a huge bunch of roses, and the officers gave a rose to each member of the staff, the ladies I mean. Then something awfully funny happened. There is a girl in the Sixth who looks quite old, as if she might be 24, and “our” lieutenant offered her a rose too. And then she said: “No thank you, I am not one of the staff, I’m in the Sixth.” Everyone burst out laughing, and she was quite abashed because the lieutenant had taken her for one of the staff. And the Herr Rel. Prof. said to her: “Tschapperl, you might just as well have taken it.” But really she was quite right to refuse. I think there must have been 20 officers at least. Of course Hella told the lieutenant that she was a colonel’s daughter. I wonder if we shall ever see him again.

I am writing this four days after the outing. Dora told me yesterday that when I was dancing with the lieutenant the Herr Rel. Prof. said to the Frau Direktorin: “Do just look at that young Lainer; little rogue, see what eyes she’s making.” Making eyes, forsooth! I did not make eyes, besides, what does it mean anyhow to make eyes!! Of course I did not shut my eyes; if I had I should probably have fallen down, and then everyone would have laughed. And I don’t like being laughed at. I hardly saw Dora all through the outing, and she did not dance. She said very cuttingly: “Of course not, for after all we are in mourning, even if we did wear white dresses; you are only a child, for whom that sort of thing does not matter.” That sort of thing, as if I had done something dreadful! I don’t love Mother any the less, and I don’t forget her. Father was quite different; the day before yesterday evening he said: “So my little witch has made a conquest; you’re beginning early. But it’s no good taking up with an officer, little witch, they’re too expensive.” But I would like to have the lieutenant, I would go up with him in an aeroplane, up, up, till we both got quite giddy. In the religion lesson yesterday, when the Herr Prof. came in he laughed like anything and said: “Hullo, Lainer, is the world still spinning round you? The Herr Leutnant has not been able to sleep since.” So I suppose he knows him. Still, I’m quite sure that he has not lost his sleep on my account, though very likely he said so. If I only knew what his name is, perhaps Leo or Romeo; yes, Romeo, that would suit him admirably!

June 26th. When I was writing hard yesterday Aunt Alma came with Marina and that jackanapes Erwin who was really responsible for all the row that time. Since Mother died we have been meeting again. I don’t think Mother liked Aunt Alma much, nor she her. Just as Father and Aunt Dora are not particularly fond of one another. It is so in most families, the father does not care much for the mother’s brothers and sisters and vice versa. I wonder why? I wonder whether He has a fiancee, probably he has, and what she looks like. I wish I knew whether He likes brown hair or fair hair or black hair best. But about the visit! Of course Marina and I were very standoffish. She is so frightfully conceited because she goes to the Training College. As if that were something magnificent! The High School is much more important, for from the High School one goes on to the university, but not from the Training College; and they don’t learn English, nor French properly, for it is only optional. Aunt Alma knows that it annoys Father when anyone says we don’t look well, so she said: “Why, Dora looks quite overworked; thank goodness it’s nearly over, and she won’t get much out of it after all, it’s really better for a girl to become a teacher.” Erwin lounged in his chair and said to me: “Do you dare me to spit on the carpet?” “You are ill-bred enough to do it; I can’t think why Marina, the future schoolmistress, does not give you a good smacking,” said I. Then Aunt Alma chimed in: “What’s the matter children? What game are you playing?” “It’s not a game at all; Erwin wants to spit on the carpet and he seems to think that would be all right.” Then Aunt said something to him in Italian, and he pulled a long nose at me behind Father’s back, but I simply ignored it; little pig, and yet he’s my cousin! Kamillo is supposed to have been just as impudent as Bub. But we have never seen him, for he has been in Japan as an ensign for the last two years. Mourning does not suit Marina at all; there’s a provincial look about her and she can’t shake it off. Her clothes are too long and she has not got a trace of b—, although she was 17 last September; she is disgustingly thin.

