For three weeks Vivie sought in vain for rooms. Every suitable place
was either full or else for reasons not given they were refused. She
was reduced to eating humble pie, to writing once more to Graefin von
Stachelberg and imparting the dilemma in which they were placed. Did
this kind lady know where a lodging could be obtained? She herself
could put up with any discomfort, but her mother was ill. If she
could help them, Vivie would humbly beg her pardon for her angry
letter of three weeks ago and resume her hospital work. Minna von
Stachelberg made haste to reply that there were some things better
not discussed in writing: if Vivie could come and see her at six one
evening, when she had a slight remission from work--
Vivie went. Out of hearing, Graefin von Stachelberg--who, however, to
facilitate intercourse, begged Vivie to call her "Minna,"--"We may
all be dead, my dear, before long of blood-poisoning, bombs from
your aeroplanes, a rising against us in the Marolles quarter--" said
very plainly what she thought of Edith Cavell's execution. "It makes
me think of Talleyrand--was it not?--who said 'It is a blunder;
worse than a crime' ... these terrible old generals, they know
nothing of the world outside Germany." As to her cousin, Gottlieb
von Giesselin--"Really dear, if in this time of horrors one _dare_
laugh at anything, I feel--oh it is too funny, but also, too
'schokking,' as we suppose all English women say.
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