Christine

Koseritz, Friday, July 25th, 1914

Beloved mother,

Bernd was telegraphed for this afternoon from headquarters to go back at once to Berlin, and he's gone. I'm rubbing my eyes to see if I'm awake, it has been so sudden. The whole house seemed changed in an instant. The Graf went too. The newspaper doesn't get here till we are at lunch, and is always brought in and laid by the Graf, and today there was the Austrian ultimatum to Servia in it, and when the Graf saw that in the headlines of the Tageszeitung he laid it down without a word and got up and left the room. Bernd reached over for the paper to see what had happened, and it was that. He read it out to us. "This means war," he said, and the Grafin said, "Hush," very quickly; I suppose because she couldn't bear to hear the word. Then she got up too, and went after the Graf, and we were left, Helena and the governess, and the children, and Bernd, and I at a confused and untidy table, everybody with a question in their eyes, and the servants' hands not very steady as they held the dishes. The menservants would all have to go and fight if there were war. No wonder the dishes shook a little, for they can't but feel excited.

As soon as we could get away from the diningroom Bernd and I went out into the garden—the Graf and Grafin hadn't reappeared—and he said that though for a moment he had thought Austria's ultimatum would mean war, it was only just the first moment, but that he believed Servia would agree to everything, and the crisis would blow over in the way so many of them had blown over before.

I asked him what would happen if it didn't; I wanted things explained to me clearly, for positively I'm not quite clear about which nations would be fighting; and he said why talk about hateful things like war as long as there wasn't a war. He said that as long as his chief left him peacefully at Koseritz and didn't send for him to Berlin I might be sure it was going to be just a local quarrel, for his being sent for would mean that all officers on leave were being sent for, and that the Government was at least uneasy. Then at four o'clock came the telegram. The Government is, accordingly, at least uneasy.

I saw hardly any more of him. He got his things together with a quickness that astonished me, and he and the Graf, who was going to Berlin by the same train, motored to Stettin to catch the last express. Just before they left he caught hold of my hand and pulled me into the library where no one was, and told me how he thanked God I was English. "Chris, if you had been French or Russian,"—he said, looking as though the very thought filled him with horror. He laid his face against mine. "I'd have loved you just the same," he said, "I could have done nothing else but love you, and think, think what it would have meant—"

"Then it will be Germany as well, if there's war?" I said, "Germany as well as Austria, and France and Russia—what, almost all Europe?" I exclaimed, incredulous of such a terror.

"Except England," he said; and whispered, "Oh, thank God, except England." Somebody opened the door an inch and told him he must come at once. I whispered in his ear that I would go back to Berlin tomorrow and be near him. He went out so quickly that by the time I got into the hall after him the car was tearing down the avenue, and I only caught a flash of the sun on his helmet as he disappeared round the corner.

It has all been so quick. I can't believe it quite. I don't know what to think, and nobody says anything here. The Grafin, when I ask her what she thinks, says soothingly that I needn't worry my little head—my little head! As though I were six, and made of sugar—and that everything will settle down again. "Europe is in an excited state," she says placidly, "and suspects danger round every corner, and when it has reached the corner and looked round it, it finds nothing there after all. It has happened often before, and will no doubt happen again. Go to bed, my child, and forget politics. Leave them to older and more experienced heads. Always our Kaiser has been on the side of peace, and we can trust him to smooth down Austria's ruffled feathers."

Greatly doubting her Kaiser, after all I've heard of him at Kloster's, I was too polite to be anything but silent, and came up to my room obediently. If there is war, then Bernd—oh well, I'm tired. I don't think I'll write any more tonight. But I do love you so very much, darling mother.

Your Chris.

What a mercy that mothers are women, and needn't go away and fight.

Wouldn't it have been too awful if they had been men!

