Bettina von Arnim

“ Bettina relates, in her letter of the 28th of May, to Göthe, that she committed to writing Beethoven's remarks on art, &c., which he made the day before in a walk with her, and that she gave him them to read, upon which he asked her in astonishment—"And did I indeed say all this?—Then I must certainly have had a raptus!"
[41] The correspondence which passed between the composer and Madame Bettina von Arnim may be thought hardly to bear out M. Schindler's opinion of Beethoven's style of expression. The reader, however, will be enabled to judge for himself, as he will find in the Supplement No. ”

“ The man looked blank; then his face brightened, and pointing with his whip to the rolling sea on their right, visible across the flat intervening fields, he said that there was much fish in it, especially herrings.
"What does he say?" asked Susie from behind her handkerchief.
"He says there are herrings in the sea."
"Is the man a fool?"
Letty laughed uproariously. The coachman, seeing Letty and Anna laugh, thought he must have said the right thing after all, and looked very pleasant.
"Aber im Wagen," persisted Anna, "wo ist Fisch im Wagen?" ”

“ Her mistress meanwhile was meditatively turning over the vanilla balls in her soup. "Well, I don't like it," she said at last, laying down her spoon.
"Oh, it's ripping!" cried her daughter ecstatically. "It's like having one's pudding at the other end."
"How can you look at chocolate after Berlin, greedy girl?" asked her mother, disgusted by her child's obvious tendency towards a too free indulgence in the pleasures of the table. But Letty was feeling so jovial that in the face of this question she boldly asked for more—a request that was refused indignantly and at once. ”

“ Everything is as dry as cinders."
"The stables—are they insured?"
But Dellwig was off again, after the engine.
"What can we do, Letty? What can we do?" cried Anna, turning to Letty when the sound of the wheels had died away and only the hurried bell was heard above the whistling and banging of the wind. "It's horrible here, listening to that bell tolling, and looking at the sky. If I could throw one single bucketful of water on the fire I should not feel so useless, so utterly, utterly of no use or good for anything." ”

“ He told her that his mother had been a cousin of Uncle Joachim's wife. "So that there is a slight relationship by marriage existing between us," he said.
"Very slight," said Anna, smiling, "faint almost beyond recognition."
"Does your niece stay with you for an indefinite period?" he asked. "I cannot avoid knowing that this young lady is your niece," he added with a smile, "and that she is here with her governess, and that Lady Estcourt left suddenly on Good Friday, because all that concerns you is of the greatest interest to the inhabitants of this quiet place, and they talk of little else." ”

“ The good opinion of their neighbours—more exactly, the envy of their neighbours—was to them the very breath of their nostrils. In their set they must be the first, the undisputedly luckiest, cleverest, and best off. Any position less mighty would be unbearable. And since Anna came there had been nothing but humiliations. First the dinner to the Manskes, from which they had been excluded—Frau Dellwig grew hot all over at the recollection of the Sunday gathering succeeding it; then the renovation of the Schloss without the least reference to them, without the smallest asking for advice or help ”

“ The room looked very untidy and ill-cared for.
"A man without a wife," said the princess, gazing round at the litter, composed chiefly of cigar-ashes and old envelopes, "is a truly miserable being. What condition can be more wretched than to be at the mercy of a Mamsell? I shall go and inquire into the whereabouts of this one. Axel will want some food when he comes in."
She took up one of the candles and went out. Letty had sat down at once on the nearest chair, and was looking very pale. Anna untied the handkerchief, and tried to arrange what was left of her hair. ”

“ Anna did not answer. She was thinking only of Letty. What a slender thread of chance had saved her from death, from a dreadful death, the little Letty who was under her care, for whom she was responsible, and whom she had quite forgotten in her stupid interest in Axel Lohm's affairs. Woman-like, she felt very angry with Axel. What did it matter to her whether his place burnt to ashes or not? But Letty mattered to her, her own little niece, poor solitary Letty, practically motherless, so ugly, and so full of good intentions. She had scolded her so much about Klutz ”

