to 4. She is so pale and when I came in we both cried such a lot. I
brought her some more flowers and I told her directly that when he sees
me Prof. W. always asks after her. So do the other members of the staff
especially Frau Doktor M. The girls want to visit her but her mother
won’t let them. When anyone is lying in bed they look quite different,
like strangers. I said so to Hella, and she said: We can never be
strangers to one another, not even in death. Then I burst out crying
again and both our mothers said I must go away because it was too
exciting for Hella.
December 15th. I was with Hella again to-day. She passed me a little
note asking me to get from her locker the parcel with the blotting-book
for her father and the key basket for her mother and bring it to her
because the things are not ready yet for Christmas.
December 16th. Hella’s better to-day. I’ve got to paint the
blotting-book for her father. Thank goodness I can. She’ll be able to
finish the key basket herself, that’s nothing.
December 18th. The Bruckners are all frightfully unhappy for it won’t
be a real Christmas if Hella has to stay in hospital over Christmas.
But perhaps she will for since yesterday she has not been so well, the
doctors can’t make out why she suddenly had fever once more. For she
didn’t let on that I had brought her some burnt almonds because she’s
so awfully fond of them. But now I’m so terribly frightened that she’ll
have to have another operation.
December 19th. Directly after school I went to see Hella again for I
had been so anxious I could not sleep all night. Thank goodness she’s
better. One of the doctors said that if she’d been in a private house
he would have felt sure it was an error in diet, but since she was in
hospital that could be excluded. So it was from the burnt almonds and
the two sticks of marzipan. Hella thinks it was the marzipan, for
they were large ones at 20 hellers each because nuts lie heavy on
the stomach. She had a pain already while I was still there, but she
wouldn’t say anything about it because it was her fault that I’d brought
her the sweets. She can beg as much as she likes now, I shan’t bring her
anything but flowers, and they can’t make her ill. Of course it would be
different if it were true about the “Vengeance of Flowers.” But that’s
all nonsense, and besides I don’t bring any strong-scented flowers.
December 20th. I am so glad, to-morrow or Tuesday Hella can come home,
in time for the Christmas tree. Now I know what to give her, a long
chair, Father will let me, for I have not enough money myself but Father
will give me as much as I want. Oh there’s no one like Father! To-morrow
he’s going to take me to the Wahringerstrasse to buy one.
December 21st. I was only a very short time with Hella to-day because
Father came to fetch me soon. At first she was a little hurt, but then
she saw that we had important business so she said: All right as long as
it is not anything made of marzipan. That nearly gave us both away. For
when we were in the street Father asked me: Why did Hella say that about
marzipan? So I said quickly: Since she’s been ill she has a perfect
loathing for sweets. Thank goodness Father didn’t notice anything. But
I do hate having to tell fibs to Father. First of all I always feel that
he’ll see through it, and secondly anyhow I don’t like telling fibs to
him. The couch is lovely, a Turkish pattern with long tassels on the
round bolster. Father wanted to pay for it altogether, but I said: No,
then it would not be my present, and so I paid five crowns and Father
37. To-morrow early it will be sent to the Bruckners.
December 22nd. Hella is going home to-morrow. She has already been up
a little, but she is still so weak that she has to lean on someone when
she walks. She is awfully glad she is going home, for she says in a
hospital one always feels as if one was going to die. She’s quite
right. The first time I went to see her I nearly burst out crying on the
stairs. And afterwards we both really did cry frightfully. Her mother
knows about the couch, but it has not been sent yet. I do hope they
won’t forget about it at the shop.
December 23rd. Hella went home to-day. Her father carried her upstairs
while I held her hand. The two tenants in the mezzanin came out to
congratulate her and the old privy councillor on the second story and
his wife sent down a great pot of lilac. She was so tired that I came
away at 5 o’clock so that she could rest. To-morrow I’m going to their
Christmas tree first and then to ours. Because of Hella the Br’s are
going to have the present giving at 5 o’clock, we shall have ours as
usual at 7.
