now it was almost
May. The "Plantation" was beginning to take on new life again and one
could hear the song of the finches. During this same week the storks
returned, and one of them soared slowly over her house and alighted
upon a barn near Utpatel's mill, its old resting place. Effi, who now
wrote to her mother more frequently than heretofore, reported this
happening, and at the conclusion of her letter said: "I had almost
forgotten one thing, my dear mama, viz., the new district commander of
the landwehr, who has been here now for almost four weeks. But shall
we really have him? That is the question, and a question of
importance, too, much as my statement will make you laugh, because you
do not know how we are suffering here from social famine. At least I
am, for I am at a loss to know what to make of the nobility here. My
fault, perhaps, but that is immaterial. The fact remains, there has
been a famine, and for this reason I have looked forward, through all
the winter months, to the new district commander as a bringer of
comfort and deliverance. His predecessor was an abominable combination
of bad manners and still worse morals and, as though that were not
enough, was always in financial straits. We have suffered under him
all this time, Innstetten more than I, and when we heard early in
April that Major von Crampas was here--for that is the name of the new
man--we rushed into each other's arms, as though no further harm could
befall us in our dear Kessin. But, as already mentioned, it seems as
though there will be nothing going on, now that he is here. He is
married, has two children, one eight, the other ten years old, and
his wife is a year older than he--say, forty-five. That of itself
would make little difference, and why shouldn't I find a motherly
friend delightfully entertaining? Miss Trippelli was nearly thirty,
and I got along with her quite well. But Mrs. Crampas, who by the way
was not a _von_, is impossible. She is always out of sorts, almost
melancholy, much like our Mrs. Kruse, of whom she reminds me not a
little, and it all comes from jealousy. Crampas himself is said to be
a man of many 'relations,' a ladies' man, which always sounds
ridiculous to me and would in this case, if he had not had a duel with
a comrade on account of just such a thing. His left arm was shattered
just below the shoulder and it is noticeable at first sight, in spite
of the operation, which was heralded abroad as a masterpiec