Koseritz, Saturday, July 25th, 1914

You know, my beloved one, I'd much rather be at Frau Berg's in Berlin and independent, and able to see Bernd whenever he can come, without saying dozens of thank you's and may I's to anybody each time, and I had arranged to go today, and now the Grafin won't let me. She says she'll take me up on Monday when she and Helena go. They're going for a short time because they want to be nearer any news there is than they are here, and she says it wouldn't be right for her, so nearly my aunt, to allow me, so nearly her niece, to stay by myself in a pension while she is in her house in the next street. What would people say? she asked—was wurden die Leute sagen, as every German before doing or refraining from doing a thing invariably inquires. They all from top to bottom seem to walk in terror of die Leute and what they would sagen. So I'm to go to her house in the Sommerstrasse, and live in chaperoned splendour for as long as she is there. She says she is certain my mother would wish it. I'm not a hit certain, I who know my mother and know how beautifully empty she is of conventions and how divinely indifferent to die Leute; but as I'm going to marry a German of the Junker class I suppose I must appease his relations,—at any rate till I've got them, by gentle and devious methods, a little more used to me. So I gave in sullenly. Don't be afraid,—only sullenly inside, not outside. Outside I was so well-bred and pleased, you can't think. It really is very kind of the Grafin, and her want of enthusiasm, which was marked, only makes it all the kinder. On that principle, too, my gratefulness, owing to an equal want of enthusiasm, is all the more grateful.

I don't want to wait here till Monday. I'd like to have gone today,—got through all the miles of slow forest that lie between us and the nearest railway station, the miles of forest news has to crawl through by slow steps, dragged towards us in a cart at a walking pace once a day. Nearly all today and quite all tomorrow we shall sit here in this sunny emptiness. It is a wonderful day again, but to me it's like a body with the soul gone, like the meaningless smile of a handsome idiot. Evidently, little mother, your unfortunate Chris is very seriously in love. I don't believe it is news I want to be nearer to: it's Bernd.

As for news, the papers today seem to think things will arrange themselves. They're rather unctuous about it, but then they're always unctuous,—as though, if they had eyes, they would be turned up to heaven with lots of the pious whites showing. They point out the awful results there would be to the whole world if Servia, that miserable small criminal, should dare not satisfy the just demands of Germany's outraged and noble ally Austria. But of course Servia will. They take that for granted. Impossible that she shouldn't. The Kaiser is cruising in his yacht somewhere up round Norway, and His Majesty has shown no signs, they say, of interrupting his holiday. As long as he stays away, they remark, nothing serious can happen. What an indictment of S. M.! As long as he stays away, playing about, there will be peace. How excellent it would be, then, if he stayed away and played indefinitely.

I wanted to say this to the Grafin when she read the papers aloud to us at lunch, and I wonder what would have happened to me if I had. Well, though I've got to stay with her and be polite in the Sommerstrasse, I shall escape every other day to that happy, rude place, Kloster's flat, and can say what I like. I think I told you he is going to give me three lessons a week now.

After tea,

I practised most of the morning. I wrote to Bernd, and told him about Monday, and told him—oh, lots of little things I just happened to think of. I went out after lunch and lay in the meadow by the water's edge with a book I didn't read, the same meadow Bernd and I anchored our fishing boat at only the day before yesterday, but really ten years ago, and I lay so quiet that the cows forgot me, and came and scrunched away at the grass quite close to my head. We had tea as usual on the terrace in the shady angle of the south-west walls, and the Grafin discoursed placidly on the political situation. She was most instructive; calmly imparting knowledge to Helena and me; calmly embroidering a little calm-looking shirt for her married daughter's baby, with calm, cool white fingers. She seemed very content with the world, and the way it is behaving. She looked as unruffled as one of the swans on the Haff. All the sedition and heretical opinions she must have heard Kloster fling about have slid off her without leaving a mark. Evidently she pays no attention to anything he thinks, on the ground that he is a genius. Geniuses are privileged lunatics. I gather that is rather how she feels. She was quite interesting about Germany,—her talk was all of Germany. She knows a great deal of its history and I think she must have told us all she knew. By the time the servants came to take away the tea-things I had a distinct vision of Germany as the most lovable of little lambs with a blue ribbon round its neck, standing knee-deep in daisies and looking about the world with kind little eyes.

