“No, Effi, nothing improper.  Certainly not in the presence of your mother, for I know you so well.  You are a fantastic little person, you like nothing better than to paint fanciful pictures of the future, and the richer their coloring the more beautiful and desirable they appear to you.  I saw that when we were buying the traveling articles.  And now you fancy it would be altogether adorable to have a bed screen with a variety of fabulous beasts on it, all in the dim light of a red hanging lamp.  It appeals to you as a fairy tale and you would like to be a princess.”

Effi took her mother’s hand and kissed it.  “Yes, mama, that is my nature.”

“Yes, that is your nature.  I know it only too well.  But, my dear Effi, we must be circumspect in life, and we women especially.  Now when you go to Kessin, a small place, where hardly a streetlamp is lit at night, the people will laugh at such things.  And if they would only stop with laughing!  Those who are ill-disposed toward you—­and there are always some—­will speak of your bad bringing-up, and many will doubtless say even worse things.”

“Nothing Japanese, then, and no hanging lamp either.  But I confess I had thought it would be so beautiful and poetical to see everything in a dim red light.”

Mrs. von Briest was moved.  She got up and kissed Effi.  “You are a child.  Beautiful and poetical.  Nothing but fancies.  The reality is different, and often it is well that there should be dark instead of light and shimmer.”

Effi seemed on the point of answering, but at this moment Wilke came and brought some letters.  One was from Kessin, from Innstetten.  “Ah, from Geert,” said Effi, and putting the letter in her pocket, she continued in a calm tone:  “But you surely will allow me to set the grand piano across one corner of the room.  I care more for that than for the open fireplace that Geert has promised me.  And then I am going to put your portrait on an easel.  I can’t be entirely without you.  Oh, how I shall be homesick to see you, perhaps even on the wedding tour, and most certainly in Kessin.  Why, they say the place has no garrison, not even a staff surgeon, and how fortunate it is that it is at least a watering place.  Cousin von Briest, upon whom I shall rely as my chief support, always goes with his mother and sister to Warnemunde.  Now I really do not see why he should not, for a change, some day direct our dear relatives toward Kessin.  Besides, ‘direct’ seems to suggest a position on the staff, to which, I believe, he aspires.  And then, of course, he will come along and live at our house.  Moreover Kessin, as somebody just recently told me, has a rather large steamer, which runs over to Sweden twice a week.  And on the ship there is dancing (of course they have a band on board), and he dances very well.”

“Who?”

“Why, Dagobert.”

“I thought you meant Innstetten.  In any case the time has now come to know what he writes.  You still have the letter in your pocket, you know.”