May 29th. On June 10th or 12th, Mother and Dora are going to Frazensbad, because they both have to take mud baths. Besides, Father says that a change will give Dora new thoughts, so that she won’t go about hanging her head like a sick chicken. To-day Dora told me something very interesting. Unmarried men have little books and with these they can go to visit women “of a certain kind” in Graben and in the Karntnerstrasse. There, Dora says, they have to pay 10 florins or 10 crowns. In Dora’s class there is a girl whose father is police surgeon, and they have all to be examined every month to see if they are healthy, and if not they can’t visit these “ladies,” and that’s why the Preusses can never keep a servant. In my bath yesterday I noticed that I had a certain line, so I must be fr—. But I shan’t have more than 1 or 2 children at most for the line is very faint. When I’m studying I often think of such things, and then I read a whole page and turn over and have not the remotest idea what I’ve been reading. It’s very tiresome, for soon the other school insp. for maths. and the other subjects is coming, and I should not like to make a fool of myself; especially not because perhaps the inspectors talk us over with one another about who is clever and who stupid.
May 30th. The concert was glorious. When I hear such grand music I always have to keep myself well in hand for I fear I should cry. It’s very stupid, of course, but at such times I can only think of sad things, even if it’s just a small piece. Dora can play Brahms’ Hungarian Dances, too, but that never makes me want to cry. I only get annoyed because I can’t play them myself. I could all right, but I have not got patience to practice long enough. I never tell anyone that I want to cry when I am listening to music, not even Hella, though I tell her everything, except of course about Mad. Yesterday I made a fool of myself; at least so Dora says. I don’t know how it happened, we were talking about books at supper, and I said: “What’s the use of books, one can’t learn anything out of them; everything is quite different from what they say in books.” Then Father got in a wax and said: “You little duffer, you can thank your stars there are books from which you can learn something. Anyone who can’t understand a book always says it is no good.” Dora gave me a look, but I didn’t know what she meant, and I went on: “Yes, but there’s an awful lot that the encyclopedia puts all wrong.” “What have you been ferreting in the encyclopedia for; we shall have to keep the key of the bookcase in a safer place.” Thank goodness Dora came to my help and said: “Gretel wanted to look up something about the age of elephants and mammoths, but it’s quite different in the encyclopedia from what Prof. Rigl told her last year.” I was saved. Dora can act splendidly; I’ve noticed it before. In the evening she rowed me, and said: “You little goose, will you never learn caution; first that stupidity about Viktor and to-day this new blunder! I’ve helped you out of a hole once but I shan’t do it again.” And then she spent all the time writing a letter, to him of course—! Hella and I have just been reading a lot of things in the encycl., about Birth and Pregnancy, and I on my own about abor—; we came across the words Embyro and Foetus, and I said nothing at the time but tied 2 knots in my handkerchief to remind me, and yesterday I looked them up. Mad. need not be anxious even if she really did get like that. But every doctor knows about it and one often dies of it. I wonder if Mad. knows anything about it. We were talking about the differences between men and women, and it came out that when Hella has her bath she is still washed by Anna who has been with them for 12 years. Nothing would induce me to allow that, I would not let anyone wash me, except Mother; certainly not Dora, for I don’t want her to know what I look like. The nurse in the hosp. told Hella that she is developed just like a little nymph, so lovely and symetrical. Hella says that is nothing unusual, that every girl looks like that, that the female body is Nature’s Work of Art. Of course she’s read that somewhere, for it does not really mean anything. Nature’s work of art; it ought to be: a work of art made by husband and wife!!!
May 30th. Dora and Mother are going to Franzensbad on June 6th, directly after Whitsuntide. Dora has got another new coat and skirt, grey with blue stripes; yesterday our white straw hats came, it suits me very well says Hella and everyone, with white ribbons and wild roses. There might have been a fearful row about what’s just happened. When I went to telephone I had my Christmas umbrella with the rose-quartz handle and I left it in the telephone box; the girl in the tobacco shop found it there, and as she knows me she brought it here and gave it to the porter who brought it upstairs. Thank goodness it occurred to me at once to say that I went into the tobacco shop to buy stamps and I must have left it in the shop. No one noticed anything.
May 31st. They wanted me to go and stay with Hella for the month when Mother and Dora are away. It would be awfully nice, but I’m not going to, for I want to stay with Father. What would he do all alone at meal times, and whom would he have to talk to in the evenings? Father was really quite touched when I said this and he stroked my hair as he can and no one else, not even Mother. So I’m going to stay at home whatever happens. Flowers are very cheap now, so I shall put different flowers on the table every day, I shall go to the Market every day to buy a little posy, so that they can always be fresh. It would be stupid for me to go to the Brs., why should I, Resi has been with us for such a long time, she knows how to do everything even if Mother is not there and everything else I can arrange. Father won’t want for anything.
