"' _Lutzowstrasse 49, Berlin,\n Thursday, May 28th, 1914_.\n\nMy blessed little mother,\n\nHere I am safe, and before I unpack or do a thing I\'m writing you a\nlittle line of love. I sent a telegram at the station, so that you\'ll\nknow at once that nobody has eaten me on the way, as you seemed rather\nto fear. It is wonderful to be here, quite on my own, as if I were a\nyoung man starting his career. I feel quite solemn, it\'s such a great\nnew adventure, Kloster can\'t see me till Saturday, but the moment I\'ve\nhad a bath and tidied up I shall get out my fiddle and see if I\'ve\nforgotten how to play it between London and Berlin. If only I can be\nsure you aren\'t going to be too lonely! Beloved mother, it will only\nbe a year, or even less if I work fearfully hard and really get on, and\nonce it is over a year is nothing. Oh, I know you\'ll write and tell me\nyou don\'t mind a bit and rather like it, but you see your Chris hasn\'t\nlived with you all her life for nothing; she knows you very well\nnow,--at least, as much of your dear sacred self that you will show\nher. Of course I know you\'re going to be brave and all that, but one\ncan be very unhappy while one is being brave, and besides, one isn\'t\nbrave unless one is suffering. The worst of it is that we\'re so poor,\nor you could have come with me and we\'d have taken a house and set up\nhousekeeping together for my year of study. Well, we won\'t be poor for\never, little mother. I\'m going to be your son, and husband, and\neverything else that loves and is devoted, and I\'m going to earn both\nour livings for us, and take care of you forever. You\'ve taken care of\nme till now, and now it\'s my turn. You don\'t suppose I\'m a great\nhulking person of twenty two, and five foot ten high, and with this\nlucky facility in fiddling, for nothing? It\'s a good thing it is\nsummer now, or soon will be, and you can work away in your garden, for\nI know that is where you are happiest; and by the time it\'s winter\nyou\'ll be used to my not being there, and besides there\'ll be the\nspring to look forward to, and in the spring I come home, finished.\nThen I\'ll start playing and making money, and we\'ll have the little\nhouse we\'ve dreamed of in London, as well as our cottage, and we\'ll be\nhappy ever after. And after all, it is really a beautiful arrangement\nthat we only have each other in the world, because so we each get the\nother\'s concentrated love. Else it would be spread out thin over a\ndozen husbands and brothers and people. But for all that I do wish\ndear Dad were still alive and with you.\n\nThis pension is the top fiat of a four-storied house, and there isn\'t a\nlift, so I arrived breathless, besides being greatly battered and all\ncrooked after my night sitting up in the train; and Frau Berg came and\nopened the door herself when I rang, and when she saw me she threw up\ntwo immense hands and exclaimed, \"_Herr Gott_!\"\n\n\"_Nicht wahr_?\" I said, agreeing with her, for I knew I must be looking\ntoo awful.\n\nShe then said, while I stood holding on to my violin-case and umbrella\nand coat and a paper bag of ginger biscuits I had been solacing myself\nwith in the watches of the night, that she hadn\'t known when exactly to\nexpect me, so she had decided not to expect me at all, for she had\nobserved that the things you do not expect come to you, and the things\nyou do expect do not; besides, she was a busy woman, and busy women\nwaste no time expecting anything in any case; and then she said, \"Come\nin.\"\n\n\"_Seien Sie willkommen, mein Fraulein_,\" she continued, with a sort of\nstern cordiality, when I was over the threshold, holding out both her\nhands in massive greeting; and as both mine were full she caught hold\nof what she could, and it was the bag of biscuits, and it burst.\n\n\"_Herr Gott_!\" cried Frau Berg again, as they rattled away over the\nwooden floor of the passage, \"_Herr Gott, die schonen Kakes_!\" And she\nstarted after them; so I put down my things on a chair and started\nafter them too, and would you believe it the biscuits came out of the\ncorners positively cleaner than when they went in. The floor cleaned\nthe biscuits instead of, as would have happened in London, the biscuits\ncleaning the floor, so you can be quite happy about its being a clean\nplace.\n\nIt is a good thing I learned German in my youth, for even if it is so\nrusty at present that I can only say things like _Nicht wahr_, I can\nunderstand everything, and I\'m sure I\'ll get along very nicely for at\nleast a week on the few words that somehow have stuck in my memory.\nI\'ve discovered they are:\n\n _Nicht wahr,\n Wundervoll,\n Naturlich,\n Herrlich,\n Ich gratuliere,\n and\n Doch_.\n\nAnd the only one with the faintest approach to contentiousness, or\nacidity, or any of the qualities that don\'t endear the stranger to the\nindigenous, is _doch_.\n\nMy bedroom looks very clean, and is roomy and comfortable, and I shall\nbe able to work very happily in it, I\'m sure. I can\'t tell you how\nmuch excited I am at getting here and going to study under the great\nKloster! You darling one, you beloved mother, stinting yourself,\nscraping your own life bare, so as to give me this chance. _Won\'t_ I\nwork. And _work_. _And_ work. And in a year--no, we won\'t call it a\nyear, we\'ll say in a few months--I shall come back to you for good,\ncarrying my sheaves with me. Oh, I hope there will be sheaves,--big\nones, beautiful ones, to lay at your blessed feet! Now I\'ll run down\nand post this. I saw a letter-box a few yards down the street. And\nthen I\'ll have a bath and go to bed for a few hours, I think. It is\nstill only nine o\'clock in the morning, so I have hours and hours of\ntoday before me, and can practise this afternoon and write to you again\nthis evening. So good-bye for a few hours, my precious mother.\n\n Your happy Chris.\n\n\n\n _May 28th. Evening_.\n\nIt\'s very funny here, but quite comfortable. You needn\'t give a\nthought to my comforts, mother darling. There\'s a lot to eat, and if\nI\'m not in clover I\'m certainly in feathers,--you should see the\nimmense sackful of them in a dark red sateen bag on my bed! As you\nhave been in Germany trying to get poor Dad well in all those\n_Kurorten_, you\'ll understand how queer my bedroom looks, like a very\nsolemn and gloomy drawingroom into which it has suddenly occurred to\nsomebody to put a bed. It is a tall room: tall of ceiling, which is\npainted at the corners with blue clouds and pink cherubim--unmistakable\nGermans--and tall of door, of which there are three, and tall of\nwindow, of which there are two. The windows have long dark curtains of\nrep or something woolly, and long coffee-coloured lace curtains as\nwell; and there\'s a big green majolica stove in one corner; and there\'s\na dark brown wall-paper with gilt flowers on it; and an elaborate\nchandelier hanging from a coloured plaster rosette in the middle of the\nceiling, all twisty and gilt, but it doesn\'t light,--Wanda, the maid of\nall work, brings me a petroleum lamp with a green glass shade to it\nwhen it gets dusk. I\'ve got a very short bed with a dark red sateen\nquilt on to which my sheet is buttoned a11 round, a pillow propped up\nso high on a wedge stuck under the mattress that I shall sleep sitting\nup almost straight, and then as a crowning glory the sack of feathers,\nwhich will do beautifully for holding me down when I\'m having a\nnightmare. In a corner, with an even greater air of being an\nafterthought than the bed, there\'s a very tiny washstand, and pinned on\nthe wall behind it over the part of the wallpaper I might splash on\nSunday mornings when I\'m supposed really to wash, is a strip of grey\nlinen with a motto worked on it in blue wool:\n\n Eigener Heerd\n Ist Goldes Werth\n\nwhich is a rhyme if you take it in the proper spirit, and isn\'t if you\ndon\'t. But I love the sentiment, don\'t you? It seems peculiarly sound\nwhen one is in a room like this in a strange country. And what I\'m\nhere for and am going to work for _is_ an _eigener Heerd_, with you and\nme one each side of it warming our happy toes on our very own fender.\nOh, won\'t it be too lovely, mother darling, to be together again in our\nvery own home! Able to shut ourselves in, shut our front door in the\nface of the world, and just say to the world, \"There now.\"\n\nThere\'s a little looking-glass on a nail up above the _eigener Heerd_\nmotto, so high that if it hadn\'t found its match in me I\'d only be able\nto see my eyebrows in it. As it is, I do see as far as my chin. What\ngoes on below that I shall never know while I continue to dwell in the\nLutzowstrasse. Outside, a very long way down, for the house has high\nrooms right through and I\'m at the top, trams pass almost constantly\nalong the street, clanging their bells. They sound much more\naggressive than other trams I have heard, or else it is because my ears\nare tired tonight. There are double windows, though, which will shut\nout the noise while I\'m practising--and also shut it in. I mean to\npractise eight hours every day if Kloster will let me,--twelve if needs\nbe, so I\'ve made up my mind only to write to you on Sundays; for if I\ndon\'t make a stern rule like that I shall be writing to you every day,\nand then what would happen to the eight hours? I\'m going to start them\ntomorrow, and try and get as ready as I can for the great man on\nSaturday. I\'m fearfully nervous and afraid, for so much depends on it,\nand in spite of knowing that somehow from somewhere I\'ve got a kind of\ngift for fiddling. Heaven knows where that little bit of luck came\nfrom, seeing that up to now, though you\'re such a perfect listener, you\nhaven\'t developed any particular talent for playing anything, have you\nmother darling; and poor Dad positively preferred to be in a room where\nmusic wasn\'t. Do you remember how he used to say he couldn\'t think\nwhich end of a violin the noises came out of, and whichever it was he\nwished they wouldn\'t? But what a mercy, what a real mercy and solution\nof our difficulties, that I\'ve got this one thing that perhaps I shall\nbe able to do really well, I do thank God on my knees for this.\n\nThere are four other boarders here,--three Germans and one Swede, and\nthe Swede and two of the Germans are women; and five outside people\ncome in for the midday dinner every day, all Germans, and four of them\nare men. They have what they call _Abonnementskarten_ for their\ndinners, so much a month. Frau Berg keeps an Open Midday Table--it is\nwritten up on a board on the street railing--and charges 1 mark 25\npfennigs a dinner if a month\'s worth of them is taken, and 1 mark 50\npfennigs if they\'re taken singly. So everybody takes the month\'s\nworth, and it is going to be rather fun, I think. Today I was solemnly\npresented to the diners, first collectively by Frau Berg as _Unser\njunge englische Gast_, Mees--no, I can\'t write what she made of\nCholmondeley, but some day I\'ll pronounce it for you; and really it is\nhard on her that her one English guest, who might so easily have been\nEvans, or Dobbs, or something easy, should have a name that looks a\nyard long and sounds an inch short--and then each of them to me singly\nby name. They all made the most beautiful stiff bows. Some of them\nare students, I gathered; some, I imagine, are staying here because\nthey have no homes,--wash-ups on the shores of life; some are clerks\nwho come in for dinner from their offices near by; and one, the oldest\nof the men and the most deferred to, is a lawyer called Doctor\nsomething. I suppose my being a stranger made them silent, for they\nwere all very silent and stiff, but they\'ll get used to me quite soon I\nexpect, for didn\'t you once rebuke me because everybody gets used to me\nmuch too soon? Being the newest arrival I sat right at the end of the\ntable in the darkness near the door, and looking along it towards the\nlight it was really impressive, the concentration, the earnestness, the\nthoroughness, the skill, with which the two rows of guests dealt with\nthings like gravy on their plates,--elusive, mobile things that are not\ncaught without a struggle. Why, if I can manage to apply myself to\nfiddling with half that skill and patience I shall be back home again\nin six months!\n\nI\'m so sleepy, I must leave off and go to bed. I did sleep this\nmorning, but only for an hour or two; I was too much excited, I think,\nat having really got here to be able to sleep. Now my eyes are\nshutting, but I do hate leaving off, for I\'m not going to write again\ntill Sunday, and that is two whole days further ahead, and you know my\nprecious mother it\'s the only time I shall feel near you, when I\'m\ntalking to you in letters. But I simply can\'t keep my eyes open any\nlonger, so goodnight and good-bye my own blessed one, till Sunday. All\nmy heart\'s love to you.\n\n Your Chris.\n\nWe have supper at eight, and tonight it was cold herrings and fried\npotatoes and tea. Do you think after a supper like that I shall be\nable to dream of anybody like you?\n\n\n\n _Sunday, May 31st, 1914.\n\nPrecious mother,\n\nI\'ve been dying to write you at least six times a day since I posted my\nletter to you the day before yesterday, but rules are rules, aren\'t\nthey, especially if one makes them oneself, because then the poor\nlittle things are so very helpless, and have to be protected. I\ncouldn\'t have looked myself in the face if I\'d started off by breaking\nmy own rule, but I\'ve been thinking of you and loving you all the\ntime--oh, so much!\n\nWell, I\'m _very_ happy. I\'ll say that first, so as to relieve your\ndarling mind. I\'ve seen Kloster, and played to him, and he was\nfearfully kind and encouraging. He said very much what Ysaye said in\nLondon, and Joachim when I was little and played my first piece to him\nstanding on the dining-room table in Eccleston Square and staring\nfascinated, while I played, at the hairs of his beard, because I\'d\nnever been as close as that to a beard before. So I\'ve been walking on\nclouds with my chin well in the air, as who wouldn\'t? Kloster is a\nlittle round, red, bald man, the baldest man I\'ve ever seen; quite\nbald, with hardly any eyebrows, and clean-shaven as well. He\'s the\nfunniest little thing till you join him to a violin, and then--! A\nyear with him ought to do wonders for me. He says so too; and when I\nhad finished playing--it was the G minor Bach--you know,--the one with\nthe fugue beginning:\n\n[Transcriber\'s note: A Lilypond rendition of the music fragment can be\nfound at the end of this e-text.]\n\nhe solemnly shook hands with me and said--what do you think he\nsaid?--\"My Fraulein, when you came in I thought, \'Behold yet one more\nwell-washed, nice-looking, foolish, rich, nothing-at-all English Mees,\nwho is going to waste my time and her money with lessons.\' I now\nperceive that I have to do with an artist. My Fraulein _ich\ngratuliere_.\" And he made me the funniest little solemn bow. I\nthought I\'d die of pride.\n\nI don\'t know why he thought me rich, seeing how ancient all my clothes\nare, and especially my blue jersey, which is what I put on because I\ncan play so comfortably in it; except that, as I\'ve already noticed,\npeople here seem persuaded that everybody English is rich,--anyhow that\nthey have more money than is good for them. So I told him of our\nregrettable financial situation, and said if he didn\'t mind looking at\nmy jersey it would convey to him without further words how very\nnecessary it is that I should make some money. And I told him I had a\nmother in just such another jersey, only it is a black one, and\ntherefore somebody had to give her a new one before next winter, and\nthere wasn\'t anybody to do it except me.\n\nHe made me another little bow--(he talks English, so I could say a lot\nof things)--and he said, \"My Fraulein, you need be in no anxiety. Your\nFrau Mamma will have her jersey. Those fingers of yours are full of\nthat which turns instantly into gold.\"\n\nSo now. What do you think of that, my precious one? He says I\'ve got\nto turn to and work like a slave, practise with a _sozusagen\nverteufelte Unermudlichkeit_, as he put it, and if I rightly develop\nwhat he calls my unusual gift,--(I\'m telling you exactly, and you know\ndarling mother it isn\'t silly vainness makes me repeat these\nthings,--I\'m past being vain; I\'m just bewildered with gratitude that I\nshould happen to be able to fiddle)--at the end of a year, he declares,\nI shall be playing all over Europe and earning enough to make both you\nand me never have to think of money again. Which will be a very\nblessed state to get to.\n\nYou can picture the frame of mind in which I walked down his stairs and\nalong the Potsdamerstrasse home. I felt I could defy everybody now.\nPerhaps that remark will seem odd to you, but having given you such\nglorious news and told you how happy I am, I\'ll not conceal from you\nthat I\'ve been feeling a little forlorn at Frau Berg\'s. Lonely. Left\nout. Darkly suspecting that they don\'t like me.\n\nYou see, Kloster hadn\'t been able to have me go to him till yesterday,\nwhich was Saturday, and not then till the afternoon, so that I had had\nall Friday and most of Saturday to be at a loose end in, except for\npractising, and though I had got here prepared to find everybody very\ncharming and kind it was somehow gradually conveyed to me, though for\nages I thought it must be imagination, that Frau Berg and the other\nboarders and the _Mittagsgaste_ dislike me. Well, I would have\naccepted it with a depressed resignation as the natural result of being\nunlikeable, and have tried by being pleasanter and pleasanter--wouldn\'t\nit have been a dreadful sight to see me screwing myself up more and\nmore tightly to an awful pleasantness--to induce them to like me, but\nthe people in the streets don\'t seem to like me either. They\'re not\nfriendly. In fact they\'re rude. And the people in the streets can\'t\nreally personally dislike me, because they don\'t know me, so I can\'t\nimagine why they\'re so horrid.\n\nOf course one\'s ideal when one is in the streets is to be invisible,\nnot to be noticed at all. That\'s the best thing. And the next best is\nto be behaved to kindly, with the patient politeness of the London\npolicemen, or indeed of anybody one asks one\'s way of in England or\nItaly or France. The Berlin man as he passes mutters the word\n_Englanderin_ as though it were a curse, or says into one\'s ear--they\nseem fond of saying or rather hissing this, and seem to think it both\ncrushing and funny,--\"_Ros bif_,\" and the women stare at one all over\nand also say to each other _Englanderin_.\n\nYou never told me Germans were rude; or is it only in Berlin that they\nare, I wonder. After my first expedition exploring through the\nThiergarten and down Unter den Linden to the museums last Friday\nbetween my practisings, I preferred getting lost to asking anybody my\nway. And as for the policemen, to whom I naturally turned when I\nwanted help, having been used to turning to policemen ever since I can\nremember for comfort and guidance, they simply never answered me at\nall. They just stood and stared with a sort of mocking. And of course\nthey understood, for I got my question all ready beforehand. I longed\nto hit them,--I who don\'t ever want to hit anybody, I whom you\'ve so\noften reprimanded for being too friendly. But the meekest lamb, a lamb\ndripping with milk and honey, would turn into a lion if its polite\napproaches were met with such wanton rudeness. I was so indignantly\ncertain that these people, any of them, policemen or policed, would\nhave answered the same question with the most extravagant politeness if\nI had been an officer, or with an officer. They grovel if an officer\ncomes along; and a woman with an officer might walk on them if she\nwanted to. They were rude simply because I was alone and a woman. And\nthat being so, though I spoke with the tongue of angels, as St. Paul\nsaith, and as I as a matter of fact did, if what that means is immense\nmellifluousness, it would avail me nothing.\n\nSo when I was out, and being made so curiously to feel conspicuous and\ndisliked, the knowledge that the only alternative was to go back to the\nmuffled unfriendliness at Frau Berg\'s did make me feel a little\nforlorn. I can tell you now, because of the joy I\'ve had since. I\ndon\'t mind any more. I\'m raised up and blessed now. Indeed I feel\nI\'ve got much more by a long way than my share of good things, and with\nwhat Kloster said hugged secretly to my heart I\'m placed outside the\nordinary toiling-moiling that life means for most women who have got to\nwring a living out of it without having anything special to wring with.\nIt\'s the sheerest, wonderfullest, most radiant luck that I\'ve got this.\nWon\'t I just work. Won\'t this funny frowning bedroom of mine become a\ntemple of happiness. I\'m going to play Bach to it till it turns\nbeautiful.\n\nI don\'t know why I always think of Bach first when I write about music.\nI think of him first as naturally when I think of music as I think of\nWordsworth first when I think of poetry. I know neither of them is the\ngreatest, though Bach is the equal of the greatest, but they are the\nones I love best. What a world it is, my sweetest little mother! It\nis so full of beauty. And then there\'s the hard work that makes\neverything taste so good. You have to have the hard work; I\'ve found\nthat out. I do think it\'s a splendid world,--full of glory created in\nthe past and lighting us up while we create still greater glory. One\nhas only got to shut out the parts of the present one doesn\'t like, to\nsee this all clear and feel so happy. I shut myself up in this\nbedroom, this ugly dingy bedroom with its silly heavy trappings, and\nget out my violin, and instantly it becomes a place of light, a place\nfull of sound,--shivering with light and sound, the light and sound of\nthe beautiful gracious things great men felt and thought long ago. Who\ncares then about Frau Berg\'s boarders not speaking to one, and the\nBerlin streets and policemen being unkind? Actually I forget the long\nmiles and hours I am away from you, the endless long miles and hours\nthat reach from me here to you there, and am happy, oh happy,--so happy\nthat I could cry out for joy. And so I would, I daresay, if it\nwouldn\'t spoil the music.\n\nThere\'s Wanda coming to tell me dinner is ready. She just bumps the\nsoup-tureen against my door as she carries it down the passage to the\ndiningroom, and calls out briefly, \"_Essen_.\"\n\nI\'ll finish this tonight.\n\n\n _Bedtime_.\n\nI just want to say goodnight, and tell you, in case you shouldn\'t have\nnoticed it, how much your daughter loves you. I mayn\'t practise on\nSundays, because of the _Hausruhe_, Frau Berg says, and so I have time\nto think; and I\'m astonished, mother darling, at the emptiness of life\nwithout you. It is as though most of me had somehow got torn off, and\nI have to manage as best I can with a fragment. What a good thing I\nfeel it so much, for so I shall work all the harder to shorten the\ntime. Hard work is the bridge across which I\'ll get back to you. You\nsee, you\'re the one human being I\'ve got in the world who loves me, the\nonly one who is really, deeply, interested in me, who minds if I am\nhurt and is pleased if I am happy. That\'s a watery word,--pleased; I\nshould have said exults. It is so wonderful, your happiness in my\nbeing happy,--so touching. I\'m all melted with love and gratitude when\nI think of it, and of the dear way you let me do this, come away here\nand realize my dream of studying with Kloster, when you knew it meant\nfor you such a long row of dreary months alone. Forgive me if I sound\nsentimental. I know you will, so I needn\'t bother to ask. That\'s what\nI so love about you,--you always understand, you never mind. I can\ntalk to you; and however idiotic I am, and whatever sort of a\nfool,--blind, unkind, ridiculous, obstinate or wilful--take your\nchoice, little sweet mother, you\'ll remember occasions that were\nfitted by each of these--you look at me with those shrewd sweet eyes\nthat always somehow have a laugh in them, and say some little thing\nthat shows you are brushing aside all the ugly froth of nonsense,\nand are intelligently and with perfect detachment searching for the\nreason. And having found the reason you understand and forgive; for\nof course there always _is_ a reason when ordinary people, not born\nfiends, are disagreeable. I\'m sure that\'s why we\'ve been so happy\ntogether,--because you\'ve never taken anything I\'ve done or said that\nwas foolish or unkind personally. You\'ve always known it was just so\nmuch irrelevant rubbish, just an excrescence, a passing sickness;\nnever, never your real Chris who loves you.\n\nGood-bye, my own blessed mother. It\'s long past bedtime. Tomorrow I\'m\nto have my first regular lesson with Kloster. And tomorrow I ought to\nget a letter from you. You will take care of yourself, won\'t you? You\nwouldn\'t like me to be anxious all this way off, would you? Anxious,\nand not sure?\n\n Your Chris.\n\n\n\n\n _Berlin, Tuesday, June 2nd, 1914_.\n\nDarling mother, I\'ve just got your two letters, two lovely long ones at\nonce, and I simply can\'t wait till next Sunday to tell you how I\nrejoiced over them, so I\'m going to squander 20 pfennigs just on that.\nI\'m not breaking my rule and writing on a day that isn\'t Sunday,\nbecause I\'m not really writing. This isn\'t a letter, it\'s a kiss. How\nglad I am you\'re so well and getting on so comfortably. And I\'m well\nand happy too, because I\'m so busy,--you can\'t think how busy. I\'m\nworking harder than I\'ve ever done in my life, and Kloster is pleased\nwith me. So now that I\'ve had letters from you there seems very little\nleft in the world to want, and I go about on the tips of my toes.\nGood-bye my beloved one, till Sunday.\n\n Chris.\n\n\nOh, I must just tell you that at my lesson yesterday I played the Ernst\nF sharp minor concerto,---the virtuoso, firework thing, you know, with\nKloster putting in bits of the orchestra part on the piano every now\nand then because he wanted to see what I could do in the way of\ngymnastics. He laughed when I had finished, and patted my shoulder,\nand said, \"Very good acrobatics. Now we will do no more of them. We\nwill apply ourselves to real music.\" And he said I was to play him\nwhat I could of the Bach Chaconne.\n\nI was so happy, little mother. Kloster leading me about among the\nwonders of Bach, was like being taken by the hand by some great angel\nand led through heaven.\n\n\n\n _Berlin, Sunday, June 7th, 1914_.\n\nOn Sunday mornings, darling mother, directly I wake I remember it is my\nday for being with you. I can hardly be patient with breakfast, and\nthe time it takes to get done with those thick cups of coffee that are\nso thick that, however deftly I drink, drops always trickle down what\nwould be my beard if I had one. And I choke over the rolls, and I\nspill things in my hurry to run away and talk to you. I got another\nletter from you yesterday, and Hilda Seeberg, a girl boarding here and\nstudying painting, said when she met me in the passage after I had been\nreading it in my room, \"You have had a letter from your _Frau Mutter,\nnicht_?\" So you see your letters shine in my face.\n\nDon\'t be afraid I won\'t take enough exercise. I go for an immense walk\ndirectly after dinner every day, a real quick hot one through the\nThiergarten. The weather is fine, and Berlin I suppose is at its best,\nbut I don\'t think it looks very nice after London. There\'s no mystery\nabout it, no atmosphere; it just blares away at you. It has everything\nin it that a city ought to have,--public buildings, statues, fountains,\nparks, broad streets; and it is about as comforting and lovable as the\nlatest thing in workhouses. It looks disinfected; it has just that\nkind of rather awful cleanness.\n\nAt dinner they talk of its beauty and its perfections till I nearly go\nto sleep. You know how oddly sleepy one gets when one isn\'t\ninterested. They\'ve left off being silent now, and have gone to the\nother extreme, and from not talking to me at all have jumped to talking\nto me all together. They tell me over and over again that I\'m in the\nmost beautiful city in the world. You never knew such eagerness and\npersistence as these German boarders have when it comes to praising\nwhat is theirs, and also when it comes to criticizing what isn\'t\ntheirs. They\'re so funny and personal. They say, for instance, London\nis too hideous for words, and then they look at me defiantly, as though\nthey had been insulting some personal defect of mine and meant to\nbrazen it out. They point out the horrors of the slums to me as though\nthe slums were on my face. They tell me pityingly what they look like,\nwhat terrible blots and deformities they are, and how I--they say\nEngland, but no one could dream from their manner that it wasn\'t\nme--can never hope to be regarded as fit for self-respecting European\nsociety while these spots and sore places are not purged away.\n\nThe other day they assured me that England as a nation is really unfit\nfor any decent other nation to know politically, but they added, with\nstiff bows in my direction, that sometimes the individual inhabitant of\nthat low-minded and materialistic country is not without amiability,\nespecially if he or she is by some miracle without the lofty,\nhigh-nosed manner that as a rule so regrettably characterizes the\nunfortunate people. \"_Sie sind so hochnasig_,\" the bank clerk who sits\nopposite me had shouted out, pointing an accusing finger at me; and for\na moment I was so startled that I thought something disastrous had\nhappened to my nose, and my anxious hand flew up to it. Then they\nlaughed; and it was after that that they made the speech conceding\nindividual amiability here and there.\n\nI sit neatly in my chair while this sort of talk goes on--and it goes\non at every meal now that they have got over the preliminary stage of\nicy coldness towards me--and I try to be sprightly, and bandy my six\nGerman words about whenever they seem appropriate. Imagine your poor\nChris trying to be sprightly with eleven Germans--no, ten Germans, for\nthe eleventh is a Swede and doesn\'t say anything. And the ten Germans,\nincluding Frau Berg, all fix their eyes reproachfully on me while as\none man they tell me how awful my country is. Do people in London\nboarding houses tell the German boarders how awful Germany is, I\nwonder? I don\'t believe they do. And I wish they would leave me alone\nabout the Boer war. I\'ve tried to explain my extreme youth at the time\nit was going on, but they still appear to hold me directly responsible\nfor it. The fingers that have been pointed at me down that table on\naccount of the Boer war! They raise them at me, and shake them, and\ntell me of the terrible things the English did, and when I ask them how\nthey know, they say it was in the newspapers; and when I ask them what\nnewspapers, they say theirs; and when I ask them how they know it was\ntrue, they say they know because it was in the newspapers. So there we\nare, stuck. I take to English when the worst comes to the worst, and\nthey flounder in after me.\n\nIt is the funniest thing, their hostility to England, and the queer,\nreluctant, and yet passionate admiration that goes With it. It is like\nsome girl who can\'t get a man she admires very much to notice her. He\nstays indifferent, while she gets more exasperated the more indifferent\nhe stays; exasperated with the bitterness of thwarted love. One day at\ndinner, when they had all been thumping away at me, this flashed across\nme as the explanation, and I exclaimed in English, \"Why, you\'re in love\nwith us!\"\n\nTwenty round eyes stared at me, sombrely at first, not understanding,\nand then with horror slowly growing in them.\n\n\"In love with you? In love with England?\" cried Frau Berg, the carving\nknife suspended in the air while she stared at me. \"_Nein, aber so\nwas_!\" And she let down her heavy fists, knife and all, with a thud on\nthe table.\n\nI thought I had best stand up to them, having started off so\nrecklessly, and tried to lash myself into bravery by remembering how\nfull I was of the blood of all the Cholmondeleys, let alone those\nrelations of yours alleged to have fought alongside the Black Prince;\nso though I wished there were several of me rather than only one, I\nsaid with courage and obstinacy, \"Passionately.\"\n\nYou can\'t think how seriously they took it. They all talked at once,\nvery loud. They were all extremely angry. I wished I had kept quiet,\nfor I couldn\'t elaborate my idea in my limping German, and it was quite\ndifficult to go on smiling and behaving as though they were all not\nbeing rude, for I don\'t think they mean to be rude, and I was afraid,\nif I showed a trace of thinking they were that they might notice they\nwere, and then they would have felt so uncomfortable, and the situation\nwould have become, as they say, _peinlich_.\n\nFour of the Daily Dinner Guests are men, and one of the boarders is a\nman; and these five men and Frau Berg were the vociferous ones. They\nexclaimed things like \"_Nein, so was_!\" and, \"_Diese englische\nHochmut_!\" and single words like _unerhort_; and then one of them\ncalled Herr Doctor Krummlaut, who is a lawyer and a widower and much\nesteemed by the rest, detached himself from them and made me a\ncarefully patient speech, in which he said how sorry they all were to\nsee so young and gifted a lady,--(he bowed, and I bowed)--oh yes, he\nsaid, raising his hand as though to ward off any modest objections I\nmight be going to make, only I wasn\'t going to make any, he had heard\nthat I was undoubtedly gifted, and not only gifted but also, he would\nnot be deterred from saying, and he felt sure his colleagues at the\ntable would not be deterred from saying either if they were in his\nplace, a lady of personal attractions,--(he bowed and I bowed,)--how\nsorry they all were to see a young Fraulein with these advantages,\nfilled at the same time with opinions and views that were not only\nhighly unsuitable to her sex but were also, in any sex, so terribly\nwrong. Every lady, he said, should have some knowledge of history, and\nsufficient acquaintance with the three kinds of politics,--_Politik_,\n_Weltpolitik_, and _Realpolitik_, to enable her to avoid wrong and\nfrivolous conclusions such as the one the young Fraulein had just\ninformed them she had reached, and to listen intelligently to her\nhusband or son when they discuss these matters. He said a great deal\nmore, about a woman knowing these things just enough but not too well,\nfor her intelligence must not be strained because of her supreme\nfunction of being the cradle of the race; and the cradle part of her, I\ngather, isn\'t so useful if she is allowed to develop the other part of\nher beyond what is necessary for making an agreeable listener.