So I gave in sullenly. Don't be afraid,--only sullenly
inside, not outside. Outside I was so well-bred and pleased, you can't
think. It really is very kind of the Grafin, and her want of
enthusiasm, which was marked, only makes it all the kinder. On that
principle, too, my gratefulness, owing to an equal want of enthusiasm,
is all the more grateful.

I don't want to wait here till Monday. I'd like to have gone
today,--got through all the miles of slow forest that lie between us
and the nearest railway station, the miles of forest news has to crawl
through by slow steps, dragged towards us in a cart at a walking pace
once a day. Nearly all today and quite all tomorrow we shall sit here
in this sunny emptiness. It is a wonderful day again, but to me it's
like a body with the soul gone, like the meaningless smile of a
handsome idiot. Evidently, little mother, your unfortunate Chris is
very seriously in love. I don't believe it is news I want to be nearer
to: it's Bernd.

As for news, the papers today seem to think things will arrange
themselves. They're rather unctuous about it, but then they're always
unctuous,--as though, if they had eyes, they would be turned up to
heaven with lots of the pious whites showing. They point out the awful
results there would be to the whole world if Servia, that miserable
small criminal, should dare not satisfy the just demands of Germany's
outraged and noble ally Austria. But of course Servia will. They take
that for granted. Impossible that she shouldn't. The Kaiser is
cruising in his yacht somewhere up round Norway, and His Majesty has
shown no signs, they say, of interrupting his holiday. As long as he
stays away, they remark, nothing serious can happen. What an
indictment of S. M.! As long as he stays away, playing about, there
will be peace. How excellent it would be, then, if he stayed away and
played indefinitely.

I wanted to say this to the Grafin when she read the papers aloud to us
at lunch, and I wonder what would have happened to me if I had. Well,
though I've got to stay with her and be polite in the Sommerstrasse, I
shall escape every other day to that happy, rude place, Kloster's flat,
and can say what I like. I think I told you he is going to give me
three lessons a week now.

_After tea_,

I practised most of the morning. I wrote to Bernd, and told him about
Monday, and told him--oh, lots of little things I just happened to
think of.