_June 10th._
Saw Fräulein Marelle and Fräulein Schulhoff, of the Lyceum Club,
this morning. They were telling us stories of the invasion of East
Prussia.... One lady, whom Fräulein Marelle knows, a Frau von
Bieberstein, had her _château_ cut to ribbons. Her tapestry chairs were
sliced up with knives, her china and mirrors broken, her beautiful
chapel knocked to pieces, her bed ripped up and the feathers scattered
from garret to cellar. It was rather queer to hear this tale from a
German woman after Mme. Huard's tale of the wreck of her _château_ in
northern France by the Germans.
They told me, too, of a nurse, a friend of theirs, who had gone to
Russia. There she found, among other things, a carload of children,
eighty in number, all dead of starvation. The Russians had put them in
the car, sidetracked it, and forgotten it. Some other cars were found
containing 200 people, all dead but one child in its mother's arms. The
nurse saw the Czarina and told her of these, and many other things, and
she said the Empress burst into tears. Well she might!
The Germans are told that if the Russians get into East Prussia again,
they are to send the women away immediately--those who stay are all
outraged.