\n\nIt was no use even trying to explain what I had meant about Germany\nreally being in love with England, because I hadn\'t got words enough;\nbut that is exactly the impression I\'ve received from my brief\nexperiences of one corner of its life. In this small corner of it,\nanyhow, it behaves exactly like a woman who is so unlucky as to love\nsomebody who doesn\'t care about her. She naturally, I imagine,--for I\ncan only guess at these enslavements,--is very much humiliated and\nangry, and all the more because the loved and hated one--isn\'t it\npossible to love and hate at the same time, little mother? I can\nimagine it quite well--is so indifferent as to whether she loves or\nhates. And whichever she does, he is polite,--\"Always gentleman,\" as\nthe Germans say. Which is, naturally, maddening.\n\n\n _Evening_.\n\nDo you know I wrote to you the whole morning? I wrote and wrote, with\nno idea how time was passing, and was astonished and indignant, for I\nhaven\'t half told you all I want to, when I was called to dinner. It\nseemed like shutting a door on you and leaving you outside without any\ndinner, to go away and have it without you.\n\nIf it weren\'t for its being my day with you I don\'t know what I\'d do\nwith Sundays. I would hate them. I\'m not allowed to play on Sundays,\nbecause practising is forbidden on that day, and, as Frau Berg said,\nhow is she to know if I am practising or playing? Besides, it would\ndisturb the others, which of course is true, for they all rest on\nSundays, getting up late, sleeping after dinner, and not going out till\nthey have had coffee about five. Today, when I hoped they had all gone\nout, I had such a longing to play a little that I muted my strings and\nplayed to myself in a whisper what I could remember of a very beautiful\nthing of Ravel\'s that Kloster showed me the other day,--the most\nhaunting, exquisite thing; and I hummed the weird harmonies as I went\nalong, because they are what is so particularly wonderful about it.\nWell, it really was a whisper, and I had to bend my head right over the\nviolin to hear it at all whenever a tram passed, yet in five minutes\nFrau Berg appeared, unbuttoned and heated from her _Mittagsruhe_, and\nrequested me to have some consideration for others as well as for the\nday.\n\nI was very much ashamed of myself, besides feeling as though I were\nfifteen and caught at school doing something wicked. I didn\'t mind not\nhaving consideration for the day, because I think Ravel being played on\nit can\'t do Sunday anything but good, but I did mind having disturbed\nthe other people in the flat. I could only say I was sorry, and\nwouldn\'t do it again,--just like an apologetic schoolgirl. But what do\nyou think I wanted to do, little mother? Run to Frau Berg, and put my\narms round her neck, and tell her I was lonely and wanting you, and\nwould she mind just pretending she was fond of me for a moment? She\ndid look so comfortable and fat and kind, standing there filling up the\ndoorway, and she wasn\'t near enough for me to see her eyes, and it is\nher eyes that make one not want to run to her.\n\nBut of course I didn\'t run. I knew too well that she wouldn\'t\nunderstand. And indeed I don\'t know why I should have felt such a\nlonging to run into somebody\'s arms. Perhaps it was because writing to\nyou brings you so near to me that I realize how far away you are.\nDuring the week I work, and while I work I forget; and there\'s the\nexcitement of my lessons, and the joy of hearing Kloster appreciate and\nencourage. But on Sundays the day is all you, and then I feel what\nmonths can mean when they have to be lived through each in turn and day\nby day before one gets back to the person one loves. Why are you so\ndear, my darling mother? If you were an ordinary mother I\'d be so much\nmore placid. I wouldn\'t mind not being with an ordinary mother. When\nI look at other people\'s mothers I think I\'d rather like not being with\nthem. But having known what it is to live in love and understanding\nwith you, it wants a great deal of persistent courage, the sort that\ngoes on steadily with no intervals, to make one able to do without it.\n\nNow please don\'t think I am fretting, will you, because I\'m not. It\'s\nonly that I love you. We\'re such _friends_. You always understand,\nyou are never shocked. I can say whatever comes into my head to you.\nIt is as good as saying one\'s prayers. One never stops in those to\nwonder whether one is shocking God, and that is what one loves God\nfor,--because we suppose he always understands, and therefore forgives;\nand how much more--is this very wicked?--one loves one\'s mother who\nunderstands, because, you see, there she is, and one can kiss her as\nwell. There\'s a great virtue in kissing, I think; an amazing comfort\nin just _touching_ the person one loves. Goodnight, most blessed\nlittle mother, and good-bye for a week. Your Chris.\n\n\nPerhaps I might write a little note--not a letter, just a little\nnote,--on Wednesdays? What do you think? It would be nothing more,\nreally, than a postcard, except that it would be in an envelope.\n\n\n\n\n_Berlin, Sunday, June 14th, 1914_.\n\nWell, I didn\'t write on Wednesday, I resisted. (Good morning, darling\nmother.) I knew quite well it wouldn\'t be a postcard, or anything even\nremotely related to the postcard family. It would be a letter. A long\nletter. And presently I\'d be writing every day, and staying all soft;\nliving in the past, instead of getting on with my business, which is\nthe future. That is what I\'ve got to do at this moment: not think too\nmuch of you and home, but turn my face away from both those sweet,\ndesirable things so that I may get back to them quicker. It\'s true we\nhaven\'t got a home, if a home is a house and furniture; but home to\nyour Chris is where you are. Just simply anywhere and everywhere you\nare. It\'s very convenient, isn\'t it, to have it so much concentrated\nand so movable. Portable, I might say, seeing how little you are and\nhow big I am.\n\nBut you know, darling mother, it makes it easier for me to harden and\nlook ahead with my chin in the air rather than over my shoulder back at\nyou when I see, as I do see all day long, the extreme sentimentality of\nthe Germans. It is very surprising. They\'re the oddest mixture of\nwhat really is a brutal hardness, the kind of hardness that springs\nfrom real fundamental differences from ours in their attitude towards\nlife, and a squashiness that leaves one with one\'s mouth open. They\ncan\'t bear to let a single thing that has happened to them ever,\nhowever many years ago, drop away into oblivion and die decently in its\nown dust. They hold on to it, and dig it out that day year and that\nday every year, for years apparently,--I expect for all their lives.\nWhen they leave off really feeling about it--which of course they do,\nfor how can one go on feeling about a thing forever?--they start\npretending that they feel. Conceive going through life clogged like\nthat, all one\'s pores choked with the dust of old yesterdays. I\npicture the Germans trailing through life more and more heavily as they\ngrow old, hauling an increasing number of anniversaries along with\nthem, rolling them up as they go, dragging at each remove a lengthening\nchain, as your dear Goldsmith says,--and if he didn\'t, or it wasn\'t,\nyou\'ll rebuke me and tell me who did and what it was, for you know I\'ve\nno books here, except those two that are married as securely on one\'s\ntongue as Tennyson and Browning, or Arnold Bennet and his, I imagine\nreluctant, bride, H. G. Wells,--I mean Shakespeare and the Bible.\n\n\nI went into Hilda Seeberg\'s room the other day to ask her for some\npins, and found her sitting in front of a photograph of her father, a\ncross-looking old man with a twirly moustache and a bald head; and she\nhad put a wreath of white roses round the frame and tied it with a\nblack bow, and there were two candles lit in front of it, and Hilda had\nput on a black dress, and was just sitting there gazing at it with her\nhands in her lap. I begged her pardon, and was going away again\nquickly, but she called me back.\n\n\"I celebrate,\" she said.\n\n\"Oh,\" said I politely, but without an idea what she meant.\n\n\"It is my Papa\'s birthday today,\" she said, pointing to the photograph.\n\n\"Is it?\" I said, surprised, for I thought I remembered she had told me\nhe was dead. \"But didn\'t you say--\"\n\n\"Yes. Certainly I told you Papa was dead since five years.\"\n\n\"Then why--?\"\n\n\"But _liebes Fraulein_, he still continues to have birthdays,\" she\nsaid, staring at me in real surprise, while I stared back at her in at\nleast equally real surprise.\n\n\"Every year,\" she said, \"the day comes round on which Papa was born.\nShall he, then, merely because he is with God, not have it celebrated?\nAnd what would people think if I did not? They would think I had no\nheart.\"\n\nAfter that I began to hope there would be a cake, for they have lovely\nbirthday cakes here, and it is the custom to give a slice of them to\nevery one who comes near you. So I looked round the room out of the\ncorners of my eyes, discreetly, lest I should seem to be as greedy as I\nwas, and I lifted my nose a little and waved it cautiously about, but I\nneither saw nor smelt a cake. Frau Berg had a birthday three days ago,\nand there was a heavenly cake at it, a great flat thing with cream in\nit, that one loved so that first one wanted to eat it and then to sit\non it and see all the cream squash out at the sides; but evidently the\ncake is the one thing you don\'t have for your birthday after you are\ndead. I don\'t want to laugh, darling mother, and I know well enough\nwhat it is to lose one\'s beloved Dad, but you see Hilda had shown me\nher family photographs only the other day, for we are making friends in\na sort of flabby, hesitating way, and when she got to the one of her\nfather she said with perfect frankness that she hadn\'t liked him, and\nthat it had been an immense relief when he died. \"He prevented my\ndoing anything,\" she said, frowning at the photograph, \"except that\nwhich increased his comforts.\"\n\nI asked Kloster about anniversaries when I went for my lesson on\nFriday. He is a very human little man, full of sympathy,---the sort of\ncomprehending sympathy that laughs and understands together, yet his\ngenius seems to detach him from other Germans, for he criticizes them\nwith a dispassionate thoroughness that is surprising. The remarks he\nmakes about the Kaiser, for instance, whom he irreverently alludes to\nas S. M.--(short and rude for _Seine Majestat_)--simply make me shiver\nin this country of _lese majeste_. In England, where we can say what\nwe like, I have never heard anybody say anything disrespectful about\nthe King. Here, where you go to prison if you laugh even at officials,\neven at a policeman, at anything whatever in buttons, for that is the\npunishable offence of Beamtenbeleidigung--haven\'t they got heavenly\nwords--Kloster and people I have come across in his rooms say what they\nlike; and what they like is very rude indeed about that sacred man the\nKaiser, who doesn\'t appear to be at all popular. But then Kloster\nbelongs to the intelligents, and his friends are all people of\nintelligence, and that sort of person doesn\'t care very much, I think,\nfor absolute monarchs. Kloster says they\'re anachronisms, that the\nworld is too old for them, too grown-up for pretences and decorations.\nAnd when I went for my lesson on Friday I found his front door wreathed\nwith evergreens and paper flowers,--pretences and decorations crawling\neven round Kloster--and I went in very reluctantly, not knowing what\nsort of a memorial celebration I was going to tumble into. But it was\nonly that his wife--I didn\'t know he had a wife, he seemed altogether\nso happily unmarried--was coming home. She had been away for three\nweeks; not nearly long enough, you and I and others of our\nself-depreciatory and self-critical country would think, to deserve an\nevergreen garland round our door on coming back. He laughed when I\ntold him I had been afraid to come in lest I should disturb\nretrospective obsequies.\n\n\"We are still so near, my dear Mees Chrees,\" he said, shrugging a fat\nshoulder--he asked me what I was called at home, and I said you called\nme Chris, and he said he would, with my permission, also call me\nChrees, but with Mees in front of it to show that though he desired to\nbe friendly he also wished to remain respectful--\"we are still so near\nas a nation to the child and to the savage. To the clever child, and\nthe powerful savage. We like simple and gross emotions and plenty of\nthem; obvious tastes in our food and our pleasures, and a great deal of\nit; fat in our food, and fat in our women. And, like the child, when\nwe mourn we mourn to excess, and enjoy ourselves in that excess; and,\nlike the savage, we are afraid, and therefore hedge ourselves about\nwith observances, celebrations, cannon, kings. In no other country is\nthere more than one king. In ours we find three and an emperor\nnecessary. The savage who fears all things does not fear more than we\nGermans. We fear other nations, we fear other people, we fear public\nopinion to an extent incredible, and tremble before the opinion of our\nservants and tradespeople; we fear our own manners and therefore are\nobliged to preserve the idiotic practice of duelling, in which as often\nas not the man whose honour is being satisfied is the one who is\nkilled; we fear all those above us, of whom there are invariably a\ngreat many; we fear all officials, and our country drips with\nofficials. The only person we do not fear is God.\"\n\n\n\"But--\" I began, remembering their motto, bestowed on them by Bismarck,\n\n\n\"Yes, yes, I know,\" he interrupted. \"It is not, however, true. The\ncontrary is the truth. We Germans fear not God, but everything else in\nthe world. It is only fear that makes us polite, fear of the duel;\nfor, like the child and the savage, we have not had time to acquire the\nhabit of good manners, the habit which makes manners inevitable and\ninvariable, and it is not natural to us to be polite. We are polite\nonly by the force of fear. Consequently--for all men must have their\nrelaxations--whenever we meet the weak, the beneath us, the momentarily\nhelpless, we are brutal. It is an immense relief to be for a moment\nnatural. Every German welcomes even the smallest opportunity.\"\n\n\nYou would be greatly interested in Kloster, I\'m certain. He sits\nthere, his fiddle on his fat little knees, his bow punctuating his\nsentences with quivers and raps, his shiny bald head reflecting the\nlight from the window behind him, and his eyes coming very much out of\nhis face, which is excessively red. He looks like an amiable prawn;\nnot in the least like a person with an active and destructive mind, not\nin the least like a great musician. He has the very opposite of the\nbushy eyebrows and overhanging forehead and deep set eyes and lots of\nhair you\'re supposed to have if you\'ve got much music in you. He came\nover to me the other day after I had finished playing, and stretched\nup--he\'s a good bit smaller than I am--and carefully drew his finger\nalong my eyebrows, each in turn. I couldn\'t think what he was doing.\n\n\"My finger is clean, Mees Chrees,\" he said, seeing me draw back. \"I\nhave just wiped it, Be not, therefore, afraid. But you have the real\nBeethoven brow--the very shape--and I must touch it. I regret if it\nincommodes you, but I must touch it. I have seen no such resemblance\nto the brow of the Master. You might be his child.\"\n\nI needn\'t tell you, darling mother, that I went back to the boarders\nand the midday guests not minding them much. If I only could talk\nGerman properly I would have loved to have leant across the table to\nHerr Mannfried, an unwholesome looking young man who comes in to dinner\nevery day from a bank in the Potsdamerstrasse, and is very full of that\nhatred which is really passion for England, and has pale hair and a\nmouth exactly like two scarlet slugs--I\'m sorry to be so horrid, but it\n_is_ like two scarlet slugs--and said,--\"Have you noticed that I have a\n_Beethovenkopf_? What do you think of me, an _Englanderin_, having\nsuch a thing? One of your own great men says so, so it must be true.\"\n\nWe are studying the Bach Chaconne now. He is showing me a different\nreading of it, his idea. He is going to play it at the Philarmonie\nhere next week. I wish you could hear him. He was intending to go to\nLondon this season and play with a special orchestra of picked players,\nbut has changed his mind. I asked him why, and he shrugged his\nshoulder and said his agent, who arranges these things, seemed to think\nhe had better not. I asked him why again--you know my persistency--for\nI can\'t conceive why it should be better not for London to have such a\njoy and for him to give it, but he only shrugged his shoulder again,\nand said he always did what his agent told him to do. \"My agent knows\nhis business, my dear Mees Chrees,\" he said. \"I put my affairs in his\nhands, and having done so I obey him. It saves trouble. Obedience is\na comfortable thing.\"\n\n\"Then why--\" I began, remembering the things he says about kings and\nmasters and persons in authority; but he picked up his violin and began\nto play a bit. \"See,\" he said, \"this is how--\"\n\nAnd when he plays I can only stand and listen. It is like a spell.\nOne stands there, and forgets. . . .\n\n\n _Evening_.\n\nI\'ve been reading your last darling letter again, so full of love, so\nfull of thought for me, out in a corner of the Thiergarten this\nafternoon, and I see that while I\'m eagerly writing and writing to you,\npage after page of the things I want to tell you, I forget to tell you\nthe things you want to know. I believe I never answer _any_ of your\nquestions! It\'s because I\'m so all right, so comfortable as far as my\nbody goes, that I don\'t remember to say so. I have heaps to eat, and\nit is very satisfying food, being German, and will make me grow\nsideways quite soon, I should think, for Frau Berg fills us up daily\nwith dumplings, and I\'m certain they must end by somehow showing; and I\nhaven\'t had a single cold since I\'ve been here, so I\'m outgrowing them\nat last; and I\'m not sitting up late reading,--I couldn\'t if I tried,\nfor Wanda, the general servant, who is general also in her person\nrather than particular--aren\'t I being funny--comes at ten o\'clock each\nnight on her way to bed and takes away my lamp.\n\n\"Rules,\" said Frau Berg briefly, when I asked if it wasn\'t a little\nearly to leave me in the dark. \"And you are not left in the dark.\nHave I not provided a candle and matches for the chance infirmities of\nthe night?\"\n\nBut the candle is cheap and dim, so I don\'t sit up trying to read by\nthat. I preserve it wholly for the infirmities.\n\nI\'ve been in the Thiergarten most of the afternoon, sitting in a green\ncorner I found where there is some grass and daisies down by a pond and\naway from a path, and accordingly away from the Sunday crowds. I\nwatched the birds, and read the Winter\'s Tale, and picked some daisies,\nand felt very happy. The daisies are in a saucer before me at this\nmoment. Everything smelt so good,--so warm, and sweet, and young, with\nthe leaves on the oaks still little and delicate. Life is an admirable\narrangement, isn\'t it, little mother. It is so clever of it to have a\nJune in every year and a morning in every day, let alone things like\nbirds, and Shakespeare, and one\'s work. You\'ve sometimes told me, when\nI was being particularly happy, that there were even greater happiness\nahead for me,--when I have a lover, you said; when I have a husband;\nwhen I have a child. I suppose you know, my wise, beloved mother; but\nthe delight of work, of doing the work well that one is best fitted\nfor, will be very hard to beat. It is an exultation, a rapture, that\nmanifest progress to better and better results through one\'s own\neffort. After all, being obliged on Sundays to do nothing isn\'t so\nbad, because then I have time to think, to step back a little and look\nat life.\n\nSee what a quiet afternoon sunning myself among daisies has done for\nme. A week ago I was measuring the months to be got through before\nbeing with you again, in dismay. Now I feel as if I were very happily\nclimbing up a pleasant hill, just steep enough to make me glad I can\nclimb well, and all the way is beautiful and safe, and on the top there\nis you. To get to the top will be perfect joy, but the getting there\nis very wonderful too. You\'ll judge, from all this that I\'ve had a\nhappy week, that work is going well, and that I\'m hopeful and\nconfident. I mustn\'t be too confident, I know, but confidence is a\ngreat thing to work on. I\'ve never done anything good on days of\ndejection.\n\nGoodnight, dear mother. I feel so close to you tonight, just as if you\nwere here in the room with me, and I had only to put out my finger and\ntouch Love. I don\'t believe there\'s much in this body business. It is\nonly spirit that matters really; and nothing can stop your spirit and\nmine being together.\n\n Your Chris.\n\nStill, a body is a great comfort when it comes to wanting to kiss one\'s\ndarling mother.\n\n\n\n\n _Berlin, Sunday, June 2lst, 1914_.\n\nMy precious mother,\n\nThe weeks fly by, full of work and _Weltpolitik_. They talk of nothing\nhere at meals but this _Weltpolitik_. I\'ve just been having a dose of\nit at breakfast. To say that the boarders are interested in it is to\nspeak feebly: they blaze with interest, they explode with it, they\nscorch and sizzle. And they are so pugnacious! Not to each other, for\ncontrary to the attitude at Kloster\'s they are knit together by the\ntoughest band of uncritical and obedient admiration for everything\nGerman, but they are pugnacious to the Swede girl and myself.\nEspecially to myself. There is a holy calm about the Swede girl that\nnothing can disturb. She has an enviable gift for getting on with her\nmeals and saying nothing. I wish I had it. Directly I have learned a\nnew German word I want to say it. I accumulate German words every day,\nof course, and there\'s something in my nature and something in the way\nI\'m talked at and to at Frau Berg\'s table that makes me want to say all\nthe words I\'ve got as quickly as possible. And as I can\'t string them\ninto sentences my conversation consists of single words, which produce\na very odd effect, quite unintended, of detached explosions. When I\'ve\ncome to the end of them I take to English, and the boarders plunge in\nafter me, and swim or drown in it according to their several ability.\n\nIt\'s queer, the atmosphere here,--in this house, in the streets,\nwherever one goes. They all seem to be in a condition of tension--of\nintense, tightly-strung waiting, very like that breathless expectancy\nin the last act of \"Tristan\" when Isolde\'s ship is sighted and all the\nviolins hang high up on to a shrill, intolerably eager note. There\'s a\nsort of fever. And the big words! I thought Germans were stolid,\nquiet people. But how they talk! And always in capital letters. They\ntalk in tremendous capitals about what they call the _deutscke\nStandpunkt_; and the _deutsche Standpunkt_ is the most wonderful thing\nyou ever came across. Butter wouldn\'t melt in its mouth. It is too\ngreat and good, almost, they give one to understand, for a world so far\nbehind in high qualities to appreciate. No other people has anything\napproaching it. As far as I can make out, stripped of its decorations\nits main idea is that what Germans do is right and what other people do\nis wrong. Even when it is exactly the same thing. And also, that\nwrong becomes right directly it has anything to do with Germans. Not\nwith _a_ German. The individual German can and does commit every sort\nof wrong, just as other individuals do in other countries, and he gets\npunished for them with tremendous harshness; Kloster says with\nunfairness. But directly he is in the plural and becomes _Wir\nDeutschen_, as they are forever saying, his crimes become virtues. As\na body he purifies, he has a purging quality. Today they were saying\nat breakfast that if a crime is big enough, if it is on a grand scale,\nit leaves off being a crime, for then it is a success, and success is\nalways virtue,--that is, I gather, if it is a German success; if it is\na French one it is an outrage. You mustn\'t rob a widow, for instance,\nthey said, because that is stupid; the result is small and you may be\nfound out and be cut by your friends. But you may rob a great many\nwidows and it will be a successful business deal. No one will say\nanything, because you have been clever and successful.\n\nI know this view is not altogether unknown in other countries, but they\ndon\'t hold it deliberately as a whole nation. Among other things that\nHilda Seeberg\'s father did which roused her unforgiveness was just\nthis,--to rob too few widows, come to grief over it, and go bankrupt\nfor very little. She told me about it in an outburst of dark\nconfidence. Just talking of it made her eyes black with anger. It was\nso terrible, she said, to smash for a small amount,--such an\noverwhelming shame for the Seeberg family, whose poverty thus became\napparent and unhideable. If one smashes, she said, one does it for\nmillions, otherwise one doesn\'t smash. There is something so chic\nabout millions, she said, that whether you make them or whether you\nlose them you are equally well thought-of and renowned.\n\n\"But it is better to--well, disappoint few widows than many,\" I\nsuggested, picking my words.\n\n\"For less than a million marks,\" she said, eyeing me sternly, \"it is a\ndisgrace to fail.\"\n\nThey\'re funny, aren\'t they. I\'m greatly interested. They remind me\nmore and more of what Kloster says they are, clever children. They\nhave the unmoral quality of children. I listen--they treat me as if I\nwere the audience, and they address themselves in a bunch to my\ncorner--and I put in one of my words now and then, generally with an\nunfortunate effect, for they talk even louder after that, and then\npresently the men get up and put their heels together and make a stiff\ninclusive bow and disappear, and Frau Berg folds up her napkin and\nbrushes the crumbs out of her creases and says, \"_Ja, ja_,\" with a\nsigh, as a sort of final benediction on the departed conversation, and\nthen rises slowly and locks up the sugar, and then treads heavily away\ndown the passage and has a brief skirmish in the kitchen with Wanda,\nwho daily tries to pretend there hadn\'t been any pudding left over, and\nthen treads heavily back again to her bedroom, and shuts herself in\ntill four o\'clock for her _Mittagsruhe_; and the other boarders drift\naway one by one, and I run out for a walk to get unstiffened after\nhaving practised all the morning, and as I walk I think over what\nthey\'ve been saying, and try to see things from their angle, and simply\ncan\'t.\n\nOn Tuesdays and Fridays I have my lesson, and tell Kloster about them.\nHe says they\'re entirely typical of the great bulk of the nation.\n\"_Wir Deutschen_,\" he says, and laughs, \"are the easiest people in the\nworld to govern, because we are obedient and inflammable. We have that\nobedience of mind so convenient to Authority, and we are inflammable\nbecause we are greedy. Any prospect held out to us of getting\nsomething belonging to some one else sets us instantly alight. Dangle\nsome one else\'s sausage before our eyes, and we will go anywhere after\nit. Wonderful material for S. M.\" And he adds a few irreverences.\n\nLast Wednesday was his concert at the Philarmonie. He played like an\nangel. It was so strange, the fat, red, more than commonplace-looking\nlittle bald man, with his quite expressionless face, his wilfully\nstupid face--for I believe he does it on purpose, that blankness, that\nbulgy look of one who never thinks and only eats--and then the heavenly\nmusic. It was as strange and arresting as that other mixture, that\nstartling one of the men who sell flowers in the London streets and the\nflowers they sell. What does it look like, those poor ragged men\nshuffling along the kerb, and in their arms, rubbing against their\ndirty shoulders, great baskets of beauty, baskets heaped up with\ncharming aristocrats, gracious and delicate purities of shape and\ncolour and scent. The strangest effect of all is when they happen,\nround about Easter, to be selling only lilies, and the unearthly purity\nof the lilies shines on the passersby from close to the seller\'s\nterrible face. Christ must often have looked like that, when he sat\nclose up to Pharisees.\n\nBut although Kloster\'s music was certainly as beautiful as the lilies,\nhe himself wasn\'t like those tragic sellers. It was only that he was\nso very ordinary,--a little man compact, apparently, of grossness, and\nthe music he was making was so divine. It was that marvellous French\nand Russian stuff. I must play it to you, and play it to you, till you\nlove it. It\'s like nothing there has ever been. It is of an exquisite\nyouth,--untouched, fearless, quite heedless of tradition, going its own\nway straight through and over difficulties and prohibitions that for\ncenturies have been supposed final. People like Wagner and Strauss and\nthe rest seem so much sticky and insanitary mud next to these exquisite\nyoung ones, and so very old; and not old and wonderful like the great\nmen, Beethoven and Bach and Mozart, but uglily old like a noisy old\nlady in a yellow wig.\n\nThe audience applauded, but wasn\'t quite sure. Such a master as\nKloster, and one of their own flesh and blood, is always applauded, but\nI think the irregularity, the utter carelessness of the music, its\napparently accidental beauty, was difficult for them. Germans have to\nhave beauty explained to them and accounted for,--stamped first by an\nofficial, authorized, before they can be comfortable with it. I sat in\na corner and cried, it was so lovely. I couldn\'t help it. I hid away\nand pulled my hat over my face and tried not to, for there was a German\nin eyeglasses near me, who, perceiving I wanted to hide, instantly\nspent his time staring at me to find out why. The music held all\nthings in it that I have known or guessed, all the beauty, the wonder,\nof life and death and love. I _recognised_ it. I almost called out,\n\"Yes--of course--_I_ know that too.\"\n\nAfterwards I would have liked best to go home and to sleep with the\nsound of it still in my heart, but Kloster sent round a note saying I\nwas to come to supper and meet some people who would be useful for me\nto know. One of his pupils, who brought the note, had been ordered to\npilot me safely to the house, it being late, and as we walked and\nKloster drove in somebody\'s car he was there already when we arrived,\nbusy opening beer bottles and looking much more appropriate than he had\ndone an hour earlier. I can\'t tell you how kindly he greeted me, and\nwith what charming little elucidatory comments he presented me to his\nwife and the other guests. He actually seemed proud of me. Think how\nI must have glowed.\n\n\"This is Mees Chrees,\" he said, taking my hand and leading me into the\nmiddle of the room. \"I will not and cannot embark on her family name,\nfor it is one of those English names that a prudent man avoids. Nor\ndoes it matter. For in ten years--nay, in five--all Europe will have\nlearned it by heart.\"\n\nThere were about a dozen people, and we had beer and sandwiches and\nwere very happy. Kloster sat eating sandwiches and staring\nbenevolently at us all, more like an amiable and hospitable prawn than\never. You don\'t know, little mother, how wonderful it is that he\nshould say these praising things of me, for I\'m told by other pupils\nthat he is dreadfully severe and disagreeable if he doesn\'t think one\nis getting on. It was immensely kind of him to ask me to supper, for\nthere was somebody there, a Grafin Koseritz, whose husband is in the\nministry, and who is herself very influential and violently interested\nin music. She pulls most of the strings at Bayreuth, Kloster says,\nmore of them even than Frau Cosima now that she is old, and gets one\ninto anything she likes if she thinks one is worth while. She was very\namiable and gracious, and told me I must marry a German! Because, she\nsaid, all good music is by rights, by natural rights, the property of\nGermany.\n\nI wanted to say what about Debussy, and Ravel, and Stravinski, but I\ndidn\'t.\n\nShe said how much she enjoyed these informal evenings at Kloster\'s, and\nthat she had a daughter about my age who was devoted, too, to music,\nand a worshipper of Kloster\'s.\n\nI asked if she was there, for there was a girl away in a corner, but\nshe looked shocked, and said \"Oh no\"; and after a pause she said again,\n\"Oh no. One doesn\'t bring one\'s daughter here.\"\n\n\"But I\'m a daughter.\" I said,--I admit tactlessly; and she skimmed away\nover that to things that sounded wise but weren\'t really, about violins\nand the technique of fiddling.\n\nNot that I haven\'t already felt it, the cleavage here in the classes;\nbut this was my first experience of the real thing, the real Junker\nlady--the Koseritzes are Prussians. She, being married and mature, can\ndabble if she likes in other sets, can come down as a bright patroness\nfrom another world and clean her feathers in a refreshing mud bath, as\nKloster put it, commenting on his supper party at my lesson last\nFriday; but she would carefully keep her young daughter out of it.\n\nThey made me play after supper. Actually Kloster brought out his Strad\nand said I should play on that. It was evident he thought it important\nfor me to play to these particular people, so though I was dreadfully\ntaken aback and afraid I was going to disgrace my master, I was so much\ntouched by this kindness and care for my future that I obeyed without a\nword. I played the Kreutzer Sonata, and an officer played the\naccompaniment, a young man who looked so fearfully smart and correct\nand wooden that I wondered why he was there till he began to play, and\nthen I knew; and as soon as I started I forgot the people sitting round\nso close to me, so awkwardly and embarrassingly near. The Strad\nfascinated me. It seemed to be playing by itself, singing to me,\ntelling me strange and beautiful secrets. I stood there just listening\nto it.\n\nThey were all very kind and enthusiastic, and talked eagerly to each\nother of a new star, a _trouvaille_. Think of your Chris, only the\nother day being put in a corner by you in just expiation of her\noffensiveness--it really feels as if it were yesterday--think of her\nbeing a new, or anything else, star! But I won\'t be too proud, because\npeople are always easily kind after supper, and besides they had been\ngreatly stirred all the evening at the concert by Kloster\'s playing.\nHe was pleased too, and said some encouraging and delightful things.