December 26th. Yesterday and the day before I simply could not write
a word. It was lovely here and at Hella’s. I shan’t write down all the
things I got, because I’ve no time, and besides I know anyhow. Hella was
awfully pleased with the couch, her father carried her into the room and
laid her on the sofa. Her mother cried. It was touching. It’s certainly
awfully nice to have got through a bad illness, when everyone takes care
of one, and when no one denies you the first place. I don’t grudge it
to Hella. She’s such a darling. Yesterday I was there all day, and after
dinner, when she had to go to sleep, she said: Open the drawer of my
writing-table, the lowest one on the right, and you’ll find my diary
there if you want to read it. I shall never forget it! It’s true that we
agreed we would let one another read our diaries, but we’ve never done
it yet; after all we’re a little shy of one another, and besides after
a long time one can’t remember exactly what one has written. What she
writes is always quite short, never more than half a page, but what she
writes is always important. Of course she couldn’t sleep but instead
I had to read her a lot of things out of her diary, especially the
holidays when she was in Hungary. She was made much of there. By two
cadets and her two cousins. We laughed so madly over some things that it
hurt Hella’s wound and I had to stop reading.
December 29th. We were put in such a frightful rage yesterday. This is
how it happened. It is a long time since we both gave up playing with
dolls and things of that sort but when I was rummaging in Hella’s box I
came across the dolls’ things; they were quite at the bottom where Hella
never looked at them. I took out the little Paris model and she said:
Give it here and bring all the things that belong to it. I arranged them
all on her bed and we were trying all sorts of things. Then Mother and
Dora came. When they came in Dora gave such a spiteful look and said:
Ah, at their favourite occupation: look, Lizzi, their cheeks are quite
red with excitement over their play. Wasn’t it impertinent. We playing
with dolls! Even if we had been, what business was it of hers to make
fun of us? Hella was in a frightful rage and to-day she said: “One is
never safe from spies; please put all those things away in the box
so that I shan’t see them any more.” It really is too stupid that
one should always be reproached about dolls as if it was something
disgraceful. After all, one doesn’t really understand until later how
all the things are made; when one is 7 or 8 or still more when one is
quite a little girl and one first gets dolls, one does not understand
whether they are pretty and nicely dressed or not. Still, to-day we’ve
done with dolls for ever. A good day to turn over a new leaf, for the
day after to-morrow is New Year’s Day.
But what annoys me most of all was this piece of cheek of Dora’s; she
says that Lizzi said: “We used to delight in those things at one time,”
but I was in such a rage that I did not hear it. But to eat all the best
things off the Christmas tree on the sly!!! I saw it myself, _that_ is
nothing. _That’s_ quite fit and proper for a girl of 15. After supper
yesterday I asked: But what’s become of the second marzipan sandwich,
I’m sure there were two on the tree. And I looked at her steadily till
she got quite red. And after a time I said: the big basket of vegetables
is gone too. Then she said. Yes, I took it, I don’t need to ask your
permission. As for the sandwich, Oswald took that. I was in such a
temper, and then Father said: Come, come, you little witch, cool your
wrath with the second sandwich and wash it down with a sip of liqueur.
For Grandfather sent Father a bottle of liqueur.
December 30th. This is a fine ending to the year. I’ve no interest in
the school any longer. We’re silly little fools, love-sick and forward
minxes. That’s all the thanks we get for having gone every Tuesday
and Friday to the school at half past 8 to arrange everything and dust
everything and then he can say a thing like that. I shall never write
_he_ with a big h again; he is not worthy of it. And I had to swallow
it all, choke it down, for I simply must not excite Hella. It made me
frightfully angry when Mother told me, but still I’m glad for I know
what line to take now. Mother was paying a call yesterday and the sister
of our gymnastic master, who is at the ---- High School, happened to
be there, and she told Mother that her cousin Dr. W. is so much annoyed
because the girls in the high school are so forward. Such silly little
fools, and the little minxes begin it already in the First Class. _For
that reason he prefers to teach_ boys, they are fond of him too but they
don’t make themselves such an _infernal nuisance_. Well, now that I know
_I_ shant make myself a nuisance to him any more. On Friday, when the
next lesson is, I shall go there 2 minutes before nine and take the
things into the class-room without saying a word. And I shall tell
Kalinsky too that we’re such an _infernal nuisance_ to him. Just fancy,
as if _we_ were in the First Class!
