he always speaks German, for it's
much more difficult to say it in French, and probably Dora would not
understand it and then Mad. would only have to translate it. She is
called Sylvia and he calls her Sylvette. Mad. says that if one is madly
in love with a man one does whatever he asks. But I don't see that one
need do that, for he might ask the most idiotic things; he might ask you
to get the moon out of the skies, or to pull out a tooth for his sake.
Dora says she can understand it quite well; that I still lack _the true
inwardness of thought and feeling_. It looks like utter nonsense. But
since it sounds fine I've written it down, and perhaps I shall find
a use for it some day when I'm talking to Walter. Mad. is always
frightfully anxious lest she should get a baby. If she did she's sure
her father would kill her. The lieutenant is in the flying corps. He
hopes he's going to invent a new aeroplane, and that he will make a lot
of money out of it. Then he will be able to marry Mad. But it would be
awful if _something happened_ and she got a baby already.

May 22nd. Dora asked me to-day how it was I knew all about these things,
whether Hella had told me. I did not want to give Hella away, so I said
quite casually: "Oh, one can read all about that in the encyclopedia."
But Dora laughed and said: "You are quite on the wrong scent; you can't
find a tenth of all those things in the encyclopedia, and what you do
find is no good. In _these_ matters it is _absolutely no good_ depending
on books." First of all she would not tell me any more, but after a
time she told me a good deal, especially the names of certain parts, and
about _fertilisation_, and about the microscopic baby which really comes
from the husband, and not as Hella and I had thought, from the wife.
And how one knows whether a woman is _fruitful_. That is really an awful
word. In fact almost every word has a second meaning of _that_ sort, and
what Dora says is quite true, one must be fearfully careful when one is
talking. Dora thinks it would be best to make a list of all such words,
but there are such a frightful lot of them that one never could. The
only thing one can do is to be awfully careful; but one soon gets used
to it. Still it happened to Dora the other day that she said to V.: I
don't want any _intercourse_. And that really means "the utmost gifts
of love," so Mad. told her. But V. was so well-mannered that he did
not show that he noticed anything; and