How beautiful this security seemed to me, this enchanting security of knowing oneself unnoticed and unseen! And not only was the forest empty of human beings, but our nearest neighbour on the other side, the side of open plains and rolling rye-fields, was ten miles away along almost impassable rutted tracks—the one neighbour, that is, of our own class, which was hochgeboren. Other neighbours there were, much nearer, some only two miles off and easily accessible because they lived on the high road, but they were no good to us because they were only wohlgeboren. For purposes of social intercourse, Wohlgeborens were of no use at all. If the Hochgeborens happened to meet them in a train or other public place, they were, of course, gracious, almost crushingly gracious, but they never invited them to dinner; and having myself become hochgeboren, through what seemed to be no fault of my own, I found that it was one of my duties, and an immediate and pressing one, to learn.
