Part 5

February 12th. I have not written for a whole month, I’ve been working so hard. To-day we got our reports. Although I’ve been working so frightfully hard, again I only got a 2 in Diligence. Frau Doktor M. made a splendid speech and said: As you sow, so you shall reap. But that’s not always true. In Natural History I did not know my lesson twice but I got a 1, and in History I only did not know my lesson once and I got Satisfactory. Anyhow Fraulein V. does not like me because of that time when I did not bow to her in the tram. That is why in January, when Mother asked about me, she said: “She does not really put her back into her work.” I overheard Father say: After all she’s only a kid, but to-day he made a frightful row about the 2 in Diligence. He might have known why she gave me that. Dora, _so she says_, has only ones, but she has not shown me the report. I don’t believe what I don’t see. And Mother never gives her away to me.

February 15th. Father is furious because Oswald has an Unsatisfactory in Greek. Greek is really no use; for no one uses Greek, except the people who live in Greece and Oswald will never go there, if he is going to be a judge like Father. _Of course_ Dora learns Latin; but not for me thank you. Hella’s report is not particularly good and her father was in a _perfect fury!!!_ He says she ought to have a better report than any one else. She does not bother much and says: One can’t have everything. But if she doesn’t get nothing but ones in the summer term she is not to stay at the high school and will have to go to the middle school. That’ll make her sit up. Father’s awfully funny too: What have you got history books for, if you don’t read them? Yesterday when I was reading my album of stories, Father came in and said: You like a story book better than a history book, and shut the book up and took it away from me. I was in such a temper that I went to bed at 7 o’clock without any supper.

February 20th. I met the Gold Fairy to-day. She spoke to me and asked why I did not come skating any more. The fancy dress Ice Carnival on the 24th was splendid she said. I said: Would you believe it, a year ago my _sister_ had an earache, and _for that reason_ they won’t allow _either_ of us to skate this year. She laughed like anything and said so exquisitely: Oh, what a wicked sister. She looked perfectly ravishing: A red-brown coat and skirt trimmed with fur, sable I believe, and a huge brown beaver hat with crepe-de-chine ribbons, lovely. And her eyes and mouth. I believe she will marry the man who is always going about with her. Next autumn, when we get new winter clothes, I shall have a fur trimmed red-brown. We must not always be dressed alike. Hella and Lizzi are never dressed alike.

March 8th. I shall never say another word to Berta Franker she’s utterly false. I’ve such a frightful headache because I cried all through the lesson. She wrote to Hella and me in the arithmetic lesson: A _Verhaltnis_ ** means something quite different. Just at that moment the mistress looked across and said: To whom were you nodding? She said: To Lainer. Because she laughed at the word “Verhaltnis.” It was not true. I had not thought about the word at all. It wasn’t till I had read the note that it occurred to Hella and me what _Verhaltnis_ means. After the lesson Fraulein St. called us down into the teachers’ room and told Frau Doktor M. that Franke and I had laughed at the use of the word “Verhaltnis.” Frau Doktor said: What was there to laugh at? Why did you not just do your sums? Fraulein St. said: You ought to be ashamed of yourselves, young girls in the first class shouldn’t know anything about such things. I shall have to speak to your mothers. In the German lesson Frau Doktor M. told us to write an essay on the proverb: Pure the heart and true the word, clear the brow and free the eye, these are our safeguards, or something of that sort; I must get Hella to write it for me, for I was crying all through the lesson.

** The German word Verhaltnis as used in the arithmetic lesson means ratio, proportion. The word is in common use in Germany for a love intimacy or liaison.--Translators’ Note.

March 10th. To-day Berta Franke wanted to talk things out with us; but Hella and I told her we would not speak to her again. We told her to remember _what sort_ of things she had said to us. She denied it all already. We shouldn’t be such humbugs. It was mean of her. Really we didn’t know anything and _she_ told us all about it. Hella has told me again and again she wished we didn’t know anything. She says she’s always afraid of giving herself away and that she often thinks about that sort of thing when she ought to be learning her lessons. So do I. And one often dreams about such things at night when one has been talking about them in the afternoon. Still, it’s better to know all about it.