June 1st. We’ve had such an experience to-day! It’s awful; it’s quite true then that one takes off every stitch when one is madly fond of anyone. I never really believed it, and I’m sure Dora did not, although Mad. hinted it to her; but it’s true. We’ve seen it with our own eyes. I was just sitting and reading Storm’s The Rider of the Grey Horse and Dora was arranging some writing paper to take to Franzensbad when Resi came and said: Fraulein Dora, please come here a moment, I want you to look at something! From the tone of her voice I saw there was something up so I went too. At first Resi would not say what it was but Dora was generous and said: “It’s all right, you can say everything before her.” Then we went into Resi’s room and from behind the curtain peeped into the mezzanin. A young married couple live there!!! At least Resi says people say they are not really married, but simply live together!!!! And what we saw was awful. She was absolutely naked lying in bed without any of the clothes on, and he was kneeling by the bedside quite n— too, and he kissed her all over, everywhere!!! Dora said afterwards it made her feel quite sick. And then he stood up—no, I can’t write it, it’s too awful, I shall never forget it. So that’s the way of it, it’s simply frightful. I could never have believed it. Dora went as white as a sheet and trembled so that Resi was terribly frightened. I nearly cried with horror, and yet I could not help laughing too. I was really afraid he would stifle her because he’s so big and she’s so small. And Resi says he is certainly much too big for her, and that he nearly tears her. I don’t know why he should tear her but certainly he might have crushed her. Dora was so terrified she had to sit down and Resi hurried to get her a glass of water, because she believed she was going to faint. I had not imagined it was anything like that, and Dora certainly had not either. Or she would never have trembled so. Still I really don’t see why she should tremble like that. There is no reason to be frightened, one simply need not marry, and then one need never strip off every stitch, and oh dear, poor Mademoiselle who is so small and the lieutenant is very tall. But just think if anyone is as fat as Herr Richter or our landlord. Of course Herr Richter is at least 50, but last January the landlord had another little girl, so something must have happened. No, I’m sure it’s best not to marry, for it is really too awful. We did not look any more for then came the worst, suddenly Dora began to be actually sick, so that she could hardly get back to our room. If she had not been able to, everything would have come out. Mother sent for the doctor directly and he said that Dora was very much overworked; that it was a good thing she was going away from Vienna in a few days. No girl ought to study, it does not pay. Then he said to me: “You don’t look up to much either. What are you so hollow-eyed for?” “I’m so frightened about Dora,” I said. “Fiddlededee,” said the doctor, “that does not give anyone black rings round the eyes.” So it must be true that one gets to look ill when one always has to think about such things. But how can one help it, and Hella says: It’s awfully interesting to have black rings under the eyes and men like it.
We were going to make an excursion to-morrow to Kahlenberg and Hermannskogel, but probably it won’t come off. Its 11 already and I’m fearfully tired from writing so much; I must go to bed. I do hope I Shall be able to sleep, but — — — —
June 3rd. Father took Hella and me to Kahlenberg; we enjoyed ourselves tremendously. After dinner, when Father was reading the paper in the hotel, we went to pick flowers, and I told Hella all about what we’d seen on Friday. She was simply speechless, all the more since she had never heard what Mad. told us about taking off everything. She won’t marry either, for it’s too disagreeable, indeed too horrid.—The doctor said too: This perpetual learning is poisonous for young girls in the years of development. If he only knew what we had seen. Hella is frightfully annoyed that she was not there. She can be jolly glad, I don’t want to see it a second time, and I shall never forget it all my life long; what I saw at the front door was nothing to this. Then Hella went on making jokes and said: “I say, just think if it had been Viktor.” “Oh, do shut up,” I screamed, and Father thought we were quarrelling and called out: “You two seem to be having a dispute in the grand style.” If he’d only known what we were talking about!!! Oswald has been home since Friday evening; he did not arrive till half past 10. But he did not come on the excursion with us yesterday, although Father would have liked him to; he said he would find it much too dull to spend the day with two “flappers;” that means that we’re not grown up enough for him and is a piece of infernal cheek especially as regards Hella. She says she will simply ignore him in future. Since I am his sister I can’t very well do that, but I shan’t fetch and carry for him as he would like me to. He’s no right to insult even his sister.
Dora has just said to me: It’s horrible that one has to endure that (you know what!!! — — — —) when one is married. Resi had told her about those two before, and that only the Jews do it just like that. She said that other people did not strip quite naked and that perhaps it’s different in some other ways!! — — — But Mad. implied that it was just that way, only she did not say anything about the crushing; but I suppose that’s because of the cruelty of the Jews — — —. I’m afraid every night that I’m going to dream about it, and Dora has dreamed about it already. She says that whenever she closes her eyes she sees it all as if it were actually before her.
June 4th. We understand now what Father meant the other day when he was speaking about Dr. Diller and his wife and said: “But they don’t suit one another at all.” I thought at the time he only meant that it looks so absurd for so tiny a woman to go about with a big strong man. But that’s only a minor thing; the main point is something quite different!!!! Hella and I look at all couples now who go by arm in arm, thinking about them from that point of view, and it amuses us so much as we are going home that we can hardly keep from laughing. But really it’s no laughing matter, especially for the woman.
June 5th. This morning Mother took Dora with her to pay a farewell call at the Richter’s. But there was no one at home, that is Frau R. was certainly at home, but said she was not because they are very much offended with Father. In the afternoon Dora and I had a lot of things to get, and we met Viktor, by arrangement of course. Dora cried a lot; they went into the Minorite church while I went for a walk in Kohlmarkt and Herrengasse. He is going to America in the beginning of July, before Dora comes home. He has given her some exquisite notepaper stamped with his regimental arms, specially for her to write to him on, and a locket with his portrait. To-morrow she is going to send him her photo, through me, I shall be awfully glad to take it. Dora has been much nicer to me lately.