When the evening came Innstetten himself arranged the presents for his young wife.  The tree was lit, and a small angel hung at the top.  On the tree was discovered a cradle with pretty transparencies and inscriptions, one of which referred to an event looked forward to in the Innstetten home the following year.  Effi read it and blushed.  Then she started toward Innstetten to thank him, but before she had time to carry out her design a Yule gift was thrown into the hall with a shout, in accordance with the old Pomeranian custom.  It proved to be a box filled with a world of things.  At the bottom they found the most important gift of all, a neat little lozenge box, with a number of Japanese pictures pasted on it, and inside of it a note, running,—­

  “Three kings once came on a Christmas eve,
  The king of the Moors was one, I believe;—­
  The druggist at the sign of the Moor
  Today with spices raps at your door;
  Regretting no incense or myrrh to have found,
  He throws pistachio and almonds around.”

Effi read the note two or three times and was pleased.  “The homage of a good man has something very comforting about it.  Don’t you think so, Geert?”

“Certainly I do.  It is the only thing that can afford real pleasure, or at least ought to.  Every one is otherwise so encumbered with stupid obligations—­I am myself.  But, after all, one is what one is.”

The first holiday was church day, on the second they went to the Borckes’.  Everybody was there, except the Grasenabbs, who declined to come, “because Sidonie was not at home.”  This excuse struck everybody as rather strange.  Some even whispered:  “On the contrary, this is the very reason they ought to have come.”

New Year’s eve there was to be a club ball, which Effi could not well miss, nor did she wish to, for it would give her an opportunity to see the cream of the city all at once.  Johanna had her hands full with the preparation of the ball dress.  Gieshuebler, who, in addition to his other hobbies, owned a hothouse, had sent Effi some camelias.  Innstetten, in spite of the little time at his disposal, had to drive in the afternoon to Papenhagen, where three barns had burned.

It became very quiet in the house.  Christel, not having anything to do, sleepily shoved a footstool up to the stove, and Effi retired into her bedroom, where she sat down at a small writing desk between the mirror and the sofa, to write to her mother.  She had already written a postal card, acknowledging receipt of the Christmas letter and presents, but had written no other news for weeks.

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  “Kessin, Dec. 31.

  “My dear mama: