“I an’t _just_. There’s a fact. I’m sorry for it, but it’s true. As my sky is bluer or greyer, as I see, or think I see, more or less into a child’s character, the scale varies. Justice is blind no longer, but gives a chuck to one side or the other.”
In any case her pupils felt the flaw. Her conscientiousness, her zeal, her fine uprightness were more or less lost on them, or so it seemed. A cheaper form of goodness would have appealed to them more.
She never spoke of her home life and circumstances, and probably even Frl. von Palaus had very little idea that the English governess was a woman of family and position.
“Oh, how weary I am after those hours of struggle internal and external!” writes S. J.-B. in her diary. “Almost like being tied to a stake,—so suffering, so helpless. And this I?—who used to fancy I had power to rule! Two months more will see me well nigh home I trust. Some faint foreshadowing of ‘Then are they glad because they are at rest.’ The thoughts of my green nest, and of the ruddy firelight, and the hymns at Mother’s knee very frequent in these days of struggle.”
She poured out the story of her failure to her Mother, and delightful were the letters she got in reply:
“(Miss v. Palaus) will miss my darling and her unselfish love terribly when she leaves.... Without any great vanity you must know that your hearty ready help must be most refreshing to her, and your wide-awake state must have a great influence over the Girls.”
“I cannot believe that your work has been done as indifferently as you think. I believe you have always done what you could, and fought hard against feelings and every form of indolence or selfishness. Surely you could somehow raise some response to fun; only perhaps a good deal arises from your being English and they not understanding.”
In spite of all, however, the trouble went deep, and she chronicles sadly in her diary that “neither moon nor stars for many days appeared.” Oddly enough, she never seems to have entertained the idea of simply giving in her resignation and going home. She entirely meant to serve her time,—nay more,—to hold the position until some suitable person was found to carry on her work. Certainly it was not the acquisition of the language that served as an inducement to remain, for, throughout her stay, she learned almost incredibly little. The whole of her very limited energy was thrown into her teaching.