January 1st, 19--. This business with Prof. W. makes me perfectly
furious. Hella kept on asking yesterday what was the matter, said I
seemed different somehow. But thank goodness I was able to keep it in.
I must keep it in for the sake of her health, even if it makes me ill.
Anyway what use is life now. Since people are so falsehearted. He always
looked so awfully nice and charming; when I think of the way in which
he asked how Hella was and all the time he was so false!!! If Hella only
knew. Aha, to-morrow!
January 2nd. I treated him _abominably_. Knocked at the
door--Good-morning, Herr Prof. please what do we want for the lesson
to-day? He very civilly: Nothing particular to-day. Well, what sort of
a Christmas did you have--I: Thank you, much as usual.--He turned round
and stared at me: It does not seem to have been; to judge from your
manner. --I: There are quite other reasons for that. He: O-o-h? He may
well say O-o-h! For he has not the least idea that I know the way in
which he speaks of us.
January 6th. To-day Hella was able to go out for her first drive. She’s
much better now and will come back to school by the middle of the month.
I _must_ tell her before that or she’ll get a shock. Yesterday she
asked: Does not S. C. ask about me any more?--Oh yes, I fibbed, but not
so often as before. And she said: That’s the way it goes, out of sight
out of mind. What will happen when she learns the truth. Anyhow I shan’t
tell her until she’s quite strong.
January 10th. I’ve had to tell Hella already. She was talking so
enthusiastically about S. G. At first I said nothing. And then she said:
What are you making such a face for? Are not you allowed to arrange the
things any more?--I: _Allowed_? Of course I’m _allowed_, but I don’t
_want_ to any more. I did not tell Hella _how_ bad I feel about it; for
I really _was_ madly in love with him.
January 12th. Hella must have been madly in love with him too or rather
must be in love with him still. On Sunday evening she was so much upset
that her mother believed she was going to have a relapse. She had pains
and diarrea at the same time. Thank goodness she’s got over it like
me. She said to-day: Don’t let’s bother ourselves about it any more. We
wasted our feelings (not love!!) on an unworthy object. At such moments
she is magnificent, especially now when she is still so pale. Besides in
the holidays and now since she has been ill she has grown tremendously.
Before I was a little taller and now she is a quarter head taller than
me. Dora is frightfully annoyed because I am nearly as tall as she is.
Thank goodness it makes me look older than 12 1/2.
Hella is not to come to school on January 15th, for her mother is going
to take her to Tyrol for 2 or 3 weeks.
January 18th. It’s horridly dull with Hella away. Only now do I realise,
since her illness. I am always feeling as if she had fallen ill again.
Her mother has taken her to Meran, they are coming back in the beginning
of February.
January 24th. Since Hella has been ill, that is really since, she went
away, I spend most of my time with Fritzi Hubner. She’s awfully nice,
though I did not know it last year. Till Hella comes back she and I sit
together. For it’s horrid to sit alone on a bench Fritzi knows a good
deal already. She would not talk about it at first because it so often
leads to trouble. Her brother has told her everything. He’s rather a
swell and is called Paul.
January 29th. Yesterday was the ice carnival and Dora and I were allowed
to go. I skated with Fritzi and Paul most of the time and won 2 prizes,
one of them with Paul. And one of them skating in a race with 5 other
girls. Paul is awfully clever, he says he’s going into the army, the
flying corps. That’s even more select than being on the general staff.
Her father is a major and he, I mean Paul, ought to have gone to the
military academy, but his grandfather would not allow it. He is to
choose for himself. But of course he will become an officer. Most boys
want to be what their father is. But Oswald is perhaps going into the
Navy. I wish I knew what Father meant once when he said to Mother: Good
God, I’m not doing it on my own account. I’m only doing it because of
Oswald. The two girls won’t get much out of it.
February 3rd. I’ve just been reading what I wrote about Father. I am
wondering what it can be. I think that Father either wants to win the
great prize in the lottery or is perhaps going to buy a house. But Dora
and I would get something out of that, for it would not belong to Oswald
only.
