Author Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1917 edition. Excerpt:... FRONTIER PROVINCES OF THE GERMAN EMPIRE OR, THE ENGAGEMENT UNDER THE CHRISTMAS-TREE (Extracts from the Diary of Frdulein Els a K natschke) ACH! how I look forward to this trip to the Land of Alsace! And yet I am filled with deep melancholy when I think that tomorrow I am going to leave my dear Konigsberg and go out there to Mulhouse-in-Alsace, in those foreign districts, on a visit to my Uncle Max, Aunt Lotte, my dear cousin and friend Hulda, and dear Little Karl, with whom I am to spend Christmas Eve! Once more, for the last time before I pack it, I open my dear Diary, in order to confide to it my impressions. Will the pages that are still white speak, a few days hence, of Him, the Only One, for whom my heart is pining? This last evening was the saddest of all, and yet Mother had invited Frau Rechnungsrat Lempke and the Kanzleirat Langanke, and had served an especially grand supper, which I myself had helped to prepare. There were pickled eels with raspberry jam, Konigsberg Klops, and, for dessert, pickled cucumbers with apple sauce.1 In honour of my departure Father sent Minna to the brewery to fetch a pint of beer for himself, and one for the Kanzleirat. During supper we talked a great deal about Alsace. The Kanzleirat long ago took part in the Glorious Campaign, and marched through Alsace. He said it was a fine country, where whole mountain-sides are covered with vineyards, and you may pick as many grapes as you like (I do hope Uncle Max will take me to those hills!). Unfortunately, said the Kanzleirat, there also were there some men whom they call Frangtirors, and he often had to fight them--" a cursed lot of fellows," he said they were. But he had pushed them out, and now the country is habitable again. Father knows Alsace very...