March 22nd. I so seldom manage to write anything, first of all our lessons take such a lot of time, and second because I don’t care about it any more since what Father said the other day. The last time I wrote was on Saturday afternoon, and Father came in and said: Come along children, we’ll go to Schonbrunn. That will do you more good than scribbling diaries which you only go and lose when you’ve written them. So Mother told Father all about it in the holidays. I couldn’t have believed it of Mother for I begged her to promise not to tell anyone. And she said: One doesn’t promise about a thing like that; but I won’t tell anyone. And now she must have told about it, although she said she wouldn’t. Even Franke’s deceitfulness was nothing to that for after all we’ve only known her since last autumn, but I could never have believed that Mother would do such a thing. I told Hella when we were having tea at the Tivoli and she said she would not altogether trust her mother, she’d rather trust her father. But if that had happened to _her_, her father would have boxed her ears with the diary. I did not want to show anything, but in the evening I only gave Mother quite a little kiss. And she said, what’s the matter, dear? has anything happened? Then I could not keep it in and I cried like anything and said: You’ve betrayed me. And Mother said: “I?” Yes, you; you told Father about the diary though you promised me you wouldn’t. At first Mother didn’t remember anything about it, but soon she remembered and said: “But, little one, I tell Father everything. All you meant was that Dora was not to know.” That’s quite true, it’s all right that Dora wasn’t told; but still Father need not have been told either. And Mother was awfully sweet and nice and I didn’t go to bed till 10 o’clock. But whatever happens I shan’t tell her anything again and I don’t care about the old diary any more. Hella says: Don’t be stupid; I ought just to go on writing; but another time I should be careful not to lose anything, and besides I should not blab everything to Mother and Father. She says she no longer tells her mother anything since that time in the summer when her mother gave her a box on the ear because that other girl had told her all about everything. It’s quite true, Hella is right, I’m just a child still in the way I run to Mother and tell her everything. And it’s not nice of Father to tease me about my diary; I suppose he never kept one himself.

March 27th. Hurrah we’re going to Hainfeld for Easter; I am so delighted. Mother has a friend there whose husband is doctor there, so she has to live there all the year round. Last year in the winter she and Ada stayed three days with us because her eyes were bad. Ada is really nearly as old as Dora, but Dora said, like her cheek: “Her intellectual level makes her much more suitable company for you than for me.” Dora thinks herself cleverer than anyone else. They have 2 boys, but I don’t know them very well for they are only 8 and 9. Mother’s friend was in an asylum once, for she went off her head when her 2 year old baby died. I remember it quite well. It must have been more than 2 years ago when Father and Mother were always talking of poor Anna who had lost her child within 3 days. And I believed she had really lost it, and once I asked whether they had found it yet. I thought it had been lost in the forest, because there’s such a great forest at Hainfeld. And since then I can’t bear to hear people say lost when they mean dead, for it is so difficult to know which they really mean.

On the 8th of April the Easter holidays will begin and we shall go on the 11th, on Maundy Thursday.

April 6th. I don’t know what to do about writing my diary. I don’t want to take it with me and as for remembering everything and writing it down afterwards I know quite well I should never do that. Hella says I should only jot it down in outline, that’s what Frau Doktor M. always says, and write it out properly after I come back from Hainfeld. That’s what she does. They are going to the Brioni Islands. I’ve never seen the sea. Hella says there’s nothing so wonderful about it. She’s been there four times. Anyway she does not think so much of it as most people do. So it can’t be anything so frightfully grand. Rather stupid I dare say.

April 12th. We got here yesterday. Ada is a darling but the two boys are awfully vulgar. Ernstl said to Ada: I shall give you a smack on the a---- if you don’t give me my pistol directly. Ada is as tall as her mother. Their speech is rather countrified Even the doctor’s. He drinks a frightful lot of beer; quarts I believe.

April 14th. Father came to-day. He’s awfully fond of the doctor. They kissed one another. It did make me laugh. In the morning we were in the forest; but there are no violets yet, only a few snowdrops, but a tremendous lot of hellebores quite red.

April 15th. We got up at 4 yesterday morning. We did not go into the church for Mother was afraid that the smell of incense and boots would make Dora feel bad. What rot! It was lovely. This afternoon we are going to Ramsau, it’s lovely there.

April 16th. Father went home to-day. We go home to-morrow. At Whitsuntide Ada’s mother is going to bring her to be confirmed. They are all coming to stay with us. I got stuck in a bog on the bank of the Ramsau. It was awful. But the doctor pulled me out and then we did all laugh so when we saw what my shoes and stockings were like. Luckily I was able to catch hold of a tree stump or I should have sunk right in.