Good-bye darling mother. Saturday is nearly over now. By this time the time limit for Servia has expired. I wonder what has happened. I wonder what you in Switzerland are feeling about it. You know, my dearest one, I'll interrupt my lessons and come to Switzerland if you have the least shred of a wish that I should; and perhaps if Bernd really had to go away—supposing the unlikely were to happen after all and there were war—I'd want to come creeping back close to you till he is safe again. And yet I don't know. Surely the right thing would be to go on, whatever happens, quietly working with Kloster till October as we had planned. But you've only got to lift your little finger, and I'll come. I mean, if you get thinking things and feeling worried.

Your Chris.

Koseritz, Sunday evening, July 26th

Beloved mother,

I've packed, and I'm ready. We start early tomorrow. The newspapers, for some reason, perhaps excitement and disorganization, didn't come today, but the Graf telephoned from Berlin about the Austro-Hungarian minister having asked the Servian government for his passports and left Belgrade. You'll know about this today too. The Grafin, still placid, says Austria will now very properly punish Servia, both for the murder and for the insolence of refusing her, Austria's, just demands. The Graf merely telephoned that Servia had refused. It did seem incredible. I did think Servia would deserve her punishing. Yesterday's papers said the demands were most reasonable considering what had been done. I hadn't read the Austrian note, because of the confusion of Bernd's sudden going away, and I was full of indignation at Servia's behaviour, piling insult on injury in this way and risking setting Europe by the ears, but was pulled up short and set thinking by the Grafin's looking pleased at my expressions of indignation, and her coming over to me to pat my cheek and say, "This child will make an excellent little German."

Then I thought I'd better wait and know more before sweeping Servia out of my disgusted sight. There are probably lots of other things to know. Kloster will tell me. I find I have a profound distrust really of these people. I don't mean of particular people, like the Koseritzes and the Klosters and their friends, but of Germans in the mass. It is a sort of deep-down discomfort of spirit, the discomfort of disagreement in fundamentals.

"Then there'll be war?" I said to the Grafin, staring at her placid face, and not a bit pleased about being going to be an excellent little German.

"Oh, a punitive expedition only," she said.

"Bernd thought it would mean Russia and France and you as well," I said.

"Oh, Bernd—he is in love," said the Grafin, smiling.

"I don't quite see—" I began.

"Lovers always exaggerate," she said. "Russia and France will not interfere in so just a punishment."

"But is it just?" I asked.

She gazed at me critically at this. It was not, she evidently considered, a suitable remark for one whose business it was to turn into an excellent little German. "Dear child," she said, "you cannot suppose that our ally, the Kaiser's ally, would make demands that are not just?"

"Do you think Friday's papers are still anywhere about?" was my answer. "I'd like to read the Austrian note, and think it over for myself. I haven't yet."

The Grafin smiled at this, and rang the bell. "I expect Dorner"—Dorner is the butler—"has them," she said. "But do not worry your little head this hot weather too much."

"It won't melt," I said, resenting that my head should be regarded as so very small and also made of sugar,—she said something like this the other day, and I resented that too.

"There are people whose business it is to think these high matters out for us," she said, "and in their hands we can safely leave them."

"As if they were God," I remarked.

She looked at me critically again. "Precisely," she said. "Loyal subjects, true Christians, are alike in their unquestioning trust and obedience to authority."

I came upstairs then, in case I shouldn't be able to keep from saying something truthful and rude.

What a misfortune it is that truth always is so rude. So that a person who, like myself, for reasons that I can't help thinking are on the whole base, is anxious to hang on to being what servants call a real lady, is accordingly constantly forced into a regrettable want of candour. I wish Bernd weren't a Junker. It is a great blot on his perfection. I'd much rather he were a navvy, a stark, swearing navvy, and we could go in for stark, swearing candour, and I needn't be a lady any more. It's so middle-class being a lady. These German aristocrats are hopelessly middle-class.