\nThe Junker lady was very kind, and asked me to lunch with her, and I\'m\ngoing tomorrow. The young man who played the accompaniment bowed,\nclicked his heels together, caught up my hand, and kissed it. He\ndidn\'t say anything. Kloster says he is passionately devoted to music,\nand so good at it that he would easily have been a first-rate musician\nif he hadn\'t happened to have been born a Junker, and therefore has to\nbe an officer. It\'s a tragedy, apparently, for Kloster says he hates\nsoldiering, and is ill if he is kept away long from music. He went\naway soon after that.\n\nGrafin Koseritz brought me back in her car and dropped me at Frau\nBerg\'s on her way home. She lives in the Sommerstrasse, next to the\nBrandenburger Thor, so she isn\'t very far from me. She shuddered when\nshe looked up at Frau Berg\'s house. It did look very dismal.\n\n\n _Bedtime_.\n\nI\'m so sleepy, precious mother, so sleepy that I must go straight to\nbed. I can\'t hold my head up or my eyes open. I think it\'s the\nweather--it was very hot today. Good night and bless you, my sweetest\nmother.\n\n Your own Chris who loves you.\n\n\n\n\n _Berlin, Sunday, June 28th. Evening_.\n\nBeloved little mother,\n\nI didn\'t write this morning, but went for a whole day into the woods,\nbecause it was such a hot day and I longed to get away from Berlin.\nI\'ve been wandering about Potsdam. It is only half an hour away in the\ntrain, and is full of woods and stretches of water, as well as palaces.\nPalaces weren\'t the mood I was in. I wanted to walk and walk, and get\nsome of the pavement stiffness out of my legs, and when I was tired sit\ndown under a tree and eat the bread and chocolate I took with me and\nstare at the sky through leaves. So I did.\n\nI\'ve had a most beautiful day, the best since I left you. I didn\'t\nspeak to a soul all day, and found a place up behind Sans Souci on the\nedge of a wood looking out over a ryefield to an old windmill, and\nthere I sat for hours; and after I had finished remembering what I\ncould of the Scholar Gypsy, which is what one generally does when one\nsits in summer on the edge of a cornfield, I sorted out my thoughts.\nThey\'ve been getting confused lately in the rush of work day after day,\nas confused as the drawer I keep my gloves and ribbons in, thrusting\nthem in as I take them off and never having time to tidy. Life tears\nalong, and I have hardly time to look at my treasures. I\'m going to\nlook at them and count them up on Sundays. As the summer goes on I\'ll\npilgrimage out every Sunday to the woods, as regularly as the pious go\nto church, and for much the same reason,--to consider, and praise, and\nthank.\n\nI took your two letters with me, reading them again in the woods. They\nseemed even more dear out there where it was beautiful. You sound so\ncontent, darling mother, about me, and so full of belief in me. You\nmay be very sure that if a human being, by trying and working, can\njustify your dear belief it\'s your Chris. The snapshot of the border\nfull of Canterbury bells makes me able to picture you. Do you wear the\nold garden hat I loved you so in when you garden? Tell me, because I\nwant to think of you _exactly_. It makes my mouth water, those\nCanterbury bells. I can see their lovely colours, their pink and blue\nand purple, with the white Sweet Williams and the pale lilac violas you\nwrite about. Well, there\'s nothing of that in the Lutzowstrasse. No\nwonder I went away from it this morning to go out and look for June in\nthe woods. The woods were a little thin and austere, for there has\nbeen no rain lately, but how enchanting after the barren dustiness of\nmy Berlin street! I did love it so. And I felt so free and glorious,\ncoming off on my own for my hard-earned Sunday outing, just like any\nother young man.\n\nThe train going down was full of officers, and they all looked very\nsmart and efficient and satisfied with themselves and life. In my\ncompartment they were talking together eagerly all the way, talking\nshop with unaffected appetite, as though shop were so interesting that\neven on Sundays they couldn\'t let it be, and poring together over maps.\nNo trace of stolidity. But where is this stolidity one has heard\nabout? Compared to the Germans I\'ve seen, it is we who are stolid;\nstolid, and slow, and bored. The last thing these people are is bored.\nOn the contrary, the officers had that same excitement about them, that\nsame strung-upness, that the men boarders at Frau Berg\'s have.\n\nPotsdam is charming, and swarms with palaces and parks. If it hadn\'t\nbeen woods I was after I would have explored it with great interest.\nDo you remember when you read Carlyle\'s Frederick to me that winter you\nwere trying to persuade me to learn to sew? And, bribing me to sew,\nyou read aloud? I didn\'t learn to sew, but I did learn a great deal\nabout Potsdam and Hohenzollerns, and some Sunday when it isn\'t quite so\nfine I shall go down and visit Sans Souci, and creep back into the past\nagain. But today I didn\'t want walls and roofs, I wanted just to walk\nand walk. It was very crowded in the train coming back, full of people\nwho had been out for the day, and weary little children were crying,\nand we all sat heaped up anyhow. I know I clutched two babies on my\nlap, and that they showed every sign of having no self-control. They\nwere very sweet, though, and I wouldn\'t have minded it a bit if I had\nhad lots of skirts; but when you only have two!\n\nWanda was very kind, and brought me some secret coffee and bread and\nbutter to my room when I told her I had walked at least ten miles and\nwas too tired to go into supper. She cried out \"_Herr Je_!\"--which I\'m\nafraid is short for Lord Jesus, and is an exclamation dear to her--and\nseized the coffee pot at once and started heating it up. I remembered\nafterwards that German miles are three times the size of English ones,\nso no wonder she said _Herr Je_. But just think: I haven\'t seen a\nsingle boarder for a whole day. I do feel so much refreshed.\n\nYou know I told you in my last letter I was going to lunch with the\nKoseritzes on Monday, and so I did, and the chief thing that happened\nthere, was that I was shy. Imagine it. So shy that I blushed and\ndropped things. For years I haven\'t thought of what I looked like when\nI\'ve been with other people, because for years other people have been\nso absorbingly interesting that I forgot I was there too; but at the\nKoseritzes I suddenly found myself remembering, greatly to my horror,\nthat I have a face, and that it goes about with me wherever I go, and\nthat parts of it are--well, I don\'t like them. And I remembered that\nmy hair had been done in a hurry, and that the fingers of my left hand\nhave four hard lumps on their tips where they press the strings of my\nfiddle, and that they\'re very ugly, but then one can\'t have things both\nways, can one. Also I became aware of my clothes, and we know how\nfatal that is when they are weak clothes like mine, don\'t we, little\nmother? You used to exhort me to put them on with care and\nconcentration, and then leave them to God. Such sound advice! And\nI\'ve followed it so long that I do completely forget them; but last\nMonday I didn\'t. They were urged on my notice by Grafin Koseritz\'s\ndaughter, whose eyes ran over me from head to foot and then back again\nwhen I came in. She was the neatest thing--_aus dem Ei gegossen_, as\nthey express perfect correctness of appearance. I suddenly knew, what\nI have always suspected, that I was blowsy,--blowsy and loose-jointed,\nwith legs that are too long and not the right sort of feet. I hated my\n_Beethovenkopf_ and all its hair. I wanted to have less hair, and for\nit to be drawn neatly high off my face and brushed and waved in\nbeautiful regular lines. And I wanted a spotless lacy blouse, and a\nstring of pearls round my throat, and a perfectly made blue serge skirt\nwithout mud on it,--it was raining, and I had walked. Do you know what\nI felt like? A _goodnatured_ thing. The sort of creature people say\ngenerously about afterwards, \"Oh, but she\'s so goodnatured.\"\n\nGrafin Koseritz was terribly kind to me, and that made me shyer than\never, for I knew she was trying to put me at my ease, and you can\nimagine how shy _that_ made me. I blushed and dropped things, and the\nmore I blushed and dropped things the kinder she was. And all the time\nmy contemporary, Helena, looked at me with the same calm eyes. She has\na completely emotionless face. I saw no trace of a passion for music\nor for anything else in it. She made no approaches of any sort to me,\nshe just calmly looked at me. Her mother talked with the extreme\nvivacity of the hostess who has a difficult party on hand. There was a\nsilent governess between two children. Junkerlets still in the\nschool-room, who stared uninterruptedly at me and seemed unsuccessfully\nendeavouring to place me; there was a young lady cousin who talked\nduring the whole meal in an undertone to Helena; and there was Graf\nKoseritz, an abstracted man who came in late, muttered something vague\non being introduced to me and told I was a new genius Kloster had\nunearthed, sat down to his meal from which he did not look up again,\nand was monosyllabic when his wife tried to draw him in and make the\nconversation appear general. And all the time, while lending an ear to\nher cousin\'s murmur of talk, Helena\'s calm eyes lingered on one portion\nafter the other of your poor vulnerable Chris.\n\nActually I found myself hoping hotly that I hadn\'t forgotten to wash my\nears that morning in the melee of getting up. I have to wash myself in\nbits, one at a time, because at Frau Berg\'s I\'m only given a very small\ntin tub, the bath being used for keeping extra bedding in. It is\ndifficult and distracting, and sometimes one forgets little things like\nears, little extra things like that; and when Helena\'s calm eyes, which\nappeared to have no sort of flicker in them, or hesitation, or blink,\nsettled on one of my ears and hung there motionless, I became so much\nunnerved that I upset the spoon out of the whipped-cream dish that was\njust being served to me, on to the floor. It was a parquet floor, and\nthe spoon made such a noise, and the cream made such a mess. I was so\nwretched, because I had already upset a pepper thing earlier in the\nmeal, and spilt some water. The white-gloved butler advanced in a sort\nof stately goose-step with another spoon, which he placed on the dish\nbeing handed to me, and a third menial of lesser splendour but also\nwhite-gloved brought a cloth and wiped up the mess, and the Grafin\nbecame more terribly and volubly kind than ever. Helena\'s eyes never\nwavered. They were still on my ear. A little more and I would have\nreached that state the goaded shy get to when they suddenly in their\nagony say more striking things than the boldest would dream of saying,\nbut Herr von Inster came in.\n\nHe is the young man I told you about who played my accompaniment the\nother night. We had got to the coffee, and the servants were gone, and\nthe Graf had lit a cigar and was gazing in deep abstraction at the\ntablecloth while the Grafin assured me of his keen interest in music\nand its interpretation by the young and promising, and Helena\'s eyes\nwere resting on a spot there is on my only really nice blouse,--I can\'t\nthink how it got there, mother darling, and I\'m fearfully sorry, and\nI\'ve tried to get it out with benzin and stuff, but it is better to\nwear a blouse with spots on it than not to wear a blouse at all, isn\'t\nit. I had pinned some flowers on it too, to hide it, and so they did\nat first, but they were fading and hanging down, and there was the\nspot, and Helena found it. Well, Herr von Inster came in, and put us\nall right. He looks like nothing but a smart young officer, very\nbeautiful and slim in his Garde-Uhlan uniform, but he is really a lot\nof other things besides. He is the Koseritz\'s cousin, and Helena says\n_Du_ to him. He was very polite, said the right things to everybody,\nexplained he had had his luncheon, but thought, as he was passing, he\nwould look in. He would not deny, be said, that he had heard I was\ncoming--he made me a little bow across the table and smiled--and that\nhe had hopes I might perhaps be persuaded to play.\n\nNot having a fiddle I couldn\'t do that. I wish I could have, for I\'m\ninstantly natural and happy when I get playing; but the Grafin said she\nhoped I would play to some of her friends one evening as soon as she\ncould arrange it,--friends interested in youthful geniuses, as she put\nit.\n\nI said I would love to, and that it was so kind of her, but privately I\nthought I would inquire of Kloster first; for if her friends are all as\ndeeply interested in music as the Graf and Helena, then I would be\ndoing better and more profitably by going to bed at ten o\'clock as\nusual, rather than emerge bedizened from my lair to go and flaunt in\nthese haunts of splendid virtue.\n\nAfter Herr von Inster came I began faintly to enjoy myself, for he\ntalked all round, and greatly and obviously relieved his aunt by doing\nso. Helena let go of my ear and looked at him. Once she very nearly\nsmiled. The other girl left off murmuring, and talked about things I\ncould talk about too, such as England and Germany--they\'re never tired\nof that--and Strauss and Debussy. Only the Graf sat mute, his eyes\nfixed on the tablecloth.\n\n\"My husband is dying to hear you play,\" said the Grafin, when he got up\npresently to go back to his work. \"Absolutely _dying_,\" she said,\nrecklessly padding out the leanness of his very bald good-bye to me.\n\nHe said nothing even to that. He just went. He didn\'t seem to be\ndying.\n\nHerr von luster walked back with me. He is very agreeable-looking,\nwith kind eyes that are both shrewd and sad. He talks English very\nwell, and so did everybody at the Koseritzes who talked at all. He is\npathetically keen on music. Kloster says he would have been a really\ngreat player, but being a Junker settles him for ever. It is tragic to\nbe forced out of one\'s natural bent, and he says he hates soldiering.\nPeople in the street were very polite, and made way for me because I\nwas with an officer. I wasn\'t pushed off the pavement once.\n\nGood night my own mother. I\'ve had a happy week. I put my arms round\nyou and kiss you with all that I have of love.\n\n Your Chris.\n\n\n\nWanda came in in great excitement to fetch my tray just now, and said a\nprince has been assassinated. She heard the _Herrschaften_ saying so\nat supper. She thought they said it was an Austrian, but whatever\nprince it was it was _Majestatsbeleidigung_ to get killing him, and she\nmarvelled how any one had dared. Then Frau Berg herself came to tell\nme. By this time I was in bed,--pig-tailed, and ready to go to sleep.\nShe was tremendously excited, and I felt a cold shiver down my back\nwatching her. She was so much excited that I caught it from her and\nwas excited too. Well, it is very dreadful the way these king-people\nget bombed out of life. She said it was the Austrian heir to the\nthrone and his wife, both of them. But of course you\'ll know all about\nit by the time you get this. She didn\'t know any details, but there\nhad been extra editions of the Sunday papers, and she said it would\nmean war.\n\n\"War?\" I echoed.\n\n\"War,\" she repeated; and began to tread heavily about the room saying,\n\"War. War.\"\n\n\"But who with?\" I asked, watching her fascinated, sitting up in bed\nholding on to my knees.\n\n\"It will come,\" said Frau Berg, treading about like some huge Judaic\nprophetess who sniffs blood. \"It must come. There will be no quiet in\nthe world till blood has been let.\"\n\n\"But what blood?\" I asked, rather tremulously, for her voice and\nbehaviour curdled me.\n\n\"The blood of all those evil-doers who are responsible,\" she said; and\nshe paused a moment at the foot of my bed and folded her arms across\nher chest--they could hardly reach, and the word chest sounds much too\nflat--and added, \"Of whom there are many.\"\n\nThen she began to walk about again, and each time a foot went down the\nroom shook. \"All, all need punishing,\" she said as she walked. \"There\nwill be, there must be, punishment for this. Great and terrible.\nBlood will, blood must flow in streams before such a crime can be\nregarded as washed out. Such evil-doers must be emptied of all their\nblood.\"\n\nAnd then luckily she went away, for I was beginning to freeze to the\nsheets with horror.\n\nI got out of bed to write this. You\'ll be shocked too, I know. The\nway royalties are snuffed out one after the other! How glad I am I\'m\nnot one and you\'re not one, and we can live safely and fruitfully\noutside the range of bombs. Poor things. It is very horrible. Yet\nthey never seem to abdicate or want not to be royalties, so that I\nsuppose they think it worth it on the whole. But Frau Berg was\nterrible. What a bloodthirsty woman. I wonder if the other boarders\nwill talk like that. I do pray not, for I hate the very word blood.\nAnd why does she say there\'ll be war? They will catch the murderers\nand punish them as they\'ve done before, and there\'ll be an end of it.\nThere wasn\'t war when the Empress of Austria was killed, or the King\nand Queen of Servia. I think Frau Berg wanted to make me creep. She\nhas a fixed idea that English people are every one of them much too\ncomfortable, and should at all costs be made to know what being\nuncomfortable is like. For their good, I suppose.\n\n\n\n\n _Berlin, Tuesday, June 30th, 1914_.\n\nDarling mother,\n\nHow splendid that you\'re going to Switzerland next month with the\nCunliffes. I do think it is glorious, and it will make you so strong\nfor the winter. And think how much nearer you\'ll be to me! I always\nsuspected Mrs. Cunliffe of being secretly an angel, and now I know it.\nYour letter has just come and I simply had to tell you how glad I am.\n\n Chris.\n\nThis isn\'t a letter, it\'s a cry of joy.\n\n\n\n\n _Berlin, Sunday, July 5th, 1914_.\n\nMy blessed little mother,\n\nIt has been so hot this week. We\'ve been sweltering up here under the\nroof. If you are having it anything like this at Chertsey the sooner\nyou persuade the Cunliffes to leave for Switzerland the better. Just\nthe sight of snow on the mountains out of your window would keep you\ncool. You know I told you my bedroom looks onto the Lutzowstrasse and\nthe sun beats on it nearly all day, and flies in great numbers have\ntaken to coming up here and listening to me play, and it is difficult\nto practise satisfactorily while they walk about enraptured on my neck.\nI can\'t swish them away, because both my hands are busy. I wish I had\na tail.\n\nFrau Berg says there never used to be flies in this room, and suggests\nwith some sternness that I brought them with me,--the eggs, I suppose,\nin my luggage. She is inclined to deny that they\'re here at all, on\nthe ground chiefly that nothing so irregular as a fly out of its proper\nplace, which is, she says, a manure heap, is possible in Germany. It\nis too well managed, is Germany, she says. I said I supposed she knew\nthat because she had seen it in the newspapers. I was snappy, you see.\nThe hot weather makes me disposed, I\'m afraid, to impatience with Frau\nBerg. She is so large, and she seems to soak up what air there is, and\nwhenever she has sat on a chair it keeps warm afterwards for hours. If\nonly some clever American with inventions rioting in his brain would\ncome here and adapt her to being an electric fan! I want one so badly,\nand she would be beautiful whirling round, and would make an immense\nvolume of air, I\'m sure.\n\nWell, darling one, you see I\'m peevish. It\'s because I\'m so hot, and\nit doesn\'t get cool at night. And the food is so hot too and so\ngreasy, and the pallid young man with the red mouth who sits opposite\nme at dinner melts visibly and continuously all the time, and Wanda\ncoming round with the dishes is like the coming of a blast of hot air.\nKloster says I\'m working too much, and wants me to practise less. I\nsaid I didn\'t see that practising less would make Wanda and the young\nman cooler. I did try it one day when my head ached, and you\'ve no\nidea what a long day it seemed. So empty. Nothing to do. Only\nBerlin. And one feels more alone in Berlin than anywhere in the world,\nI think. Kloster says it\'s because I\'m working too much, but I don\'t\nsee how working less would make Berlin more companionable. Of course\nI\'m not a bit alone really, for there is Kloster, who takes a very real\nand lively interest in me and is the most delightful of men, and there\nis Herr von Inster, who has been twice to see me since that day I\nlunched at his aunt\'s, and everybody in this house talks to me\nnow,--more to me, I think, than to any other of the boarders, because\nI\'m English and they seem to want to educate me out of it. And Hilda\nSeeberg has actually got as far in friendship as a cautious invitation\nto have chocolate with her one afternoon some day in the future at\nWertheim\'s; and the pallid young man has suggested showing me the\nHohenzollern museum some Sunday, where he can explain to me, by means\nof relics, the glorious history of that high family, as he put it; and\nFrau Berg, though she looks like some massive Satan, isn\'t really\nsatanic I expect; and Dr. Krummlaut says every day as he comes into the\ndiningroom rubbing his hands and passes my chair, \"_Na, was macht\nEngland_?\" which is a sign he is being gracious. It is only a feeling,\nthis of being completely alone. But I\'ve got it, and the longer I\'m\nhere and the better I know people the greater it becomes. It\'s an\n_uneasiness_. I feel as if my _spirit_ were alone,--the real, ultimate\nand only bit of me that is me and that matters.\n\nIf I go on like this you too, my little mother, will begin echoing\nKloster and tell me that I\'m working too much. Dear England. Dear,\ndear England. To find out how much one loves England all one has to do\nis to come to Germany.\n\nOf course they talk of nothing else at every meal here now but the\nArchduke\'s murder. It\'s the impudence of the Servians that chiefly\nmakes them gasp. That they should dare! Dr. Krummlaut says they never\nwould have dared if they hadn\'t been instigated to this deed of\natrocious blasphemy by Russia,--Russia bursting with envy of the\nGermanic powers and encouraging every affront to them. The whole\ntable, except the Swede who eats steadily on, sees red at the word\naffront. Frau Berg reiterates that the world needs blood-letting\nbefore there can be any real calm again, but it isn\'t German blood she\nwants to let. Germany is surrounded by enormously wicked people, I\ngather, all swollen with envy, hatred and malice, and all of gigantic\nsize. In the middle of these monsters browses Germany, very white and\nwoolly-haired and loveable, a little lamb among the nations, artlessly\nonly wanting to love and be loved, weak physically compared to its\ntowering neighbours, but strong in simplicity and the knowledge of its\n_gute Recht_. And when they say these things they all turn to me for\nendorsement and approval--they\'ve given up seeking response from the\nSwede, because she only eats--and I hastily run over my best words and\npick out the most suitable one, which is generally _herrlich_, or else\n_ich gratuliere_. The gigantic, the really cosmic cynicism I fling\ninto it glances off their comfortable thick skins unnoticed.\n\nI think Kloster is right, and they haven\'t grown up yet. People like\nthe Koseritzes, people of the world, don\'t show how young they are in\nthe way these middle-class Germans do, but I daresay they are just the\nsame really. They have the greediness of children too,--I don\'t mean\nin things to eat, though they have that too, and take the violent\ninterest of ten years old in what there\'ll be for dinner--I mean greed\nfor other people\'s possessions. In all their talk, all their\nexpoundings of _deutsche Idealen_, I have found no trace of\nconsideration for others, or even of any sort of recognition that other\nnations too may have rights and virtues. I asked Kloster whether I\nhadn\'t chanced on a little group of people who were exceptions in their\nway of looking at life, and he said No, they were perfectly typical of\nthe Prussians, and that the other classes, upper and lower, thought in\nthe same way, the difference lying only in their manner of expressing\nit.\n\n\"All these people, Mees Chrees,\" he said, \"have been drilled. Do not\nforget that great fact. Every man of every class has spent some of the\nmost impressionable years of his life being drilled. He never gets\nover it. Before that, he has had the nursery and the schoolroom:\ndrill, and very thorough drill, in another form. He is drilled into\nwhat the authorities find it most convenient that he should think from\nthe moment he can understand words. By the time he comes to his\nmilitary service his mind is already squeezed into the desired shape.\nThen comes the finishing off,--the body drilled to match the mind, and\nyou have the perfect slave. And it is because he is a slave that when\nhe has power--and every man has power over some one--he is so great a\nbully.\"\n\n\"But you must have been drilled too,\" I said, \"and you\'re none of these\nthings.\"\n\nHe looked at me in silence for a moment, with his funny protruding\neyes. Then he said, \"I am told, and I believe it, that no man ever\nreally gets over having been imprisoned.\"\n\n\n\n _Evening_.\n\nI feel greatly refreshed, for what do you think I\'ve been doing since I\nleft off writing this morning? Motoring out into the country,--the\nsweet and blessed country, the home of God\'s elect, as the hymn says,\nonly the hymn meant Jerusalem, and the golden kind of Jerusalem, which\ncan\'t be half as beautiful as just plain grass and daisies. Herr von\nInster appeared up here about twelve. Wanda came to my door and banged\non it with what sounded like a saucepan, and I daresay was, for she\nwouldn\'t waste time leaving off stirring the pudding while she went to\nopen the front door, and she called out very loud, \"_Der Herr Offizier\nist schon wieder da_.\"\n\nAll the flat must have heard her, and so did Herr von Inster.\n\n\"Here I am, _schon meeder da_\" he said, clicking his heels together\nwhen I came into the diningroom where he was waiting among the _debris_\nof the first spasms of Wanda\'s table-laying; and we both laughed.\n\nHe said the Master--so he always speaks of Kloster, and with such\naffection and admiration in his voice--and his wife were downstairs in\nhis car, and wanted him to ask me to join them so that he might drive\nus all into the country on such a fine day.\n\nYou can imagine how quickly I put on my hat.\n\n\"It is doing you good already,\" he said, looking at me as we went down\nthe four nights of stairs,--so Kloster had been telling him, too, that\nstory about too much work.\n\nHerr von Inster drove, and we three sat on the back seat, because he\nhad his soldier chauffeur with him, so I didn\'t get as much talk with\nhim as I had hoped, for I like him _very_ much, and so would you,\nlittle mother. There is nothing of the aggressive swashbuckler about\nhim. I\'m sure he doesn\'t push a woman off the pavement when there\nisn\'t room for him.\n\nI don\'t think I\'ve told you about Frau Kloster, but that is because one\nkeeps on forgetting she is there. Perhaps that quality of beneficent\ninvisibleness is what an artist most needs in a wife. She never says\nanything, except things that require no answering. It\'s a great\nvirtue, I should think, in a wife. From time to time, when Kloster has\n_lese majestated_ a little too much, she murmurs _Aber_ Adolf; or she\nannounces placidly that she has just killed a mosquito; or that the sky\nis blue; and Kloster\'s talk goes on on the top of this little\nundercurrent without taking the least notice of it. They seem very\nhappy. She tends him as carefully as one would tend a baby,--one of\nthose quite new pink ones that can\'t stand anything hardly without\ncrumpling up,--and competently clears life round him all empty and\nfree, so that he has room to work. I wish I had a wife.\n\nWe drove out through Potsdam in the direction of Brandenburg, and\nlunched in the woods at Potsdam by the lake the Marmor Palais is on.\nKloster stared at this across the water while he ate, and the sight of\nit tinged his speech regrettably. Herr von Inster, as an officer of\nthe King, ought really to have smitten him with the flat side of his\nsword, but he didn\'t; he listened and smiled. Perhaps he felt as the\nreally religious do about God, that the Hohenzollerns are so high up\nthat criticism can\'t harm them, but I doubt it; or perhaps he regards\nKloster indulgently, as a gifted and wayward child, but I doubt that\ntoo. He happens to be intelligent, and is not to be persuaded that a\nspade is anything but a spade, however much it may be got up to look\nlike the Ark of the Covenant or anything else archaic and\nbedizened--God forbid, little mother, that you should suppose I meant\nthat dreadful pun.\n\nFrau Kloster had brought food with her, part of which was cherries, and\nthey slid down one\'s hot dry throat like so many cool little blessings.\nI could hardly believe that I had really escaped the Sunday dinner at\nthe pension. We were very content, all of us I think, sitting on the\ngrass by the water\'s edge, a tiny wind stirring our hair--except\nKloster\'s, because he so happily hasn\'t got any, which must be\ndelicious in hot weather,--and rippling along the rushes.\n\n\"She grows less pale every hour,\" Kloster said to Herr von Inster,\nfixing his round eyes on me.\n\nHerr von Inster looked at me with his grave shrewd ones, and said\nnothing.\n\n\"We brought out a windflower,\" said Kloster, \"and behold we will return\nwith a rose. At present, Mees Chrees, you are a cross between the two.\nYou have ceased to be a windflower, and are not yet a rose. I wager\nthat by five o\'clock the rose period will have set in.\"\n\nThey were both so kind to me all day, you can\'t think little mother,\nand so was Frau Kloster, only one keeps on forgetting her. Herr von\nInster didn\'t talk much, but he looked quite as content as the rest of\nus. It is strange to remember that only this morning I was writing\nabout feeling so lonely and by myself in spirit. And so I was; and so\nI have been all this week. But I don\'t feel like that now. You see\nhow the company of one righteous man, far more than his prayers,\navaileth much. And the company of two of them availeth exactly double.\nKloster is certainly a righteous man, which I take it means a man who\nis both intelligent and good, and so I am sure is Herr von Inster. If\nhe were not, he, a Junker and an officer, would think being with people\nso outside his world as the Klosters intolerable. But of course then\nhe wouldn\'t be with them. It wouldn\'t interest him. It is so funny to\nwatch his set, regular, wooden profile, and then when he turns and\nlooks at one to see his eyes. The difference just eyes can make! His\nface is the face of the drilled, of the perfect unthinking machine, the\ncorrect and well-born Oberleutnant; and out of it look the eyes of a\nhuman being who knows, or will know I\'m certain before life has done\nwith him, what exultations are, and agonies, and love, and man\'s\nunconquerable mind. He really is very nice. I\'m sure you\'d like him.\n\nAfter lunch, and after Kloster had said some more regrettable things,\nbeing much moved, it appeared, by the palace facing him and by some\npersonal recollections he had of the particular Hohenzollern it\ncontained, while I lay looking up along the smooth beech-trunks to\ntheir bright leaves glancing against the wonderful blue of the sky--oh\nit was so lovely, little mother!--and Frau Kloster sometimes said\n_Aber_ Adolf, and occasionally announced that she had slain another\nmosquito, we motored on towards Brandenburg, along the chain of lakes\nformed by the Havel. It was like heaven after the Lutzowstrasse. And\nat four o\'clock we stopped at a Gasthaus in the pinewoods and had\ncoffee and wild strawberries, and Herr von Inster paddled me out on the\nHavel in an old punt we found moored among the rushes.\n\nIt looked so queer to see an officer in full Sunday splendour punting,\nbut there are a few things which seem to us ridiculous that Germans do\nwith great simplicity. It was rather like being punted on the Thames\nby somebody in a top hat and a black coat. He looked like a bright\ndragon-fly in his lean elegance, balancing on the rotten little board\nacross the end of the punt; or like Siegfried, made up to date, on his\njourney down the Rhine,--made very much up to date, his gorgeous\nbarbaric boat and fine swaggering body that ate half a sheep at a\nsitting and made large love to lusty goddesses wittled away by the\ncenturies to this old punt being paddled about slowly by a lean man\nwith thoughtful eyes.\n\nI told him he was like Siegfried in the second act of the\nGotterdammerung, but worn a little thin by the passage of the ages, and\nhe laughed and said that he at least had got Brunnhilde safe in the\nboat with him, and wasn\'t going to have to climb through fire to fetch\nher. He says he thinks Wagner\'s music and Strauss\'s intimately\ncharacteristic of modern Germany: the noise, the sugary sentimentality\nmaking the public weep tears of melted sugar, he said, the brutal\nglorification of force, the all-conquering swagger, the exaggeration of\nemotions, the big gloom. They were the natural expression, he said, of\nthe phase Germany was passing through, and Strauss is its latest\nflowering,--even noisier, even more bloody, of a bigger gloom. In that\nimmense noise, he said, was all Germany as it is now, as it will go on\nbeing till it wakes up from the nightmare dream of conquest that has\npossessed it ever since the present emperor came to the throne.\n\n\"I\'m sure you\'re saying things you oughtn\'t to,\" I said.\n\n\"Of course,\" he said. \"One always is in Germany. Everything being\nforbidden, there is nothing left but to sin. I have yet to learn that\na multiplicity of laws makes people behave. Behave, I mean, in the way\nAuthority wishes.\"\n\n\"But Kloster says you\'re a nation of slaves, and that the drilling you\nget _does_ make you behave in the way Authority wishes.\"\n\nHe said it was true they were slaves, but that slaves were of two\nkinds,--the completely cowed, who gave no further trouble, and the\nfurtive evaders, who consoled themselves for their outward conformity\nto regulations by every sort of forbidden indulgence in thought and\nspeech. \"This is the kind that only waits for an opportunity to flare\nout and free itself,\" he said. \"Mind, thinking, can\'t be chained up.\nAuthority knows this, and of all things in the world fears thought.\"\n\nHe talked about the Sarajevo assassinations, and said, he was afraid\nthey would not be settled very easily. He said Germany is\nseething,--seething, he said emphatically, with desire to fight; that\nit is almost impossible to have a great army at such a pitch of\nperfection as the German army is now and not use it; that if a thing\nlike that isn\'t used it will fester inwardly and set up endless\ninternal mischief and become a danger to the very Crown that created\nit. To have it hanging about idle in this ripe state, he said, is like\nkeeping an unexercised young horse tied up in the stable on full feed;\nit would soon kick the stable to pieces, wouldn\'t it, he said.