February 4th. Yesterday I asked Mother about it. But she said she didn’t
know; if it was anything which concerned us, Father would tell us.
But it must be something, or Mother would not have told Father in the
evening that I had asked. I can’t endure these secrets. Why shouldn’t
we know that Father’s going to buy a house. Fritzi’s grandfather has a
house in Brunn and another in Iglau. But Fritzi is very simply dressed
and her mother too.
February 9th. Thank goodness Hella is coming back to-morrow, just before
her birthday. Luckily she can eat everything again so I am giving her a
huge bag of Viktor Schmid’s sweets with a silver sugar tongs. Mother and
I are going to meet Hella at the station. They are coming by the 8.20.
February 10th. I am so glad Hella is coming to-day. I nearly could not
meet her because Mother is not very well to-day. But Father’s going to
take me. Fritzi wanted to come and see Hella to-morrow afternoon, but
she can’t. She’s an awfully nice girl and her brother is too, but on the
first day Hella is back we must be alone together. She said so too in
the last letter she wrote me. She’s been away more than 3 weeks. It’s a
frightfully long time when you are fond of one another.
February 15th. I simply can’t write my diary because Hella and I spend
all our free time together. Yesterday we got our reports. Of course
Hella has not got one. Except in Geography and History I have nothing
but Ones, even in Natural History although since New Year I have not
done any work in that subject. I detest Natural History. When Hella
comes back to school we are going to ask the _sometime_ S. G. to relieve
us from the labours of looking after the things. Hella is still too
weak to do it. Hella is 13 already and Father says she is going to
be wonderfully pretty. _Going to be_, Father says; but she’s lovely
already. She’s been burned as brown as a berry by the warm southern sun,
and it really suits _her_, though only her. I can’t stand other people
when they are sun-burned. But really everything suits Hella; when she
was so pale in hospital, she was lovely; and now she is just as lovely,
only in quite a different way. Oswald is quite right when he says:
You can measure a girl’s beauty by the degree in which she bears being
sunburned without losing her good looks. He really used to say that in
the holidays simply to annoy Dora and me, but he’s quite right all the
same.
February 20th. The second half-year began yesterday. They were all
awfully nice to Hella, and Frau Doktor M. stroked her cheeks and put her
arm round her so affectionately. Now for the chief thing. Today was the
Natural History lesson. We knocked at the door and when we went in Prof.
W. said: Ah I’m glad to see you Bruckner; take care that you don’t give
us all another fright. How are you? Hella said: “Quite well, thank you,
Herr Prof.” And as I looked at her she put on a frightfully serious
face and he said: It seems to me that you’ve caught your friend’s ill
humour.--Hella: “Herr Prof., you are really too kind, but we don’t want
to trouble you. What things have we to take to the class-room? And then
we beg leave to resign our posts, for I don’t feel strong enough for the
work.” She said this in quite a soldierly way, the way she is used to
hear her father speak. It sounded most distinguished. He looked at us
and said: “All right, two of the other pupils will take it over.” We
don’t know whether he really noticed nothing or simply did not wish
to show that he had noticed. But as we shut the door I felt so awfully
sorry; for it was the last time, the very last time.
February 27th. In Natural History to-day I got _Unsatisfactory_. I
was not being questioned, but when Klaiber could not answer anything I
laughed, and he said: Very well, Lainer, you correct her mistake. But
since I had been thinking of something quite different I did not know
what it was all about, and so I got an Unsatisfactory. _Before_ of
course that would not have mattered; but now since . . . Hella and
Franke did all they could to console me and said: “That does not matter,
it wasn’t an examination; he’ll _have_ to examine you properly later.”
Anyhow Franke thinks that however hard I learn, I shall be well off if
he gives me a Satisfactory. She says no professor can forget _such a
defeat_. For we told her about the silly little fools. She said, indeed,
that we had made it too obvious. That’s not really true. But now she
takes our side, for she sees that we were in the right. Verbenowitsch
and Bennari bring in the things now. They are much better suited for it.
Hella’s father did not like her doing it anyhow; he says: The porter
or the maidservant are there for that--we never see them all the year
round, that’s a fine thing.
