Elisabeth von Bernburg was the daughter of a high-rank officer, like Fräulein von Kesten, like almost all the teachers of the institution. She was twenty-eight years old and had been in the Seminary for five of those twenty-eight years, after—it was rumoured—her engagement to a young dragoon lieutenant had fallen through because of the young girl's coolness and fierce emotional resistance, which had caused the lieutenant to break off the connection shortly before the wedding. Others wanted to know that it was Fräulein von Bernburg herself who had told her fiancé that she could not marry him and could never marry a man at all. This statement should have stirred up an enormous amount of dust and given rise to the most daring interpretations. It circulated even among the pupils of Princess Helen's Seminary; nobody really knew who had started it. But it was probably Ilse who brought such news with her from her holidays in Berlin, directly from the very young second Dad she had had after her Mama separated from her father.
"Children," she said, "the Bernburgerin . . . Imagine that she could have married, and that she preferred to come here! She is said to have said that she doesn't want any children of her own, and then she is said to have simply pushed the man in chest when he tried to kiss her."
Oda and Mia looked at each other and laughed their not-so-decent laughter. But Manuela flared up.
"Ilse, you shouldn't always say 'the Bernburgerin,' and then, these are her private matters and nobody knows what happened really."
"Well, listen," said Ilse, offended, "a dragoon lieutenant! Well, something like that shouldn't happen to me!"
Everyone laughed, only Marga hissed, "Silence!"; because she heard Fräulein von Kesten creeping outside quietely. Manuela remained contemplative. On more than one night, when Fräulein von Bernburg had switched off the light in the dormitory and the whispering began all around her and the little electric torches were pulled out from under the pillows, she lay and agonised over the question of what Fräulein von Bernburg was doing in her room? Did she like being here? Didn't she sometimes long to have a husband and children? Having children, yes, that's what Manuela thought was nice also. A man, no, that was hard to imagine - and Fräulein von Bernburg with a man, that was a thought that was impossible to grasp. Miss Evans, she had her groom somewhere in England, and she was just saving up—so was said—before she wanted to get married. That was quite all right, Fräulein von Attems could also be imagined as a landlord's wife who busied herself in a kitchen and a cellar, but Fräulein von Bernburg . . .