December 28th. I’ve had absolutely no time to write. I got everything I wanted. Aunt Dora gave both of us an opera glass in mother-of-pearl in a plush case. We are going to all the school performances, Father’s arranged it; he has subscribed to all the performances during the school year 19— to 19—. I am so delighted for Frau Doktor M. will come too. I do hope I shall sit next to her.
December 31st. To-day I wanted to read through all I have written, but I could not manage it but in the new year I really must write every day.
January 1st, 19—. I must write a few sentences at least. For the afternoon we had been invited to the Rydberg’s the Warths were there and Edle von Wernhoff!! I was just the same as usual with Lisel but I would not say a word to R. They left before us, and then Heddy asked me what was wrong between me and R. He had said of me: Any one can have the black goose for me. Then he said that any one could take me in. I was so stupid that I would believe anything. I can’t think what he meant, for he never took me in about anything. Anyhow I would not let him spoil new year’s day for me. But Hella is quite right for if the first person one meets on January 1st is a common person that’s a bad beginning. The first thing this morning when I went out I met our old postman who’s always so grumpy if he’s kept waiting at the door. I looked the other way directly and across the street a fine young gentleman was passing, but it was no good for the common postman had really been the first.
January 12th. I am so angry. We mayn’t go skating any more because Inspee has begun to complain again of her silly old ears and Mother imagines that she got her earache last year skating. It’s all right to keep her at home; but why shouldn’t I go? How can I help it when she gets a chill so easily? In most things Father is justice itself, but I really can’t understand him this time. It’s simply absurd, only it’s too miserable to call it absurd. I’m in a perfect fury. Still, I don’t say anything.
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.