Anna took me a tour round the town, showed me the lions, and gave me topographical details. She showed me the big, plain barrack, and the desert waste of the Exerzierplatz spreading before it. She did her best to entertain me, and I, with a childish prejudice against her abrupt manner, and the free, somewhat challenging look of her black eyes, was reserved, unresponsive, stupid. I took a prejudice against her—I own it—and for that and other sins committed against a woman who would have been my friend if I would have let her, I say humbly, Mea culpa!
“It seems a dull kind of a place,” said I.
“It need not be. You have advantages here which you can’t get everywhere. I have been here several years, and as I have no other home I rather think I shall live here.”
“Oh, indeed.”
“You have a home, I suppose?”
“Of course.”
“Brothers and sisters?”
“Two sisters,” I replied, mightily ruffled by what I chose to consider her curiosity and impertinence; though, when I looked at her, I saw what I could not but confess to be a real, and not unkind, interest in her plain face and big eyes.
“Ah! I have no brothers and sisters. I have only a little house in the country, and as I have always lived in a town, I don’t care for the country. It is so lonely. The people are so stupid too—not always though. You were offended with me at dinner, nicht wahr?”
“Oh, dear, no!” said I, very awkwardly and very untruly. The truth was, I did not like her, and was too young, too ignorant and gauche to try to smooth over my dislike. I did not know the pain I was giving, and if I had, should perhaps not have behaved differently.