"Yes, sometimes," said Innstetten. "As a matter of fact, however, there is a difference. Ghostly apparitions are always artificial, or at least that is said to have been the case in the Belvedere, as Cousin von Briest told me only yesterday, but hauntings are never artificial; hauntings are natural."
"So you do believe in them?"
"Certainly I believe in them. There are such things. But I don't quite believe in those we had in Kessin. Has Johanna shown you her Chinaman yet?"
"What Chinaman?"
"Why, ours. Before she left our old house she pulled him off the back of the chair upstairs and put him in her purse. I caught a glimpse of him not long ago when she was changing a mark for me. She was embarrassed, but confessed."
"Oh, Geert, you ought not to have told me that. Now there is such a thing in our house again."
"Tell her to burn it up."
"No, I don't want to; it would not do any good anyhow. But I will ask
Roswitha—"
"What? Oh, I understand, I can imagine what you are thinking of. You will ask her to buy a picture of a saint and put it also in the purse. Is that about it?"
Effi nodded.