June 27th. The Herr Insp. came to our class to-day, in French this time. Frau Doktor Dunker is always frightfully excited by his visits, and at the beginning of the lesson she said: “Girls, the Inspector is coming to-day; pull yourselves together; please don’t leave me in the lurch.” So it must be true what Oswald always says that the inspectors come to inspect the teachers and not the pupils. “At the inspection,” Oswald often says, “every pupil has the professor in his hands.” Being first, of course I was called upon, and I simply could not think what “trotteur” meant. I would not say “Trottel” [idiot], and so I said nothing at all. Then Anneliese turned round and whispered it to me, but of course I was not going to say it after her, but remained speechless as an owl. At length the Herr Inspektor said: “Translate the sentence right to the end, and then you’ll grasp its meaning.” But I can’t see the sense of that; for if I don’t know one of the words the sentence has no meaning, or at least not the meaning it ought to have. If Hella had not been absent to-day because of — —, she might have been able to whisper it to me. Afterwards Frau Doktor Dunker reproached me, saying that no one could ever trust anyone, and that I really did not deserve a One. “And the stupidest thing of all was that you laughed when you did not know a simple word like that.” Of course I could not tell her that my first thought had been to translate it “Trottel.” Unseen translation is really too difficult for us.

June 28th. The Staff Meeting is to-day. I’m on tenter hooks to know whether I shall have a Reprimand, or a bad conduct mark in my report. That would be awful. It does not matter so much to Hella, for her father has just gone away to manoeuvres in Hungary or in Bosnia, and by the time he is back the holidays will have begun and no one will be bothering about reports any more. So I shall know to-morrow. Oh bother, to-morrow is a holiday and next day is Sunday. So for another 2 1/2 days I shall have “to linger in suspense,” but a different sort of suspense from what Goethe wrote about.

June 30th. We were at home yesterday and this afternoon because of Dora’s matriculation. The Bruckners went to Breitenstein to visit an aunt, who is in a convalescent home, and so I could not go with them. In the evening we went to Turkenschanz Park to supper, but there was nothing on. By the way, I have not written anything yet about the “innocent child” at the outing. On the boat she began fussing round Hella and me and wanted to push into the conversation, indirectly of course! But she did not succeed; Hella is extraordinarily clever in such matters; she simply seemed to look through her Really I’m a little sorry for her, for she hasn’t any close friends beyond ourselves; but Hella said: “Haven’t you had enough of it yet? Do you want to be cooked once more with the same sauce?” And when Hella’s hat fell into the water and we were still looking after it in fits of laughter, all of a sudden we found Anneliese standing behind us offering Hella a fine lace shawl which she had brought with her for the evening because she so readily gets earache. “Wouldn’t you like to use this shawl, so that you won’t have to go back to Vienna without a hat?” “Please don’t trouble yourself, I’m quite used to going about bare-headed.” But the way she said it, like a queen! I must learn it from her. She is really shorter than I am, but at such moments she looks just like a grownup lady. I told her as much, and she rejoined: “Darling Rita, you can’t learn a thing like that; it’s inborn.” She rather annoyed me, for she always seems to think that an officer’s daughter is a thing apart.

July 1st. Thank goodness, everything has passed off without a public scandal. Frau Doktor M. spoke to me in the corridor, saying: “Lainer, you’ve had a narrow escape. If certain voices had not been raised on your behalf, I really don’t know — — —.” Then I said: “I’m quite certain, Frau Doktor, that you alone have saved me from a Bad Conduct Mark.” And I kissed her hand. “Get along, you little baggage, for the one part simply a child, and for the other with your head full of thoughts which grown-ups would do well to dispense with.”

After all, one can’t help one’s thoughts, and we shall be more careful in future as to the persons to whom we talk about that sort of thing. Here’s another thing I forgot to mention about the outing: When we got back into Vienna by rail, most of the parents came to meet us at the station; Father was there too, and so was the “innocent child’s” mother. Thank goodness Father did not know her. When we got out of the train there was a great scrimmage, because we were all trying to sort ourselves to our parents, and suddenly I heard Hella’s voice: “No, Madam, your child is not in our bad company.” I turned round sharply, and there was Hella standing in front of Frau von Zerkwitz who had just asked her: “Hullo, you, what has become of my little Anneliese?” The answer was splendid; I should never have been able to hit upon it; I always think of good repartees after the event. It was just the same that time when the old gentleman in the theatre asked Hella if she was alone there, and she snapped at him. He said: Impudent as a Jewess, or an impudent Jewess! It was too absurd, for first of all it’s not impudent to make a clever repartee, and secondly it does not follow because one can do it that one is a Jewess. So Hella finished up by saying to him: “No, you’ve made a mistake, you are not speaking to one of your own sort.”

We break up on the 6th; but because of Dora’s matriculation we are staying here until the 11th. Then we are going to Fieberbrunn in Tyrol, and this year we shall stay in a hotel, so I am awfully pleased. Hella had a splendid time there last year.

