Effi looked forward to the sojourn in Berlin with great pleasure, the more so because her father had consented that they should take lodgings in the Hotel du Nord.  “Whatever it costs can be deducted from the dowry, you know, for Innstetten already has everything.”  Mrs. von Briest forbade such “mesquineries” in the future, once for all, but Effi, on the other hand, joyously assented to her father’s plan, without so much as stopping to think whether he had meant it as a jest or in earnest, for her thoughts were occupied far, far more with the impression she and her mother should make by their appearance at the table d’hote, than with Spinn and Mencke, Goschenhofer, and other such firms, whose names had been provisionally entered in her memorandum book.  And her demeanor was entirely in keeping with these frivolous fancies, when the great Berlin week had actually come.

Cousin von Briest of the Alexander regiment, an uncommonly jolly young lieutenant, who took the Fliegende Blatter and kept a record of the best jokes, placed himself at the disposal of the ladies for every hour he should be off duty, and so they would sit with him at the corner window of Kranzler’s, or perhaps in the Cafe Bauer, when permissible, or would drive out in the afternoon to the Zoological Garden, to see the giraffes, of which Cousin von Briest, whose name, by the way, was Dagobert, was fond of saying:  “They look like old maids of noble birth.”  Every day passed according to program, and on the third or fourth day they went, as directed, to the National Gallery, because Dagobert wished to show his cousin the “Isle of the Blessed.”  “To be sure, Cousin Effi is on the point of marrying, and yet it may perhaps be well to have made the acquaintance of the ’Isle of the Blessed’ beforehand.”  His aunt gave him a slap with her fan, but accompanied the blow with such a gracious look that he saw no occasion to change the tone.

These were heavenly days for all three, no less for Cousin Dagobert than for the ladies, for he was a past master in the art of escorting and always knew how quickly to compromise little differences.  Of the differences of opinion to be expected between mother and daughter there was never any lack during the whole time, but fortunately they never came out in connection with the purchases to be made.  Whether they bought a half dozen or three dozen of a particular thing, Effi was uniformly satisfied, and when they talked, on the way home, about the prices of the articles bought, she regularly confounded the figures.  Mrs. von Briest, ordinarily so critical, even toward her own beloved child, not only took this apparent lack of interest lightly, she even recognized in it an advantage.  “All these things,” said she to herself, “do not mean much to Effi.  Effi is unpretentious; she lives in her own ideas and dreams, and when one of the Hohenzollern princesses drives by and bows a friendly greeting from her carriage that means more to Effi than a whole chest full of linen.”