April 18th. Hella says it was splendid at the Brioni Islands. She is frightfully sunburned. I don’t like that, so I shall _never_ go to the _south_. Hella says that if one marries in winter one _must_ spend one’s honeymoon in the south. That would not suit me, I should just put off my marriage till the summer.

Ada is only 13 not 14 like Dora, and the parish priest makes a tremendous fuss because she’s not confirmed yet. Her mother is going to bring her to be confirmed soon. We are not going to be confirmed because Father and Mother don’t want to be bothered with it. Still I should like to be confirmed, for then one _has_ to have a watch, and one can ask for something else at Christmas.

April 21st. Our lessons are something frightful just now. The school inspector is coming soon. It’s always very disagreeable. Mme A. says: The inspection is for the staff not for the pupils. Still, it’s horrid for the pupils too first of all because we get blamed at the time and secondly because the staff makes such a frightful row about it afterwards. Dora says that a bad inspection can make one’s report 2 degrees worse. By the way, that reminds me that I have not yet written why Oswald did not come home at Easter. _Although his reports were not at all good_, he was allowed to go to Aunt Alma’s at Pola, because this year Richard comes home for the holidays for the last time. After that he’s going away for three years in the steamship “Ozean” to the East or Turkey or Persia, I don’t quite know where. If Oswald likes he can go into the Navy too in two years.

May 9th. The school inspector came to-day, first of all in natural history, thank goodness I wasn’t in for it that time, and then in German; I was in that, reading and in the table of contents of the Wandering Bells. Thank goodness I got through all right.

May 14th. It’s Mother’s birthday to-day. We’ve had simply no time to work anything for her, so we got a wonderful electric lamp for her bed table, the switch is a bunch of grapes and the stand is made of brass. She was so pleased with it. Yesterday Frau v. R. was here. She’s a friend of Mother’s and of Hella’s mother. I should like to have music lessons from Frau v. R., she gives lessons since her husband who was a major died though she is quite well off.

May 15th. That must have been true about the inspection; in the interval to-day Professor Igel-Nikel said to the Herr Religionsprofessor: Well, he will go on coming all through the week and then we shall be all right for this year. _We_, of course that means the staff. But really the staff can’t help it if the pupils are no good. Though Oswald says it’s all the fault of the staff. I shall be glad too when the inspection is over. The staff is always quite different when the inspector is there, some are better, some are stricter, and Mme. A. says: I always feel quite ill with anxiety.

May 29th. At Whitsuntide Frau Doctor Haslinger came from Hainfeld with Ada and the two boys for the confirmation. On Whitsunday the doctor came too and in the evening they all went home again. Ada is very pretty, but she looks countrified. I’m not going to be confirmed anyhow. We had to wait 3 hours, though the Friday before Whitsunday was a very fine day. Dora did not come; only Mother and I and Ada and her mother. The women who were selling white favours all thought that I was one of the candidates because I wore a white dress too. Ada was rather put out about it. On Saturday we were in town in the morning and afternoon because Ada liked that better than the Kahlenberg; on Sunday morning we went to Schonbrunn and in the afternoon they went home. The watch they gave to Ada was a lovely one and Dora and I gave her a gold chain for a locket. She enjoyed herself immensely, except that on Sunday she had a frightful headache. Because she is not used to town noises.

May 31st. Ada knows a good deal already, but not everything. I told her a few things. In H. last winter a girl drowned herself because she was going to have a baby. It made a great sensation and her mother told her a little, but not everything. Ada once saw a bitch having her pups, but she didn’t tell her mother about it; she thought that her mother might be very angry. Still, she could not help it, the dog belonged to their next door neighbour and she happened to see it in the out-house. Ada is expecting _it_ to begin every day for she is nearly 14. In H. every grown-up girl has an admirer. Ada says she will have one as soon as she is 14; she knows who it will be.

June 3rd. Ada wrote to-day to thank Mother about the confirmation and she wrote to me as well. It is strange that she did not make friends with Dora but with me. I think that Dora won’t talk about _those_ things, at least only with her friends in the high school, especially with Frieda Ertl. That is why Ada made friends with me, though I am 2 years younger. She is really an awfully nice girl.

June 19th. One thing after another goes missing in our class, first it was Fleischer’s galoshes, then my new gloves, three times money was missing, and today Fraulein Steiner’s new vanity bag. There was a great enquiry. But nothing was found out. We all think it is Schmolka. But no one will tell. To-day we could none of us attend to our lessons especially when Sch. left the room at half past 11.