July 2nd. My goodness, to-day I have . . . ., no, I can’t write it plain out. In the middle of the Physics lesson, during revision, when I was not thinking of anything in particular, Fraulein N. came in with a paper to be signed. As we all stood up I thought to myself: Hullo, what’s that? And then it suddenly occurred to me: Aha!! In the interval Hella asked me why I had got so fiery red in the Physics lesson, if I’d had some sweets with me. I did not want to tell her the real reason directly, and so I said: “Oh no, I had nearly fallen asleep from boredom, and when Fraulein N. came in it gave me a start.” On the way home I was very silent, and I walked so slowly (for of course one must not walk fast when . . . ) that Hella said: “Look here, what’s up to-day, that you are so frightfully solemn? Have you fallen in love without my knowing it, or is it at long last . . . .?” Then I said “Or is it at long last!” And she said: “Ah, then now we’re equals once more,” and there in the middle of the street she gave me a kiss. Just at that moment two students went by and one of them said: “Give me one too.” And Hella said: “Yes, I’ll give you one on the cheek which will burn.” So they hurried away. We really had no use for them: to-day!! Hella wanted me to tell her everything about it; but really I hadn’t anything to tell, and yet she believed that I wouldn’t tell. It is really very unpleasant, and this evening I shall have to take frightful care because of Dora. But I must tell Aunt because I want a San— T—. It will be frightfully awkward. It was different in Hella’s case, first of all because she had such frightful cramps before it began so that her mother knew all about it without being told, and secondly because it was her mother. I certainly shan’t tell Dora whatever happens, for that would make me feel still more ashamed. As for a San— T—, I shall never be able to buy one for myself even if I live to be 80. And it would be awful for Father to know about it. I wonder whether men really do know; I suppose they must know about their wives, but at any rate they can’t know anything about their daughters.

July 3rd. Dora does know after all. For I switched off the light before I undressed, and then Dora snapped at me: “What on earth are you up to, switch it on again directly.” “No I won’t.” Then she came over and wanted to switch it on herself; “Oh do please wait until I’ve got into bed.” “O-o-h, is that it,” said Dora, “why didn’t you say so before? I’ve always hidden my things from you, and you haven’t got any yet.” And then we talked for quite a long time, and she told me that Mother had commissioned her to tell me everything when — — — Mother had told her all about it, but she said it was better for one girl to tell it to another, because that was least awkward. Mother knew too that in January Hella had . . . But how? I never let on! It was midnight before we switched off the light.

July 6th. Oh, I am so unhappy, when we went to get our reports to-day and said good-bye to Frau Doktor M., she was awfully sweet, and at the end she said: “I hope that you won’t give too much trouble to my successor.” At first we did not understand, for we thought she only meant that it is always uncertain whether the same member of the staff will keep the same class from year to year, but then she said: “I am leaving the school because I am going to be married.” It gave me such a pang, and I said: “Oh, is it true?” “Yes, Lainer, it’s quite true.” And all the girls thronged round her and wanted to kiss her hand. No one spoke for a moment, and then Hella said: “Frau Doktor, may I ask you something? But you mustn’t be angry!” “All right, ask away!” “Is it the captain we met in Carnuntum?” She was quite puzzled for a minute, and then she laughed like anything and said, “No, Bruckner, it is not he, for he has a wife already.” And Gilly, who is not so frightfully fond of her as Hella and I are, said: “Frau Doktor, please tell us whom you are going to marry.” “There’s no secret about it, I am going to marry a professor in Heidelberg.” That is why she has to leave the High School. It’s simply ruined my holidays. Hella has such lovely ideas. The girls would not leave Frau Doktor alone, and they all wanted to walk home with her. Then she said: “My darling girls, that’s impossible, for I am going to Purkersdorf to see my parents.” And then Hella had her splendid idea. The others said: “Please may we come with you as far as the metropolitan?” and at length she said they might. But Hella said, “Come along,” and we hurried off to the metropolitan before them and took tickets to Hutteldorf so that we should be able to get back in plenty of time, and there we were waiting on the platform when she came and when all the girls came with her as far as the entrance. Then we rushed up to her and got into the train which came in at that moment. Of course we had second class tickets, for Hella, being an officer’s daughter, mayn’t travel third, and Frau Doktor M. always travels second too. And we all three sat together on a seat for two, though it was frightfully hot. She was so nice to us; I begged her to give us her photograph and she promised to send us one. Then, alas, we got to Hutteldorf. “Now, girls, you must get out.” Then we both burst out crying, and she kissed us! Never shall I forget that blessed moment and that heavenly ride! As long as the train was still in sight we both waved our handkerchiefs to her and she waved back! When we wanted to give up our tickets Hella looked everywhere for her purse and could not find it; she must have left it in the ticket office. Luckily I still had all my July pocket money and so I was able to pay the excess fare, and then for once in a way I was the sharp-witted one; I said we had travelled third and had only passed out through the second, so we had not to pay so much; and no one knew anything about it, there’s no harm in that sort of cheating. Of course we really did go back third, although Hella said it would spoil the memory for her. That sort of thing does not matter to me. We did not get home until a quarter past 1, and Aunt Dora gave me a tremendous scolding. I said I had been arranging books in the library for Frau Doktor, but Dora had enquired at the High School at 12, and there had been no one there. We had already gone away then, I said, and had gone part of the way with Frau Doktor M., for she was leaving because of her marriage. Then Dora was quite astonished and said: “Ah, now I understand.” The other day when she had to go into the room while the staff meeting was on, the staff was talking about an engagement, and Fraulein Thim was saying: “Not everyone has the luck to get a university professor.” That must have been about her. Certainly Thim won’t get one, not even a school porter. To-day, (I’ve been writing this up for two days), I had such a delightful surprise; she sent me her photo, simply heavenly!! Father says the portrait is better looking than the reality. Nothing of the sort, she is perfectly beautiful, with her lovely eyes and her spiritual expression! Of course she has sent Hella a photo too. We are going to have pocket leather cases made for the photographs, so that we can take them with us wherever we go. But we shall have to wait until after the holidays because Hella has lost her money, and nearly all mine was used up in paying the excess fares. And such a leather case will cost 3 crowns. Father has some untearable transparent envelopes, and I shall ask him for two of them. They will do as a makeshift.

