"I not only take the greatest interest in you, charming young lady, and in your country, but I have an orderly mind and would be really pleased to see those corners straightened out. Use your influence, which I am sure must be great, with that shortsighted body of gentlemen, your County Council."
"I shall not fail," I said, more politely than ever, "to inform them of your wishes."
"Ah, but she is delightful,delightful, your little Englanderin ," he said gaily to Frau Bornsted, who listened to his badinage with grave and respectful indulgence; and he said a lot more things about England and its products and exports, meaning compliments to mewhat can he be like after dinner?and went off, jovial to the last, clicking his heels and kissing first Frau Bornsted's hand and then mine, in spite, as he explained, of its being against the rules to kiss the hand of a junges Madchen , but his way was never to take any notice of rules, he said, if they got between him and a charming young lady. And so he went off, waving his green hat to us and calling out Auf Wiedersehen till the forest engulfed him.
Herr von Inster and the Graf went too, but quietly. The Graf went exceedingly quietly. He hadn't said a word to anybody, as far as I could see, and no rallyings on the part of the Colonel could make him. He didn't even react to being told what I gather is the German equivalent for a sly dog.
Herr von Inster said, when he could get a word in, that he is coming over to-morrow to drive me about the forest. His attitude while his Colonel rattled on was very interesting: his punctilious attention, his apparent obligation to smile when there were sallies demanding that form of appreciation, his carefulness not to miss any indication of a wish.
"Why do you do it?" I asked, when the Colonel was engaged for a moment with the Oberforster indoors. "Isn't your military service enough? Are you drilled even to your smiles?"
"To everything," he said. "Including our enthusiasms. We're like the claque at a theatre."
Then he turned and looked at me with those kind, surprising eyes of his,they're so reassuring, somehow, after his stern profileand said, "To-morrow I shall be a human being again, and forget all this,forget everything except the beautiful things of life."
Now I must leave off, because I want to iron out my white linen skirt and muslin blouse for to-morrow, as it's sure to be hot and I may as well look as clean as I can, so good-bye darling little mother. Oh, I forgot to say how glad I am you like being at Glion. I did mean to answer a great many things in your last letter, my little loved one, but I will tomorrow. It isn't that I don't read and reread your darling letters, it's that one has such heaps to say oneself to you. Each time I write to you I seem to empty the whole contents of the days I've lived since I last wrote into your lap. But to-morrow I'll answer all your questions,to-morrow evening, after my day with Herr von Inster, then I can tell you all about it.
Good-bye till then, sweet mother.
Your Chris.
Koseritz, Saturday evening, July 18, 1914
little mother,
See where I've got to! Who'd have thought it? Life is really very exciting, isn't it. The Grafin drove over to Schuppenfelde this afternoon, and took me away with her here. She said Kloster was coming for Sunday from Heringsdorf to them, and she knew he would want to see me and would go off to the Oberforsterei after me and leave her by herself if I were at the Bornsteds', and anyhow she wanted to see something of me before I went back to Berlin, and I couldn't refuse to give an old ladyshe isn't a bit oldpleasure, and heaps of gracious things like that. Herr von Inster had brought a note from her in the morning, preparing my mind, and added his persuasions to hers. Not that I wanted persuading,I thought it a heavenly idea, and didn't even mind Helena, because I felt that in a big house there'd be more room for her to stare at me in. And Herr von Inster is going to stay another week, taking his summer leave now instead of later, and he says he will see me safe to Berlin when I go next Saturday.
So we had the happiest morning wandering about the forest, he driving and letting the horses go as slowly as they liked while we talked, and after our sandwiches he took me back to the Bornsteds, and I showed Frau Bornsted the Grafin's letter.
If it hadn't been a Koseritz taking me away she would have been dreadfully offended at my wanting to go when only half my fortnight was over, but it was like a royal command to her, and she looked at me with greatly increased interest as the object of these high attentions. She had been inclined to warn me against Herr von Inster as a person removed by birth from my sphereI suppose that's because I play the violinand also against drives in forests generally if the parties were both unmarried; and she had been extraordinarily dignified when I laughed, and had told me it was all very well for me to laugh, being only an ignorant junges Madchen , but she doubted whether my mother would laugh; and she watched our departure for our picnic very stiffly and unsmilingly from the porch. But after reading the Grafin's letter I was treated more nearly as an equal, and she became all interest and co-operation. She helped me pack, while Herr von Inster, who has a great gift for quiet patience, waited downstairs; and she told me how fortunate I was to be going to spend some days with Komtesse Helena, from whom I could learn, she said, what the real perfect junges Madchen was like; and by the time the Grafin herself drove up in her little carriage with the pretty white ponies, she was so much melted and stirred by a house-guest of hers being singled out for such an honour that she put her arm round my neck when I said good-bye, and whispered that though it wasn't really fit for a junges Madchen to hear, she must tell me, as she probably wouldn't see me again, that she hoped shortly after Christmas to enrich the world by yet one more German.