\n\n\"I hate armies,\" I said. \"I hate soldiering, and all it stands for of\naggression, and cruelty, and crime on so big a scale that it\'s\nunpunishable.\"\n\n\"Great God, and don\'t I!\" He exclaimed, with infinite fervour.\n\nHe told me something that greatly horrified me. He says that children\nkill themselves in Germany. They commit suicide, schoolchildren and\neven younger ones, in great numbers every year. He says they\'re driven\nto it by the sheer cruelty of the way they are overworked and made to\nfeel that if they are not moved up in the school at the set time they\nand their parents are for ever disgraced and their whole career\nblasted. Imagine the misery a wretched child must suffer before it\nreaches the stage of _preferring_ to kill itself! No other nation has\nthis blot on it.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said, nodding in agreement with the expression on my face,\n\"yes, we are mad. It is in this reign that we\'ve gone mad, mad with\nthe obsession to get at all costs and by any means to the top of the\nworld. We must outstrip; outstrip at whatever cost of happiness and\nlife. We must be better trained, more efficient, quicker at grabbing\nthan other nations, and it is the children who must do it for us. Our\nfuture rests on their brains. And if they fail, if they can\'t stand\nthe strain, we break them. They\'re of no future use. Let them go.\nWho cares if they kill themselves? So many fewer inefficients, that\'s\nall. The State considers that they are better dead.\"\n\nAnd all the while, while he was telling me these things, on the shore\nlay Kloster and his wife, neatly spread out side by side beneath a tree\nasleep with their handkerchiefs over their faces. That\'s the idea\nwe\'ve got in England of Germany,--multitudes of comfortable couples,\nkindly and sleepy, snoozing away the afternoon hours in gardens or pine\nforests. That\'s the idea the Government wants to keep before Europe,\nHerr von Inster says, this idea of benevolent, beery harmlessness. It\ndoesn\'t want other nations to know about the children, the dead, flung\naside children, the ruthless breaking up of any material that will not\nhelp in the driving of their great machine of destruction, because then\nthe other nations would know, he says, before Germany is ready for it\nto be known, that she will stick at nothing.\n\nWanda has just taken away my lamp, Good night my own sweet mother.\n\n Your Chris.\n\n\n\n\n _Berlin, Wednesday, July 8th, 1914_.\n\nBeloved mother,\n\nKloster says I\'m to go into the country this very week and not come\nback for a whole fortnight. This is just a line to tell you this, and\nthat he has written to a forester\'s family he knows living in the\ndepths of the forests up beyond Stettin. They take in summer-boarders,\nand have had pupils of his before, and he is arranging with them for me\nto go there this very next Saturday.\n\nDo you mind, darling mother? I mean, my doing something so suddenly\nwithout asking you first? But I\'m like the tail being wagged by the\ndog, obliged to wag whether it wants to or not. I\'m very unhappy at\nbeing shovelled off like this, away from my lessons for two solid\nweeks, but it\'s no use my protesting. One can\'t protest with Kloster.\nHe says he won\'t teach me any more if I don\'t go. He was quite angry\nat last when I begged, and said it wouldn\'t be worth his while to go on\nteaching any one so stale with over-practising when they weren\'t fit to\npractise, and that if I didn\'t stop, all I\'d ever be able to do would\nbe to play in the second row of violins--(not even the first!)--at a\npantomime. That shrivelled me up into silence. Horror-stricken\nsilence. Then he got kind again, and said I had this precious\ngift--God, he said, alone knew why I had got it, I a woman; what, he\nasked, staring prawnishly, is the good of a woman\'s having such a\nstroke of luck?--and that it was a great responsibility, and I wasn\'t\nto suppose it was my gift only, to spoil and mess up as I chose, but\nthat it belonged to the world. When he said that, cold shivers\ntrickled down my spine. He looked so solemn, and he made me feel so\nsolemn, as though I were being turned, like Wordsworth in The Prelude,\ninto a dedicated spirit.\n\nBut I expect he is right, and it is time I went where it is cooler for\na little while. I\'ve been getting steadily angrier at nothing all the\nweek, and more and more fretted by the flies, and one day--would you\nbelieve it--I actually sat down and cried with irritation because of\nthose silly flies. I\'ve had to promise not to touch a fiddle for the\nfirst week I\'m away, and during the second week not to work more than\ntwo hours a day, and then I may come back if I feel quite well again.\nHe says he\'ll be at Heringsdorf, which is a seaside place not very far\naway from where I shall be, for ten days himself, and will come over\nand see if I\'m being good. He says the Koseritz\'s country place isn\'t\nfar from where I shall be, so I shan\'t feel as if I didn\'t know a soul\nanywhere. The Koseritz party at which I was to play never came off. I\nwas glad of that. I didn\'t a bit want to play at it, or bother about\nit, or anything else. The hot weather drove the Grafin into the\ncountry, Herr von Inster told me, He too seems to think I ought to go\naway. I saw him this afternoon after being with Kloster, and he says\nhe\'ll go down to his aunt\'s--that is Grafin Koseritz--while I\'m in the\nneighbourhood, and will ride over and see me. I\'m sure you\'d like him\nvery much. My address will be:\n\n _bei Herrn Oberforster Bornsted\n Schuppenfelde\n Reg. Bez. Stettin_.\n\nI don\'t know what Reg. Bez. means. I\'ve copied it from a card Kloster\ngave me, and I expect you had better put it on the envelope. I\'ll\nwrite and tell you directly I get there. Don\'t worry about me, little\nmother; Kloster says they are fearfully kind people, and it\'s the\nhealthiest place, in the heart of the forest, away on the edge of a\nthing they call the Haff, which is water. He says that in a week I\nshall be leaping about like a young roe on the hill side; and he tries\nto lash me to enthusiasm by talking of all the wild strawberries there\nare there, and all the cream.\n\n My heart\'s love, darling mother.\n Your confused and rather hustled Chris.\n\n\n _Oberforsterei, Schuppenfelde, July 11th, 1914_.\n\nMy own little mother,\n\nHere I am, and it is lovely. I must just tell you about it before I go\nto bed. We\'re buried in forest, eight miles from the nearest station,\nand that\'s only a Kleinbahn station, a toy thing into which a small\ntrain crawls twice a day, having been getting to it for more than three\nhours from Stettin. The Oberforster met me in a high yellow carriage,\ndrawn by two long-tailed horses who hadn\'t been worried with much drill\njudging from their individualistic behaviour, and we lurched over\nforest tracks that were sometimes deep sand and sometimes all roots,\nand the evening air was so delicious after the train, so full of\ndifferent scents and freshness, that I did nothing but lift up my nose\nand sniff with joy.\n\nThe Oberforster thought I had a cold, without at the same time having a\nhandkerchief; and presently, after a period of uneasiness on my behalf,\noffered me his. \"It is not quite clean,\" he said, \"but it is better\nthan none.\" And he shouted, because I was a foreigner and therefore\nwould understand better if he shouted.\n\nI explained as well as I could, which was not very, that my sniffs were\nsniffs of exultation.\n\n\"_Ach so_,\" he said, indulgent with the indulgence one feels towards a\nnewly arrived guest, before one knows what they are really like.\n\nWe drove on in silence after that. Our wheels made hardly any noise on\nthe sandy track, and I suddenly discovered how long it is since I\'ve\nheard any birds. I wish you had come with me here, little mother; I\nwish you had been on that drive this evening. There were jays, and\nmagpies, and woodpeckers, and little tiny birds like finches that kept\non repeating in a monotonous sweet pipe the opening bar of the\nBeethoven C minor Symphony No. 5. We met nobody the whole way except a\nman with a cartload of wood, who greeted the Oberforster with immense\nrespect, and some dilapidated little children picking wild\nstrawberries. I wanted to remark on their dilapidation, which seemed\nvery irregular in this well-conducted country, but thought I had best\nleave reasoned conversation alone till I\'ve had time to learn more\nGerman, which I\'m going to do diligently here, and till the Oberforster\nhas discovered he needn\'t shout in order to make me understand.\nSitting so close to my ear, when he shouted into it it was exactly as\nthough some one had hit me, and hurt just as much.\n\nHe is a huge rawboned man, with the flat-backed head and protruding\nears so many Germans have. What is it that is left out of their heads,\nI wonder? His moustache is like the Kaiser\'s, and he looks rather a\nfine figure of a man in his grey-green forester\'s uniform and becoming\nslouch hat with a feather stuck in it. Without his hat he is less\nimpressive, because of his head. I suppose he has to have a head, but\nif he didn\'t have to he\'d be very good-looking.\n\nThis is such a sweet place, little mother. I\'ve got the dearest little\nclean bare bedroom, so attractive after the grim splendours of my\ndrawingroom-bedroom at Frau Berg\'s. You can\'t think how lovely it is\nbeing here after the long hot journey. It\'s no fun travelling alone in\nGermany if you\'re a woman. I was elbowed about and pushed out of the\nway at stations by any men and boys there were as if I had been an\nownerless trunk. Either that, or they stared incredibly, and said\nthings. One little boy--he couldn\'t have been more than ten--winked at\nme and whispered something about kissing. The station at Stettin was\nhorrible, much worse than the Berlin one. I don\'t know where they all\ncame from, the crowds of hooligan boys, just below military age, and\nextraordinarily disreputable and insolent. To add to the confusion on\nthe platform there were hundreds of Russians and Poles with their\nfamilies and bundles--I asked my porter who they were, and he told\nme--being taken from one place where they had been working in the\nfields to another place, shepherded by a German overseer with a fierce\ndog and a revolver; very poor and ragged, all of them, but gentle, and,\ncompared to the Germans, of beautiful manners; and there were a good\nmany officers--it was altogether the most excited station I\'ve seen, I\nthink--and they stared too, but I\'m certain that if I had been in a\ndifficulty and wanted help they would have walked away. Kloster told\nme Germans divide women into two classes: those they want to kiss, and\nthose they want to kick, who are all those they don\'t want to kiss.\nOne can be kissed and kicked in lots of ways besides actually, I think,\nand I felt as if I had been both on that dreadful platform at Stettin.\nSo you can imagine how heavenly it was to get into this beautiful\nforest, away from all that, into the quiet, the _holiness_. Frau\nBornsted, who learned English at school, told me all the farms,\nincluding hers, are worked by Russians and Poles who are fetched over\nevery spring in thousands by German overseers. \"It is a good\narrangement,\" she said. \"In case of war we would not permit their\ndeparture, and so would our fields continue to be tilled.\" In case of\nwar! Always that word on their tongues. Even in this distant corner\nof peace.\n\nThe Oberforsterei is a low white house with a clearing round it in\nwhich potatoes have been planted, and a meadow at the back going down\nto a stream, and a garden in front behind a low paling, full of pinks\nand larkspurs and pansies. A pair of antlers is nailed over the door,\nproud relic of an enormous stag the Oberforster shot on an unusually\nlucky day, and Frau Bornsted was sewing in the porch beneath\nhoneysuckle when we arrived. It was just like the Germany one had in\none\'s story books in the schoolroom days. It seemed too good to be\ntrue after the Lutzowstrasse. Frau Bornsted is quite a pretty young\nwoman, flat rather than slender, tall, with lovely deep blue eyes and\nlong black eyelashes. She would be very pretty if it occurred to her\nthat she is pretty, but evidently it doesn\'t, or else it isn\'t proper\nto be pretty here; I think this is the real explanation of the way her\nhair is scraped hack into a little hard knob, and her face shows signs\nof being scrubbed every day with the same soap and the same energy she\nuses for the kitchen table. She has no children, and isn\'t, I suppose,\nmore than twenty five, but she looks as thirty five, or even forty,\nlooks in England.\n\nI love it all. It is really just like a story book. We had supper out\nin the porch, prepared, spread, and fetched by Frau Bornsted, and it\nwas a milk soup--very nice and funny, and I lapped it up like a thirsty\nkitten--and cold meat, and fried potatoes, and curds and whey, and wild\nstrawberries and cream. They have an active cow who does all the curds\nand whey and cream and butter and milk-soup, besides keeping on having\ncalves without a murmur,--\"She is an example,\" said Frau Bornsted, who\nwants to talk English all the time, which will play havoc, I\'m afraid,\nwith my wanting to talk German.\n\nShe took me to a window and showed me the cow, pasturing, like David,\nbeside still waters. \"And without rebellious thoughts unsuited to her\nsex,\" said Frau Bornsted, turning and looking at me. She showed what\nshe was thinking of by adding, \"I hope you are not a suffragette?\"\n\nThe Oberforster put on a thin green linen coat for supper, which he\nleft unbuttoned to mark that he was off duty, and we sat round the\ntable till it was starlight. Owls hooted in the forest across the\nroad, and bats darted about our heads. Also there were mosquitoes. A\ngreat _many_ mosquitoes. Herr Bornsted told me I wouldn\'t mind them\nafter a while. \"_Herrlich_,\" I said, with real enthusiasm.\n\nAnd now I\'m going to bed. Kloster was right to send me here. I\'ve\nbeen leaning out of my window. The night tonight is the most beautiful\nthing, a great dark cave of softness. I\'m at the back of the house\nwhere the meadow is and the good cow, and beyond the meadow there\'s\nanother belt of forest, and then just over the tops of the pines, which\nare a little more softly dark than the rest of the soft darkness,\nthere\'s a pale line of light that is the star-lit water of the Haff.\nFrogs are croaking down by the stream, every now and then an owl hoots\nsomewhere in the distance, and the air comes up to my face off the long\ngrass cool and damp. I can\'t tell you the effect the blessed silence,\nthe blessed peace has on me after the fret of Berlin. It feels like\ngetting back to God. It feels like being home again in heaven after\nhaving been obliged to spend six weeks in hell. And yet here, even\nhere in the very lap of peace, as we sat in the porch after supper the\nOberforster talked ceaselessly of Weltpolitik. The very sound of that\nword now makes me wince; for translated into plain English, what it\nmeans when you\'ve pulled all the trimmings off and look at it squarely,\nis just taking other people\'s belongings, beginning with their blood.\nI must learn enough German to suggest that to the Oberforster: Murder,\nas a preliminary to Theft. I\'m afraid he would send me straight back\nin disgrace to Frau Berg.\n\nGood night darling mother. I\'ll write oftener now. My rules don\'t\ncount this fortnight. Bless you, beloved little mother.\n\n Your Chris.\n\n\n\n\n _Schuppenfelde, Monday, July 13th_.\n\nSweet mother,\n\nI got your letter from Switzerland forwarded on this morning, and like\nto feel you\'re by so much nearer me than you were a week ago. At\nleast, I try to persuade myself that it\'s a thing to like, but I know\nin my heart it makes no earthly difference. If you\'re only a mile away\nand I mayn\'t see you, what\'s the good? You might as well be a\nthousand. The one thing that will get me to you again is accomplished\nwork. I want to work, to be quick; and here I am idle, precious days\npassing, each of which not used for working means one day longer away\nfrom you. And I\'m so well. There\'s no earthly reason why I shouldn\'t\nstart practising again this very minute. A day yesterday in the forest\nhas cured me completely. By the time I\'ve lived through my week of\npromised idleness I shall be kicking my loose box to pieces! And then\nfor another whole week there\'ll only be two hours of my violin allowed.\nWhy, I shall fall on those miserable two hours like a famished beggar\non a crust.\n\nWell, I\'m not going to grumble. It\'s only that I love you so, and miss\nyou so very much. You know how I always missed you on Sunday in\nBerlin, because then I had time to feel, to remember; and here it is\nall Sundays. I\'ve had two of them already, yesterday and today, and I\ndon\'t know what it will be like by the time I\'ve had the rest. I\nwalked miles yesterday, and the more beautiful it was the more I missed\nyou. What\'s the good of having all this loveliness by oneself? I want\nsomebody with me to see it and feel it too. If you were here how happy\nwe should be!\n\nI wish you knew Herr von Inster, for I know you\'d like him. I do think\nhe\'s unusual, and you like unusual people. I had a letter from him\ntoday, sent with a book he thought I\'d like, but I\'ve read it,--it is\nSelma Lagerlof\'s Jerusalem; do you remember our reading it together\nthat Easter in Cornwall? But wasn\'t it very charming of him to send\nit? He says he is coming this way the end of the week and will call on\nme and renew his acquaintance with the Oberforster, with whom he says\nhe has gone shooting sometimes when he has been staying at Koseritz.\nHis Christian name is Bernd. Doesn\'t it sound nice and _honest_.\n\nI suppose by the end of the week he means Saturday, which is a very\nlong way off. Saturdays used to seem to come rushing on to the very\nheels of Mondays in Berlin when I was busy working. Little mother, you\ncan take it from me, from your wise, smug daughter, that work is the\nkey to every happiness. Without it happiness won\'t come unlocked.\nWhat do people do who don\'t do anything, I wonder?\n\nKoseritz is only five miles away, and as he\'ll stay there, I suppose,\nwith his relations, he won\'t have very far to come. He\'ll ride over, I\nexpect. He looks so nice on a horse. I saw him once in the\nThiergarten, riding. I\'d love to ride on these forest roads,--the\nsandy ones are perfect for riding; but when I asked the Oberforster\ntoday, after I got Herr von Inster\'s letter, whether he could lend me a\nhorse while I was here, what do you think I found out? That Kloster,\nsuspecting I might want to ride, had written him instructions on no\naccount to allow me to. Because I might tumble off, if you please, and\nsprain either of my precious wrists. Did you ever. I believe Kloster\nregards me only as a vessel for carrying about music to other people,\nnot as a human being at all. It is like the way jockeys are kept,\nstrict and watched, before a race.\n\nFrau Bornsted gazed at me with her large serious eyes, and said, \"Do\nyou play the violin, then, so well?\"\n\n\"No,\" I snapped. \"I don\'t.\" And I drummed with my fingers on the\nwindowpane and felt as rebellious as six years old.\n\nBut of course I\'m going to be good. I won\'t do anything that may delay\nmy getting home to you.\n\nThe Bornsteds say Koseritz is a very beautiful place, on the very edge\nof the Haff. They talk with deep respectfulness of the Herr Graf, and\nthe Frau Grafin, and the _junge_ Komtesse. It\'s wonderful how\nrespectful Germans are towards those definitely above them. And so\nuncritical. Kloster says that it is drill does it. You never get over\nthe awe, he says, for the sergeant, for the lieutenant, for whoever, as\nyou rise a step, is one step higher. I told the Bornsteds I had met\nthe Koseritzes in Berlin, and they looked at me with a new interest,\nand Frau Bornsted, who has been very prettily taking me in hand and\nendeavouring to root out the opinions she takes for granted that I\nhold, being an _Englanderin_, came down for a while more nearly to my\nlevel, and after having by questioning learned that I had lunched with\nthe Koseritzes, and having endeavoured to extract, also by questioning,\nwhat we had had to eat, which I couldn\'t remember except the whipped\ncream I spilt on the floor, she remarked, slowly nodding her head, \"It\nmust have been very agreeable for you to be with the _grafliche\nFamilie_.\"\n\n\"And for them to be with me,\" I said, moved to forwardness by being\nfull of forest air, which goes to my head.\n\nI suppose this was what they call disrespectful without being funny,\nfor Frau Bornsted looked at me in silence, and Herr Bornsted, who\ndoesn\'t understand English, asked in German, seeing his wife solemn,\n\"What does she say?\" And when she told him he said, \"_Ach_,\" and\nshowed his disapproval by absorbing himself in the _Deutsche\nTageszeitzing_.\n\nIt\'s wonderful how easy it is to be disrespectful in Germany. You\'ve\nonly got to be the least bit cheerful and let some of it out, and\nyou\'ve done it.\n\n\"Why are the English always so like that?\" Frau Bornsted asked\npresently, after having marked her regret at my behaviour by not saying\nanything for five minutes.\n\n\"Like what?\"\n\n\"So--so without reverence. And yet you are a religious people. You\nsend out missionaries.\"\n\n\"Yes, and support bishops,\" I said. \"You haven\'t got any bishops.\"\n\n\"You are the first nation in the world as regards missionaries,\" she\nsaid, gazing at me thoughtfully and taking no notice of the bishops.\n\"My father\"--her father is a pastor--\"has a great admiration for your\nmissionaries. How is it you have so many missionaries and at the same\ntime so little reverence ?\"\n\n\"Perhaps that _is_ why,\" I said; and started off explaining, while she\nlooked at me with beautiful uncomprehending eyes, that the reaction\nfrom the missionaries and from the kind of spirit that prompts their\nraising and export might conceivably produce a desire to be irreverent\nand laugh, and that life more and more seemed to me like a pendulum,\nand that it needs must swing both ways.\n\nFrau Bornsted sat twisting her wedding ring on her finger till I was\nquiet again. She does this whenever I emit anything that can be called\nan idea. It reminds her that she is married, and that I, as she says,\nam _nur ein junges Madchen_, and therefore not to be taken seriously.\n\nWhen I had finished about the pendulum, she said, \"All this will be\ncured when you have a husband.\"\n\nThere was a tea party here yesterday afternoon. At least, it was\ncoffee. I thought there were no neighbours, and when I came back late\nfrom having been all day in the forest, missing with an indifference\nthat amazed Frau Bornsted the lure of her Sunday dinner, and taking\nsome plum-cake and two Bibles with me, English and German, because I\'m\ngoing to learn German that way among other ways while I\'m here, and I\nthink it\'s a very good way, and it immensely impressed Frau Bornsted to\nsee me take two Bibles out for a walk,--when I got back about five,\nuntidy and hot and able to say off a whole psalm in perfect Lutheran\nGerman, I found several high yellow carriages, like the one I was\nfetched in on Saturday, in front of the paling, with nosebags and rugs\non the horses, and indoors in the parlour a number of other foresters\nand their wives, besides Frau Bornsted\'s father and mother and younger\nsister, and the local doctor and his wife, and the Herr Lehrer, a tall\nyoung man in spectacles who teaches in the village school two miles\naway.\n\nI was astonished, for I imagined complete isolation here. Frau\nBornsted says, though, that this only happens on Sundays. They were\nsitting round the remnants of coffee and cake, the men smoking and\ntalking together apart from the women, the women with their\nbonnet-strings untied and hanging over their bosoms, of which there\nseemed to be many and much, telling each other, while they fanned\nthemselves with immense handkerchiefs, what they had had for their\nSunday dinner.\n\nI would have slunk away when I heard the noise of voices, and gone\nround to the peaceful company of the cow, but Frau Bornsted saw me\ncoming up the path and called me in.\n\nI went in reluctantly, and on my appearing there was a dead silence,\nwhich would have unnerved me if I hadn\'t still had my eyes so full of\nsunlight that I hardly saw anything in the dark room, and stood there\nblinking.\n\n\"_Unsere junge Englanderin,\" said Frau Bornsted, presenting me.\n\"Schuhlerin von_ Kloster--_grosses Talent_,--\" I heard her adding,\nhanding round the bits of information as though it was cake.\n\nThey all said _Ach so_, and _Wirklich_, and somebody asked if I liked\nGermany, and I said, still not seeing much, \"_Es ist wundervoll_,\"\nwhich provoked a murmur of applause, as the newspapers say.\n\nI found I was expected to sit in a corner with Frau Bornsted\'s sister,\nwho with the Lehrer and myself, being all of us unmarried, represented\nwhat the others spoke of as _die Jugend_, and that I was to answer\nsweetly and modestly any question I was asked by the others, but not to\nask any myself, or indeed not to speak at all unless in the form of\nanswering. I gathered this from the behaviour of Frau Bornsted\'s\nsister; but I do find it very hard not to be natural, and it\'s natural\nto me, as you know to your cost, don\'t you, little mother, to ask what\nthings mean and why.\n\nThere was a great silence while I was given a cup of coffee and some\ncake by Frau Bornsted, helped by her sister. The young man, the third\nin our trio of youth, sat motionless in the chair next to me while this\nwas done. I wanted to fetch my cup myself, rather than let Frau\nBornsted wait on me, but she pressed me down into my chair again with\nfirmness and the pained look of one who is witnessing the committing of\na solecism. \"_Bitte_--take place again,\" she said, her English giving\nway in the stress of getting me to behave as I should.\n\nThe women looked on with open interest and curiosity, examining my\nclothes and hair and hands and the Bibles I was clutching and the\nflowers I had stuck in where the Psalms are, because I never can find\nthe Psalms right off. The men looked too, but with caution. I was\nfearfully untidy. You would have been shocked. But I don\'t know how\none is to lie about on moss all day and stay neat, and nobody told me I\nwas going to tumble into the middle of a party.\n\nThe first to disentangle himself from the rest and come and speak to me\nwas Frau Bornsted\'s father, Pastor Wienicke. He came and stood in\nfront of me, his legs apart and a cigar in his mouth, and he took the\ncigar out to tell me, what I already knew, that I was English. \"_Sie\nsind englisch_,\" said Herr Pastor Wienicke.\n\n\"Ja,\" said I, as modestly as I could, which wasn\'t very.\n\nThere was something about the party that made me sit up on the edge of\nmy chair with my feet neatly side by side, and hold my cup as carefully\nas if I had been at a school treat and expecting the rector every\nminute. \"England,\" said the pastor, while everybody else listened,--he\nspoke in German--\"is, I think I may say, still a great country.\"\n\n\"_Ja_?\" said I politely, tilting up the _ja_ a little at its end, which\nwas meant to suggest not only a deferential, \"If you say so it must be\nso\" attitude, but also a courteous doubt as to whether any country\ncould properly be called great in a world in which the standard of\ngreatness was set by so splendid an example of it as his own country.\n\nAnd it did suggest this, for he said, \"_Oh doch_,\" balancing himself on\nhis heels and toes alternately, as though balancing himself into exact\njustice. \"_Oh doch._ I think one may honestly say she still is a\ngreat country, But--\" and he raised his voice and his forefinger at\nme,--\"let her beware of her money bags. That is my word to England:\nBeware of thy money bags.\"\n\nThere was a sound of approval in the room, and they all nodded their\nheads.\n\nHe looked at me, and as I supposed he might be expecting an answer I\nthought I had better say _ja_ again, so I did.\n\n\"England,\" he then continued, \"is our cousin, our blood-relation.\nTherefore is it that we can and must tell her the truth, even if it is\nunpalatable.\"\n\n\"_Ja_,\" I said, as he paused again; only there were several little\nthings I would have liked to have said about that, if I had been able\nto talk German properly. But I had nothing but my list of exclamations\nand the psalms I had learnt ready. So I said _Ja_, and tried to look\nmodest and intelligent.\n\n\"Her love of money, her materialism--these are her great dangers,\" he\nsaid. \"I do not like to contemplate, and I ask my friends here--\" he\nturned slowly round on his heels and back again--\"whether they would\nlike to contemplate a day when the sun of the British Empire, that\nEmpire which, after all, has upheld the cause of religion with\nfaithfulness and persistence for so long, shall be seen at last\ndescending, to rise no more, in an engulfing ocean of over-indulged\nappetites.\"\n\n\"_Ja_,\" I said; and then perceiving it was the wrong word, hastily\namended in English, \"I mean _nein_.\"\n\nHe looked at me for a moment more carefully. Then deciding that all\nwas well he went on.\n\n\"England,\" he said, \"is our natural ally. She is of the same blood,\nthe same faith, and the same colour. Behold the other races of the\nworld, and they are either partly, chiefly, or altogether black. The\nblonde races are, like the dawn, destined to drive away the darkness.\nThey must stand together shoulder to shoulder in any discord that may,\nin the future, gash the harmony of the world.\"\n\n\"_Ja_,\" I said, as one who should, at the conclusion of a Psalm, be\nsaying Selah.\n\n\"We live in serious times,\" he said. \"They may easily become more\nserious. Round us stand the Latins and the Slavs, armed to the teeth,\nbursting with envy of our goods, of our proud calm, and watching for\nthe moment when they can fall upon us with criminal and murderous\nintent. Is it not so, my Fraulein?\"\n\n\"_Ja_\" said I, forced to agree because of my unfortunate emptiness of\nGerman.\n\nThe only thing I could have reeled off at him was the Psalm I had\nlearnt, and I did long to, because it was the one asking why the\nheathen so furiously rage together; but you see, little mother, though\nI longed to I couldn\'t have followed it up, and having fired it off I\'d\nhave sat there defenceless while he annihilated me.\n\nBut I don\'t know what they all mean by this constant talk of envious\nnations crouching ready to spring at them. They talk and talk about\nit, and their papers write and write about it, till they inflame each\nother into a fever of pugnaciousness. I\'ve never been anywhere in the\nleast like it in my life. In England people talked of a thousand\nthings, and hardly ever of war. When we were in Italy, and that time\nin Paris, we hardly heard it mentioned. Directly my train got into\nGermany at Goch coming from Flushing, and Germans began to get in,\nthere in the very train this everlasting talk of war and the\nenviousness of other nations began, and it has never left off since.\nThe Archduke\'s murder didn\'t start it; it was going on weeks before\nthat, when first I came. It has been going on, Kloster says, growing\nin clamour, for years, ever since the present Kaiser succeeded to the\nthrone. Kloster says the nation thinks it feels all this, but it is\nmerely being stage-managed by the group of men at the top, headed by S.\nM. So well stage-managed is it, so carefully taught by such slow\ndegrees, that it is absolutely convinced it has arrived at its opinions\nand judgments by itself. I wonder if these people are mad. Is it\npossible for a whole nation to go mad at once? It is they who seem to\nhave the enviousness, to be torn with desire to get what isn\'t theirs.\n\n\"The disastrous crime of Sarajevo,\" continued Pastor Wienicke, \"cannot\nin this connection pass unnoticed. To smite down a God\'s Anointed!\"\nHe held up his hands. \"Not yet, it is true, an actually Anointed, but\nset aside by God for future use. It is typical of the world outside\nour Fatherland. Lawlessness and its companion Sacrilege stalk at\nlarge. Women emerge from the seclusion God has arranged for them, and\nrear their heads in shameless competition with men. Our rulers, whom\nGod has given us so that they shall guide and lead us and in return be\nreverently taken care of, are blasphemously bombed.\" He flung both his\narms heavenwards. \"Arise, Germany!\" he cried. \"Arise and show\nthyself! Arise in thy might, I say, and let our enemies be scattered!\"\n\nThen he wiped his forehead, looked round in recognition of the _sehr\nguts_ and _ausserordentlich schon gesagts_ that were being flung about,\nre-lit his cigar with the aid of the Herr Lehrer, who sprang\nobsequiously forward with a match, and sat down.\n\nWasn\'t it a good thing he sat down. I felt so much happier. But just\nas it was at the meals at Frau Berg\'s so it was at the coffee party\nhere,--I was singled out and talked to, or at, by the entire company.\nThe concentration of curiosity of Germans is terrible. But it\'s more\nthan curiosity, it\'s a kind of determination to crush what I\'m thinking\nout of me and force what they\'re thinking into me. I shall see as they\ndo; I shall think as they do; they\'ll shout at me till I\'m forced to.\nThat\'s what I feel. I don\'t a bit know if it isn\'t quite a wrong idea\nI\'ve got, but somehow my very bones feel it.\n\nWould you believe it, they stayed to supper, all of them, and never\nwent away till ten o\'clock. Frau Bornsted says one always does that in\nthe country here when invited to afternoon coffee. I won\'t tell you\nany more of what they said, because it was all on exactly the same\nlines, the older men singling me out one by one and very loudly telling\nme variations of Pastor Wienicke\'s theme, the women going for me in\ntwos and threes, more definitely bloodthirsty than the men, more like\nFrau Berg on the subject of blood-letting, more openly greedy. They\nwere all disconcerted and uneasy because nothing more has been heard of\nthe Austrian assassination. The silence from Vienna worries them, I\ngather, very much. They are afraid, actually they are afraid, Austria\nmay be going to do nothing except just punish the murderers, and so\nmiss the glorious opportunity for war. I wonder if you can the least\nrealize, you sane mother in a sane place, the state they\'re in here,\nthe sort of boiling and straining. I\'m sure the whole of Germany is\nthe same,--lashed by the few behind the scenes into a fury of\naggressive patriotism. They call it patriotism, but it is just\nblood-lust and loot-lust.