I know when I get to Berlin, and only want to keep abreast of the real things that may be going to happen, which will take me all my time, for I haven't been used to big events, it will be very annoying to be caught and delayed at every turn by small nets of politenesses and phrases and considerations, by having to remember every blessed one of the manners they go in for so terribly here. I've never met so much manners as in Germany. The protestations you have to make! The elaborateness and length of every acceptance or refusal! And it's all so much fluff and wind, signifying nothing, nothing at all unless it's fear; fear, again, their everlasting haunting spectre; fear of the other person's being offended if he is stronger than you, higher up,—because then he'll hurt you, punish you somehow; ten to one, if you're a man, he'll fight you.

I've read the Austrian Note. I don't wonder very much at Servia's refusing to accept it, and yet surely it would have been wiser if she had accepted it, anyhow as much of it as she possibly could.

"Much wiser," said the Grafin, smiling gently when I said this at dinner tonight. "At least, wiser for Servia. But it is well so." And she smiled again.

I've come to the conclusion that the Grafin too wants war,–a big European war, so that Germany, who is so longing to get that tiresome rattling sword of hers out of the scabbard, can seize the excuse and rush in. One only has to have stayed here, lived among them and heard them talk, to know that they're all on tiptoe for an excuse to start their attacking. They've been working for years for the moment when they can safely attack. It has been the Kaiser's one idea, Kloster says, during the whole of his reign. Of course it's true it has been a peaceful reign,—they're always pointing that out here when endeavouring to convince a foreigner that the last thing their immense preparations mean is war; of course a reign is peaceful up to the moment when it isn't. They've edged away carefully up to now from any possible quarrel, because they weren't ready for the almighty smash they mean to have when they are ready. They've prepared to the smallest detail. Bernd told me that the men who can't fight, the old and unfit, each have received instructions for years and years past every autumn, secret exact instructions, as to what they are to do, when war is declared, to help in the successful killing of their brothers,—their brothers, little mother, for whom, too, Christ died. Each of these aged or more or less diseased Germans, the left-overs who really can't possibly fight, has his place allotted to him in these secret orders in the nearest town to where he lives, a place supervising the stores or doing organizing work. Every other man, except those who have the luck to be idiots or dying—what a world to have to live in, when this is luck—will fight. The women, and the thousands of imported Russians and Poles, will look after the farms for the short time the men will be away, for it is to be a short war, a few weeks only, as short as the triumphant war of 1870. Did you ever know anything so horrifying, so evil, as this minute concentration, year in year out, for decades, on killing—on successful, triumphant killing, just so that you can grab something that doesn't belong to you. It is no use dressing it up in big windy words like Deutschthum and the rest of the stuff the authorities find it convenient to fool their slaves with,—it comes to exactly that. I always, you see, think of Germany as the grabber, the attacker. Anything else, now that I've lived here, is simply inconceivable. A defensive war in which she should have to defend her homes from wanton attack is inconceivable. There is no wantonness now in the civilized nations. We have outgrown the blood stage. We are sober peoples, sober and civilian,—grown up, in fact. And the semi-civilized peoples would be afraid to attack a nation so strong as Germany. She is training and living, and has been training and living for years and years, simply to attack. What is the use of their protesting? One has only to listen to their points of view to brush aside the perfunctory protestations they put in every now and then, as if by order, whenever they remember not to be natural. Oh, I know this is very different from what I was writing and feeling two or three days ago, but I've been let down with a jerk, I'm being reminded of the impressions I got in Berlin, they've come up sharply again, and I'm not so confident that what was the matter with the people there was only heat and overwork. There was an eagerness about them, a kind of fever to begin their grabbing. I told you, I think, how Berlin made me think when first I got there of something seething.

Darling mother, forgive me if I'm shrill. I wouldn't be shrill, I'm certain I wouldn't, if I could believe in the necessity, the justice of such a war, if Germany weren't going to war but war were coming to Germany. And I'm afraid,—afraid because of Bernd. Suppose he—Well, perhaps by the time we get to Berlin things will have calmed down, and the Grafin will be able to come back straight here, which God grant, and I shall go back to Frau Berg and my flies. I shall regard those flies now with the utmost friendliness. I shan't mind anything they do.

Good night blessed mother. I'm so thankful these two days are over.

Your Chris.

It is this silence here, this absurd peaceful sunshine, and the placid Grafin, and the bland unconsciousness of nature that I find hard to bear.

