ing to her so that she has to
answer. She does get in such a wax.

October 9th. I know all about it now. . . That's how babies come. And
_that_ is what Robert really meant. Not for me, thank you, I simply
won't marry. For if one marries one has to do it; it hurts frightfully
and yet one has to. What a good thing that I know it in time. But I wish
I knew exactly how, Hella says she doesn't know exactly herself. But
perhaps her cousin who knows everything about it will tell her. It
lasts nine months till the baby comes and then a lot of women die. It's
horrible. Hella has known it for a long time but she didn't like to tell
me. A girl told her last summer in the country. She wanted to talk about
it to Lizzi her sister, really she only wanted to ask if it was all true
and Lizzi ran off to her mother to tell her what Hella had said And her
mother said; "These children are awful, a corrupt generation, don't you
dare to repeat it to any other girl, to Grete Lainer, for instance," and
she gave her a box on the ear. As if she could help it! That is why she
didn't write to me for such a long time. Poor thing, poor thing, but now
she can tell me all about it and we won't betray one another. And that
deceitful cat Inspee has known all about it for ages and has never told
me. But I don't understand why that time at the swing Robert said: You
little fool, you wont get a baby simply from that. Perhaps Hella knows.
When I go to the gymnastic lesson to-morrow I shall talk to her first
and ask her about it. My goodness how curious I am to know.

October 10th. I'm in a great funk, I missed my gymnastic lesson
yesterday. I was upstairs at Hella's and without meaning it I was so
late I did not dare to go. And Hella said I had better stay with her
that we would say that our sum was so difficult that we had not got it
finished in time. Luckily we really had a sum to do. But I said nothing
about it at home, for to-morrow Oswald is going to G. to Herr S's. I
thought that I knew all about it but only now has Hella really told me
everything. It's a horrible business this . . . I really can't write it.
She says that of course Inspee has it already, had it when I wrote
that Inspee wouldn't bathe, did not want to bathe; really she had it.
Whatever happens one must always be anxious about it. _Streams of blood_
says Hella. But then everything gets all bl . . . That's why in the
country Inspee always switched off the light before she was quite
undre