“ No answer.
"Did he?" insisted Anna.
"Ye—es."
"You are a very wicked little girl," said Anna, with awful sternness. "You have been acting untruths every day for ages, which is just as bad as telling them. I don't believe you have an idea of the horridness of what you have done—I hope you have not. Of course your lessons at Lohm have come to an end. You will not go there again. Probably I shall send you home to your mother. I am nearly sure that I shall. Go away." And she pointed to the door.
That night neither Letty nor Miss Leech appeared at supper ”

“ Manske looked at her, startled.
"What do people—most people, ordinary people, need, to make them happy?" she asked wistfully. She was speaking to herself more than to him, and did not expect any very illuminating answer.
"The fear of the Lord," he replied promptly; which put an end to the conversation.
But besides her perplexities about the Chosen, Anna had other worries. Dellwig had received the refusal to let him build the brick-kiln with such insolence, and had, in his anger, said such extraordinary things about Axel Lohm, that Anna had blazed out too, and had told him he must go. ”

“ Look here—teaspoons to eat the pudding with, and the same fork all the way through. It's a beastly hole"—Letty's eyebrows telegraphed triumphantly across to Miss Leech, "Well, did you hear that?"—"and we ought to have stayed in Berlin. There was nothing to be gained at all by coming here."
"Perhaps the dinner to-night will be better," said Anna, trying to comfort her, and little knowing that they had just eaten the dinner; but people who are hungry are surprisingly impervious to the influence of fair words. "It couldn't be worse, anyhow, so it really will probably be better. ”

“ Klutz signified by a movement of his head that nothing was wrong at Lohm. He was crying like a baby, into a red pocket-handkerchief, and could not speak.
Dellwig, still gripping his arm, stared at him a moment in silence; then he turned him round, pushed him down the steps, and walked him off. "Come along, young man," he said, "I want some explanation of this. If you are mad you'll be locked up. We don't fancy madmen about our place. And if you're not mad you'll be fined by the Amtsvorsteher for disorderly conduct. ”

“ Anna watched the havoc going on among poor Axel's trees in silence. "He can't not care," she said to herself. He turned round quickly at that moment, as though he heard her thinking of him, and looked straight into her eyes. "You here!" he exclaimed, striding across the road to her at once.
"Yes, we are here," replied the princess. "We cannot let our neighbour burn without coming to see if we can do anything. But seriously, I hear that it is a good thing for you." ”

“ Susie proposed to stay a day in Berlin, which would give Anna time to talk everything over with the lawyer, and would enable Letty to visit the museums. She had a hopeful idea that Letty would absorb German at every pore once she was in the country itself, and that being brought face to face with the statues of Goethe and Schiller on their native soil would kindle the sparks of interest in German literature that she supposed every well-taught child possessed, into the roaring flame of enthusiasm. ”

“ She never dreamed at all, either sleeping or waking. If by some chance she had fallen into musings, she would have mused blood and iron, the superiority of the German nation, cookery in its three forms feine, bürgerliche, and Hausmannskost, in all which forms she was preëminent in skill—she would have mused, that is, on facts, plain and undisputed. If she had had children she would have made an excellent mother ”

“ I don't like being an object of interest. No, Letty is going home as soon as I have found a companion. That is why I am taking the inspector's newspapers home with me. I can't construct an advertisement out of my stores of German, and am going to see if I can find something that will serve as model."
"Oh, may I help you? What difficulties you must meet with every hour of the day!"
"I do," agreed Anna, thinking of all there was to be done before she could open her doors and her arms to the twelve.
"Any service that I can render to my oldest friend's niece will give me the greatest pleasure. ”

“ Don't let us waste time. You know we go out to dinner. What has he left Peter?"
"Peter?" said Anna wonderingly.
"Yes, Peter. He was his nephew, I suppose, just as much as you were his niece."
"Well, but Susie, Peter is different. He—he doesn't need money as I do; and of course Uncle Joachim knew that."
"Nonsense. He hasn't got a penny. Let me look at the letters."
"They're in German. You won't be able to read them."
"Give them to me. I learned German at school, and got a prize. You're not the only person in the world who can do things." ”

