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