horror,
that I have a face, and that it goes about with me wherever I go, and
that parts of it are--well, I don't like them. And I remembered that
my hair had been done in a hurry, and that the fingers of my left hand
have four hard lumps on their tips where they press the strings of my
fiddle, and that they're very ugly, but then one can't have things both
ways, can one. Also I became aware of my clothes, and we know how
fatal that is when they are weak clothes like mine, don't we, little
mother? You used to exhort me to put them on with care and
concentration, and then leave them to God. Such sound advice! And
I've followed it so long that I do completely forget them; but last
Monday I didn't. They were urged on my notice by Grafin Koseritz's
daughter, whose eyes ran over me from head to foot and then back again
when I came in. She was the neatest thing--_aus dem Ei gegossen_, as
they express perfect correctness of appearance. I suddenly knew, what
I have always suspected, that I was blowsy,--blowsy and loose-jointed,
with legs that are too long and not the right sort of feet. I hated my
_Beethovenkopf_ and all its hair. I wanted to have less hair, and for
it to be drawn neatly high off my face and brushed and waved in
beautiful regular lines. And I wanted a spotless lacy blouse, and a
string of pearls round my throat, and a perfectly made blue serge skirt
without mud on it,--it was raining, and I had walked. Do you know what
I felt like? A _goodnatured_ thing. The sort of creature people say
generously about afterwards, "Oh, but she's so goodnatured."

Grafin Koseritz was terribly kind to me, and that made me shyer than
ever, for I knew she was trying to put me at my ease, and you can
imagine how shy _that_ made me. I blushed and dropped things, and the
more I blushed and dropped things the kinder she was. And all the time
my contemporary, Helena, looked at me with the same calm eyes. She has
a completely emotionless face. I saw no trace of a passion for music
or for anything else in it. She made no approaches of any sort to me,
she just calmly looked at me. Her mother talked with the extreme
vivacity of the hostess who has a difficult party on hand. There was a
silent governess between two children. Junkerlets still in the
school-room, who stared uninterruptedly at me and seemed unsuccessfully
endeavouring to place me; there was a young lady cousin who talked
during the whole meal in an underto