We talked for two weeks at Zirkow about Lato Treurenberg's marriage.
Now we have almost forgotten it. Since Lato has been married he has been quite estranged from his former associations.
To-day is my birthday. I am nineteen years old. How kind my uncle and aunt are to me! How they try to give me pleasure! My heap of presents was really grand. Arrayed about my cake, with its lighted candles, I found two new gowns, a hat which Heda had purchased for me in Prague,--and which, by the way, would be highly appreciated upon the head of a monkey in a circus,--several volumes of English literature sent me by Miss O'Donnel from Italy, and, in a white silk sachet upon which Mimi Zett had embroidered a bird of paradise in the midst of a snow-scene (a symbol of my melancholy condition), a card, upon which was written, "A visit to some watering-place, by the way of Vienna and Paris." I uttered a shriek of delight and threw my arms around my uncle's neck.
The three young girls from Komaritz came over to Zirkow to dine, in honour of the occasion; we drank one another's health in champagne, and in the afternoon we had coffee in the woods, which was very inconvenient but very delightful. Then we consulted the cards as to our future, and Heda lost her temper because the oracle declared that she would marry an apothecary.
What nonsense it was! The cards prophesied to me that I should marry for love;--I! As if I should think of such a thing! But I was not in the least vexed, although I knew how false it was.
Towards eight o'clock the girls drove home, and I concluded the evening by taking my new bonnet to pieces and then scribbling here at my writing-table. I cannot make up my mind to go to bed. I am fairly tingling to my finger-tips with delightful anticipations. To think of seeing Paris once more,--Paris, where I was born, the very centre of the civilized world! Oh, it is too charming!
Something extraordinary will happen during this trip,--I am sure of it. I shall meet some one who will liberate me from my solitude and set me upon the pedestal for which I long; an English peer, perhaps, or a Russian prince, oh, it will of course be a Russian prince--who spends most of his time in Paris. I shall not mind his not being very young. Elderly men are more easily managed.----
(At this point the major frowns. "I should not have thought it of her, I really should not have thought it of her. Well, we shall see whether she is in earnest." And he goes on with his reading.)
June 10, ----.
I have a piece of news to put down. The Frau von Harfink who bought Dobrotschau a while ago--the estate that adjoins Zirkow, a fine property with a grand castle but poor soil--is no other than Lato Treurenberg's mother-in-law. She called upon us to-day. When Krupitschka brought the cards of the Baroness Melanie von Harfink and her daughter Paula, Aunt Rosa denounced the visit as a presumption upon the part of the ladies. She had been engaged all day long in setting the house "to rights," preparatory to our departure, and had on a very old gown in which she does not often appear; wherefore she would fain have denied herself. But I was burning with curiosity to see Lato's mother-in-law: so I remarked, "Uncle Paul and I will go and receive the ladies, while you dress."