Dora’s matriculation is to-morrow, she’s quite nervous about it although she is very well up in all the subjects. But she says it’s so easy to make mistakes. But Father is quite unconcerned, though last year he was very much bothered about Oswald, and poor dear Mother was frightfully anxious: “Pooh,” said Oswald, “I shall soon show them that there’s no need to bother; all one wants at the metric is cheek, that’s the whole secret!” And then all he telegraphed was “durch” [through] and poor Mother was still very anxious, and thought that it might mean durchgefallen [failed]. But of course it really meant durchgekommen [passed], for meanwhile the second telegram had come. And father had brought two bottles of champagne to Rodaun, ready to celebrate Oswald’s return. There won’t be anything of the sort after Dora’s matriculation because Mother is not with us any more; oh it does make me so miserable when I think that 2 1/2 months ago she was still alive, and now — — —.

July 9th. This morning, while Dora was having her exam (she passed with Distinction), I went to the cemetery quite alone. I told Aunt Dora I was going shopping with Hella and her mother, and I told Hella I was going with Aunt, and so I took the tram to Potzleinsdorf and then walked to the cemetery. People always ought to go to the cemetery alone. There was no one in the place but me. I did not dare to stay long, for I was afraid I should be home late. It’s a frightfully long way to Potzleinsdorf, and it always seems so much further when one is alone. And when I came away from the cemetery I took a wrong turning and found myself in a quite deserted street near the Turkenschanze. That sort of thing is very awkward, and for a long time there was simply no one of whom I could ask the way. Then by good luck an old lady came along, and she told me I had only to take the next turning to get back to the tram line. And just as I did get there a Potzleinsdorf car came along, so I got in and reached home long before Dora. But in the afternoon Hella nearly gave me away, quite unintentionally. But since they were all talking about the matriculation I was able to smooth it over. Now that Dora has finished her matriculation she will have to tell me a great deal more about certain things; she promised she would. Before the matriculation she was always so tired because of the frightful grind, but that is over now, and I never do any work in the holidays. What are holidays for? Frau Doktor Dunker has really given me only a Satisfactory, it’s awfully mean of her; and I shall have to learn from her for three years more! Nothing will induce me to bother myself about French now, for she has a down on me, and when one’s teacher has a down on one, one can work as hard as one likes and it’s no good. It was so different with Frau Doktor M.!! I have just been looking at her photo so long that my eyes are positively burning; but I had to write up about to-day: even when one had been stupid once or twice, she never cast it up against one, never, never, never — — the sweet angel!