Berlin, Wednesday, July 29th

My own little mother,

It is six o'clock in the morning, and I'm in my dressing-gown writing to you, because if I don't do it now I shall be swamped with people and things, as I was all yesterday and the day before, and not get a moment's quiet. You see, there is going to be war, almost to a dead certainty, and the Germans have gone mad. The effect even on this house is feverish, so that getting up very early will be my only chance of writing to you.

You never saw anything like the streets yesterday. They seemed full of drunken people, shouting up and down with red faces all swollen with excitement. It is of course intensely interesting and new to me, who have never been closer to such a thing as war than history lessons at school, but what do they all think they're going to get, what do they all think it's really for, these poor creatures bellowing and strutting, and waving their hats and handkerchiefs, and even their babies, high over their heads whenever a konigliche Hoheit dashes past in a motor, which happens every five minutes because there are such a lot of them. Our drive from Koseritz to Stettin on Monday, which now seems so remote that it is as if it was another life, was the last beautiful ordinary thing that happened. Since then it has been one great noise and ugliness. I can't forget the look of the country as we passed through it on Monday, so lovely in its summer peacefulness, the first rye being cut in the fields, the hedges full of Traveler's Joy. I didn't notice how beautiful it was at the time, I only wanted to get on, to get away, to get the news; but now I'm here I remember it as something curiously innocent, and I'm so glad we had a puncture that made us stop for ten minutes in a bit of the road where there were great cornfields as far as one could see, and a great stretch of sky with peaceful little white clouds that hardly moved, and only the sound of poplars by the roadside rustling their leaves with that lovely liquid sound they make, and larks singing. It comforts me to call this up again, to hide in it for a minute away from the shouting of Deutschland uber Alles, and the hochs and yellings. Then we got to Stettin; and since then I have lived in ugliness.

The Kaiser came back on Monday. He had arrived in Berlin by the time we got here, and the Grafin's triumphant calm visibly increased when the footman who met us at the station eagerly told her the news. For this, as the papers said that evening, hardly able to conceal their joy beneath their pious hopes that the horrors of war may even yet be spared the world, reveals the full seriousness of the situation. I like the "even yet," don't you? Bernd was at the station, and drove with us to the Sommerstrasse. We went along the Dorotheenstrasse, at the back of Unter den Linden, as the Lindens were choked with people. It was impossible to get through them. They were a living wedge of people, with frantic mounted policemen trying to get them to go somewhere else.

Bernd was so dear, and oh it was such a blessing to be near him again! But he was solemn, and didn't smile at all except when he looked at me. Then that dear smile that is so full of goodness changed his whole face. "Oh Bernd, I do love you so much," I couldn't help whispering, leaning forward to do it regardless of Helena who sat next to him; and seeing by Helena's stare that she had heard, and feeling recklessly cheerful at having got back to him, I turned on her and said, "Well, he shouldn't smile at me in that darling way."

The Grafin laughed gently, so I knew she thought my manners bad. I've learned that when she laughs gently she disapproves, just as I've learned that when she says with a placid sigh that war is terrible and must be avoided, all her hopes are bound up in its not being avoided. Her only son is in the Cuirassiers, and is, Kloster says, a naturally unsuccessful person. War is his chance of promotion, of making a career. It is also his chance of death or maiming, as I said to Helena on Sunday at Koseritz when she was talking about her brother and his chances if there is war to the pastor, who was calling hat in hand and very full of bows.

She stared at me, and so did the pastor. I'm afraid I plumped into the conversation impetuously.

"I had sooner," said Helena, "that Werner were dead or maimed for life than that he should not make a career. One's brother must not, cannot be a failure."

And the pastor bowed and exclaimed, "That is well and finely said. That is full of pride, of the true German patrician pride."

Helena, you see, forgot, as Germans sometimes do, not to be natural. She said straight but it was a career she wanted for her brother. She forgot the usual talk of patriotism and the glory of being mangled on behalf of Hohenzollerns.

Yesterday the menservants disappeared, and women waited on us. There was no jolt in the machinery. It went on as smoothly as though the change had been weeks ago. Even the butler, who certainly is too old to fight, vanished.

