Ch. 3: July - Page 2

now,--more to me, I think, than to any other of the boarders, because
I'm English and they seem to want to educate me out of it. And Hilda
Seeberg has actually got as far in friendship as a cautious invitation
to have chocolate with her one afternoon some day in the future at
Wertheim's; and the pallid young man has suggested showing me the
Hohenzollern museum some Sunday, where he can explain to me, by means
of relics, the glorious history of that high family, as he put it; and
Frau Berg, though she looks like some massive Satan, isn't really
satanic I expect; and Dr. Krummlaut says every day as he comes into the
diningroom rubbing his hands and passes my chair, "_Na, was macht
England_?" which is a sign he is being gracious. It is only a feeling,
this of being completely alone. But I've got it, and the longer I'm
here and the better I know people the greater it becomes. It's an
_uneasiness_. I feel as if my _spirit_ were alone,--the real, ultimate
and only bit of me that is me and that matters.

If I go on like this you too, my little mother, will begin echoing
Kloster and tell me that I'm working too much. Dear England. Dear,
dear England. To find out how much one loves England all one has to do
is to come to Germany.

Of course they talk of nothing else at every meal here now but the
Archduke's murder. It's the impudence of the Servians that chiefly
makes them gasp. That they should dare! Dr. Krummlaut says they never
would have dared if they hadn't been instigated to this deed of
atrocious blasphemy by Russia,--Russia bursting with envy of the
Germanic powers and encouraging every affront to them. The whole
table, except the Swede who eats steadily on, sees red at the word
affront. Frau Berg reiterates that the world needs blood-letting
before there can be any real calm again, but it isn't German blood she
wants to let. Germany is surrounded by enormously wicked people, I
gather, all swollen with envy, hatred and malice, and all of gigantic
size. In the middle of these monsters browses Germany, very white and
woolly-haired and loveable, a little lamb among the nations, artlessly
only wanting to love and be loved, weak physically compared to its
towering neighbours, but strong in simplicity and the knowledge of its
_gute Recht_. And when they say these things they all turn to me for
endorsement and approval--they've given up seeking response from the
Swede, because she only eats--and I hastily run over my best words and
pick out the most suitable one, which is generally _herrlich_, or else
_ich gratuliere_. The gigantic, the really cosmic cynicism I fling
into it glances off their comfortable thick skins unnoticed.

I think Kloster is right, and they haven't grown up yet. People like