July 10th. We are going to F. to-morrow; I am so glad. It is frightfully dull to-day, for Hella went away yesterday to Berchtesgaden where she is to stay for 6 weeks, and on the way back she is going to Salzburg and perhaps Aunt Dora will take me to Salzburg for 2 days so that we can see one another again before Hella goes to Hungary. She is lucky! I can’t go to K— M— this year, for we are going to stay in F. till the middle of September. I got my name day presents to-day because they are things for the journey: a black travelling satchel with a black leather belt, and half a dozen mourning handkerchiefs with a narrow black border, and an outfit for pokerwork, and a huge bag of sweets for the journey from Hella. The world is a wretched place without Hella. I do hope we shall marry on the same day, for Mother always used to say: “The most ardent girl friendships are always broken up when one of the two marries.” I suppose because the other one is annoyed because she has not married. I wonder what it will be like at Frau Doktor M.‘s wedding! and I wonder whether she knows about everything; very likely not, but if not I suppose her mother will tell her all about it before she is married. Dora told me yesterday that Mother had once said to her: “A girl always gets all sorts of false ideas into her head; the reality is quite different.” But that is not so in our case, for we really know everything quite precisely, even to the fact that you have to take off every stitch; oh dear, I shall never forget it!—Oswald is coming to F. on the 20th, for first he is going to Munich for a few days.

July 12th. It’s lovely here; mountains and mountains all round, and we’re going to climb them all; oh, how I am enjoying myself! I simply can’t keep a diary; it will have to be a weekary. For I must write to Hella at least every other day. We are staying in the Edelweiss boarding house; there are about 40 visitors, at least that’s what we counted at dinner. There is a visitors’ list hanging up in the hall, and I must study it thoroughly. The journey was rather dull, for Dora had a frightful headache so we could not talk all through the night. I stood in the corridor half the night. At one place in Salzburg there was a frightful fire; no one was putting it out, so I suppose no one knew anything about it. The boarding house is beautifully furnished, carpets everywhere; there are several groups of statuary in the hall. We are awfully pleased with everything. There are 4 courses at dinner and two at supper. Flowers on every table. Father says we must wait and see whether they change them often enough. Father has a new tweed suit which becomes him splendidly for he is so tall and aristocratic looking. We have coats and skirts made of thin black cotton material and black lace blouses, and we also have white coats and skirts and white blouses, and light grey tweed dresses as well. For Father is really quite right: “Mourning is in your heart, not in your dress.” Still, for the present, we shall wear black, but we have the white things in case it gets frightfully hot. To-day, on a cliff quite near the house, we picked a great nosegay of Alpine roses. Dora has brought Mother’s photo with her and has put the flowers in front of it; unluckily I forgot to bring mine. I should like to go to the top of the Wildeck or one of the other mountains. It would be lovely to pick Edelweiss for oneself. But Father says that mountaineering is not suited to our ages. The baths here always seem very cold, only about 54 or 60 degrees at most. Dr. Klein said we should only bathe when the water is quite warm. But apparently that won’t be often. We have not made any acquaintances yet, but I like the look of the two girls wearing Bosnian blouses at the second table from ours. Perhaps we shall get to know them. One plan has come to nothing. I wanted to talk to Dora in the evenings about all sorts of important things, but it is impossible because Aunt Dora shares our room. Here’s another tiresome thing; Father’s room has a lovely veranda looking on to the promenade, while our room only looks into the garden. Of course the view is lovely, but I should have liked Father’s room much better, only it is a great deal too small for three persons; there is only one bed and its furniture is of a very ancient order. I do hate that sort of furniture; the lady who keeps the boarding house calls it Empire!! I don’t suppose she can ever have seen a room furnished in real Empire style.

