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I didn't a bit want to play at it, or bother about it, or anything else. The hot weather drove the Grafin into the country, Herr von Inster told me, He too seems to think I ought to go away. I saw him this afternoon after being with Kloster, and he says he'll go down to his aunt's that is Grafin Koseritz while I'm in the neighbourhood, and will ride over and see me.
To us over here it was unbelievable that a decent girl could think of marrying him; that her parents could be so dazzled by the mere title of 'Lady' or 'Marquise' or 'Grafin' or 'Principessa' that they were willing to give her into the keeping of an unspeakable cad, brute, or rake. Do you think that it is the fault of Europe if such girls know nothing but wretchedness?"
Grafin Koseritz brought me back in her car and dropped me at Frau Berg's on her way home. She lives in the Sommerstrasse, next to the Brandenburger Thor, so she isn't very far from me. She shuddered when she looked up at Frau Berg's house. It did look very dismal. Bedtime. I'm so sleepy, precious mother, so sleepy that I must go straight to bed. I can't hold my head up or my eyes open.
A woman who was at lunch happened to say she had met him coming out of the front door as she came in. "What was Bernd here?" I exclaimed, half getting up on a sort of impulse to run after him and try and catch him in the street. "Helena thought you had gone out," said the Grafin. "But you knew I hadn't," I said, turning on Helena. "Helena knew nothing of the sort," said the Grafin severely.
Appearing in her Red Cross uniform, she was admitted, announced herself as the Gräfin von Stachelberg, and demanded to know what justification the manager could offer for his extraordinary brutality towards these English ladies, the result of which had been the death of the elder lady.
The sort of creature people say generously about afterwards, "Oh, but she's so goodnatured." Grafin Koseritz was terribly kind to me, and that made me shyer than ever, for I knew she was trying to put me at my ease, and you can imagine how shy that made me. I blushed and dropped things, and the more I blushed and dropped things the kinder she was.
The cousin became rigid, and stood at the salute. The air seemed full of hats and handkerchiefs and delirious shrieking. The Kaiser put up his hand. "Majestat is going to speak," exclaimed the Grafin, her calm fluttered into fragments. There was an immense instantaneous hush, uncanny after all the noise. Only the little boy with the boxed ears continued to call out, but not patriotically.
Never mind, I will have the Vice-President of our Landtag to listen to you; he is 'Sozi' but we are good friends outside the Parliament House; you shall blay to him, my young friendt, and gonfince him that there is a Got in Heaven. You will gom? Yes?" "It was beautiful," said the Grafin simply; "it made me cry. Go back to the piano again, please, at once."
"She said what she believed to be true. I must request you, Christine, not to cast doubts on her word. We Germans do not lie." And the Graf muttered, "Peinlich, peinlich" and pushed hack his chair and left the room. "You have spoilt my husband's lunch," said the Grafin sternly. "I am very sorry," I said; and tried to go on with my own, but couldn't see it because I was blinded by tears.
The guests De Casimir, the Grafin, Sebastian, Mathilde, Charles! Desiree stood alone now in the silent room. She did not look at the table. The guests were all gone. The dead past had buried its dead. She went to the window and drew aside the curtain as she had drawn it aside on her wedding-day to look down into the Frauengasse and see Louis d'Arragon.
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