\n\nI helped Frau Bornsted get supper ready, and was glad to escape into\nthe peace of the kitchen and stand safely frying potatoes. She was\nvery sweet in her demure Sunday frock of plain black, and high up round\nher ears a little white frill. The solemnity and youth and quaintness\nof her are very attractive, and I could easily love her if it weren\'t\nfor this madness about Deutschland. She is as mad as any of them, and\nin her it is much more disconcerting. We will be discoursing together\ngravely--she is always grave, and never knows how funny we both are\nbeing really--about amusing things like husbands and when and if I\'m\never going to get one, and she, full of the dignity and wisdom of the\nmarried, will be giving me much sage counsel with sobriety and\ngentleness, when something starts her off about Deutschland. Oh, they\nare _intolerable_ about their Deutschland!\n\nThe Oberforster is calling for this--he\'s driving to the post, so\ngood-bye little darling mother, little beloved and precious one.\n\n Your Chris.\n\n\n\n\n _Schuppenfelde, Thursday, July 16, 1914_.\n\nMy blessed mother,\n\nHere\'s Thursday evening in my week of nothing to do, and me meaning to\nwrite every day to you, and I haven\'t done it since Monday. It\'s\nbecause I\'ve had so much time. Really it\'s because I\'ve been in a sort\nof sleep of loveliness. I\'ve been doing nothing except be happy. Not\na soul has been near us since Sunday, and Frau Bornsted says not a soul\nwill, till next Sunday. Each morning I\'ve come down to a perfect\nworld, with the sun shining through roses on to our breakfast-table in\nthe porch, and after breakfast I\'ve crossed the road and gone into the\nforest and not come back till late afternoon.\n\nFrau Bornsted has been sweet about it, giving me a little parcel of\nfood and sending me off with many good wishes for a happy day. I\nwanted to help her do her housework, but except my room she won\'t let\nme, having had orders from Kloster that I was to be completely idle.\nAnd it _is_ doing me good. I feel so perfectly content these last\nthree days. There\'s nothing fretful about me any more; I feel\nharmonized, as if I were so much a part of the light and the air and\nthe forest that I don\'t know now where they leave off and I begin. I\nsit and watch the fine-weather clouds drifting slowly across the\ntree-tops, and wonder if heaven is any better. I go down to the edge\nof the Haff, and lie on my face in the long grass, and push up my\nsleeves, and slowly stir the shallow golden water about among the\nrushes. I pick wild strawberries to eat with my lunch, and after lunch\nI lie on the moss and learn the Psalm for the day, first in English and\nthen in German. About five I begin to go home, walking slowly through\nthe hot scents of the afternoon forest, feeling as solemn and as\nexulting as I suppose a Catholic does when he comes away, shriven and\nblest, from confession. In the evening we sit out, and the little\ngarden grows every minute more enchanted. Frau Bornsted rests after\nher labours, with her hands in her lap, and agrees with what the\nOberforster every now and then takes his pipe out of his mouth to say,\nand I lie back in my chair and stare at the stars, and I think and\nthink, and wonder and wonder. And what do you suppose I think and\nwonder about, little mother? You and love. I don\'t know why I say you\nand love, for it\'s the same thing. And so is all this beauty of summer\nin the woods, and so is music, and my violin when it gets playing to\nme; and the future is full of it, and oh, I do so badly want to say\nthank you to some one!\n\nGood night my most precious mother.\n\n Your Chris.\n\n\n\n\n Schuppenfelde, Friday, July 17,1914.\n\nThis morning when I came down to breakfast, sweet mother, there at the\nfoot of the stairs was Herr von Inster. He didn\'t say anything, but\nwatched me coming down with the contented look he has I like so much.\nI was frightfully pleased to see him, and smiled all over myself.\n\"Oh,\" I exclaimed, \"so you\'ve come.\"\n\nHe held out his hand and helped me down the last steps. He was in\ngreen shooting clothes, like the Oberforster\'s, but without the\nofficial buttons, and looked very nice. You\'d like him, I\'m sure.\nYou\'d like what he looks like, and like what he is.\n\nHe had been in the forest since four this morning, shooting with his\ncolonel, who came down with him to Koseritz last night. The colonel\nand Graf Koseritz, who came down from Berlin with them, were both\nbreakfasting, attended by the Bornsteds, and it shows how soundly I\nsleep here that I hadn\'t heard anything.\n\n\"And aren\'t you having any breakfast?\" I asked.\n\n\"I will now,\" he said. \"I was listening for your door to open,\"\n\nI think you\'d like him _very_ much, little mother.\n\nThe colonel, whose name is Graf Hohenfeld, was being very pleasant to\nFrau Bornsted, watching her admiringly as she brought him things to\neat. He was very pleasant to me too, and got up and put his heels\ntogether and said, \"Old England for ever\" when I appeared, and asked\nthe Graf whether Frau Bornsted and I didn\'t remind him of a nosegay of\nflowers. Obviously we didn\'t. The Graf doesn\'t look as if anybody\never reminded him of anything. He greeted me briefly, and then sat\nstaring abstractedly at the tablecloth, as he did in Berlin. The\nColonel did all the talking. Both he and the Graf had on those pretty\ngreen shooting things they wear in Germany, with the becoming soft hats\nand little feathers. He was very jovial indeed, seemed fond and proud\nof his lieutenant, Herr von Inster, slapped the Oberforster every now\nand then on the back, which made him nearly faint with joy each time,\nand wished it weren\'t breakfast and only coffee, because he would have\nliked to drink our healths,--\"The healths of these two delightful young\nroses,\" he said, bowing to Frau Bornsted and me, \"the Rose of\nEngland--long live England, which produces such flowers--and the Rose\nof Germany, our own wild forest rose.\"\n\nI laughed, and Frau Bornsted looked sedately indulgent,--I suppose\nbecause he is a great man, this staff officer, who helps work out all\nthe wonderful plans that are some day to make Germany able to conquer\nthe world; but, as she explained to me the other day when I said\nsomething about her eyelashes being so long and pretty, prettiness is\nout of place in her position, and she prefers it not mentioned. \"What\nhas the wife of an Oberforster to do with prettiness?\" she asked.\n\"It is good for a _junges Madchen_, who has still to find a husband,\nbut once she has him why be pretty? To be pretty when you are a\nmarried woman is only an undesirability. It exposes one easily to\ncomment, and might cause, if one had not a solid character, an\never-afterwards-to-be-regretted expenditure on clothes.\"\n\nThe men were going to shoot with the Oberforster after breakfast and be\nall day in the forest, and the Colonel was going back to Berlin by the\nnight train. He said he was leaving his lieutenant at Koseritz for a\nfew days, but that he himself had to get back into harness at\nonce,--\"While the young one plays around,\" he said, slapping Herr von\nInster on the back this time instead of the Oberforster, \"among the\nvaried and delightful flora of our old German forests. Here this\nnosegay,\" he said, sweeping his arm in our direction, \"and there at\nKoseritz--\" sweeping his arm in the other direction, \"a nosegay no less\ncharming but more hot-house,--the _schone_ Helena and her young lady\nfriends.\"\n\nI asked Herr von Inster after breakfast, when we were alone for a\nmoment in the garden, what his Colonel was like after dinner, if even\nbreakfast made him so jovial.\n\n\"He is very clever,\" he said. \"He is one of our cleverest officers on\nthe Staff, and this is how he hides it.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" I said; for I thought it a funny explanation. Why hide it?\n\nPerhaps that is what\'s the matter with the Graf,--he\'s hiding how\nclever _he_ is.\n\nBut that Colonel certainly does seem clever. He asked where we live in\nEngland; a poser, rather, considering we don\'t at present live at all;\nbut I told him where we did live, when Dad was alive.\n\n\"Ah,\" he said, \"that is in Sussex. Very pretty just there. Which\nhouse was your home?\"\n\nI stared a little, for it seemed waste of time to describe it, but I\nsaid it was an old house on an open green.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said, nodding, \"on the common. A very nice, roomy old house,\nwith good outbuildings. But why do you not straighten out those\ncorners on the road to Petworth? They are death traps.\"\n\n\"You\'ve been there, then?\" I said, astonished at the extreme smallness\nof the world.\n\n\"Never,\" he said, laughing. \"But I study. We study, don\'t we, Inster\nmy boy, at the old General Staff. And tell your Sussex County Council,\nbeautiful English lady, to straighten out those corners, for they are\nvery awkward indeed, and might easily cause serious accidents some day\nwhen the roads have to be used for real traffic.\"\n\n\"It is very good of you,\" I said politely, \"to take such an interest in\nus.\"\n\n\"I not only take the greatest interest in you, charming young lady, and\nin your country, but I have an orderly mind and would be really pleased\nto see those corners straightened out. Use your influence, which I am\nsure must be great, with that shortsighted body of gentlemen, your\nCounty Council.\"\n\n\"I shall not fail,\" I said, more politely than ever, \"to inform them of\nyour wishes.\"\n\n\"Ah, but she is delightful,--delightful, your little _Englanderin_,\" he\nsaid gaily to Frau Bornsted, who listened to his _badinage_ with grave\nand respectful indulgence; and he said a lot more things about England\nand its products and exports, meaning compliments to me--what can he be\nlike after dinner?--and went off, jovial to the last, clicking his\nheels and kissing first Frau Bornsted\'s hand and then mine, in spite,\nas he explained, of its being against the rules to kiss the hand of a\n_junges Madchen_, but his way was never to take any notice of rules, he\nsaid, if they got between him and a charming young lady. And so he\nwent off, waving his green hat to us and calling out _Auf Wiedersehen_\ntill the forest engulfed him.\n\nHerr von Inster and the Graf went too, but quietly. The Graf went\nexceedingly quietly. He hadn\'t said a word to anybody, as far as I\ncould see, and no rallyings on the part of the Colonel could make him.\nHe didn\'t even react to being told what I gather is the German\nequivalent for a sly dog.\n\nHerr von Inster said, when he could get a word in, that he is coming\nover to-morrow to drive me about the forest. His attitude while his\nColonel rattled on was very interesting: his punctilious attention, his\napparent obligation to smile when there were sallies demanding that\nform of appreciation, his carefulness not to miss any indication of a\nwish.\n\n\"Why do you do it?\" I asked, when the Colonel was engaged for a moment\nwith the Oberforster indoors. \"Isn\'t your military service enough?\nAre you drilled even to your smiles?\"\n\n\"To everything,\" he said. \"Including our enthusiasms. We\'re like the\n_claque_ at a theatre.\"\n\nThen he turned and looked at me with those kind, surprising eyes of\nhis,--they\'re so reassuring, somehow, after his stern profile--and\nsaid, \"To-morrow I shall be a human being again, and forget all\nthis,--forget everything except the beautiful things of life.\"\n\nNow I must leave off, because I want to iron out my white linen skirt\nand muslin blouse for to-morrow, as it\'s sure to be hot and I may as\nwell look as clean as I can, so good-bye darling little mother. Oh, I\nforgot to say how glad I am you like being at Glion. I did mean to\nanswer a great many things in your last letter, my little loved one,\nbut I will tomorrow. It isn\'t that I don\'t read and reread your\ndarling letters, it\'s that one has such heaps to say oneself to you.\nEach time I write to you I seem to empty the whole contents of the days\nI\'ve lived since I last wrote into your lap. But to-morrow I\'ll answer\nall your questions,--to-morrow evening, after my day with Herr von\nInster, then I can tell you all about it.\n\nGood-bye till then, sweet mother.\n\n Your Chris.\n\n\n\n\n _Koseritz, Saturday evening, July 18, 1914.\n\nMy darling little mother,\n\nSee where I\'ve got to! Who\'d have thought it? Life is really very\nexciting, isn\'t it. The Grafin drove over to Schuppenfelde this\nafternoon, and took me away with her here. She said Kloster was coming\nfor Sunday from Heringsdorf to them, and she knew he would want to see\nme and would go off to the Oberforsterei after me and leave her by\nherself if I were at the Bornsteds\', and anyhow she wanted to see\nsomething of me before I went back to Berlin, and I couldn\'t refuse to\ngive an old lady--she isn\'t a bit old--pleasure, and heaps of gracious\nthings like that. Herr von Inster had brought a note from her in the\nmorning, preparing my mind, and added his persuasions to hers. Not\nthat I wanted persuading,--I thought it a heavenly idea, and didn\'t\neven mind Helena, because I felt that in a big house there\'d be more\nroom for her to stare at me in. And Herr von Inster is going to stay\nanother week, taking his summer leave now instead of later, and he says\nhe will see me safe to Berlin when I go next Saturday.\n\nSo we had the happiest morning wandering about the forest, he driving\nand letting the horses go as slowly as they liked while we talked, and\nafter our sandwiches he took me back to the Bornsteds, and I showed\nFrau Bornsted the Grafin\'s letter.\n\nIf it hadn\'t been a Koseritz taking me away she would have been\ndreadfully offended at my wanting to go when only half my fortnight was\nover, but it was like a royal command to her, and she looked at me with\ngreatly increased interest as the object of these high attentions. She\nhad been inclined to warn me against Herr von Inster as a person\nremoved by birth from my sphere--I suppose that\'s because I play the\nviolin--and also against drives in forests generally if the parties\nwere both unmarried; and she had been extraordinarily dignified when I\nlaughed, and had told me it was all very well for me to laugh, being\nonly an ignorant _junges Madchen_, but she doubted whether my mother\nwould laugh; and she watched our departure for our picnic very stiffly\nand unsmilingly from the porch. But after reading the Grafin\'s letter\nI was treated more nearly as an equal, and she became all interest and\nco-operation. She helped me pack, while Herr von Inster, who has a\ngreat gift for quiet patience, waited downstairs; and she told me how\nfortunate I was to be going to spend some days with Komtesse Helena,\nfrom whom I could learn, she said, what the real perfect _junges\nMadchen_ was like; and by the time the Grafin herself drove up in her\nlittle carriage with the pretty white ponies, she was so much melted\nand stirred by a house-guest of hers being singled out for such an\nhonour that she put her arm round my neck when I said good-bye, and\nwhispered that though it wasn\'t really fit for a _junges Madchen_ to\nhear, she must tell me, as she probably wouldn\'t see me again, that she\nhoped shortly after Christmas to enrich the world by yet one more\nGerman.\n\nI laughed and kissed her.\n\n\"It is no laughing matter,\" she said, with solemn eyes.\n\n\"No,\" I said, suddenly solemn too, remembering how Agatha Trent died.\n\nAnd I took her face in both my hands and kissed her again, but with the\nseriousness of a parting blessing. For all her dignity, she has to\nreach up to me when I kiss her.\n\nShe put my hair tidy with a gentle hand, and said, \"You are not at all\nwhat a _junges Madchen_ generally is, but you are very nice. Please\nwish that my child may be a boy, so that I shall become the mother of a\nsoldier.\"\n\nI kissed her again, and got out of it that way, for I don\'t wish\nanything of the sort, and with that we parted.\n\nMeanwhile the Grafin had been sitting very firmly in her carriage,\nhaving refused all Frau Bornsted\'s entreaties to come in. It was\nwonderful to see how affable she was and yet how firm, and wonderful to\nsee the gulf her affability put between the Bornsteds--he was at the\ngate too, bowing--and herself.\n\nAnd now here I am, and it\'s past eleven, and my window opens right on\nto the Haff, and far away across the water I can see the lights of\nSwinemunde twinkling where the Haff joins the open sea. It is a most\nbeautiful old house, centuries old, and we had a romantic\nevening,--first at supper in a long narrow pannelled room lit by\ncandles, and then on the terrace beneath my window, where larkspurs\ngrow against the low wall along the water\'s edge. There is nobody here\nexcept the Koseritzes, and Herr von Inster, and two girl-friends of\nHelena\'s, very pretty and smart-looking, and an old lady who was once\nthe Grafin\'s governess and comes here every summer to enjoy what she\ncalled, speaking English to me, the Summer Fresh.\n\nIt was like a dream. The water made lovely little soft noises along\nthe wall of the terrace. It was so still that we could hear the throb\nof a steamer far away on the Haff, crossing from Stettin to Swinemunde.\nThe Graf, as usual, said nothing,--\"He has much to think of,\" the\nGrafin whispered to me. The girls talked together in undertones, which\nwould have made me feel shy and out of it if I hadn\'t somehow not\nminded a bit, and they did look exactly what the Colonel had said they\nwere, in their pale evening frocks,--a nosegay of very delicate and\nwell cared-for hothouse flowers. I had on my evening frock for the\nfirst time since I left England, and after the weeks of high blouses\nfelt conspicuously and terribly overdressed up in my bedroom and till I\nsaw the frocks the others had on, and then I felt the exact opposite.\nHerr von Inster hardly spoke, and not to me at all, but I didn\'t mind,\nI had so much in my head that he had talked about this morning. I feel\nso completely natural with him, so content; and I think it is because\nhe is here at Koseritz that I\'m so comfortable, and not in the least\nshy, as I was that day at luncheon. I simply take things as they come,\nand don\'t think about myself at all. When I came down to supper\nto-night he was waiting in the hall, to show me the way, he said; and\nhe watched me coming down the stairs with that look in his eyes that is\nsuch a contrast to the smart, alert efficiency of his figure and\nmanner,--it is so gentle, so kind. I went into the room where they all\nwere with a funny feeling of being safe. I don\'t even know whether\nHelena stared.\n\nTo-morrow the Klosters come over, and are going to stay the night, and\nto-morrow I may play my fiddle again. I\'ve faithfully kept my promise\nand not touched it. Really, as it\'s a quarter to twelve now and at\nmidnight my week\'s fasting will be over, I might begin and play it\nquite soon. I wonder what would happen if I sat on my window-sill and\nplayed Ravel to the larkspurs and the stars! I believe it would make\neven the Graf say something. But I won\'t do anything so unlike, as\nFrau Bornsted would say, what a _junges Madchen_ generally does, but go\nto bed instead, into the prettiest bed I\'ve slept in since I had a\nfrilly cot in the nursery,--all pink silk coverlet and lace-edged\nsheets. The room is just like an English country-house bedroom; in\nfact the Grafin told me she got all her chintzes in London! It\'s so\nfunny after my room at Frau Berg\'s, and my little unpainted wooden\nattic at the Oberforsterei.\n\nGood night, my blessed mother. There are two owls somewhere calling to\neach other in the forest. Not another sound. Such utter peace.\n\n Your Chris.\n\n\n\n\n _Koseritz, Sunday evening, July 19, 1914_.\n\nMy own darling mother,\n\nI don\'t know what you\'ll say, but I\'m engaged to Bernd. That\'s Herr\nvon Inster. You know his name is Bernd? I don\'t know what to say to\nit myself. I can\'t quite believe it. This time last night I was\nwriting to you in this very room, with no thought of anything in the\nworld but just ordinary happiness with kind friends and one specially\nkind and understanding friend, and here I am twenty-four hours later\ndone with ordinary happiness, taken into my lover\'s heart for ever.\n\nIt was so strange. I don\'t believe any girl ever got engaged in quite\nthat way before. I\'m sure everybody thinks we\'re insane, except\nKloster. Kloster doesn\'t. He understands.\n\nIt was after supper. Only three hours ago. I wonder if it wasn\'t a\ndream. We were all on the terrace, as we were last night. The\nKlosters had come early in the afternoon. There wasn\'t a leaf\nstirring, and not a sound except that lapping water against the bottom\nof the wall where the larkspurs are. You know how sometimes when\neverybody has been talking together without stopping there\'s a sudden\nhush. That happened to-night, and after what seemed a long while of\nsilence the Grafin said to Kloster, \"I suppose, Master, it would be too\nmuch to ask you to play to us?\"\n\n\"Here?\" he said. \"Out here?\"\n\n\"Why not?\" she said.\n\nI hung breathless on what he would say. Suppose he played, out there\nin the dusk, with the stars and the water and the forest all round us,\nwhat would it be like?\n\nHe got up without a word and went indoors.\n\nThe Grafin looked uneasy. \"I hope,\" she said to Frau Kloster, \"my\nasking has not offended him?\"\n\nBut Bernd knew--Bernd, still at that moment only Herr von Inster for\nme. \"He is going to play,\" he said.\n\nAnd presently he came out again with his Strad, and standing on the\nstep outside the drawingroom window he played.\n\nI thought, This is the most wonderful moment of my life. But it\nwasn\'t; there was a more wonderful one coming.\n\nWe sat there in the great brooding night, and the music told us the\nthings about love and God that we know but can never say. When he had\ndone nobody spoke. He stood on the step for a minute in silence, then\nhe came down to where I was sitting on the low wall by the water and\nput the Strad into my hands. \"Now you,\" he said.\n\nNobody spoke. I felt as though I were asleep.\n\nHe took my hand and made me stand up. \"Play what you like,\" he said;\nand left me there, and went and sat down again on the steps by the\nwindow.\n\nI don\'t know what I played. It was the violin that played while I held\nit and listened. I forgot everybody,--forgot Kloster critically noting\nwhat I did wrong, and forgot, so completely that I might have been\nunconscious, myself. I was _listening_; and what I heard were secrets,\nsecrets strange and exquisite; noble, and so courageous that suffering\ndidn\'t matter, didn\'t touch,--all the secrets of life. I can\'t\nexplain. It wasn\'t like anything one knows really. It was like\nsomething very important, very beautiful that one _used_ to know, but\nhas forgotten.\n\nPresently the sounds left off. I didn\'t feel as though I had had\nanything to do with their leaving off. There was dead silence. I\nstood wondering rather confusedly, as one wonders when first one wakes\nfrom a dream and sees familiar things again and doesn\'t quite\nunderstand.\n\nKloster got up and came and took the Strad from me. I could see his\nface in the dusk, and thought it looked queer. He lifted up my hands\none after the other, and kissed them.\n\nBut Bernd got up from where he was sitting away from the others, and\ntook me in his arms and kissed my eyes.\n\nAnd that\'s how we were engaged. I think they said something. I don\'t\nknow what it was, but there was a murmur, but I seemed very far away\nand very safe; and he turned round when they murmured, and took my\nhand, and said, \"This is my wife.\" And he looked at me and said, \"Is\nit not so?\" And I said \"Yes.\" And I don\'t remember what happened next,\nand perhaps it was all a dream. I\'m so tired,--so tired and heavy with\nhappiness that I could drop in a heap on the floor and go to sleep like\nthat. Beloved mother--bless your Chris.\n\n\n\n _Koseritz, Monday, July 20_.\n\nMy own darling mother,\n\nI\'m too happy,--too happy to write, or think, or remember, or do\nanything except be happy. You\'ll forgive me, my own ever-understanding\nmother, because the minutes I have to take for other things seem so\nsnatched away and lost, snatched from the real thing, the one real\nthing, which is my lover. Oh, I expect I\'m shameless, and I don\'t\ncare. Ought I to simper, and pretend I don\'t feel particularly much?\nBe ladylike, and hide how I adore him? Telegraph to me--telegraph your\nblessing. I must be blessed by you. Till I have been, it\'s like not\nhaving had my crown put on, and standing waiting, all ready in my\nbeautiful clothes of happiness except for that. I don\'t care if I\'m\nsilly. I don\'t care about anything. I don\'t know what they think of\nour engagement here. I imagine they deplore it on Bernd\'s\naccount,--he\'s an officer and a Junker and an only son and a person of\npromise, and altogether heaps of important things besides the important\nthing, which is that he\'s Bernd. And you see, little mother, I\'m only\na woman who is going to have a profession, and that\'s an impossible\nthing from the Junker point of view. It\'s queer how nothing matters,\nno criticism or disapproval, how one can\'t be touched directly one\nloves somebody and is loved back. It is like being inside a magic ring\nof safety. Why, I don\'t think that there\'s anything that could hurt me\nso long as we love each other. We\'ve had a wonderful morning walking\nin the forest. It\'s all quite true what happened last night. It\nwasn\'t a dream. We are engaged. I\'ve hardly seen the others. They\ncongratulated us quite politely. Kloster was very kind, but anxious\nlest I should let love, as he says, spoil art. We laughed at that.\nBernd, who would have been a musician but for his family and his\nobligations, is going to be it vicariously through me. I shall work\nall the harder with him to help me. How right you were about a lover\nbeing the best of all things in the world! I don\'t know how anybody\ngets on without one. I can\'t think how I did. It amazes me to\nremember that I used to think I was happy. Bless me, little\nmother--bless us. Send a telegram. I can\'t wait.\n\n Your Chris.\n\n\n\n _Koseritz, Thursday, July 23_.\n\nMy own mother,\n\nThank you so much for your telegram of blessing, darling one, which I\nhave just had. It seems to set the seal of happiness on me. I know\nyou will love Bernd, and understand directly you see him why I do. We\nare so placid here these beautiful summer days. Everybody accepts us\nnow resignedly as a _fait accompli_, and though they remain\nunenthusiastic they are polite and tolerant. And whenever I play to\nthem they all grow kind. It\'s rather like being Orpheus with his lute,\nand they the mountain tops that freeze. I\'ve discovered I can melt\nthem by just making music. Helena really does love music. It was\nquite true what her mother said. Since I played that first wonderful\nnight of my engagement she has been quite different to me. She still\nis silent, because that\'s her nature, and she still stares; but now she\nstares in a sort of surprise, with a question in her eyes. And\nwherever she may be in the house or garden, if she hears me beginning\nto play she creeps near on tiptoe and listens.\n\nKloster has gone. He and his wife were both very kind to us, but\nKloster is worried because I\'ve fallen in love. I\'m not to go back to\nBerlin till Monday, as Bernd can stay on here till then, and there\'s no\npoint in spending a Sunday in Berlin unless one has to. Kloster is\ngoing to give me three lessons a week instead of two, and I shall work\nnow with such renewed delight! He says I won\'t, but I know better.\nEverything I do seems to be touched now with delight. How funny that\nroom at Frau Berg\'s will look and feel after being here. But I don\'t\nmind going back to it one little half a scrap. Bernd will be in\nBerlin; he\'ll be writing to me, seeing me, walking with me. With him\nthere it will be, every bit of it, perfect.\n\n\"When I come back to town in October,\" the Grafin said to me, \"you must\nstay with us. It is not fitting that Bernd\'s betrothed should live in\nthat boarding-house of Frau Berg\'s. Will not your mother soon join\nyou?\"\n\nIt is very kind of her, I think. It appears that a girl who is engaged\nhas to be chaperoned even more than a girl who isn\'t. What funny\nancient stuff these conventions are. I wonder how long more we shall\nhave of them. Of course Frau Berg and her boarders are to the Junker\ndreadful beyond words.\n\nBut her question about you set me thinking. Won\'t you come, little\nmother? As it is such an unusual and never-to-be-repeated occurrence\nin our family that its one and only child should be going to marry?\nAnd yet I can\'t quite see you in August in lodgings in Berlin, come\ndown from your beautiful mountain, away from your beautiful lake.\nAfter all, I\'ve only got four more months of it, and then I\'m finished\nand can go back to you. What is going to happen then, exactly, I don\'t\nknow. Bernd says, Marry, and that you\'ll come and live with us in\nGermany. That\'s all very well, but what about, if I marry so soon,\nstarting my public career, which was to have begun this next winter?\nKloster says impatiently. Oh marry, and get done with it, and that\nthen | I\'ll be sensible again and able to arrange my debut as a\nviolinist with the calm, I gather he thinks, of the disillusioned.\n\n\"I\'m perfectly sensible,\" I said.\n\n\"You are not. You are in love. A woman should never be an artist.\nAgain I say, Mees Chrees, what I have said to you before, that it is\nsheer malice on the part of Providence to have taken you, a woman, as\nthe vessel which is to carry this great gift about the world. A man,\ngifted to the extent you so unluckily are, falls in love and is\ninspired by it. Indeed, it is in that condition that he does his best\nwork; which is why the man artist is so seldom a faithful husband, for\nthe faithful husband is precluded from being in love.\"\n\n\"Why can\'t he be in love?\" I asked, husbands now having become very\ninteresting to me.\n\n\"Because he is a faithful husband.\"\n\n\"But he can be in love with his wife.\"\n\n\"No,\" said Kloster, \"he cannot. And he cannot for the same reason that\nno man can go on wanting his dinner who has had it. Whereas,\" he went\non louder, because I had opened my mouth and was going to say\nsomething, \"a woman artist who falls in love neglects everything and\nmerely loves. Merely loves,\" he repeated, looking me up and down with\ngreat severity and disfavour.\n\n\"You\'ll see how I\'ll work,\" I said.\n\n\"Nonsense,\" he said, waving that aside impatiently. \"Which is why,\" he\ncontinued, \"I urge you to marry quickly. Then the woman, so\nunfortunately singled out by Providence to be something she is not\nfitted for, having married and secured her husband, prey, victim. Or\nwhatever you prefer to call him--\"\n\n\"I prefer to call him husband,\" I said.\n\n\"--if she succeeds in steering clear of detaining and delaying objects\nlike cradles, is cured and can go back with proper serenity to that\nwhich alone matters. Art and the work necessary to produce it. But\nshe will have wasted time,\" he said, shaking his head. \"She will most\nsadly have wasted time.\"\n\nIn my turn I said Nonsense, and laughed with that heavenly, glorious\nsecurity one has when one has a lover.\n\nI expect there are some people who may be as Kloster says, but we\'re\nnot like them, Bernd and I. We\'re not going to waste a minute. He\nadores my music, and his pride in it inspires me and makes me glow with\nlonging to do better and better for his sake, so as to see him moved,\nto see him with that dear look of happy triumph in his eyes. Why, I\nfeel lifted high up above any sort of difficulty or obstacle life can\ntry to put in my way. I\'m going to work when I get to Berlin as I\nnever did before.\n\nI said something like this to Kloster, who replied with great tartness\nthat I oughtn\'t to want to do anything for the sake of producing a\ncertain look in somebody\'s eyes. \"That is not Art, Mees Chrees. That\nis nothing that will ever be any good. You are, you see, just the\nveriest woman; and here--\" he almost cried--\"is this gift, this\nprecious immortal gift, placed in such shaky small hands as yours.\"\n\n\"I\'m very sorry,\" I said, feeling quite ashamed that I had it, he was\nso much annoyed.\n\n\"No, no,\" he said, relenting a little, \"do not be sorry--marry. Marry\nquickly. Then there may be recovery.\"\n\nAnd when he was saying good-bye--I tell you this because it will amuse\nyou--he said with a kind of angry grief that if Providence were\ndetermined in its unaccountable freakishness to place a gift which\nshould be so exclusively man\'s in the shell or husk (I forget which he\ncalled it, but anyhow it sounded contemptuous), of a woman, it might at\nleast have selected an ugly woman. \"It need not,\" he said angrily,\n\"have taken one who was likely in any case to be selected for purposes\nof love-making, and given her, besides the ordinary collection of\nallurements provided by nature to attract the male, a _Beethovenkopf_.\nNever should that wide sweep of brow and those deep set eyes, the whole\nnoble thoughtfulness of such a head,\"--you mustn\'t think me vain,\nlittle mother, he positively said all these things and was so\nangry--\"have been combined with the rubbish, in this case irrelevant\nand actually harmful, that goes to make up the usual pretty young face.\nMees Chrees, I could have wished you some minor deformity, such as many\nspots, for then you would not now be in this lamentable condition of\nbeing loved and responding to it. And if,\" he said as a parting shot,\n\"Providence was determined to commit this folly, it need not have\ncrowned it by choosing an Englishwoman.\"\n\n\"What?\" I said, astonished, following him out on to the steps, for he\nhas always seemed to like and admire us.\n\n\"The English are not musical,\" he said, climbing into the car that was\nto take him to the station, and in which Frau Kloster had been\npatiently waiting. \"They are not, they never were, and they never will\nbe. Purcell? A fig for your Purcell. You cannot make a great gallery\nof art out of one miniature, however perfect. And as for your moderns,\nyour Parrys and Stanfords and Elgars and the rest, why, what stuff are\nthey? Very nice, very good, very conscientious: the translation into\nmusical notation of respectable English gentlemen in black coats and\nsilk hats. They are the British Stock Exchange got into music. No,\nno,\" he said, tucking the dust-cover round himself and his wife, \"the\nEnglish are not musicians. And you,\" he called back as the car was\nmoving, \"You, Mees Chrees, are a freak,--nothing whatever but a freak\nand an accident.