come as
dull as she used to be; that is, even duller, for not only does she
not quarrel, but she won't talk, that is she won't talk about _certain
things_. She is perfectly crazy about the baby of the young couple
in the mezzanin; he's 10 months old, and I can't see what she sees to
please her in such a little pig; she's always carrying him about and
yesterday he made her all wet, I wished her joy of it. It made her
pretty sick, and I hope it will cure her infatuation.

Thank goodness to-morrow is my birthday, that will be a bit of a change.
To-morrow we are going to the Parapluie Berg, but I hope we shan't want
our umbrellas. Father is coming back at 1 so that we can get away at
2 or half past. Hella has sent me to-day a lock-up box for letters,
etc.!!! of course filled with sweets and a tremendously long letter to
tell me how _she_ is getting on in Gastein. But they are only going to
stay a month because it is frantically expensive, a roll 5 krenzer and
a bottle of beer 1 crown. And the rolls are so small that one simply has
to eat 3 for breakfast and for afternoon tea. But it's awfully smart
in the hotel, several grooms; then there are masses of Americans and
English and even a consul's family from Sydney in Australia.--I spend
most of the day playing with two dachshund puppies. They are called Max
and Moritz, though of course one of them is a bitch. That is really a
word which one ought not to write, for it means something, at least in
its other meaning.

THIRD YEAR, AGE THIRTEEN TO FOURTEEN

THIRD YEAR

July 31st. Yesterday was my birthday, the thirteenth. Mother gave me a
clock with a luminous dial which I wanted for my night-table. Of course
that is chiefly of use during the long winter nights; embroidered
collars; from Father, A Bad Boy's Diary, which one of the nurses lent
Hella when she was in hospital; it's such a delightfully funny book, but
Father says it's stupid because no boy could have written all that, a
new racquet with a leather case, an awfully fine one, a Sirk, and tennis
balls from Dora. Correspondence cards, blue-grey with silver edge.
Grandfather and Grandmother sent a basket of cherries, red ones, and a
basket of currants and strawberries; the strawberries are only for me
for my birthday. Aunt Dora sent three neckties from Berlin for winter
blouses. In the afternoon we went to the Par.-Berg. It would have been
awfully jolly if only Mother could have gone too or if Hella had been