ng in view of it, looking at it and the
heliotrope, which had been spared, and which now bordered the stone.
Rollo lay beside them with his head on his paws.

Wilke, whose spats were growing wider and wider, brought the breakfast
and the mail, and old Mr. von Briest said: "Wilke, order the little
carriage. I am going to drive across the country with my wife."

Mrs. von Briest had meanwhile poured the coffee and was looking at the
circle and its flower bed. "See, Briest, Rollo is lying by the stone
again. He is really taking it harder than we. He wont eat any more,
either."

"Well, Luise, it is the brute creature. That is just what I have
always said. We don't amount to as much as we think. But here we
always talk about instinct. In the end I think it is the best."

"Don't speak that way. When you begin to philosophize--don't take
offense--Briest, you show your incompetence. You have a good
understanding, but you can't tackle such questions."

"That's true."

"And if it is absolutely necessary to discuss questions there are
entirely different ones, Briest, and I can tell you that not a day
passes, since the poor child has been lying here, but such questions
press themselves on me."

"What questions?"

"Whether after all we are perhaps not to blame?"

"Nonsense, Luise. What do you mean?"

"Whether we ought not to have disciplined her differently. You and I
particularly, for Niemeyer is only a cipher; he leaves everything in
doubt. And then, Briest, sorry as I am--your continual use of
ambiguous expressions--and finally, and here I accuse myself too, for
I do not desire to come off innocent in this matter, I wonder if she
was not too young, perhaps?"

Rollo, who awoke at these words, shook his head gravely and Briest
said calmly: "Oh, Luise, don't--that is _too_ wide a field."

* * * * *

EXTRACTS FROM "MY CHILDHOOD YEARS" (1894)

By THEODOR FONTANE

TRANSLATED BY WILLIAM A. COOPER, A.M.

Associate Professor of German, Leland Stanford Jr. University

On one of the last days of March, in the year 1819, a chaise drove up
before the apothecary's shop at the sign of the Lion, in Neu-Ruppin,
and a young couple, who a short time before had jointly purchased the
shop, alighted from the carriage and were received by the servants of
the house. The husband was only twenty-three years of age--for people
married very young in those days, just after the war. The wife was
twe