March 8th. Easter does not come this year until April 16th. I am going
with the Bruckners to Cilli, outside the town there they have a vineyard
with a country house. Hella needs a change. I am awfully glad. All the
flowers begin to come out there at the end of March or beginning of
April.
March 12th. Hella is not straightforward. We met a gentleman to-day,
very fashionably dressed with gold-rimmed eyeglasses and a fair
moustache. Hella blushed furiously, and the gentleman took off his hat
and said: Ah, Fraulein Helenchen, you are looking very well. How are
you? He never looked at me, and when he had gone she said: “That was Dr.
Fekete, who assisted at my operation.”--“And you tell me _that_ now for
the first time?” Then she put on an innocent air and said: “Of course,
we’ve never met him before,” but I said: “I don’t mean _that_. If you
knew how red you got you would not tell me a lie.” Then she said: “What
am I telling you a lie about? Do you think I’m in love with him? Not in
the very least.”--But when one is _not_ in love one does not blush like
that. Anyhow I shan’t tell everything now either; I can hold my tongue
too.
March 14th. Yesterday we did not talk to one another so much as usual; I
especially was very silent. When the bell rang at 5 and I had just been
doing the translation Hella came and begged my pardon and brought me
some lovely violets, so of course I forgave her. This is really the
first time we’ve ever quarrelled. First she wanted to bring me some
sweets, but then she decided upon violets, and I think that was much
more graceful. One gives sweets to a little child when it has hurt
itself or been in a temper. But flowers are not for a child.
March 19th. Frieda Belay is dead. We are all terribly upset. None of us
were very intimate with her, but now that she is dead we all remember
that she was a schoolfellow. She died of heart failure following
rheumatic fever. We all attended her funeral, except Hella who was not
allowed to come. Her mother cried like anything and her grandmother
still more; her father cried too. We sent a wreath of white roses with
a lovely inscription: Death has snatched you away in the flower of your
youth--Your Schoolfellows.
I have no pleasure in anything to-day. I did not see Frieda Belay after
she was dead, but Franke was there yesterday and saw her in her coffin.
She says she will never forget it, it gave her such a pang. In the
church Lampl had a fit of hysterics, for her mother was buried only a
month ago and now she was reminded of it all and was frightfully upset.
I cried a lot too when I was with Hella. She fancied it was because I
was thinking she might have died last Dec. But that wasn’t it, I don’t
think about that sort of thing. But when anyone dies it is so awfully
sad.
March 24th. I never heard of such a thing. I can’t go to Cilli with
Hella. Her mother was at her cousin’s, and when she heard that she was
going to Cilli at Easter she asked her to take Melanie with her. That
is, she didn’t ask straight out, but kept on hinting until Hella’s
mother said: Let Melanie come with us, it will help to set her up after
her illness. In the winter she had congestion of the lung. Hella and
I can’t bear her because she’s always spying on us and is so utterly
false. So of course I can’t go. Hella says too she’s frightfully sorry,
but when _she_ is about we could never say a word about anything, it
would drive us crazy. She quite agrees that I had better not come. But
oh I’m so annoyed for first of all I do so like going away with Hella
and secondly I should like to go away in the holidays anyhow for nearly
all the girls in our class are going away. Still, there’s nothing to be
done. Hella’s mother says she can’t see why we can’t all 3 go though
it simply would not work. But we can’t explain it to her. Hella is so
poetical and she says “A beautiful dream vanished.”
In Hella’s mouth such fine words sound magnificent, but when Dora uses
such expressions they annoy me frightfully because they don’t come from
her heart.
March 26th. The school performances finish today with Waves of the Sea
and Waves of Love. I’m awfully fond of the theatre, but I never write
anything about that. For anyhow the play is written by a poet and one
can read it if one wants to, and one just sees the rest anyhow. I can’t
make out what Dora finds such a lot to scribble about always the day
after we’ve been to the theatre. I expect she’s in love with one of the
actors and that’s why she writes such a lot. Besides we in the second
class did not get tickets for all the performances, but only the girls
from the Fourth upwards. Still, it did not matter much to me anyhow for
we often go in the evening and on Sunday afternoons. But unfortunately I
mayn’t go in the evening as a rule.