Three days later Gieshübler's friend brought herself once more to Effi's attention by a telegram in French, from St. Petersburg: "Madame the Baroness von Innstetten, née von Briest. Arrived safe. Prince K. at station. More taken with me than ever. Thousand thanks for your good reception. Kindest regards to Monsieur the Baron. Marietta Trippelli."
Innstetten was delighted and gave more enthusiastic expression to his delight than Effi was able to understand.
"I don't understand you, Geert."
"Because you don't understand Miss Trippelli. It's her true self in the telegram, perfect to a dot."
"So you take it all as a bit of comedy."
"As what else could I take it, pray? All calculated for friends there and here, for Kotschukoff and Gieshübler. Gieshübler will probably found something for Miss Trippelli, or maybe just leave her a legacy."
Gieshübler's party had occurred in the middle of December. Immediately thereafter began the preparations for Christmas. Effi, who might otherwise have found it hard to live through these days, considered it a blessing to have a household with demands that had to be satisfied. It was a time for pondering, deciding, and buying, and this left no leisure for gloomy thoughts. The day before Christmas gifts arrived from her parents, and in the parcels were packed a variety of trifles from the precentor's family: beautiful queenings from a tree grafted by Effi and Jahnke several years ago, beside brown pulse-warmers and knee-warmers from Bertha and Hertha. Hulda only wrote a few lines, because, as she pretended, she had still to knit a traveling shawl for X. "That is simply not true," said Effi, "I'll wager, there is no X in existence. What a pity she cannot cease surrounding herself with admirers who do not exist!"
When the evening came Innstetten himself arranged the presents for his young wife. The tree was lit, and a small angel hung at the top. On the tree was discovered a cradle with pretty transparencies and inscriptions, one of which referred to an event looked forward to in the Innstetten home the following year. Effi read it and blushed. Then she started toward Innstetten to thank him, but before she had time to carry out her design a Yule gift was thrown into the hall with a shout, in accordance with the old Pomeranian custom. It proved to be a box filled with a world of things. At the bottom they found the most important gift of all, a neat little lozenge box, with a number of Japanese pictures pasted on it, and inside of it a note, running,—
"Three kings once came on a Christmas eve,
The king of the Moors was one, I believe;—
The druggist at the sign of the Moor
Today with spices raps at your door;
Regretting no incense or myrrh to have found,
He throws pistachio and almonds around."
Effi read the note two or three times and was pleased. "The homage of a good man has something very comforting about it. Don't you think so, Geert?"