really feeling about it--which of course they do,
for how can one go on feeling about a thing forever?--they start
pretending that they feel. Conceive going through life clogged like
that, all one's pores choked with the dust of old yesterdays. I
picture the Germans trailing through life more and more heavily as they
grow old, hauling an increasing number of anniversaries along with
them, rolling them up as they go, dragging at each remove a lengthening
chain, as your dear Goldsmith says,--and if he didn't, or it wasn't,
you'll rebuke me and tell me who did and what it was, for you know I've
no books here, except those two that are married as securely on one's
tongue as Tennyson and Browning, or Arnold Bennet and his, I imagine
reluctant, bride, H. G. Wells,--I mean Shakespeare and the Bible.

I went into Hilda Seeberg's room the other day to ask her for some
pins, and found her sitting in front of a photograph of her father, a
cross-looking old man with a twirly moustache and a bald head; and she
had put a wreath of white roses round the frame and tied it with a
black bow, and there were two candles lit in front of it, and Hilda had
put on a black dress, and was just sitting there gazing at it with her
hands in her lap. I begged her pardon, and was going away again
quickly, but she called me back.

"I celebrate," she said.

"Oh," said I politely, but without an idea what she meant.

"It is my Papa's birthday today," she said, pointing to the photograph.

"Is it?" I said, surprised, for I thought I remembered she had told me
he was dead. "But didn't you say--"

"Yes. Certainly I told you Papa was dead since five years."

"Then why--?"

"But _liebes Fraulein_, he still continues to have birthdays," she
said, staring at me in real surprise, while I stared back at her in at
least equally real surprise.

"Every year," she said, "the day comes round on which Papa was born.
Shall he, then, merely because he is with God, not have it celebrated?
And what would people think if I did not? They would think I had no
heart."

After that I began to hope there would be a cake, for they have lovely
birthday cakes here, and it is the custom to give a slice of them to
every one who comes near you. So I looked round the room out of the
corners of my eyes, discreetly, lest I should seem to be as greedy as I
was, and I lifted my nose a little and waved it cautiously about, but I
neither saw nor smelt a cake. Frau Berg