S's. I thought that I knew all about it but only now
has Hella really told me everything. It's a horrible
business this . . . I really can't write it. She
says that of course Inspee has it already, had it
when I wrote that Inspee wouldn't bathe, did not
want to bathe; really she had it. Whatever happens
one must always be anxious about it. _Streams of
blood_ says Hella. But then everything gets all bl . . .
That's why in the country Inspee always switched
off the light before she was quite undressed, so that
I couldn't see. Ugh! Catch me looking! It begins
at 14 and goes on for 20 years or more. Hella says
that Berta Franke in our class knows all about it.
In the arithmetic lesson she wrote a note: Do you
know what being un . . . is? Hella wrote back,
of course I've known it for a long time. Berta waited
for her after class when the Catholics were having
their religion lesson and they went home together.
I remember quite well that I was very angry, for
they're not chums. On Tuesday Berta came with
us, for Hella had sent her a note in class saying that
I knew _everything_ and she needn't bother about me.
Inspee suspects something, she's always spying about
and sneering, perhaps she thinks that she's the only
person who ought to know anything.

October 16th. To-morrow is Father's and Dora's
birthday. Every year it annoys me that Dora should
have her birthday on the same day as Father; What
annoys me most of all is that she is so cocky about
it, for, as Father always says, it's a mere chance.
Besides, I don't think he really likes it. Everyone
wants to have their own birthday on their own day,
not to share it with someone else. And it's always
nasty to be stuck up about a thing like that. Besides,
it's not going to be a real birthday because of the
row about Oswald. Father is still furious and had
to stay away from the office for 2 days because he
had to go to G. to see about Oswald going there.

October 17th. It was much jollier to-day than I
had expected. All the Bruckners came, so of course
there was not much said about Oswald only that he
has sprained his ankle, (I know quite well now that
that's not true) and that he is probably going to G.
Colonel B. said: The best thing for a boy is to send
him to a military academy, that keeps him in order.
In the evening Oswald said: That was awful rot
what Hella's father said, for you can be expelled
from a military academy just as easily as from the
Gymnasium. That's what happened to Edgar Groller.
Oswald gave himself away and Dora promptly said:
Ah, so you have been expelled, and we believed you
had sprained your ankle. Then he got in an awful
wax and said: O you wretched flappers, I've gone
and blabbed it all now, and he went away slamming
the door, for Mother wasn't there

October 19th. If we could only find out what
Oswald really did. It must have been something
with a girl. But we can't think what Father meant
about a married woman. Perhaps a married woman
complained of him to the head master or to the school
committee and that's how it all came out. I feel
awfully sorry for him, for I think how I should have
felt myself if everything had come out about Robert
and me. Of course I don't care now. But in the
summer it would have been awful. Oswald hardly
says a word, except that he has talks with Mother
sometimes. He always pretends that he wants to
read, but it's absurd, for with such a love trouble
one can't really read. I have not told Berta Franke
all about it, but only that my brother has had an
unhappy love affair and that is why he is back in
Vienna. Then she told us that this summer a cousin
of hers shot himself because of her. They said in the
newspapers that it was because of an actress, but
really it was because of her. She is 14 already.

October 20th. We spend most of our time now
with Berta Franke. She says she has had a tremendous
lot of experience, but she can't tell us yet because
we are not intimate enough. By and by she says.
Perhaps she is afraid we shall give her away. She
wants to marry when she is 16 at latest. That's in
2 years. Of course she won't have finished school
by then, but she will have left the third class. She
has three admirers, but she has not yet made up her
mind which to choose. Hella says I mustn't believe
all this, that the story about the three admirers at
once is certainly a cram.

October 21st. Berta Franke says that when one
is dark under the eyes one has it and that when one
gets a baby then one doesn't have it any more until
one gets another. She told us too how one gets it,
but I didn't really believe what she said, for I thought
she did not know herself exactly. Then she got very
cross and said: "All right, I won't tell you any more.
If I don't know myself." But I can't believe what