\"\n\nWe turned away to go indoors. The Grafin said she considered he might\nhave wished her good-bye. \"After all,\" she remarked, \"I was his\nhostess.\"\n\nShe looked thoughtfully at me and Bernd as we stood arm-in-arm aside at\nthe door to let her pass. \"These geniuses,\" she said, laying her hand\na moment on Bernd\'s shoulder, \"are interesting but difficult.\"\n\nI think, little mother, she meant me, and was feeling a little sorry\nfor Bernd!\n\nIsn\'t it queer how people don\'t understand. Anyhow, when she had gone\nin we looked at each other and laughed, and Bernd took my hands and\nkissed them one after the other, and said something so sweet, so\ndear,--but I can\'t tell you what it was. That\'s the worst of this\nhaving a lover,--all the most wonderful, beautiful things that are\nbeing said to me by him are things I can\'t tell you, my mother, my\nbeloved mother whom I\'ve always told everything to all my life. Just\nthe things you\'d love most to hear, the things that crown me with glory\nand pride, I can\'t tell you. It is because they\'re sacred. Sacred and\nholy to him and to me. You must imagine them, my precious one; imagine\nthe very loveliest things you\'d like said to your Chris, and they won\'t\nbe half as lovely as what is being said to her. I must go now, because\nBernd and I are going sailing on the Haff in a fishing boat there is.\nWe\'re taking tea, and are going to be away till the evening. The\nfishing boat has orange-coloured sails, and is quite big,--I mean you\ncan walk about on her and she doesn\'t tip up. We\'re going to run her\nnose into the rushes along the shore when we\'re tired of sailing, and\nBernd is going to hear me say my German psalms and read Heine to me.\nGood-bye then for the moment, my little darling one. How very heavenly\nit is being engaged, and having the right to go off openly for hours\nwith the one person you want to be with, and nobody can say, \"No, you\nmustn\'t.\" Do you know Bernd has to have the Kaiser\'s permission to\nmarry? All officers have to, and he quite often says no. The girl has\nto prove she has an income of her own of at least 5000 marks--that\'s\n250 pounds a year--and be of demonstrably decent birth. Well, the\nbirth part is all right--I wonder if the Kaiser knows how to pronounce\nCholmondeley--and of course once I get playing at concerts I shall earn\nheaps more than the 250 pounds; so I expect we shall be able to arrange\nthat. Kloster will give me a certificate of future earning powers, I\'m\nsure. But marrying seems so far off, such a dreamy thing, that I\'ve\nnot begun really to think of it. Being engaged is quite lovely enough\nto go on with. There\'s Bernd calling.\n\n\n\n _Evening_.\n\nI\'ve just come in. It\'s ten o\'clock. I\'ve had the most perfect day.\nLittle mother, what an amazingly beautiful world it is. Everything is\ncombining to make this summer the most wonderful of summers for me.\nHow I shall think of it when I am old, and laugh for joy. The weather\nis so perfect, people are so kind, my playing prospects are so\nencouraging; and there\'s Bernd. Did you ever know such a lot of lovely\nthings for one girl? All my days are filled with sunshine and love.\nEverywhere I look there\'s nothing but kindness. Do you think the world\nis getting really kinder, or is it only that I\'m so happy? I can\'t\nhelp thinking that all that talk I heard in Berlin, all that\nrestlessness and desire to hit out at somebody, anybody,--the\nknock-him-down-and-rob him idea they seemed obsessed with, was simply\nbecause it was drawing near the holiday time of year, and every one was\noverworked and nervy after a year\'s being cooped up in offices; and\nthen the great heat came and finished them. They were cross, like\novertired children, cross and quarrelsome. How cross I was too,\ntormented by those flies! After this month, when everybody has been\naway at the sea and in the forests, they\'ll be different, and as full\nof kindliness and gentleness as these gentle kind skies are, and the\nmorning and the evening, and the placid noons. I don\'t believe anybody\nwho has watched cows pasturing in golden meadows, as Bernd and I have\nfor hours this afternoon, or heard water lapping among reeds, or seen\neagles shining far up in the blue above the pine trees, and drawn in\nwith every breath the sweetness, the extraordinary warm sweetness, of\nthis summer in places in the forests and by the sea,--I don\'t believe\npeople who had done that could for at least another year want to\nquarrel and fight. And by the time they did want to, having got jumpy\nin the course of months of uninterrupted herding together, it will be\ntime for them to go for holidays again, back to the blessed country to\nbe soothed and healed. And each year we shall grow wiser, each year\nmore grown-up, less like naughty children, nearer to God. All we want\nis time,--time to think and understand. I feel religious now.\nHappiness has made me so religious that I would satisfy even Aunt\nEdith. I\'m sure happiness brings one to God much quicker than ways of\ngrief. Indeed it\'s the only right way of being brought, I think. You\nknow, little mother, I\'ve always hated the idea of being kicked to God,\nof getting on to our knees because we\'ve been beaten till we can\'t\nstand. I think if I were to lose what I love,--you, Bernd, or be hurt\nin my hands so that I couldn\'t play,--it wouldn\'t make me good, it\nwould make me bad. I\'d go all hard, and defy and rebel. And really\nGod ought to like that best. It\'s at least a square and manly\nattitude. Think how we would despise any creature who fawned on us,\nand praised and thanked us because we had been cruel. And why should\nGod be less fine than we are? Oh well, I must go to bed. One can\'t\nsettle God in the tail-end of a letter. But I\'m going to say prayers\ntonight, real prayers of gratitude, real uplifting of the heart in\nthanks and praise. I think I was always happy, little mother. I don\'t\nremember anything else; but it wasn\'t this secure happiness. I used to\nbe anxious sometimes. I knew we were poor, and that you were so very\nprecious. Now I feel safe, safe about you as well as myself. I can\nlook life in the eyes, quite confident, almost careless. I have such\nfaith in Bernd! Two together are so strong, if one of the two is Bernd.\n\nGood night my blessed mother of my heart. I\'m going to say\nthank-prayers now, for you, for him, for the whole beautifulness of the\nworld. My windows are wide open on to the Haff. There\'s no sound at\nall, except that little plop, plop, of the water against the terrace\nwall. Sometimes a bird flutters for a moment in the trees of the\nforest on either side of the garden, turning over in its sleep, I\nsuppose, and then everything is still again, so still; just as if some\ngreat cool hand were laid gently on the hot forehead of the world and\nwas hushing it to sleep.\n\nYour Chris who loves you.\n\n\n\n\n _Koseritz, Friday, July 25th, 1914_.\n\nBeloved mother,\n\nBernd was telegraphed for this afternoon from headquarters to go back\nat once to Berlin, and he\'s gone. I\'m rubbing my eyes to see if I\'m\nawake, it has been so sudden. The whole house seemed changed in an\ninstant. The Graf went too. The newspaper doesn\'t get here till we\nare at lunch, and is always brought in and laid by the Graf, and today\nthere was the Austrian ultimatum to Servia in it, and when the Graf saw\nthat in the headlines of the _Tageszeitung_ he laid it down without a\nword and got up and left the room. Bernd reached over for the paper to\nsee what had happened, and it was that. He read it out to us. \"This\nmeans war,\" he said, and the Grafin said, \"Hush,\" very quickly; I\nsuppose because she couldn\'t bear to hear the word. Then she got up\ntoo, and went after the Graf, and we were left, Helena and the\ngoverness, and the children, and Bernd, and I at a confused and untidy\ntable, everybody with a question in their eyes, and the servants\' hands\nnot very steady as they held the dishes. The menservants would all\nhave to go and fight if there were war. No wonder the dishes shook a\nlittle, for they can\'t but feel excited.\n\nAs soon as we could get away from the diningroom Bernd and I went out\ninto the garden--the Graf and Grafin hadn\'t reappeared--and he said\nthat though for a moment he had thought Austria\'s ultimatum would mean\nwar, it was only just the first moment, but that he believed Servia\nwould agree to everything, and the crisis would blow over in the way so\nmany of them had blown over before.\n\nI asked him what would happen if it didn\'t; I wanted things explained\nto me clearly, for positively I\'m not quite clear about which nations\nwould be fighting; and he said why talk about hateful things like war\nas long as there wasn\'t a war. He said that as long as his chief left\nhim peacefully at Koseritz and didn\'t send for him to Berlin I might be\nsure it was going to be just a local quarrel, for his being sent for\nwould mean that all officers on leave were being sent for, and that the\nGovernment was at least uneasy. Then at four o\'clock came the\ntelegram. The Government is, accordingly, at least uneasy.\n\nI saw hardly any more of him. He got his things together with a\nquickness that astonished me, and he and the Graf, who was going to\nBerlin by the same train, motored to Stettin to catch the last express.\nJust before they left he caught hold of my hand and pulled me into the\nlibrary where no one was, and told me how he thanked God I was English.\n\"Chris, if you had been French or Russian,\"--he said, looking as though\nthe very thought filled him with horror. He laid his face against\nmine. \"I\'d have loved you just the same,\" he said, \"I could have done\nnothing else but love you, and think, think what it would have meant--\"\n\n\"Then it will be Germany as well, if there\'s war?\" I said, \"Germany as\nwell as Austria, and France and Russia--what, almost all Europe?\" I\nexclaimed, incredulous of such a terror.\n\n\"Except England,\" he said; and whispered, \"Oh, thank God, except\nEngland.\" Somebody opened the door an inch and told him he must come\nat once. I whispered in his ear that I would go back to Berlin\ntomorrow and be near him. He went out so quickly that by the time I\ngot into the hall after him the car was tearing down the avenue, and I\nonly caught a flash of the sun on his helmet as he disappeared round\nthe corner.\n\nIt has all been so quick. I can\'t believe it quite. I don\'t know what\nto think, and nobody says anything here. The Grafin, when I ask her\nwhat she thinks, says soothingly that I needn\'t worry my little\nhead--my little head! As though I were six, and made of sugar--and\nthat everything will settle down again. \"Europe is in an excited\nstate,\" she says placidly, \"and suspects danger round every corner, and\nwhen it has reached the corner and looked round it, it finds nothing\nthere after all. It has happened often before, and will no doubt\nhappen again. Go to bed, my child, and forget politics. Leave them to\nolder and more experienced heads. Always our Kaiser has been on the\nside of peace, and we can trust him to smooth down Austria\'s ruffled\nfeathers.\"\n\nGreatly doubting her Kaiser, after all I\'ve heard of him at Kloster\'s,\nI was too polite to be anything but silent, and came up to my room\nobediently. If there is war, then Bernd--oh well, I\'m tired. I don\'t\nthink I\'ll write any more tonight. But I do love you so very much,\ndarling mother.\n\n Your Chris.\n\nWhat a mercy that mothers are women, and needn\'t go away and fight.\nWouldn\'t it have been too awful if they had been men!\n\n\n\n _Koseritz, Saturday, July 25th, 1914.\n\nYou know, my beloved one, I\'d much rather be at Frau Berg\'s in Berlin\nand independent, and able to see Bernd whenever he can come, without\nsaying dozens of thank you\'s and may I\'s to anybody each time, and I\nhad arranged to go today, and now the Grafin won\'t let me. She says\nshe\'ll take me up on Monday when she and Helena go. They\'re going for\na short time because they want to be nearer any news there is than they\nare here, and she says it wouldn\'t be right for her, so nearly my aunt,\nto allow me, so nearly her niece, to stay by myself in a pension while\nshe is in her house in the next street. What would people say? she\nasked--_was wurden die Leute sagen_, as every German before doing or\nrefraining from doing a thing invariably inquires. They all from top\nto bottom seem to walk in terror of _die Leute_ and what they would\n_sagen_. So I\'m to go to her house in the Sommerstrasse, and live in\nchaperoned splendour for as long as she is there. She says she is\ncertain my mother would wish it. I\'m not a hit certain, I who know my\nmother and know how beautifully empty she is of conventions and how\ndivinely indifferent to _die Leute_; but as I\'m going to marry a German\nof the Junker class I suppose I must appease his relations,--at any\nrate till I\'ve got them, by gentle and devious methods, a little more\nused to me. So I gave in sullenly. Don\'t be afraid,--only sullenly\ninside, not outside. Outside I was so well-bred and pleased, you can\'t\nthink. It really is very kind of the Grafin, and her want of\nenthusiasm, which was marked, only makes it all the kinder. On that\nprinciple, too, my gratefulness, owing to an equal want of enthusiasm,\nis all the more grateful.\n\nI don\'t want to wait here till Monday. I\'d like to have gone\ntoday,--got through all the miles of slow forest that lie between us\nand the nearest railway station, the miles of forest news has to crawl\nthrough by slow steps, dragged towards us in a cart at a walking pace\nonce a day. Nearly all today and quite all tomorrow we shall sit here\nin this sunny emptiness. It is a wonderful day again, but to me it\'s\nlike a body with the soul gone, like the meaningless smile of a\nhandsome idiot. Evidently, little mother, your unfortunate Chris is\nvery seriously in love. I don\'t believe it is news I want to be nearer\nto: it\'s Bernd.\n\nAs for news, the papers today seem to think things will arrange\nthemselves. They\'re rather unctuous about it, but then they\'re always\nunctuous,--as though, if they had eyes, they would be turned up to\nheaven with lots of the pious whites showing. They point out the awful\nresults there would be to the whole world if Servia, that miserable\nsmall criminal, should dare not satisfy the just demands of Germany\'s\noutraged and noble ally Austria. But of course Servia will. They take\nthat for granted. Impossible that she shouldn\'t. The Kaiser is\ncruising in his yacht somewhere up round Norway, and His Majesty has\nshown no signs, they say, of interrupting his holiday. As long as he\nstays away, they remark, nothing serious can happen. What an\nindictment of S. M.! As long as he stays away, playing about, there\nwill be peace. How excellent it would be, then, if he stayed away and\nplayed indefinitely.\n\nI wanted to say this to the Grafin when she read the papers aloud to us\nat lunch, and I wonder what would have happened to me if I had. Well,\nthough I\'ve got to stay with her and be polite in the Sommerstrasse, I\nshall escape every other day to that happy, rude place, Kloster\'s flat,\nand can say what I like. I think I told you he is going to give me\nthree lessons a week now.\n\n\n\n _After tea_,\n\nI practised most of the morning. I wrote to Bernd, and told him about\nMonday, and told him--oh, lots of little things I just happened to\nthink of. I went out after lunch and lay in the meadow by the water\'s\nedge with a book I didn\'t read, the same meadow Bernd and I anchored\nour fishing boat at only the day before yesterday, but really ten years\nago, and I lay so quiet that the cows forgot me, and came and scrunched\naway at the grass quite close to my head. We had tea as usual on the\nterrace in the shady angle of the south-west walls, and the Grafin\ndiscoursed placidly on the political situation. She was most\ninstructive; calmly imparting knowledge to Helena and me; calmly\nembroidering a little calm-looking shirt for her married daughter\'s\nbaby, with calm, cool white fingers. She seemed very content with the\nworld, and the way it is behaving. She looked as unruffled as one of\nthe swans on the Haff. All the sedition and heretical opinions she\nmust have heard Kloster fling about have slid off her without leaving a\nmark. Evidently she pays no attention to anything he thinks, on the\nground that he is a genius. Geniuses are privileged lunatics. I\ngather that is rather how she feels. She was quite interesting about\nGermany,--her talk was all of Germany. She knows a great deal of its\nhistory and I think she must have told us all she knew. By the time\nthe servants came to take away the tea-things I had a distinct vision\nof Germany as the most lovable of little lambs with a blue ribbon round\nits neck, standing knee-deep in daisies and looking about the world\nwith kind little eyes.\n\nGood-bye darling mother. Saturday is nearly over now. By this time\nthe time limit for Servia has expired. I wonder what has happened. I\nwonder what you in Switzerland are feeling about it. You know, my\ndearest one, I\'ll interrupt my lessons and come to Switzerland if you\nhave the least shred of a wish that I should; and perhaps if Bernd\nreally had to go away--supposing the unlikely were to happen after all\nand there were war--I\'d want to come creeping back close to you till he\nis safe again. And yet I don\'t know. Surely the right thing would be\nto go on, whatever happens, quietly working with Kloster till October\nas we had planned. But you\'ve only got to lift your little finger, and\nI\'ll come. I mean, if you get thinking things and feeling worried.\n\n Your Chris.\n\n\n\n\n _Koseritz, Sunday evening, July 26th_.\n\nBeloved mother,\n\nI\'ve packed, and I\'m ready. We start early tomorrow. The newspapers,\nfor some reason, perhaps excitement and disorganization, didn\'t come\ntoday, but the Graf telephoned from Berlin about the Austro-Hungarian\nminister having asked the Servian government for his passports and left\nBelgrade. You\'ll know about this today too. The Grafin, still placid,\nsays Austria will now very properly punish Servia, both for the murder\nand for the insolence of refusing her, Austria\'s, just demands. The\nGraf merely telephoned that Servia had refused. It did seem\nincredible. I did think Servia would deserve her punishing.\nYesterday\'s papers said the demands were most reasonable considering\nwhat had been done. I hadn\'t read the Austrian note, because of the\nconfusion of Bernd\'s sudden going away, and I was full of indignation\nat Servia\'s behaviour, piling insult on injury in this way and risking\nsetting Europe by the ears, but was pulled up short and set thinking by\nthe Grafin\'s looking pleased at my expressions of indignation, and her\ncoming over to me to pat my cheek and say, \"This child will make an\nexcellent little German.\"\n\nThen I thought I\'d better wait and know more before sweeping Servia out\nof my disgusted sight. There are probably lots of other things to\nknow. Kloster will tell me. I find I have a profound distrust really\nof these people. I don\'t mean of particular people, like the\nKoseritzes and the Klosters and their friends, but of Germans in the\nmass. It is a sort of deep-down discomfort of spirit, the discomfort\nof disagreement in fundamentals.\n\n\"Then there\'ll be war?\" I said to the Grafin, staring at her placid\nface, and not a bit pleased about being going to be an excellent little\nGerman.\n\n\"Oh, a punitive expedition only,\" she said.\n\n\"Bernd thought it would mean Russia and France and you as well,\" I said.\n\n\"Oh, Bernd--he is in love,\" said the Grafin, smiling.\n\n\"I don\'t quite see--\" I began.\n\n\"Lovers always exaggerate,\" she said. \"Russia and France will not\ninterfere in so just a punishment.\"\n\n\"But is it just?\" I asked.\n\nShe gazed at me critically at this. It was not, she evidently\nconsidered, a suitable remark for one whose business it was to turn\ninto an excellent little German. \"Dear child,\" she said, \"you cannot\nsuppose that our ally, the Kaiser\'s ally, would make demands that are\nnot just?\"\n\n\"Do you think Friday\'s papers are still anywhere about?\" was my answer.\n\"I\'d like to read the Austrian note, and think it over for myself. I\nhaven\'t yet.\"\n\nThe Grafin smiled at this, and rang the bell. \"I expect\nDorner\"--Dorner is the butler--\"has them,\" she said. \"But do not worry\nyour little head this hot weather too much.\"\n\n\"It won\'t melt,\" I said, resenting that my head should be regarded as\nso very small and also made of sugar,--she said something like this the\nother day, and I resented that too.\n\n\"There are people whose business it is to think these high matters out\nfor us,\" she said, \"and in their hands we can safely leave them.\"\n\n\"As if they were God,\" I remarked.\n\nShe looked at me critically again. \"Precisely,\" she said. \"Loyal\nsubjects, true Christians, are alike in their unquestioning trust and\nobedience to authority.\"\n\nI came upstairs then, in case I shouldn\'t be able to keep from saying\nsomething truthful and rude.\n\nWhat a misfortune it is that truth always is so rude. So that a person\nwho, like myself, for reasons that I can\'t help thinking are on the\nwhole base, is anxious to hang on to being what servants call a real\nlady, is accordingly constantly forced into a regrettable want of\ncandour. I wish Bernd weren\'t a Junker. It is a great blot on his\nperfection. I\'d much rather he were a navvy, a stark, swearing navvy,\nand we could go in for stark, swearing candour, and I needn\'t be a lady\nany more. It\'s so middle-class being a lady. These German aristocrats\nare hopelessly middle-class.\n\nI know when I get to Berlin, and only want to keep abreast of the real\nthings that may be going to happen, which will take me all my time, for\nI haven\'t been used to big events, it will be very annoying to be\ncaught and delayed at every turn by small nets of politenesses and\nphrases and considerations, by having to remember every blessed one of\nthe manners they go in for so terribly here. I\'ve never met so _much_\nmanners as in Germany. The protestations you have to make! The\nelaborateness and length of every acceptance or refusal! And it\'s all\nso much fluff and wind, signifying nothing, nothing at all unless it\'s\nfear; fear, again, their everlasting haunting spectre; fear of the\nother person\'s being offended if he is stronger than you, higher\nup,--because then he\'ll hurt you, punish you somehow; ten to one, if\nyou\'re a man, he\'ll fight you.\n\nI\'ve read the Austrian Note. I don\'t wonder very much at Servia\'s\nrefusing to accept it, and yet surely it would have been wiser if she\nhad accepted it, anyhow as much of it as she _possibly_ could.\n\n\"Much wiser,\" said the Grafin, smiling gently when I said this at\ndinner tonight. \"At least, wiser for Servia. But it is well so.\" And\nshe smiled again.\n\nI\'ve come to the conclusion that the Grafin too wants war,---a big\nEuropean war, so that Germany, who is so longing to get that tiresome\nrattling sword of hers out of the scabbard, can seize the excuse and\nrush in. One only has to have stayed here, lived among them and heard\nthem talk, to _know_ that they\'re all on tiptoe for an excuse to start\ntheir attacking. They\'ve been working for years for the moment when\nthey can safely attack. It has been the Kaiser\'s one idea, Kloster\nsays, during the whole of his reign. Of course it\'s true it has been a\npeaceful reign,--they\'re always pointing that out here when\nendeavouring to convince a foreigner that the last thing their immense\npreparations mean is war; of course a reign is peaceful up to the\nmoment when it isn\'t. They\'ve edged away carefully up to now from any\npossible quarrel, because they weren\'t ready for the almighty smash\nthey mean to have when they are ready. They\'ve prepared to the\nsmallest detail. Bernd told me that the men who can\'t fight, the old\nand unfit, each have received instructions for years and years past\nevery autumn, secret exact instructions, as to what they are to do,\nwhen war is declared, to help in the successful killing of their\nbrothers,--their brothers, little mother, for whom, too, Christ died.\nEach of these aged or more or less diseased Germans, the left-overs who\nreally can\'t possibly fight, has his place allotted to him in these\nsecret orders in the nearest town to where he lives, a place\nsupervising the stores or doing organizing work. Every other man,\nexcept those who have the luck to be idiots or dying--what a world to\nhave to live in, when this is luck--will fight. The women, and the\nthousands of imported Russians and Poles, will look after the farms for\nthe short time the men will be away, for it is to be a short war, a few\nweeks only, as short as the triumphant war of 1870. Did you ever know\nanything so horrifying, so evil, as this minute concentration, year in\nyear out, for decades, on killing--on successful, triumphant killing,\njust so that you can grab something that doesn\'t belong to you. It is\nno use dressing it up in big windy words like _Deutschthum_ and the\nrest of the stuff the authorities find it convenient to fool their\nslaves with,--it comes to exactly that. I always, you see, think of\nGermany as the grabber, the attacker. Anything else, now that I\'ve\nlived here, is simply inconceivable. A defensive war in which she\nshould have to defend her homes from wanton attack is inconceivable.\nThere is no wantonness now in the civilized nations. We have outgrown\nthe blood stage. We are sober peoples, sober and civilian,--grown up,\nin fact. And the semi-civilized peoples would be afraid to attack a\nnation so strong as Germany. She is training and living, and has been\ntraining and living for years and years, simply to attack. What is the\nuse of their protesting? One has only to listen to their points of\nview to brush aside the perfunctory protestations they put in every now\nand then, as if by order, whenever they remember not to be natural.\nOh, I know this is very different from what I was writing and feeling\ntwo or three days ago, but I\'ve been let down with a jerk, I\'m being\nreminded of the impressions I got in Berlin, they\'ve come up sharply\nagain, and I\'m not so confident that what was the matter with the\npeople there was only heat and overwork. There was an eagerness about\nthem, a kind of fever to begin their grabbing. I told you, I think,\nhow Berlin made me think when first I got there of something _seething_.\n\nDarling mother, forgive me if I\'m shrill. I wouldn\'t be shrill, I\'m\ncertain I wouldn\'t, if I could believe in the necessity, the justice of\nsuch a war, if Germany weren\'t going to war but war were coming to\nGermany. And I\'m afraid,--afraid because of Bernd. Suppose he--Well,\nperhaps by the time we get to Berlin things will have calmed down, and\nthe Grafin will be able to come back straight here, which God grant,\nand I shall go back to Frau Berg and my flies. I shall regard those\nflies now with the utmost friendliness. I shan\'t mind anything they do.\n\nGood night blessed mother. I\'m so thankful these two days are over.\n\n Your Chris.\n\n\n\nIt is this silence here, this absurd peaceful sunshine, and the placid\nGrafin, and the bland unconsciousness of nature that I find hard to\nbear.\n\n\n\n\n _Berlin, Wednesday, July 29th_.\n\nMy own little mother,\n\nIt is six o\'clock in the morning, and I\'m in my dressing-gown writing\nto you, because if I don\'t do it now I shall be swamped with people and\nthings, as I was all yesterday and the day before, and not get a\nmoment\'s quiet. You see, there is going to be war, almost to a dead\ncertainty, and the Germans have gone mad. The effect even on this\nhouse is feverish, so that getting up very early will be my only chance\nof writing to you.\n\nYou never saw anything like the streets yesterday. They seemed full of\ndrunken people, shouting up and down with red faces all swollen with\nexcitement. It is of course intensely interesting and new to me, who\nhave never been closer to such a thing as war than history lessons at\nschool, but what do they all think they\'re going to get, what do they\nall think it\'s really _for_, these poor creatures bellowing and\nstrutting, and waving their hats and handkerchiefs, and even their\nbabies, high over their heads whenever a _konigliche Hoheit_ dashes\npast in a motor, which happens every five minutes because there are\nsuch a lot of them. Our drive from Koseritz to Stettin on Monday,\nwhich now seems so remote that it is as if it was another life, was the\nlast beautiful ordinary thing that happened. Since then it has been\none great noise and ugliness. I can\'t forget the look of the country\nas we passed through it on Monday, so lovely in its summer\npeacefulness, the first rye being cut in the fields, the hedges full of\nTraveler\'s Joy. I didn\'t notice how beautiful it was at the time, I\nonly wanted to get on, to get away, to get the news; but now I\'m here I\nremember it as something curiously _innocent_, and I\'m so glad we had a\npuncture that made us stop for ten minutes in a bit of the road where\nthere were great cornfields as far as one could see, and a great\nstretch of sky with peaceful little white clouds that hardly moved, and\nonly the sound of poplars by the roadside rustling their leaves with\nthat lovely liquid sound they make, and larks singing. It comforts me\nto call this up again, to hide in it for a minute away from the\nshouting of _Deutschland uber Alles_, and the _hochs_ and yellings.\nThen we got to Stettin; and since then I have lived in ugliness.\n\nThe Kaiser came back on Monday. He had arrived in Berlin by the time\nwe got here, and the Grafin\'s triumphant calm visibly increased when\nthe footman who met us at the station eagerly told her the news. For\nthis, as the papers said that evening, hardly able to conceal their joy\nbeneath their pious hopes that the horrors of war may even yet be\nspared the world, reveals the full seriousness of the situation. I\nlike the \"even yet,\" don\'t you? Bernd was at the station, and drove\nwith us to the Sommerstrasse. We went along the Dorotheenstrasse, at\nthe back of Unter den Linden, as the Lindens were choked with people.\nIt was impossible to get through them. They were a living wedge of\npeople, with frantic mounted policemen trying to get them to go\nsomewhere else.\n\nBernd was so dear, and oh it was such a blessing to be near him again!\nBut he was solemn, and didn\'t smile at all except when he looked at me.\nThen that dear smile that is so full of goodness changed his whole\nface. \"Oh Bernd, I do love you so _much_,\" I couldn\'t help whispering,\nleaning forward to do it regardless of Helena who sat next to him; and\nseeing by Helena\'s stare that she had heard, and feeling recklessly\ncheerful at having got back to him, I turned on her and said, \"Well, he\nshouldn\'t smile at me in that darling way.\"\n\nThe Grafin laughed gently, so I knew she thought my manners bad. I\'ve\nlearned that when she laughs gently she disapproves, just as I\'ve\nlearned that when she says with a placid sigh that war is terrible and\nmust be avoided, all her hopes are bound up in its not being avoided.\nHer only son is in the Cuirassiers, and is, Kloster says, a naturally\nunsuccessful person. War is his chance of promotion, of making a\ncareer. It is also his chance of death or maiming, as I said to Helena\non Sunday at Koseritz when she was talking about her brother and his\nchances if there is war to the pastor, who was calling hat in hand and\nvery full of bows.\n\nShe stared at me, and so did the pastor. I\'m afraid I plumped into the\nconversation impetuously.\n\n\"I had sooner,\" said Helena, \"that Werner were dead or maimed for life\nthan that he should not make a career. One\'s brother must not, cannot\nbe a failure.\"\n\nAnd the pastor bowed and exclaimed, \"That is well and finely said.\nThat is full of pride, of the true German patrician pride.\"\n\nHelena, you see, forgot, as Germans sometimes do, not to be natural.\nShe said straight but it was a career she wanted for her brother. She\nforgot the usual talk of patriotism and the glory of being mangled on\nbehalf of Hohenzollerns.\n\nYesterday the menservants disappeared, and women waited on us. There\nwas no jolt in the machinery. It went on as smoothly as though the\nchange had been weeks ago. Even the butler, who certainly is too old\nto fight, vanished.\n\nBernd comes in whenever he can. Luckily we\'re quite close to the\nGeneral Staff Headquarters here, and he has his meals with us. He\npersists that the war will be kept rigidly to Austria and Servia, and\ntherefore will be over in a week or two. He says Sir Edward Grey has\nsoothed bellicose governments before now, and will be able to do so\nagain. He talks of the madness of war, and of how no Government\nnowadays would commit such a sheer stupidity as starting it. I listen\nto him, and am convinced and comforted; then I go back to the others,\nand my comfort slips away again. For the others are so sure. There\'s\nno question for them, no doubt. They don\'t say so, any of them,\nneither the Graf, nor the Grafin, nor the son Werner who was here\nyesterday nor Bernd\'s Colonel who dined here last night, nor any of the\nother people. Government officials who come to see the Graf, and women\nfriends who come to see the Grafin. They don\'t say war is certain, but\neach one of them has the look of satisfaction and relief people have\nwhen they get something they\'ve wanted very much for a very long time\nand sigh out \"At last!\" Some of them let out their satisfaction more\nthan others,--Bernd\'s Colonel, for instance, who seems particularly\nhilarious. He was very hilarious last night, though not ostensibly\nabout war. If the possibility of war is mentioned, as of course it\nconstantly is, they at once all shake their heads as if to order, and\nlook serious, and say God grant it may even now be avoided, or\nsomething like that; just as the newspapers do. And last night at\ndinner somebody added a hope, expressed with a very grave face, that\nthe people of Germany wouldn\'t get out of hand and force war upon the\nGovernment against its judgment.\n\nI thought that rather funny. Especially after two hours in the morning\nwith Kloster, who explained that the Government is arranging everything\nthat is happening, managing public opinion, creating the exact amount\nof enthusiasm and aggressiveness it wishes to have behind it, just as\nit did in 1870 when it wanted to bring about the war with France. I\nknow it isn\'t proper for a _junges Madchen_ to talk at dinner unless\nshe is asked a question, and I know she mustn\'t have an opinion about\nanything except bonbons and flowers, and I also know that a _junges\nMadchen_ who is betrothed is expected to show on all occasions such\nextreme modesty, such a continuous downcast eye, that it almost amounts\nto being ashamed of herself; yet I couldn\'t resist leaning across the\ntable to the man who said that, a high official in the _Ministerium des\nInnern_, and saying \"But your public is so disciplined and your\nGovernment so almighty--\" and was going on to ask him what grounds he\nhad for his fears that a public in that condition would force the\nGovernment\'s hand, for I was interested and wanted dreadfully to hear\nwhat he would say, when the Grafin slipped in, smiling gently.