Bernd comes in whenever he can. Luckily we're quite close to the General Staff Headquarters here, and he has his meals with us. He persists that the war will be kept rigidly to Austria and Servia, and therefore will be over in a week or two. He says Sir Edward Grey has soothed bellicose governments before now, and will be able to do so again. He talks of the madness of war, and of how no Government nowadays would commit such a sheer stupidity as starting it. I listen to him, and am convinced and comforted; then I go back to the others, and my comfort slips away again. For the others are so sure. There's no question for them, no doubt. They don't say so, any of them, neither the Graf, nor the Grafin, nor the son Werner who was here yesterday nor Bernd's Colonel who dined here last night, nor any of the other people. Government officials who come to see the Graf, and women friends who come to see the Grafin. They don't say war is certain, but each one of them has the look of satisfaction and relief people have when they get something they've wanted very much for a very long time and sigh out "At last!" Some of them let out their satisfaction more than others,—Bernd's Colonel, for instance, who seems particularly hilarious. He was very hilarious last night, though not ostensibly about war. If the possibility of war is mentioned, as of course it constantly is, they at once all shake their heads as if to order, and look serious, and say God grant it may even now be avoided, or something like that; just as the newspapers do. And last night at dinner somebody added a hope, expressed with a very grave face, that the people of Germany wouldn't get out of hand and force war upon the Government against its judgment.

I thought that rather funny. Especially after two hours in the morning with Kloster, who explained that the Government is arranging everything that is happening, managing public opinion, creating the exact amount of enthusiasm and aggressiveness it wishes to have behind it, just as it did in 1870 when it wanted to bring about the war with France. I know it isn't proper for a junges Madchen to talk at dinner unless she is asked a question, and I know she mustn't have an opinion about anything except bonbons and flowers, and I also know that a junges Madchen who is betrothed is expected to show on all occasions such extreme modesty, such a continuous downcast eye, that it almost amounts to being ashamed of herself; yet I couldn't resist leaning across the table to the man who said that, a high official in the Ministerium des Innern, and saying "But your public is so disciplined and your Government so almighty—" and was going on to ask him what grounds he had for his fears that a public in that condition would force the Government's hand, for I was interested and wanted dreadfully to hear what he would say, when the Grafin slipped in, smiling gently.

"My dear new niece," she said, looking round the table at everybody, "promises to become a most excellent little German. See how she already recognizes and admires our restraint on the one hand, and on the other, our power."

The Colonel, who was sitting on one side of me, laughed, raised his glass, and begged me to permit him to drink my health and the health of that luckiest of young men, Lieutenant von Inster. "Old England forever!" he exclaimed, bowing over his glass to me, "The England that raises such fair flowers and allows Germany to pluck them. Long may she continue these altruistic activities. Long may the homes of Germany be decorated with England's fairest products."

By this time he was on his feet, and they were toasting England and me. They were all quite enthusiastic, and I felt so proud and pleased, with Bernd sitting beside me looking so proud and pleased. "England!" they called out, lifting their glasses, "England and the new alliance!" And they bowed and smiled to me, and came round one by one and clinked their glasses against mine.

Then Bernd had to make a little speech and thank the Colonel, and you can't think how beautifully he speaks, and not a bit shy, and saying exactly the right things. Then the Graf actually got up and said something—I expect etiquette forced him to or he never would have—but once he was in for it he did it with the same unfaltering fluency and appropriateness that Bernd had surprised me with. He said they—the Koseritzes and Insters—welcomed the proposed marriage between Bernd and myself, not alone for the many graces, virtues, and, above all gifts—(picture the abstracted Graf reeling off these compliments! You should have seen my open mouth)—that so happily adorned the young lady, great and numerous though they were, but also because such a marriage would still further cement the already close union existing between two great countries of the same faith, the same blood, and the same ideals. "Long may these two countries," he said, "who carry in their hands the blazing torches of humanity and civilization, march abreast down the pages of history, writing it in glorious letters as they march." Then he sat down, and instantly relapsed into silence and abstraction. It was as if a candle had been blown out.