“ What hast thou in thy head, child, thy pretty woman's head, made, if ever head was, to lean on a good man's shoulder?"
"Oh—good men's shoulders," said Anna, shrugging her own, "I don't want to lean on anybody's shoulder. I want to hold my head up straight, all by itself. Do you then admire limp women, dear uncle, whose heads roll about all loose till a good man comes along and props them up?"
"These are English ideas. I like them not," said Uncle Joachim, looking stony.
Anna sat down on the seat by his side, and laid her cheek for a moment against his sleeve. ”

“ Anna sat down on the end of the sofa and began to twist the frills of Susie's dressing-gown round her fingers.
"I haven't closed my eyes all night," said Susie, putting on her martyr look, "nor has Hilton."
"Haven't you? Why not? I slept the sleep of the just—better, indeed, than any just that I ever heard of."
"What, didn't that man go into your room?"
"What man? Oh, yes, Miss Leech was telling me about it. He lit the stoves, didn't he? I never heard a sound."
"You must have slept like a log then. Any one in the least sensitive would have been frightened out of their senses. ”

“ If I stay here I shall be bored to death—that Estcourt child and her governess have got on to my nerves—horrid fat child with turned-in toes, and flabby, boneless woman, only held together by her hairpins. I am sick of governesses and children—wherever one goes, there they are. If I go home, there are those noisy little boys and Fräulein Schultz worrying all day, and then there's that tiresome Bill coming in to meals. Anna and Bibi are just in the position I would like to be in—no husbands and children, and lots of money. ”

“ They certainly turned crimson as he crushed Anna's fingers, but she was not thinking of his ears.
"Frau Manske is too kind," she said, as the nosegays, at first intermittent, became things of daily occurrence. They grew bigger, too, every day, attaining such a girth at last that Letty could hardly carry them. "She must not plunder her garden like this."
"It is very full of flowers," said Miss Leech. "Really a wonderful display. The bunch is always ready, tied together and lying on the table when we arrive. ”

“ Then he put his handkerchief back into his pocket, looked up at Anna, who was standing in front of him leaning on her sunshade, and said, "A Quatschkopf is a foolish fellow who marries a woman like that."
"Oh, poor Susie!" cried Anna, at once ready to defend her, and full of the kindly feelings absence invariably produced. "Peter did a very sensible thing. But I don't think Susie did, marrying Peter."
"He is a Quatschkopf," said Uncle Joachim, not to be shaken in his opinions, "and the geborene Dobbs is a vulgar woman who is not rich enough."
"Not rich enough? ”

“ Nor was she consoled for this by the consciousness that she had been unusually amusing at Anna's expense; for she was only too certain that the Regierungspräsidentin, when repeating all she had told her to her friends, would add that Trudi Hasdorf had terribly eingepackt—dreadful word, descriptive of the faded state immediately preceding wrinkles, and held in just abhorrence by every self-respecting woman. Of what earthly use was it to be cleverer and more amusing than other people if at the same time you had eingepackt? ”

“ The horses, more and more frightened the nearer they drew, plunged and reared, and old Fritz could hardly hold them in. On turning the corner by the parsonage they were not to be induced to advance another yard, but swerved aside, kicking and terrified, and threatening every moment to upset the carriage into the ditch.
Anna jumped out and ran on. The princess, slower and more bulky, was helped out by Letty and followed after as quickly as she could. In the road and in the field opposite the stables the whole population was gathered, illuminated figures in eager, chattering groups. ”

“ The baroness sat straight and motionless, staring fixedly at Frau von Treumann.
"'When shall I see you again, my dearest mamma?' were his last words. And I could give him no hope—no answer." The handkerchief went up to her eyes.
"What is she gassing about?" wondered Letty.
"I can see him now, fading away on the platform as my train bore me off to an unknown life. An only son—the only son of a widow—is everything, everything to his mother."
"He must be," said Anna. ”