\n\n\"My dear new niece,\" she said, looking round the table at everybody,\n\"promises to become a most excellent little German. See how she\nalready recognizes and admires our restraint on the one hand, and on\nthe other, our power.\"\n\nThe Colonel, who was sitting on one side of me, laughed, raised his\nglass, and begged me to permit him to drink my health and the health of\nthat luckiest of young men, Lieutenant von Inster. \"Old England\nforever!\" he exclaimed, bowing over his glass to me, \"The England that\nraises such fair flowers and allows Germany to pluck them. Long may\nshe continue these altruistic activities. Long may the homes of\nGermany be decorated with England\'s fairest products.\"\n\nBy this time he was on his feet, and they were toasting England and me.\nThey were all quite enthusiastic, and I felt so proud and pleased, with\nBernd sitting beside me looking so proud and pleased. \"England!\" they\ncalled out, lifting their glasses, \"England and the new alliance!\" And\nthey bowed and smiled to me, and came round one by one and clinked\ntheir glasses against mine.\n\nThen Bernd had to make a little speech and thank the Colonel, and you\ncan\'t think how beautifully he speaks, and not a bit shy, and saying\nexactly the right things. Then the Graf actually got up and said\nsomething--I expect etiquette forced him to or he never would have--but\nonce he was in for it he did it with the same unfaltering fluency and\nappropriateness that Bernd had surprised me with. He said they--the\nKoseritzes and Insters--welcomed the proposed marriage between Bernd\nand myself, not alone for the many graces, virtues, and, above all\ngifts--(picture the abstracted Graf reeling off these compliments! You\nshould have seen my open mouth)--that so happily adorned the young\nlady, great and numerous though they were, but also because such a\nmarriage would still further cement the already close union existing\nbetween two great countries of the same faith, the same blood, and the\nsame ideals. \"Long may these two countries,\" he said, \"who carry in\ntheir hands the blazing torches of humanity and civilization, march\nabreast down the pages of history, writing it in glorious letters as\nthey march.\" Then he sat down, and instantly relapsed into silence and\nabstraction. It was as if a candle had been blown out.\n\nThey\'re all certainly very kind to me, the people I\'ve met here, and\nsay the nicest things about England. They\'re in love with her, as I\nused to tell Frau Berg\'s boarders, but openly and enthusiastically, not\nangrily and reluctantly as the boarders were. I\'ve not heard so many\nnice things about England ever as I did yesterday. I loved hearing\nthem, and felt all lit up.\n\nWe went out on the balcony overlooking the Thiergarten after dinner.\nThe Graf\'s chief had sent for him, and Bernd and some of the men had\ngone away too, but more people kept dropping in and joining us on the\nbalcony watching the crowds. The Brandenburger Thor is close on our\nleft, and the Reichstag is a stone\'s throw across the road on our\nright. When the crowd saw the officers in our group, they yelled for\njoy and flung their hats in the air. The Colonel, in his staff\nofficer\'s uniform, was the chief attraction. He seemed unaware that\nthere was a crowd, and talked to me in much the same hilarious and\nflowery strain he had talked at the Oberforsterei, saying a great\nnumber of things about hair and eyes and such. I know I\'ve got hair\nand eyes; I\'ve had them all my life, so what\'s the use of wasting time\ntelling me about them? I tried all I knew to get him to talk about\nwhat he really thought of the chances of war, but quite in vain.\n\nDo you know what time it is? Nearly eight, and the _Deutschland uber\nAlles_ business has already started in the streets. There are little\ncrowds of people, looking so tiny and black, not a bit as if they were\nreal, and had blood in them and could be hurt, already on the steps of\nthe Reichstag eagerly reading the morning papers. I must get dressed\nand go down and hear if anything fresh has happened. Good-bye my own\nloved mother,--I\'ll write whenever I get a moment. And don\'t forget,\nmother darling, that if you\'re worried about my being here I\'ll start\nstraight off for Switzerland. But if you\'re not worried I wouldn\'t\nlike to interrupt my lessons. They really are very important things\nfor our future.\n\n Your Chris.\n\n\n\n\n _Berlin, Friday afternoon, July 31st_.\n\nMy sweetest mother,\n\nYour letters have been following me about, to Koseritz and to Frau\nBerg\'s, where of course you didn\'t know I wouldn\'t be. I went to Frau\nBerg\'s today and found your last two. I love you, my precious mother,\nand thank you for all your dearness and sweet unselfish understanding\nabout Bernd and me. You have always been my closest, dearest friend,\nas well as my own darling mother. I seem now to be living in a sort of\nbath of love. Can anything more ever be added to it? I feel as if I\nhad reached the very innermost heart of happiness. Wonderful how one\ncarries about such a precious consciousness. It\'s like something magic\nand hidden that takes care of one, keeping one untouched and unharmed;\nwhile outside, day and night, there\'s this terrible noise of a people\ngone mad.\n\nYou wrote to me last sitting under a cherry tree, you said, in the\norchard at the back of your hotel at Glion, and you talked of the\ncolour of the lake far down below through the leaves of walnut trees,\nand of the utter peace. Here day and night, day and night, since\nWednesday, soldiers in new grey uniforms pass through the Brandenburger\nThor down the broad road to Charlottenburg. Their tramp never stops.\nI can see them from my window tramping, tramping away down the great\nstraight road; and crowds that don\'t seem to change or dwindle watch\nthem and shout. Where do the soldiers all come from? I never dreamed\nthere could be so many in the world, let alone in Berlin; and Germany\nisn\'t even at war! But it\'s no use asking questions, or trying to talk\nabout it. I\'ve found the word \"Why?\" in this house is not only useless\nbut improper. Nobody will talk about anything; I suppose they don\'t\nneed to, for they all seem perfectly to _know_. They\'re in the inner\ncircle in this house. They\'re not the public. The public is that\nshouting, perspiring mob out there watching the soldiers, and Frau Berg\nand her boarders are the public, and so are the soldiers themselves.\nThe public here are all the people who obey, and pay, and don\'t know;\nan immense multitude of slaves,--abject, greedy, pitiful. I don\'t\nthink I ever could have imagined a thing so pitiful to see as these\nrespectable middle-aged Berlin citizens, fathers of families, careful\nlivers on small incomes, clerks, pastors, teachers, professors, drunk\nand mad out there publicly on the pavement, dancing with joy because\nthey think the great moment they\'ve been taught to wait for has come,\nand they\'re going to get suddenly rich, scoop in wealth from Russia and\nFrance, get up to the top of the world and be able to kick it. That\'s\nwhat I saw over and over again today as I somehow got through to Frau\nBerg\'s to fetch your letters. An ordinary person from an ordinary\ncountry wants to cover these heated elderly gentlemen up, and hide them\nout of sight, so shocking are they to one\'s sense of respect and\nreverence for human beings. Imagine decent citizens, paunchy and soft\nwith beer and sitting in offices, wearing cheap straw hats and\ncarefully mended and brushed black coats, _dancing_ with excitement on\nthe pavement; and nobody thinking it anything but fine and creditable,\nat the prospect of their children\'s blood going to be shed, and\neverybody\'s children\'s blood, except the blood of those safe children,\nthe children of the Hohenzollerns!\n\nThe weather is fiercely hot. There\'s a brassy sky without a cloud, and\nall the leaves of the trees in the Thiergarten are shiny and motionless\nas if they were cut out of metal. A little haze of dust hangs\nperpetually along the Lindens and the road to Charlottenburg,--not much\nof it, because the roads are too well kept, but enough to show that the\ntroops never leave off tramping. And all down where they pass, on each\nside, are the perspiring crowds of people, red and apoplectic with\nexcitement and heat, women and children and babies mixed up in one\nheaving, frantic mass. The windows of the houses on each side of the\nBrandenburger Thor are packed with people all day long, and the noise\nof patriotism doesn\'t leave off for an instant.\n\nIt\'s a very ugly noise. The only place where I can get away from\nit--and I do hate noise, it really _hurts_ my ears--is the bathroom\nhere, which is a dark cupboard with no window, in the very middle of\nthe house. I thought it a dreadful bathroom when I first saw it, but\nnow I\'m grateful that it can\'t be aired. The house was built years and\nyears before Germans began to wash, and it wasn\'t till the Koseritzes\ncame that a bath was wanted. Then it had to be put in any hole, and\nthis hole is the one place where there is silence. Everywhere else, in\nevery room in the house, it is as if one were living next door to a\ndozen public houses in the worst slums of London and it were always\nSaturday night. I do think the patriotism of an unattacked, aggressive\ncountry is a hideous thing.\n\nBernd got me somehow through the crowd to the calmer streets on the way\nto Frau Berg. He didn\'t want me to go out at all, but I want to see\nwhat I can. The Kaiser rushed through the Brandenburger Thor in his\ncar as we went out. You never saw such a scene as then. It was\nfrightening, like a mob of lunatics let loose. Every time he is seen\ntearing along the streets there\'s this wild scene, Bernd says. He has\nsuddenly leaped to the topmost top of popularity, for he\'s the\ndispenser now of the great lottery in which all the draws are going to\nbe prizes. You know there isn\'t a German, not the cleverest, not the\nmost sober, who doesn\'t regularly and solemnly buy lottery tickets.\nAren\'t they, apart from all the other things they are, the _funniest_\npeople. So immature in wisdom, so top-heavy with dangerous knowledge\nthat their youngness in wisdom makes them use wrongly. If they hadn\'t\ngot the latest things in guns and equipment they would be quiet, and\nwouldn\'t think of fighting.\n\nBernd made me promise to wait at Frau Berg\'s till he could fetch me,\nand as he didn\'t get back till two o\'clock, and Frau Berg very amiably\nsaid I must be her guest at the well-known mid-day meal, I found myself\nonce more in the bosom of the boarders. Only this time I sat proudly\non Frau Berg\'s right, in the place of honour next to Doctor Krummlaut,\ninstead of in the obscurity of my old seat at the dark end near the\ndoor.\n\nIt was so queer, and so different. There was the same Wanda, resting\nher dishes on my left shoulder, which she always used to do, not only\nso as to attract my attention but as a convenience to herself, because\nthey were hot and heavy. There were the same boarders, except the\nred-mouthed bank-clerk and another young man. Hilda Seeberg was there,\nand the Swede, and Doctor Krummlaut; and of course Frau Berg, massive\nin her tight black dress buttoned up the front without a collar to it,\nthe big brooch she fastens it with at the neck half hidden by her\nimpressive double chins, which flow down as majestically as a\npatriarch\'s beard. We had the same food, the same heat, and I\'m sure\nthe same flies. But the nervous tension there used to be, the tendency\nto quarrel, the pugnacious political arguing with me, the gibes at\nEngland, were gone. I don\'t know whether it was because I\'m engaged to\na Prussian officer that they were so very polite--I was tremendously\ncongratulated,--but they were certainly different about England. It\nmay of course have been their general happiness--happiness makes one so\nkind all round!--for here too was the content, the satisfaction of\nthose who, after painful waiting, get what they want. It was expressed\nvery noisily, not with the restraint of the Koseritzes, but it was the\nsame thing really. The Berg atmosphere was more like the one in the\nstreets. Where the Grafin in her pleasure became only more calm, the\nboarders were abandoned,--excited like savages dancing round the fire\ntheir victims are to roast at. Frau Berg rumbled and shook with her\nrelief, like some great earthquake, and didn\'t mind a bit apparently\nabout the tremendous rise there has been in prices this week. What\nwill she get, I wonder, by war, except struggle and difficulty and\ndeparting boarders? Being a guest, I had to be polite and let them say\nwhat they liked without protest,--really, the disabilities of guests!\nI couldn\'t argue, as I would have if I\'d still been a boarder, which\nwas a pity, for meanwhile I\'ve learned a lot of German and could have\nsaid a great many things and been as natural as I liked here away from\nthe Grafin\'s gentle smile reminding me that I\'m not behaving. But I\nhad to sit and listen smilingly, and of course show none of my horror\nat their attitude, for more muzzling even than being a guest is being\nthe betrothed of a Prussian officer. _They_ don\'t know what sort of a\nPrussian officer he is, how different, how truly educated, how full of\ndislike for the base things they worship and want; and he, caught by\nbirth in the Prussian chains, shall not be betrayed by me who love him.\nHere he is, caught anyhow for the present, and he must do his duty; but\nsomeday we\'re going away,--he, and I, and you, little mother darling,\nwhen there\'s no war anywhere in sight and therefore no duty to stay\nfor, and we\'ll go and live in America, and he\'ll take off all those\nbuttons and spurs and things, and we\'ll give ourselves up to freedom,\nand harmlessness, and art, and beauty, and we\'ll have friends who\nneither intrigue, which is what the class at the top here lives by, nor\nwho waste their lives being afraid, which is what all the other classes\nhere spend their lives being.\n\n\"At last we are going to wipe off old scores against France,\" Doctor\nKrummlaut spluttered through his soup today at Frau Berg\'s with shining\neyes,--I should have thought it was France who had the old scores that\nneed wiping--\"and Russia, the barbarian Colossus, will topple over and\nchoke in its own blood.\"\n\n\nThen Frau Berg capped that with sentiments even more bloodthirsty.\n\nThen the Swede, who never used to speak, actually raised her voice in\nterms of blood too, and expressed a wish to see a Cossack strung up by\nhis heels to every electric-light standard along the Lindens.\n\nThen Hilda Seeberg said if her Papa--that Papa she told me once she\nhadn\'t at all liked--were only alive, it would be the proudest moment\nof his life when, at the head of his regiment, he would go forth to\nslay President Poincare. \"And if,\" she said, her eyes flashing, \"owing\nto his high years his regiment was no longer able to accept his heroic\nleadership, he would, I know, proceed secretly to France as an\nassassin, and bomb the infamous Poincare,--bomb him in the name of our\nKaiser, of our Fatherland, and of our God.\"\n\n\"Amen,\" said Frau Berg, very loud.\n\nI flew to Bernd when he came. It was as if a door had been flung open,\nand the freshness and sanity of early morning came into the room when\nhe did. I hung on his arm, and looked up into his dear shrewd eyes, so\nclear and kind, so full of wisdom. The boarders were with one accord\nservile to him; even Doctor Krummlaut, a clever man with far better\nbrains probably than Bernd. Bernd, from habit, stiffened and became\nunapproachable the instant the middle class public in the shape of the\ncongratulatory boarders appeared. He doesn\'t even know he\'s like that,\nhis training has made it second nature. You should have seen his\nlofty, complete indifference. It was dreadfully rude really, and oh\nhow they loved him for it! They simply adored him, and were ready to\nlick his boots. It was so funny to see them sidling about him, all of\nthem wagging their tails. He was the master, come among the slaves.\nBut to think that even Doctor Krummlaut should sidle!\n\nThere\'s a most terrific _extra_ noise going on outside. I can hardly\nhear myself write. I don\'t know whether to run and find out what it\nis, or retreat to the bathroom. My ears won\'t stand much more,--I\nshall get deaf, and not be able to play.\n\n\n\n _Later_.\n\nWhat has happened is that special editions of the papers have appeared\nannouncing that the Kaiser has decreed a state of war for the whole of\nGermany. Well. They\'ve done it now. For I did extract from a very\ncheerful-looking caller I met coming upstairs to the drawingroom that a\nstate of war is followed as inevitably by the real thing as a German\nbetrothal is followed by marriage. One is as committal as the other,\nhe said. It is the rarest thing, and produces an immense scandal, for\nan engagement to be broken off; and, explained the caller looking\nextremely pleased,--he was a man-caller, and therefore more willing to\nstop and talk--to proceed backwards from a state of war to the _status\nquo ante_ might produce the unthinkable result of costing the Kaiser\nhis throne.\n\n\"You can imagine, my most gracious Miss,\" said the caller, \"that His\nMajesty would never permit a calamity so colossal to overtake his\npeople, whose welfare he has continually and exclusively in his\nall-highest thoughts. Therefore you may take it from me as completely\ncertain that war is now assured.\"\n\n\"But nobody has done anything to you,\" I said.\n\nHe gazed at me a moment, and then smiled. \"High politics, and little\nheads,\" he said. \"High politics, and little women\'s heads,--\" and went\non up the stairs smiling and shaking his own.\n\nI do wish they wouldn\'t keep on talking as though my head were so\ndreadfully small. Never in my life have people taken so utterly and\ncomplacently for granted that I\'m stupid.\n\nWell, I feel very sick at heart. How long will it be before Bernd too\nwill be one of that marching column on the Charlottenburger Chaussee.\nHe won\'t go away from me that way, I know. He\'s on the Staff, and will\ngo more splendidly; but those men in the new grey uniforms tramping day\nand night are symbols each one of them of departing happiness, of a\nclosed chapter, of the end of something that can never be the same\nagain.\n\n Your tired Chris.\n\n\n\n\n Before Breakfast.\n Berlin, Sat., Aug. 1st, 1914.\n\nMy blessed little mother,\n\nI\'ve seen a thing I don\'t suppose I\'ll forget. It was yesterday, after\nthe news came that Germany had sent Russia an ultimatum about instantly\ndemobilizing, demanding an answer by eleven this morning. The\nsensation when this was known was tremendous. The Grafin was shaken\nout of her calm into exclamations of joy and fear,--joy that the step\nhad been taken, fear lest Russia should obey, and there be no war after\nall.\n\nWe had to shut the windows to be able to hear ourselves talk. Some\nwomen friends of the Grafin\'s who were here--we had no men with\nus--instantly left to drive by back streets to the Schlossplatz to see\nthe sight it must be there, and the Grafin, saying that we too must\nwitness the greatest history of the world\'s greatest nation in the\nmaking, sent for a taxi--her chauffeur has gone--and prepared to\nfollow. We had to wait ages for the taxi, but it was lucky we had to,\nelse we might have gone and come back and missed seeing the Kaiser come\nout and speak to the crowd. We went a long way round, but even so all\nGermany seemed to be streaming towards the Lindens and the part at the\nend where the palace is. I don\'t expect we ever would have got there\nif it hadn\'t been that a cousin of the Grafin\'s, a very smart young\nofficer in the Guards, saw us in the taxi as it was vainly trying to\ncross the Friedrichstrasse, and flicking the obstructing policemen on\none side with a sort of little kick of his spur, came up all amazement\nand salutes to inquire of his most gracious cousin what in the world\nshe was doing in a taxi. He said it was hopeless to try to get to the\nSchlossplatz in it, but if we would allow him to escort us on foot he\nwould be proud--the gracious cousin would permit him to offer her his\narm, and the young ladies would keep very close behind him.\n\nSo we set out, and it was surprising the way he got us through. If the\ncrowd didn\'t fall apart instantly of itself at his approach, an\nobsequious policeman--one of those same Berlin policemen who are so\nrude to one if one is alone and really in need of help--sprang up from\nnowhere and made it. It\'s as far from the Friedrichstrasse to the\nSchlossplatz as it is from here to the Friedrichstrasse, but we did it\nvery much quicker than we did the first half in the taxi, and when we\nreached it there they all were, the drunken crowds--that\'s the word\nthat most exactly describes them--yelling, swaying, cursing the ones in\ntheir way or who trod on their feet, shouting hurrahs and bits of\npatriotic songs, every one of them decently dressed, obviously\nrespectable people in ordinary times. That\'s what is so constantly\nstrange to me,--these solid burghers and their families behaving like\ndrunken hooligans. Somehow a spectacled professor with a golden chain\nacross his blackwaistcoated and impressive front, just roaring\nincoherently, just opening his mouth and hurling any sort of noise out\nof it till the veins on his neck and forehead look as though they would\nburst, is the strangest sight in the world to me. I can imagine\nnothing stranger, nothing that makes one more uncomfortable and\nashamed. It is what will always jump up before my eyes in the future\nat the words German patriotism. And to see a stout elderly lady, who\nought to be presiding with slow dignity in some ordered home, hoarse\nwith shouting, tear the feathered hat she otherwise only uses tenderly\non Sundays off her respectable grey head and wave it frantically,\nscreaming _hochs_ every time a prince is seen or a general or one of\nthe ministers, makes one want to cry with shame at the indignity put\nupon poor human beings, at the exploiting of their passions, in the\ninterests of one family.\n\nThe Grafin\'s smart cousin got us on to some steps and stood with us, so\nthat we should not be pushed off them instantly again, as we would have\nbeen if he had left us. I think they were the steps of a statue, or\nfountain, or something like that, but the whole whatever it was was so\ncovered with people, encrusted with them just like one of those sticky\nfly-sticks is black with flies, that I don\'t know what it was really.\nI only know that it wasn\'t a house, and that we were quite close to the\npalace, and able to look down at the sea beneath us, the heaving,\nroaring sea of distorted red faces, all with their mouths wide open,\nall blistering and streaming in the sun.\n\nThe Grafin, who had recovered her calm in the presence of her inferiors\nof the middle classes, put up her eyeglasses and examined them with\ninterest and indulgence. Helena stared. The cousin twisted his little\nmoustache, standing beside us protectingly, very elegant and slender\nand nonchalant, and remarked at intervals, \"_Fabelhafte Enthusiasmus,\nwas_?\"\n\nIt came into my mind that Beerbohm Tree must sometimes look on like\nthat at a successful dress rehearsal of his well-managed stage crowds,\nwith the same nonchalant satisfaction at the excellent results, so well\nup to time, of careful preparation.\n\nOf course I said \"_Colossal_\" to the cousin, when he expressed his\nsatisfaction more particularly to me.\n\n\"_Dreckiges Yolk, die Russen_\" he remarked, twisting his little\nmoustache\'s ends up. \"_Werden lernen was es heisst, frech sein gegen\nuns. Wollen sie blau und schwartz dreschen_.\"\n\nYou know German, so I needn\'t take its peculiar flavour out by\ntransplanting the young man\'s remarks.\n\n\"_Oh pardon--aber meine Gnadigste--tausendmal pardon--\" he protested\nthe next minute in a voice of tremendous solicitude, having been pushed\nrather hard and suddenly against me by a little boy who had scrambled\ndown off whatever it was he was hanging on to; and he turned on the\nlittle boy, who I believe had tumbled off rather than scrambled, with\nhis hand flashing to his sword, ready to slash at whoever it was had\ndared push against him, an officer; and seeing it was a child and\ntherefore not _satisfactionsfahig_ as they say, he merely called him an\n_infame_ and _verfluchte Bengel_ and smacked his face so hard that he\nwould have been knocked down if there had been room to fall in.\n\nAs it was, he was only hurled violently against the side of a man in a\nblack coat and straw hat who looked like an elderly confidential clerk,\nso respectable and complete with his short grey beard and spectacles,\nwho was evidently the father, for he instantly on his own account\nsmacked the boy on his other ear, and sweeping off his hat entreated\nthe Herr Leutnant to forgive the boy on account of his extreme youth.\n\nThe cousin, whom by now I didn\'t like, was beginning very severely to\nadvise the parent jolly well to see to it, or German words to that\neffect, that his idiotic boy didn\'t repeat such insolences, or by hell,\netc., etc., when there was such a blast of extra noise and hurrahing\nthat the rest of his remarks were knocked out of his mouth. It was the\nKaiser, come out on the balcony of the palace.\n\nThe cousin became rigid, and stood at the salute. The air seemed full\nof hats and handkerchiefs and delirious shrieking. The Kaiser put up\nhis hand.\n\n\"Majestat is going to speak,\" exclaimed the Grafin, her calm fluttered\ninto fragments.\n\nThere was an immense instantaneous hush, uncanny after all the noise.\nOnly the little boy with the boxed ears continued to call out, but not\npatriotically. His father, efficient and Prussian, put a stop to that\nby seizing his head, buttoning it up inside his black coat, and holding\nhis arm tightly over it, so that no struggles of suffocation could get\nit free. There was no more noise, but the little boy\'s legs,\ndesperately twitching, kicked their dusty little boots against the\ncousin\'s shins, and he, standing at the salute with his body rigidly\nturned towards Majestat, was unable to take the steps his outraged\nhonour, let alone the pain in his shins, called for.\n\nI was so much interested in this situation, really absorbed by it, for\nthe little boy unconsciously was getting quite a lot of his own back,\nhis little boots being sturdy and studded with nails, and the father,\nall eyes and ears for Majestat, not aware of what was happening, that\npositively I missed the first part of the speech. But what I did hear\nwas immensely impressive. I had seen the Kaiser before, you remember;\nthat time he was in London with the Kaiserin, in 1912 or 1913 I think\nit was, and we were staying with Aunt Angela in Wilton Crescent and we\nsaw him driving one afternoon in a barouche down Birdcage Walk. Do you\nremember how cross he looked, hardly returning the salutations he got?\nWe said he and she must have been quarrelling, he looked so sulky. And\ndo you remember how ordinary he looked in his top hat and black coat,\njust like any cross and bored middle-class husband? There was nothing\nroyal about him that day except the liveries on the servants, and they\nwere England\'s. Yesterday things were very different. He really did\nlook like the royal prince of a picture book, a real War\nLord,--impressive and glittering with orders flashing in the sun. We\nwere near enough to see him perfectly. There wasn\'t much crossness or\nboredom about him this time. He was, I am certain, thoroughly enjoying\nhimself,--unconsciously of course, but with that immense thrilled\nenjoyment all leading figures at leading moments must have: Sir\nGalahad, humbly glorying in his perfect achievement of negations;\nParsifal, engulfed in an ecstasy of humble gloating over his own\nworthiness as he holds up the Grail high above bowed, adoring heads;\nBeerbohm Tree--I can\'t get away from theatrical analogies--coming\nbefore the curtain on his most successful first night, meek with\nhappiness. Hasn\'t it run through the ages, this great humility at the\nmoment of supreme success, this moved self-depreciation of the man who\nhas pulled it off, the \"Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us\"\nattitude,--quite genuine at the moment, and because quite genuine so\nextraordinarily moving and impressive? Really one couldn\'t wonder at\nthe people. The Empress was there, and a lot of officers and princes\nand people, but it was the Emperor alone that we looked at. He came\nand stood by himself in front of the others. He was very grave, with a\nreal look of solemn exaltation. Here was royalty in all its most\nimpressive trappings, a prince of the fairy-tales, splendidly dressed,\ndilated of nostril, flashing of eye, the defender of homes, the leader\nto glory, the object of the nation\'s worship and belief and prayers\nsince each of its members was a baby, become visible and audible to\nthousands who had never seen him before, who had worshipped him by\nfaith only. It was as though the people were suddenly allowed to look\nupon God. There was a profound awe in the hush. I believe if they\nhadn\'t been so tightly packed together they would all have knelt down.\n\nWell, it is easy to stir a mob. One knows how easily one is moved\noneself by the cheapest emotions, by something that catches one on the\nsentimental side, on that side of one that through all the years has\nstill stayed clinging to one\'s mother\'s knee. We\'ve often talked of\nthis, you and I, little mother. You know the sort of thing, and have\ngot that side yourself,--even you, you dear objective one. The three\nthings up to now that have got me most on that side, got me on the very\nraw of it--I\'ll tell you now, now that I can\'t see your amused eyes\nlooking at me with that little quizzical questioning in them--the three\nthings that have broken my heart each time I\'ve come across them and\nmade me only want to sob and sob, are when Kurwenal, mortally wounded,\ncrawls blindly to Tristan\'s side and says, \"_Schilt mich nicht dass der\nTreue auch mitkommt_\" and Siegfried\'s dying \"_Brunnhild, heilige\nBraut_,\" and Tannhauser\'s dying \"_Heilige Elisabeth, bitte fur mich_.\"\nAll three German things, you see. All morbid things. Most of the\nsentimentality seems to have come from Germany, an essentially brutal\nplace. But of course sentimentality is really diluted morbidness, and\ntherefore first cousin to cruelty. And I have a real and healthy\ndislike for that Tannhauser opera.\n\nBut seeing how the best of us--which is you--have these little hidden\nswamps of emotionalness, you can imagine the effect of the Kaiser\nyesterday at such a moment in their lives on a people whose swamps are\ncarefully cultivated by their politicians. Even I, rebellious and\nhostile to the whole attitude, sure that the real motives beneath all\nthis are base, and constitutionally unable to care about Kaisers, was\nthrilled. Thrilled by him, I mean. Oh, there was enough to thrill one\nlegitimately and tragically about the poor people, so eager to offer\nthemselves, their souls and bodies, to be an unreasonable sacrifice and\nsatisfaction for the Hohenzollerns. His speech was wonderfully suited\nto the occasion. Of course it would be. If he were not able to\nprepare it himself his officials would have seen to it that some\nproperly eloquent person did it for him; but Kloster says he speaks\nreally well on cheap, popular lines. All the great reverberating words\nwere in it, the old big words ambitious and greedy rulers have conjured\nwith since time began,--God, Duty, Country, Hearth and Home, Wives,\nLittle Ones, God again--lots of God.\n\nPerhaps you\'ll see the speech in the papers. What you won\'t see is\nthat enormous crowd, struck quiet, struck into religious awe, crying\nquietly, men and women like little children gathered to the feet of,\npositively, a heavenly Father. \"Go to your homes,\" he said, dismissing\nthem at the end with uplifted hand,--\"go to your homes, and pray.\"\n\nAnd we went. In dead silence. That immense crowd. Quietly, like\npeople going out of church; moved, like people coming away from\ncommunion. I walked beside Helena, who was crying, with my head very\nhigh and my chin in the air, trying not to cry too, for then they would\nhave been more than ever persuaded that I\'m a promising little German,\nbut I did desperately want to. I could hardly not cry. These cheated\npeople! Exploited and cheated, led carefully step by step from\nbabyhood to a certain habit of mind necessary to their exploiters, with\ncertain passions carefully developed and encouraged, certain ancient\nideas, anachronisms every one of them, kept continually before their\neyes,--why, if they _did_ win in their murderous attack on nations who\nhave done nothing to them, what are they going to get individually?\nJust wind; the empty wind of big words. They\'ll be told, and they\'ll\nread it in the newspapers, that now they\'re great, the mightiest people\nin the world, the one best able to crush and grind other nations. But\nnot a single happiness _really_ will be added to the private life of a\nsingle citizen belonging to the vast class that pays the bill. For the\nrest of their lives this generation will be poorer and sadder, that\'s\nall. Nobody will give them back the money they have sacrificed, or the\nruined businesses, and nobody can give them back their dead sons.\nThere\'ll be troops of old miserable women everywhere, who were young\nand content before all the glory set in, and troops of dreary old men\nwho once had children, and troops of cripples who used to look forward\nand hope. Yes, I too obeyed the Kaiser and went home and prayed; but\nwhat I prayed was that Germany should be beaten--so beaten, so punished\nfor this tremendous crime, that she will be jerked by main force into\nline with modern life, dragged up to date, taught that the world is too\ngrown up now to put up with the smashings and destructions of a greedy\nand brutal child. It is queer to think of the fear of God having to be\nkicked into anybody, but I believe with Prussians it\'s the only way.\nThey understand kicks. They respect brute strength exercised brutally.\nI can hear their roar of derision, if Christ were to come among them\ntoday with His gentle, \"Little children, love one another.\"\n\n Your Chris.\n\n\n\n\n _Berlin, Sunday, August 2nd, 1914_.