“Your Ladyship has such beautiful hair, so long, and soft as silk.”

“Yes, it is very soft.  But that is not a good thing, Johanna.  As the hair is, so is the character.”

“Certainly, your Ladyship.  And a soft character is better than a hard one.  I have soft hair, too.”

“Yes, Johanna.  And you have blonde hair, too.  That the men like best.”

“Oh, there is a great difference, your Ladyship.  There are many who prefer black.”

“To be sure,” laughed Effi, “that has been my experience, too.  But it must be because of something else entirely.  Now, those who are blonde always have a white complexion.  You have, too, Johanna, and I would wager my last pfennig that you have a good deal of attention paid to you.  I am still very young, but I know that much.  Besides, I have a girl friend, who was also so blonde, a regular flaxen blonde, even blonder than you, and she was a preacher’s daughter.”

“Oh, yes.”

“I beg you, Johanna, what do you mean by ‘oh yes?’ It sounds very sarcastic and strange, and you have nothing against preachers’ daughters, have you?—­She was a very pretty girl, as even our officers thought, without exception, for we had officers, red hussars, too.  At the same time she knew very well how to dress herself.  A black velvet bodice and a flower, a rose or sometimes heliotrope, and if she had not had such large protruding eyes—­Oh you ought to have seen them, Johanna, at least this large—­” Effi laughingly pulled down her right eye-lid—­“she would have been simply a beauty.  Her name was Hulda, Hulda Niemeyer, and we were not even so very intimate.  But if I had her here now, and she were sitting there, yonder in the corner of the little sofa, I would chat with her till midnight, or even longer.  I am so homesick”—­in saying this she drew Johanna’s head close to her breast—­“I am so much afraid.”

“Oh, that will soon be overcome, your Ladyship, we were all that way.”

“You were all that way?  What does that mean, Johanna?”

“If your Ladyship is really so much afraid, why, I can make a bed for myself here.  I can take the straw mattress and turn down a chair, so that I have something to lean my head against, and then I can sleep here till morning, or till his Lordship comes home.”

“He doesn’t intend to disturb me.  He promised me that specially.”

“Or I can merely sit down in the corner of the sofa.”

“Yes, that might do perhaps.  No, it will not, either.  His Lordship must not know that I am afraid, he would not like it.  He always wants me to be brave and determined, as he is.  And I can’t be.  I was always somewhat easily influenced.—­But, of course, I see plainly, I must conquer myself and subject myself to his will in such particulars, as well as in general.  And then I have Rollo, you know.  He is lying just outside the threshold.”

Johanna nodded at each statement and finally lit the candle on Effi’s bedroom stand.  Then she took the lamp.  “Does your Ladyship wish anything more?”