“Well, then, your Ladyship ought to go to church.  Your Ladyship has been there once.”

“Oh, many a time.  But I have derived little benefit from it.  He preaches quite well and is a very wise man, and I should be happy if I knew the hundredth part of it all.  But it seems as though I were merely reading a book.  Then when he speaks so loud and saws the air and shakes his long black locks I am drawn, entirely out of my attitude of worship.”

“Out of?”

Effi laughed.  “You think I hadn’t yet got into such an attitude.  That is probably true.  But whose fault is it?  Certainly not mine.  He always talks so much about the Old Testament.  Even if that is very good it doesn’t edify me.  Anyhow, this everlasting listening is not the right thing.  You see, I ought to have so much to do that I should not know whither to turn.  That would suit me.  Now there are societies where young girls learn housekeeping, or sewing, or to be kindergarten teachers.  Have you ever heard of these?”

“Yes, I once heard of them.  Once upon a time little Annie was to go to a kindergarten.”

“Now you see, you know better than I do.  I should like to join some such society where I can make myself useful.  But it is not to be thought of.  The women in charge wouldn’t take me, they couldn’t.  That is the most terrible thing of all, that the world is so closed to one, that it even forbids one to take a part in charitable work.  I can’t even give poor children a lesson after hours to help them catch up.”

“That would not do for your Ladyship.  The children always have such greasy shoes on, and in wet weather there is so much steam and smoke, your Ladyship could never stand it.”

Effi smiled.  “You are probably right, Roswitha, but it is a bad sign that you should be right, and it shows me that I still have too much of the old Effi in me and that I am still too well off.”

Roswitha would not agree to that.  “Anybody as good as your Ladyship can’t be too well off.  Now you must not always play such sad music.  Sometimes I think all will be well yet, something will surely turn up.”

And something did turn up.  Effi desired to become a painter, in spite of the precentor’s daughter from Polzin, whose conceit as an artist she still remembered as exceedingly disagreeable.  Although she laughed about the plan herself, because she was conscious she could never rise above the lowest grade of dilettantism, nevertheless she went at her work with zest, because she at last had an occupation and that, too, one after her own heart, because it was quiet and peaceful.  She applied for instruction to a very old professor of painting, who was well-informed concerning the Brandenburgian aristocracy, and was, at the same time, very pious, so that Effi seemed to be his heart’s delight from the outset.  He probably thought, here was a soul to be saved, and so he received her with extraordinary friendliness, as though she had been his daughter.  This made Effi very happy, and the day of her first painting lesson marked for her a turning point toward the good.  Her poor life was now no longer so poor, and Roswitha was triumphant when she saw that she had been right and something had turned up after all.