Now, at that moment Marianne was safe, she thought, in her room, her pretty hair floating over her blue dressing jacket, her paper on her desk, her pen in her hand.
"Ah, my chosen friend, my Bettina," she wrote in the high-flown style of that day, "who but thou understands thy Marianne? On every side I meet with derisive laughter when I would speak of him whose name I am not worthy to mention, our Master, thine and mine, our Goethe! Oh, to be again with thee, to sit with thee beneath the free, open Heaven, gazing upward at the celestial orbs whose silver beams thrill into thought, mysterious wonder of that law-ruled world of Nature which none but poets truly know. Oh, Bettina, how worthless is life when spent amid the trivialities of nothingness. Oh, to wander with thee, my heart's true friend, chosen of my spirit, to wander on the wings of thy imagination into the realms of infinite calm, and there to prepare our souls to be a sacrifice to him who——"
A knock at the door had interrupted this flight of sentimental fancy.
In had come her father.
With a laugh he had shut the writing-desk.
"Liebchen," he said, "it is time for bed. Do your writing by daylight."
Then he kissed her cheeks and patted her hair, and told her he could have no such wasting of candles.
"To bed in five minutes," he had commanded, and that ended the burning of candles. But nothing yet had cured her of her thoughtlessness, and it was still Pauline who did everything to assist the mother.
On the day that the news came of Eylau, Madame von Stork and Pauline were busy making coffee-cake, Bettina, Ilse, and Elsa helping stem currants and stone raisins.
In her room Marianne was telling Bettina Brentano all about their life in Memel. She was not sure that she could send a letter, but it was amusing at all events to write it. It was stupid to make coffee-cake.