Chapter 11

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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