June 20th. In our closet the school servant found some beads on the floor but since she did not know anything she threw them into the dustbin. Was it really Sch.? It would be a dirty trick. Frl. St. is frightfully upset because her betrothed gave her the vanity bag for a birthday present and his photo was in it. But I’m really sorry for Sch. Nobody will speak to her although nothing is proved yet. She is frightfully pale and her eyes are always full of tears. Hella thinks too that perhaps she didn’t do it, for she is one of Frl. St.’s favourites and she is very fond of her herself. She always carries the copybooks home for her.

June 22nd. Our closet was stopped up and when the porter came to see what was the matter he found the vanity bag. But what use is it to Frl. now; she can’t possibly use it any more. We giggled all through lessons whenever we caught one another’s eye and the staff was in a frightful rage. Only Frau Doktor M. said: “Now please get through with your laughing over this extremely unsavoury affair, and then have done with it.”

June 23rd. There was a frightful row to-day. Verbenowitsch was collecting the German copybooks and when Sch. wanted to hand up her copybook she said: Please give up your copybook yourself; I won’t have anything to do with (then there was a long pause) you. We were all apalled and Sch. went as white as a sheet. At 10 o’clock she begged permission to leave the room because she felt bad. I’m sure her mother will come to speak about it to-morrow.

June 24th. Sch.’s mother did not come after all. Verbenowitsch said: Of course not! Sch. did not come either. Hella says she couldn’t stand anything like that, she would rather drown herself. I don’t know, one wants _other_ reasons for drowning oneself. Still, I should tell Father so that he could speak about it at school. Franke said: Yes, that’s all very well, because _you_ didn’t do it; but _if_ one had done it one would not dare to say anything at home. Besides, Sch.’s father is an invalid, he’s quite paralysed, has been bedridden for two years and can’t speak.

June 27th. To-day Hella and I walked home with Frau Doktor M. Really she always goes home alone but Hella suddenly left me and went up to Frau Doktor in the street and said: Please excuse me Frau Doktor for bothering you in the street, we _must_ speak to you. She got quite red. Then Frau Doktor said: “What’s the matter?” And Hella said: “Isn’t it possible to find out who took the vanity bag? If it wasn’t Sch. the way the other girls treat her will make her quite ill, and if it was we can’t stand having her among us any longer.” Hella was really splendid and Frau Doktor M. made us tell her everything that had happened, including about Verbenowitsch and the copybooks; and we saw quite clearly she had tears in her eyes and she said: “The poor child! Children I promise I will do what I can for her.” We both kissed her hand and my heart beat furiously. And Hella said: “You are an angel.” I could never have managed to say a thing like that.

June 28th. To-day Sch. was there again, but Frau Doktor M. did not say anything. Hella and I kept on looking at her and Hella cleared her throat three times and Frau Doktor said: Bruckner, do stop clearing your throat; it will only make your sore throat worse: But it seemed to me her eyes twinkled as she said it. So she hasn’t forgotten. I wanted to speak to Sch., but Hella said: Wait a bit, we must give the Frau Doktor a chance. She’s taken the matter in hand. To-morrow before 9 we’ll walk up and down in front of her house till she comes out.

June 30th. Unluckily yesterday was a holiday and to-day Frau Doktor’s first lesson began at 11. But she has already had a talk with Sch. only we don’t know when and where; certainly it was not in the interval and she did not send for Sch. during lessons.

July 1st. To-day we walked to school with her She _is_ such a dear. Children, she said, this is such a painful matter, and it is difficult to find a way out. Sch. insists that she did not do it, and whether she did it or not these days are burning themselves into her soul and Hella asked: “Please, Frau Doktor advise us what to do, speak to her or not?” Then she said: Children I think that after this affair she won’t come back to us next year; you will be doing a good work if you make these last days bearable to her. You were never intimate with her, but to give her a friendly word or two will do you no harm and may help her. You 2 have a high standing in the class; your example will do good. We walked with her till we reached the school, and because we were there we could not kiss her hand but Hella said out loud: How sweet you are! She must have heard it. But Sch. was not at school. Father says he’s glad that the term is nearly over, for I have been quite crazy about this affair. Still, he thinks that Hella and I should talk to Sch. So does Mother. But Dora said: Yes that’s all right but you must not go too far.

July 5th. Sch. was not at school to-day. To-morrow we are to get our reports.