July 15th. When Dora and I were out for a walk yesterday she told me a great deal about Aunt Dora. I never really knew before whether Uncle Richard was employed in the asylum or whether he was a patient there; but he is a patient. He has spinal disease and is quite off his head and often has attacks of raving madness. Once before he was sent to the asylum he tried to throttle Aunt Dora, and in another respect he did her a frightful lot of harm!!! I don’t quite understand how, for Aunt Dora has never had any children. And why on earth do they make such a secret about Uncle Richard? But when I come to think of it, no one ever wanted to talk about Mother’s illness. There’s no sense in this secrecy, for in the first place that always makes one think about things, and secondly one always finds out in the long run. At last Aunt Dora was so terribly afraid of Uncle that she always kept the door of her bedroom locked. It must be awful to have a husband who is a raging maniac. Father once said to Dora: your Aunt Dora is enough to drive one mad with her whims and fancies. Of course he didn’t mean that literally, but I must watch carefully to find out what Aunt really does to annoy anyone so much. Most likely it is something connected with this matter. To my mind Aunt Alma has many more whims and fancies, and yet Uncle Franz has never gone raving mad. Dora says that Uncle Richard may go on living for another 20 years, and that she is frightfully sorry for Aunt Dora because she is tied to such a monster. Why tied? After all, he is in an asylum and can’t do her any harm. Dora didn’t know about all this before, Aunt only told her after Mother’s death. Dora thinks it is better not to marry at all, unless one is madly in love with a man. And then only by a marriage contract!! In that case that would be excluded. But I always imagined a marriage contract was made because of a dowry and money affairs generally; and never thought of its having such a purpose. Frau Mayer, whom we met in the summer holidays two years ago, had married under such conditions. But it puzzles me, for if that is what men chiefly want when they marry, I don’t see how any man can be satisfied with a marriage contract. There must be a mistake somewhere. Perhaps it is different among the Jews, for the Mayers were Jews.

July 21st. No, I never should have thought that Hella would prove to have been right in that matter. I got a letter 8 pages long from Anneliese to-day. That time when Hella had to stay at home for five days she believed that Anneliese would make fresh advances. But obviously she was afraid. So now she has written to me: My own dear Rita! You are the only friend of my life; wherever I go, all the girls and everybody likes me, and only you have turned away from me in anger. What harm did I do you — — —? After all, she did do me some harm; for there might have been a fine row if it had not been for Frau Doktor M., that angel in human form! She writes she is so lonely and so unhappy; she is with her mother at the Gratsch Hydropathic near Meran or Bozen, I forget which, I must look it up if I answer her. For I gave my word of honour to Hella that I would never forgive the “innocent child.” But after all, to write an answer is mere ordinary politeness, and is far from meaning a reconciliation, and still less a friendship. She says that there are absolutely no girls in Gratsch, only grown-up ladies and old gentlemen, the youngest is 32! brr, I know I should find it deplorably dull myself. So I really will write to her, but I shall be exceedingly reserved. She finishes up with: Listen to the prayer of an unhappy girl and do not harden your heart against one who has always loved you truly. That is really very fine, and Anneliese always wrote the best compositions; Frau Doktor M. used often to praise them and to speak of her excellent style, but later she really did not like her at all. She often told her she ought not to be so affected, or she would lose the power of expression from sheer affectation. I shall not write to her immediately, but only after a few days, and, as I said, with great reserve.

July 23rd. I got to know the two girls to-day, their names are Olga and Nelly, one is 15 and the other 13; I don’t know their surname yet, but only that they have a leather goods business in Mariahilferstr. Their mother’s hair is quite grey already, their father is not coming until August 8th. We have arranged to go for a walk at 4 o’clock this afternoon, to Brennfelden.

July 26th. I have made up my mind to write every day before dinner, for after dinner we all go with our hammocks into the wood. After all I wrote to Anneliese three days ago, without waiting, so as not to keep her on tenterhooks. I have not written anything to Hella about it because I don’t know how Anneliese will answer. Hella says she is having a royal time in Innichen; but the tiresome thing does not say just what she means by royal; she wrote only a bare 3 sides including the signature so of course I did not write to her as much as usual.

July 27th. Dora is not very much taken with the Weiners; she thinks they are frightfully stuck up. She says it’s not the proper thing to wear gold bracelets and chains in the country, above all with peasant costume. Of course she is right, but still I like the two girls very much, and especially Olga, the younger one; Nelly puts on such airs; they go to a high school too, the Hietzinger High School; but Olga has only just got into the Second while Nelly is in the Fifth. Dora says they will never set the Danube on fire. No matter, leave it to others to do that. We enjoyed ourselves immensely on our walk. I’m going to spend the whole day with them to-day. Father says: “Don’t see too much of them; you’ll only get tired of them too soon.” I don’t believe that will happen with the Weiners.

July 29th. It’s my birthday to-morrow. I wonder what my presents will be. I’ve already had one of them before we left Vienna, 3 pairs of openwork stockings, Aunt Dora gave them to me, exquisitely fine, and my feet look so elegant in them. But I must take frightful care of them and not wear them too often. Aunt says: “Perhaps now you will learn to give up pulling at your stockings when you are doing your lessons.” As if I would do any lessons in the holidays.