somewhat disappointed and frankly said so. Then she remarked that
she would rather look at the rooms across the hall than at this
miserable, deserted social room. "To tell the truth, there is
absolutely nothing over there," answered Innstetten, but he opened the
doors nevertheless. Here were four rooms with one window each, all
tinted yellow, to match the social room, and all completely empty,
except that in one there stood three rush-bottomed chairs, with seats
broken through. On the back of one was pasted a little picture, only
half a finger long, representing a Chinaman in blue coat and wide
yellow trousers, with a low-crowned hat on his head. Effi saw it and
said: "What is the Chinaman doing here?" Innstetten himself seemed
surprised at the picture and assured her that he did not know. "Either
Christel or Johanna has pasted it there. Child's play. You can see it
is cut out of a primer." Effi agreed with that and was only surprised
that Innstetten took everything so seriously, as though it meant
something after all.

Then she cast another glance into the social room and said, in effect,
that it was really a pity all that room should stand empty. "We have
only three rooms downstairs and if anybody comes to visit us we shall
not know whither to turn. Don't you think one could make two handsome
guest rooms out of the social room? This would just suit mama. She
could sleep in the back room and would have the view of the river and
the two moles, and from the front room she could see the city and the
Dutch windmill. In Hohen-Cremmen we have even to this day only a
German windmill. Now say, what do you think of it? Next May mama will
surely come."

Innstetten agreed to everything, only he said finally: "That is all
very well. But after all it will be better if we give your mama rooms
over in the district councillor's office building. The whole second
story is vacant there, just as it is here, and she will have more
privacy there."

That was the result, so to speak, which the first walk around through
the house accomplished. Effi then made her toilette, but not so
quickly as Innstetten had supposed, and now she was sitting in her
husband's room, turning her thoughts first to the little Chinaman
upstairs, then to Gieshuebler, who still did not come. To be sure, a
quarter of an hour before, a stoop-shouldered and almost deformed
little gentleman in an elegant short fur coat and a very
smooth-brushed silk hat, too tall for