\n\nMy precious mother,\n\nJust think,--when I had my lesson yesterday Kloster wouldn\'t talk\neither about the war or the Kaiser. For a long time I thought he was\nill; but he wasn\'t, he just wouldn\'t talk. I told him about Friday,\nand the Kaiser\'s \"_Geht nach Hause und betet_,\" and how I had felt\nabout it and the whole thing, and I expected a flood of illuminating\nand instructive and fearless comment from him; and instead he was dumb.\nAnd not only dumb, but he fidgeted while I talked, and at last stopped\nme altogether and bade me go on playing.\n\nThen I asked him if he were ill, and he said, \"No, why should I be ill?\"\n\n\"Because you\'re different,--you don\'t talk,\" I said.\n\nAnd he said, \"It is only women who always talk.\"\n\nSo then I got on with my playing, and just wondered in silence.\n\nI ran against Frau Kloster in the passage as I was coming out, and\nasked her if there was anything wrong, and she too said, \"No, what\nshould there be wrong?\"\n\n\"Because the Master\'s different,\" I said. \"He won\'t talk.\"\n\nAnd she said, \"My dear Mees Chrees, these are great days we live in,\nand one cannot be as usual.\"\n\n\"But the Master--\" I said. \"Just these great days--you\'d think he\'d be\npouring out streams of all the things that most need saying--\"\n\nAnd she shrugged her shoulders and merely repeated, \"One is not as\nusual.\"\n\nSo I came away, greatly puzzled. I had expected bread, and here I was\ngoing off with nothing but an unaccountable stone. Kloster and Bernd\nare the two solitary sane and wise people I know here in this place of\nfever, the two I trust, to whom I say what I really think and feel, and\nI went to Kloster yesterday athirst for wisdom, for that detached,\ncritical picking out one by one of the feathers of the imperial bird,\nthe Prussian eagle, that I find so wholesome, so balance-restoring, so\ncomforting, in what is now a very great isolation of spirit. And he\nwas dumb. I can\'t get over it.\n\nI\'ve not seen Bernd since, as he is frightfully busy and wasn\'t able to\ncome yesterday at all, but he\'s coming to lunch today, and perhaps\nhe\'ll be able to explain Kloster. I\'ve been practising all the\nmorning,--it will seem to you an odd thing to have done while Rome is\nburning, but I did it savagely, with a feeling of flinging defiance at\nthis topsy-turvy world, of slitting its ugliness in spite of itself\nwith bright spears of music, insisting on intruding loveliness on its\npreoccupation, the loveliness created by its own brains in the days\nbefore Prussia got the upper hand. All the morning I practised the\nBeethoven violin concerto, and the naked, slender radiance of it\nwithout the orchestra to muffle it up in a background, enchanted me\ninto forgetting.\n\nThe crowds down there are soberer since Friday, and I didn\'t have to go\ninto the bathroom to play. Now that war is upon them the women seem to\nhave started thinking a little what it may really mean, and the men\naren\'t quite so ready incoherently to roar. They keep on going to\nchurch,--the churches have been having services at unaccustomed moments\nthroughout yesterday, of course by order, and are going on like that\ntoday too, for the churches are very valuable to Authority in\nnourishing the necessary emotions in the people at a time like this.\nThe people were told by the Kaiser to pray, and so they do pray. It is\nuseful to have them praying, it quiets them and gets them out of the\nstreets and helps the authorities. Berlin is really the most godless\nplace. Religion is the last thing anybody thinks of. Nobody dreams of\ngoing to church unless there is going to be special music there or a\nprince, and as for the country, my two Sundays there might have been\nweek-days except for the extra food. It is true on each of them I saw\na pastor, but each time he came to the family I was with, they didn\'t\ngo to him, to his church. Now there\'s suddenly this immense\nrecollection of God, turned on by Authority just as one turns on an\nelectric light switch and says \"Let there be light,\" and there is\nlight. So I picture the Kaiser, running his finger down his list of\navailable assets and coming to God. Then he rings for an official, and\nsays, \"Let there be God\"; and there is God.\n\nI\'m not really being profane. It isn\'t really God at all I\'m talking\nabout. It\'s what German Authority finds convenient to turn on and off,\naccording as it suits what it wishes to obtain. It isn\'t God. It\'s\njust a tap.\n\n\n\n _Later_.\n\nBernd came to lunch, but also unfortunately so did his chief. They\nboth arrived together after we had begun,--there\'s a tremendous _aller\net venir_ all day in the house, and sometimes the traffic on the stairs\nto the drawingroom gets so congested that nothing but a London\npoliceman could deal with it. I could only say ordinary things to\nBernd, and he went away, swept off by his Colonel, directly afterwards.\nHe did manage to whisper he would try to come in to dinner tonight and\nget here early, but he hasn\'t come yet and it\'s nearly half past seven.\n\nThe Graf was at lunch, and two other men who ate their food as if they\nhad to catch a train, and they talked so breathlessly while they ate\nthat I can\'t think why they didn\'t choke; and there was great triumph\nand excitement because the Germans crossed into Luxembourg this morning\non their way to France, marching straight through the expostulations\nand entreaties of the Grand Duchess, blowing her aside, I gather, like\nso much rather amusing thistledown. It seemed to tickle the Graf, whom\nI have not before seen tickled and hadn\'t imagined ever could be; but\nthis idea of a _junges Madchen_--(\"Sie soll ganz niedlich sein_,\" threw\nin one of the gobbling men. \"_Ja ganz appetitlich_,\" threw in the\nother; \"_Na, es geht_,\" said the Colonel with a shrug--)--motoring out\nto bar the passage of a mighty army, trying to stop thousands of\nbayonets by lifting up one little admonitory kitten\'s paw, shook him\nout of his gravity into a weird, uncanny chuckling.\n\nThe Colonel, who was as genial and hilarious as ever, rather more so\nthan ever, said all the Luxembourg railways would be in German hands by\ntonight. \"It works out as easily and inevitably as a simple\narithmetical problem,\" he laughed; and I heard him tell the Graf German\ncavalry was already in France at several points.\n\n\"_Ja, ja_\" he said, apparently addressing me, for he looked at me and\nsmiled, \"when we Germans make war we do not wait till the next day.\nEverything thought of; everything ready; plenty of oil in the machine;\n_und dann los_.\"\n\nHe raised his glass. \"Delightful young English lady,\" he said, \"I\ndrink to your charming eyes.\"\n\nThere\'s dinner. I must leave off.\n\n\n\n _Eleven p. m_.\n\nYou\'ll never believe it, but Kloster has been given the Order of the\nRed Eagle 1st Class, and made a privy councillor and an excellency by\nthe Kaiser this very day. And his most intimate friends, the cleverest\ntalkers among his set, two or three who used to hold forth particularly\nbrilliantly in his rooms on Socialism and the slavish stupidity of\nGermans, have each had an order and an advancement of some sort.\nKloster was at the palace this afternoon. He knew about it yesterday\nwhen I was having my lesson. _Kloster_. Of all men. I feel sick.\n\nBernd didn\'t come to dinner, but was able to be with me for half an\nhour afterwards, half an hour of comfort I badly needed, for where can\none\'s feet be set firmly and safely in this upheaving world? The\nColonel was at dinner; he comes to nearly every meal; and it was he who\nstarted talking about Kloster\'s audience with Majestat this afternoon.\n\nI jumped as though some one had hit me. \"That _can\'t_ be true,\" I\nexclaimed, exactly as one calls out quickly if one is suddenly struck.\n\nThey all looked at me. Somehow I saw that they had known about it\nbeforehand, and Bernd told me tonight it was the Graf who had drawn the\nauthorities\' attention to the desirability of having tongues like\nKloster\'s on the side of the Hohenzollerns.\n\n\"Dear child,\" said the Grafin gently, \"we Germans do not permit our\ngreat to go unhonoured.\"\n\n\"But he would never--\" I began; then remembered my lesson yesterday and\nhis silence. So that\'s what it was. He already had his command to\nattend at the palace and be decorated in his pocket.\n\nI sat staring straight before me. Kloster bought? Kloster for sale?\nAnd the Government at such a crisis finding time to bother about him?\n\n\"_Ja, ja_,\" said the Colonel gaily, as though answering my\nthoughts--and I found I had been staring, without seeing him, straight\ninto his eyes, \"_ja, ja_, we think of everything here.\"\n\n\"Not,\" gently amended the Grafin, \"that it was difficult to think of\nhonouring so great a genius as our dear Kloster. He has been in\nMajestat\'s thoughts for years.\"\n\n\"I expect he has,\" I said; for Kloster has often told me how they hated\nhim at court, him and his friends, but that he was too well known all\nover the world for them to be able to interfere with him; something\nlike, I expect, Tolstoi and the Russian court.\n\nThe Grafin looked at me quickly.\n\n\"And so has Majestat been in his,\" I continued.\n\n\"Kloster,\" said the Grafin very gently, \"is a most amusing talker, and\nsometimes cannot resist saying the witty things that occur to him,\nhowever undesirable they may be. We all know they mean nothing. We\nall understand and love our Kloster. And nobody, as you see, dear\nchild, more than Majestat, with his ever ready appreciation of genius.\"\n\nI could only sit silent, staring at my plate. Kloster gone. Kloster\nallowing himself to be gagged by a decoration. I wanted to push the\nintolerable thought away from me and cry out, \"No, it _can\'t_ be.\"\n\nWhy, who can one believe in now? Who is left? There\'s Bernd, my\nbeloved, my heart\'s own mate; and as I sat there dumb, and they all\ntriumphed on with their self-congratulations and satisfactions, and\nMajestat this, and Deutschland that, for an awful moment my faith in\nBernd himself began to shake. Suppose he too, he with his Prussian\nblood and upbringing, fell away and went over in spirit to the side of\nlife that decorates a man in return for the absolute control of his\nthoughts, rewards him for the disposal of his soul? Kloster, that\nfreest of critics, had gone over, his German blood after all unable to\nresist the call to slavery. I never could have believed it. I never\n_would_ have believed it without actual proof. And Bernd? What about\nBernd? For I haven\'t more believed in Kloster than I do in Bernd. Oh,\nlittle mother, I was cold with fear.\n\nThen he came. My dear one came for a blessed half hour. And because\nwe, thank God, are betrothed, and so have the right to be alone\ntogether, we got rid of those smug triumphant others; and if he had\nhappened not to be able to come, and I had had to wait till tomorrow,\nall night long thinking of Kloster, I believe I\'d have gone mad. For\nyou see one believes so utterly in a person one _does_ believe in. At\nleast, I do. I can\'t manage caution in belief, I can\'t give prudently,\ncarefully, holding back part, as I\'m told a woman does if she is really\nclever, in either faith or love. And how is one to get on without\nfaith and love? Bernd comforted me. And he comforted me most by my\nfinding how greatly he needed to be comforted himself. He was every\nbit as profoundly shaken and shocked as I was. Oh, the relief of\ndiscovering that!\n\nWe clung to each other, and comforted each other like two hurt\nchildren. Kloster has been so much to us both. More, perhaps, here in\nthis place of hypocrisy and self-deceptions, than he would have been\nanywhere else. He stood for fearlessness, for freedom, for beauty, for\nall the great things. And now he has gone; silent, choked by the _Rote\nAdler Orden Erste Klasse_. It is an order with three classes. We\nwondered bitterly whether he couldn\'t have been had cheaper,--whether\nsecond, or even third class, wouldn\'t have done it. He is now a\n_Wirkliche Geheimrath mit dem Pradikat Excellenz_. God rest his soul.\n\n Chris.\n\n\n\n\n _Berlin, Monday, August 3rd, 1914_.\n\nDarling own mother,\n\nIt\'s only a matter of hours now before Bernd will have to go, and when\nhe goes I\'m coming back to you.\n\nYour Chris.\n\n\n\n\n _Berlin, Monday August 3rd, evening_.\n\nPrecious mother,\n\nI want to come back to you--directly Bernd has gone I\'m coming back to\nyou, and if he doesn\'t go soon but is used in Berlin at the Staff Head\nQuarters, as he says now perhaps he may be for a while, I won\'t stay\nwith the Koseritzes, but go back to Frau Berg\'s for as long as Bernd is\nin Berlin, and the day he leaves I start for Switzerland.\n\nI don\'t know what is happening, but the Koseritzes have suddenly turned\ndifferent to me. They\'re making me feel more and more uncomfortable\nand strange. And there\'s a gloom about them and the people who have\nbeen here today that sets me wondering whether their war plans after\nall are rolling along quite as smoothly as they thought. I never did\nquite believe the Koseritzes liked me, any of them, and now I\'m sure\nthey don\'t. Tonight at dinner the Graf\'s face was a thunder-cloud, and\nactually the Colonel, who hasn\'t been all day but came in late for\ndinner and went again immediately, didn\'t speak to me once. Hardly\nlooked at me when he bowed, and his bow was the stiffest thing. I\ncan\'t ask anybody if there is bad news for Germany, for it would be a\nmost dreadful insult even to suggest there _could_ be bad news.\nBesides, I feel as if I somehow were mixed up in whatever it is. Bernd\nhasn\'t been since this morning. I shall go round to Frau Berg tomorrow\nand ask her if I can have my old room. But oh, little beloved mother,\nI feel torn in two! I want so dreadfully to get away, to go back to\nyou, and the thought of being at Frau Berg\'s, just waiting, waiting for\nthe tiny scraps of moments Bernd can come to me, fills me with horror.\nAnd yet how can I leave him? I love him so. And once he has gone,\nshall I ever see him again? If it weren\'t for him I\'d have started for\nSwitzerland yesterday, the moment I heard about Kloster, for the whole\nreason for my being in Berlin was only Kloster,\n\nAnd now Kloster says he isn\'t going to teach me any more. Darling\nmother, I\'m so sorry to have to tell you this, but it\'s true. He sent\nround a note this evening saying he regretted he couldn\'t continue the\nlessons. Just that. Not another word. I can\'t make anything out any\nmore. I\'ve got nobody but Bernd to ask, and I only see him in briefest\nsnatches. Of course I knew the lessons would be strange and painful\nnow, but I thought we could manage, Kloster and I, by excluding\neverything but the bare teaching and learning, to go on and finish what\nwe\'ve begun. He knows how important it is to me. He knows what this\njourney here has meant to us, to you and me, the difficulty of it, the\nsacrifice. I\'m very unhappy tonight, darling mother, and selfishly\ncrying out to you. I feel almost like leaving Bernd, and starting for\nGlion tomorrow. And then when I think of him without me--He\'s as\nspiritually alone in this welter as I am. I\'m the only one he has, the\nonly human being who understands. Today he said, holding me in his\narms--you should see how we cling to each other now as if we were\ndrowning--\"When this is over, Chris, when I\'ve paid off my bill of duty\nand settled with them here to the last farthing of me that I\'ve\npromised them, we\'ll go away for ever. We\'ll never come back. We\'ll\nnever be caught again.\"\n\n\n\n _Berlin, Tuesday, August 4th, 1914_.\n\nMy beloved mother,\n\nThe atmosphere in this house really is intolerable, and I\'m going back\nto Frau Berg\'s tomorrow morning. I\'ve settled it with her by\ntelephone, and I can have my old room. However lonely I am in it\nwithout my lessons and Kloster, without the reason there was for being\nthere before, I won\'t have this horrid feeling of being in a place full\nof sudden and unaccountable hostility. Bernd came this morning, and\nthe Grafin told him I was out, and he went away again. She couldn\'t\nhave thought I was out, for I always tell her when I\'m going, so she\nwants to separate us. But why? Why? And oh, it means so much to me\nto see him, it was so cruel to find out by accident that he had been!\nA woman who was at lunch happened to say she had met him coming out of\nthe front door as she came in.\n\n\"What--was Bernd here?\" I exclaimed, half getting up on a sort of\nimpulse to run after him and try and catch him in the street.\n\n\"Helena thought you had gone out,\" said the Grafin.\n\n\"But you _knew_ I hadn\'t,\" I said, turning on Helena.\n\n\"Helena knew nothing of the sort,\" said the Grafin severely. \"She said\nwhat she believed to be true. I must request you, Christine, not to\ncast doubts on her word. We Germans do not lie.\"\n\nAnd the Graf muttered, \"_Peinlich, peinlich_\" and pushed hack his chair\nand left the room.\n\n\"You have spoilt my husband\'s lunch,\" said the Grafin sternly.\n\n\"I am very sorry,\" I said; and tried to go on with my own, but couldn\'t\nsee it because I was blinded by tears.\n\nAfter this there was nothing for it but Frau Berg. I waited till the\nGrafin was alone, and then went and told her I thought it better I\nshould go back to the Lutzowstrasse, and would like, if she didn\'t\nmind, to go tomorrow. It was very _peinlich_, as they say; for however\nmuch people want to get rid of you they\'re always angry if you want to\ngo. I said all I could that was grateful, and there was quite a lot I\ncould say by blotting out the last two days from my remembrance. I\ndid, being greatly at sea and perplexed, ask what it was that I had\ndone to offend her; though of course she didn\'t tell me, and was only\nstill more offended at being asked.\n\nI\'m going to pack now, and write a letter to Bernd telling him about\nit, in case Helena should have a second unfortunate conviction that I\'m\nnot at home when he comes next. And I do try to be cheerful, little\nmother, and keep my soul from getting hurt, and when I\'m at Frau Berg\'s\nI shall feel more normal again I expect. But one has such fears--oh,\nmore than just fears, terrors--Well, I won\'t go on writing in this\nmood. I\'ll pack.\n\n Your own Chris.\n\n\n\n\n _At Frau Berg\'s, August 4th, 1914, very late_.\n\nPrecious mother,\n\nI\'m coming back to you. Don\'t be unhappy about me. Don\'t think I\'m\ncoming back mangled, a bleeding thing, because you see, I still have\nBernd. I still believe in him--oh, with my whole being. And as long\nas I do that how can I be anything but happy? It\'s strange how, now\nthat the catastrophe has come, I\'m quite calm, sitting here at Frau\nBerg\'s in my old room in the middle of the night writing to you. I\nthink it\'s because the whole thing is so great that I\'m like this, like\nsomebody who has had a mortal blow, and because it\'s mortal doesn\'t\nfeel. But this isn\'t mortal. I\'ve got Bernd and you,--only now I must\nhave great patience. Till I see him again. Till war is over and he\ncomes for me, and I shall be with him always.\n\nI\'m coming to you, dear mother. It\'s finished here. I\'m going to\ndescribe it all quite calmly to you. I\'m not going to be unworthy of\nBernd, I won\'t have less of dignity and patience than he has. If you\'d\nseen him tonight saying good-bye to me, and stopped by the Colonel!\nHis look as he obeyed--I shan\'t forget it. When next I\'m weak and base\nI shall remember it, and it will save me.\n\nAt dinner there were only the Grafin and Helena and me, and they didn\'t\nspeak a word, not only not to me but not to each other, and in the\nmiddle a servant brought in a note for the Grafin from the Graf, he\nsaid, and when she had looked at it she got up and went out. We\nfinished our dinner in dead silence, and I was going up to my room when\nthe Grafin\'s maid came after me and said would I go to her mistress.\nShe was alone in the drawingroom, sitting at her writing table, though\nshe wasn\'t writing, and when I came in she said, without turning round,\nthat she must ask me to leave her house at once, that very evening.\nShe said that apart from her private feelings, which were all in favour\nof my going--she would be quite frank, she said--there were serious\npolitical reasons why I shouldn\'t stay even as long as till tomorrow.\nThe Graf\'s career, his position in the ministry, their social position,\nMajestat,--I really don\'t remember all she said, and it matters so\nlittle, so little. I listened, trying to understand, trying to give\nall my attention to it and disentangle it, while my heart was thumping\nso because of Bernd. For I was being turned out in disgrace, and I am\nhis betrothed, and so I am his honour, and whatever of shame there is\nfor me there is of shame for him.\n\nThe Grafin got more and more unsteady in her voice as she went on. She\nwas trying hard to keep calm, but she was evidently feeling so acutely,\nso violently, that it was distressing to, have to watch her. I was so\nsorry. I wanted to put my arms round her and tell her not to mind so\nmuch, that of course I\'d go, but if only she wouldn\'t mind so much\nwhatever it was. Then at last she began to lose her hold on herself,\nand got up and walked about the room saying things about England. So\nthen I knew. And I knew the answer to everything that has been\nperplexing me. They\'d been afraid of it the last two days, and now\nthey knew it. England isn\'t going to fold her arms and look on. Oh,\nhow I loved England then! Standing in that Berlin drawingroom in the\nheart of the Junker-military-official set, all by myself in what I\nthink and feel,--how I loved her! My heart was thumping five minutes\nbefore for fear of shame, now it thumped so that I couldn\'t have said\nanything if I\'d wanted to for gladness and pride. I was a bit of\nEngland. I think to know how much one loves England one has to be in\nGermany. I forgot Bernd for a moment, my heart was so full of that\nother love, that proud love for one\'s country when it takes its stand\non the side of righteousness. And presently the Grafin said it all,\ntumbled it all out,--that England was going to declare war, and under\ncircumstances so shameful, so full of the well-known revolting\nhypocrisy, that it made an honest German sick. \"Belgium!\" she cried,\n\"What is Belgium? An excuse, a pretence, one more of the sickening,\nwhining phrases with which you conceal your gluttonous opportunism--\"\nAnd so she continued, while I stood silent.\n\nOh well, all that doesn\'t matter now,--I\'m in a hurry, I want to get\nthis letter off to you tonight. Luckily there\'s a letter-box a few\nyards away, so I won\'t have to face much of those awful streets that\nare yelling now for England\'s blood.\n\nI went up and got my things together. I knew Bernd would get the\nletter I posted to him this morning telling him I was going to Frau\nBerg\'s tomorrow, so I felt safe about seeing him, even if he didn\'t\ncome in to the Koseritzes before I left. But he did come in. He came\njust as I was going downstairs carrying my violin-case--how foolish and\noutside of life that music business seems now--and he seized my hand\nand took me into the drawingroom.\n\n\"Not in here, not in here!\" cried the Grafin, getting up excitedly.\n\"Not again, not ever again does an Englishwoman come into my\ndrawingroom--\"\n\nBernd went to her and drew her hand through his arm and led her\npolitely to the door, which he shut after her. Then he came back to\nme. \"You know, Chris,\" he said, \"about England?\"\n\n\"Of course--just listen,\" I answered, for in the street newsboys were\nyelling _Kriegserklarung Englands_, and there was a great dull roaring\nas of a multitude of wild beasts who have been wounded.\n\n\"You must go to your mother at once--tomorrow,\" he said. \"Before\nyou\'re noticed, before there\'s been time to make your going difficult.\"\n\nI told him the Grafin had asked me to leave, and I was coming here\ntonight. He wasted no words on the Koseritzes, but was anxious lest\nFrau Berg mightn\'t wish to take me in now. He said he would come with\nme and see that she did, and place me under her care as part of\nhimself. \"And tomorrow you run. You run to Switzerland, without\ntelling Frau Berg or a soul where you are going,\" he said. \"You just\ngo out, and don\'t come back. I\'ll settle with Frau Berg afterwards.\nYou go to the Anhalter station--on your feet, Chris, as though you were\ngoing for a walk--and get into the first train for Geneva, Zurich,\nLausanne, anywhere as long as it\'s Switzerland. You\'ll want all your\nintelligence. Have you money enough?\"\n\n\"Yes, yes,\" I said, feeling every second was precious and shouldn\'t be\nwasted; but he opened my violin-case and put a lot of banknotes into it.\n\n\"And have you courage enough?\" he asked, taking my face in his hands\nand looking into my eyes.\n\nOh the blessedness, the blessedness of being near him, of hearing and\nseeing him. What couldn\'t I and wouldn\'t I be and do for Bernd?\n\nI told him I had courage enough, for I had him, and I wouldn\'t fail in\nit, nor in patience.\n\n\"We shall want both, my Chris,\" he said, his face against mine, \"oh, my\nChris--!\"\n\nAnd then the Colonel walked in.\n\n\"Herr Leutnant?\" he said, in a raucous voice, as though he were\nordering troops about.\n\nAt the sound of it Bernd instantly became rigid and stood at\nattention,--the perfect automaton, except that I was hanging on his arm.\n\n\"_Zur Befehl_, Herr Oberst,\" he said.\n\n\"Take that woman\'s hand off your arm, Herr Leutnant,\" said the Colonel\nsharply.\n\nBernd gently put my hand off, and I put it back again.\n\n\"We are going to be married,\" I said to the Colonel, \"and perhaps I may\nnot see Bernd for a long while after tonight.\"\n\n\"No German officer marries an alien enemy,\" snapped out the Colonel.\n\"Remove the woman\'s hand, Herr Leutnant.\"\n\nAgain Bernd gently took my hand, but I held on. \"This is good-bye,\nthen?\" I said, looking up at him and clinging to him.\n\nHe was facing the Colonel, rigid, his profile to me; but he did at that\nturn his head and look at me. \"Remember--\" he breathed.\n\n\"I forbid all talking, Herr Leutnant,\" snapped the Colonel.\n\n\"Never mind him,\" I whispered. \"What does _he_ matter? Remember what,\nmy Bernd, my own beloved?\"\n\n\"Remember courage--patience--\" he murmured quickly, under his breath.\n\n\"Silence!\" shouted the Colonel. \"Take that woman\'s hand off your arm,\nHerr Leutnant. _Kreutzhimmeldonnerwetter nochmal_. Instantly.\"\n\nBernd took my hand, and raising it to his face kissed it slowly and\nlooked at me. I shall not forget that look.\n\nThe Colonel, who was very red and more like an infuriated machine than\na human being, stepped on one side and pointed to the door. \"Precede\nme,\" he said. \"On the instant. March.\"\n\nAnd Bernd went out as if on parade.\n\nWhen shall we see each other again? Only a fortnight, one fortnight\nand two days, have we been lovers. But such things can\'t be measured\nby time. They are of eternity. They are for always. If he is killed,\nand the rest of my years are empty, we still will have had the whole of\nlife.\n\nAnd now there\'s tomorrow, and my getting away. You won\'t be anxious,\ndear mother. You\'ll wait quietly and patiently till I come. I\'ll\nwrite to you on the way if I can. It may take several days to get to\nSwitzerland, and it may be difficult to get out of Germany. I think I\nshall say I\'m an American. Frau Berg, poor thing, will be relieved to\nfind me gone. She only took me in tonight because of Bernd. While she\nwas demurring on the threshold, when at last I got to her after a\nterrifying walk through the crowds,--for I was afraid they would notice\nme and see, as they always do, that I\'m English,--his soldier servant\nbrought her a note from him which just turned the scale for me. I\'m\nafraid humanity wouldn\'t have done it, nor pity, for patriotism and\npity don\'t go well together here.\n\nI wonder if you\'ll believe how calmly I\'m going to bed and to sleep\ntonight, on the night of what might seem to be the ruin of my\nhappiness. I\'m glad I\'ve written everything down that has happened\nthis evening. It has got it so clear to me. I don\'t want ever to\nforget one word or look of Bernd\'s tonight. I don\'t want ever to\nforget his patience, his dear look of untouchable dignity, when the\nColonel, because he is in authority and can be cruel, at such a moment\nin the lives of two poor human beings was so unkind.\n\nGod bless and keep you, my mother,--my dear sweet mother.\n\n Your Chris.\n\n\n\n\n _Halle, Wednesday night, August 5th, 1914_.\n\nI\'ve got as far as this, and hope to get on in an hour or two. We\'ve\nbeen stopped to let troop trains pass. They go rushing by one after\nthe other, packed with waving, shouting soldiers, all of them with\nflowers stuck about them, in their buttonholes and caps. I\'ve been\nwatching them. There\'s no end to them. And the enthusiasm of the\ncrowds on the platform as they go by never slackens. I\'m making for\nZurich. I tried for Bale. but couldn\'t get into Switzerland that\nway,--it is _abgesperrt_. I hadn\'t much difficulty getting a ticket in\nBerlin. There was such confusion and such a rush at the ticket office\nthat the man just asked me why I wanted to go; and I said I was\nAmerican and rejoining my mother, and he flung me the ticket, only too\nglad to get rid of me. Don\'t expect me till you see me, for we shall\nbe held up lots of times, I\'m sure.\n\nI\'m all right, mother darling. It was fearfully hot all day, squeezed\ntight in a third class carriage--no other class to be had. It\'s cold\nand draughty in this station by comparison, and I wish I had my coat.\nI\'ve brought nothing away with me, except my fiddle and what would go\ninto its case, which was handkerchiefs. Bernd will see that my things\nget sent on, I expect. I locked everything up in my trunk,--your\nletters, and all my precious things. An official came along the train\nat Wittenberg, and after eyeing us all in my compartment suddenly held\nout his hand to me and said, \"_Ihre Papiere_.\" As I haven\'t got any I\ntold him about being an American, and as much family history not till\nthen known to me as I could put into German. The other passengers\nlistened eagerly, but not unfriendly. I think if you\'re a woman, not\nbeing old helps one in Germany.\n\nNow I\'m going to get some hot coffee, for it has turned cold, I think,\nand post this. The one thing in life now that seems of desperate\nimportance is to get to you. Oh, little mother, the moment when I\nreach you! It will be like getting to heaven, like getting at last,\nafter many wanderings, and batterings, to the feet of God.\n\nWe _ought_ to be at Waldshut, on the frontier, tomorrow morning, but\nnobody can say for certain, because we may be held up for hours\nanywhere on the way.\n\n Your Chris.\n\nIt\'s a good thing being too tired to think.\n\n\n\n\n _Wursburg, Thursday, August 6th, 1914, 4 p. m_.\n\nI\'ve only got as far as this. I was held up this time, not the train.\nIt went on without me. Well, it doesn\'t matter really; it only keeps\nme a little longer from you.\n\nWe stopped here about ten o\'clock this morning, and I was so tired and\nstiff after the long night wedged in tight in the railway carriage that\nI got out to get some air and unstiffen myself, instinctively clutching\nmy fiddle-case; and a Bavarian officer on the platform, watching the\ntrain with some soldiers, saw me and came over to me at once and\ndemanded to see my papers.\n\n\"You are English,\" he said; and when I said I was American he made a\nsound like Tcha.\n\nI can\'t tell you how horrid he was. He kept me standing for two hours\nin the blazing sun. You can imagine what I felt like when I saw my\ntrain going away without me. I asked if I mightn\'t go into the shade,\ninto the waiting-room, anywhere out of the terrible sun, for I was\npositively dripping after the first half hour of it, and his answer to\nthat and to anything else I said in protest was always the same:\n\"_Krieg ist Krieg. Mund halten_.\"\n\nThere was no _reason_ why I shouldn\'t be in the shade, except that he\nhad power to prevent it. Well, he was very young, and I don\'t suppose\nhad ever had so much power before, so I suppose it was natural, he\nbeing German. But it was a most ridiculous position. I tried to see\nit from that side and be amused, but I wasn\'t amused. While he went\nand telephoned to his superiors for instructions he put a soldier to\nguard me, and of course the people waiting on the platform for trains\ncrowded to look. They decided that I was no doubt a spy, and certainly\nand manifestly one of the swinish English, they said. I wished then I\ncouldn\'t understand German. I stood there doing my best to think it\nwas all very funny, but I was too tired to succeed, and hadn\'t had any\nbreakfast, and they were too rude. Then I tried to think it was just a\nsilly dream, and that I had really got to Glion, and would wake up in a\nminute in a cool bedroom with the light coming through green shutters,\nand there\'d be the lake, and the mountains opposite with snow on them,\nand you, my blessed, blessed little mother, calling me to breakfast.\nBut it was too hot and distinct and horribly consistent to be a dream.\nAnd my clothes were getting wetter and wetter with the heat, and\nsticking to me.\n\nI want to get to you. That\'s all I think of now. There isn\'t a train\ntill tonight, and then only as far as Stuttgart. I expect this letter\nwill get to you long before I do, because I may be kept at Stuttgart.\n\nAnother officer, higher up than the first one, let me go. He was more\ndecent. He came and questioned me, and said that as he couldn\'t prove\nI wasn\'t American he preferred to risk believing that I was, rather\nthan inconvenience a lady belonging to a friendly nation, or something\nlike that. I don\'t know what he said really, for by that time I was\nstupid because of the sun beating down so. But he let me go, and I\ncame here to the restaurant to get something to drink. He came after\nme, to see that I was not further inconvenienced, he said, so I thought\nI\'d tell him I was going to marry one of his fellow-officers. He\nchanged completely then, when I told him Bernd\'s name and regiment, and\nwas really polite and really saw that I wasn\'t further inconvenienced.\nDear Bernd! Even just his name saves me.\n\nI went to sleep on the bench in the waiting room after I had drunk a\ngreat deal of iced milk. My fiddle-case was the pillow. Poor fiddle.\nIt seems such a useless, futile thing now.\n\nIt was so nice lying down flat, and not having to do anything. The\nwaiter says there\'s a place I can wash in, and I suppose I\'d better go\nand wash after I\'ve posted this, but I don\'t want to particularly. I\ndon\'t want to do anything, particularly, except shut my eyes and wait\ntill I get to you. But I think I\'ll go out into the sun and warm\nmyself up again, for it\'s cold in here. Dear mother, I\'m a great deal\nnearer to you than I\'ve been for weeks. Won\'t you borrow a map, and\nsee where Wurzburg is?\n\n Your Chris.'"