Dearest Kitty, Last night when I came down from the attic, I noticed, the moment I entered the room,
that the lovely vase of carnations had fallen over.
Mother was down on her hands and knees mopping up the water and Margot was fishing my papers off the floor.
“What happened?” I asked with anxious foreboding, and before they could reply, I assessed the damage from across the room.
My entire genealogy file, my notebooks, my books, everything was afloat. I nearly cried, and I was so upset I started speaking German.
I can't remember a word, but according to Margot I babbled something about “unübersehbarer Schaden, schrecklich, entsetzlich, nie zu ersetzen”
[Incalculable loss, terrible, awful, irreplaceable] and much more. Father burst out laughing and Mother and Margot joined in,
but I felt like crying because all my work and elaborate notes were lost.
I took a closer look and, luckily, the “incalculable loss” wasn't as bad as I'd expected.
Up in the attic I carefully peeled apart the sheets of paper that were stuck together and then hung them on the clothesline to dry.
It was such a funny sight, even I had to laugh. Maria de' Medici alongside Charles V, William of Orange and Marie Antoinette.
“It's Rassenschande,” Mr. van Daan joked. [An affront to racial purity.] After entrusting my papers to Peter's care, I went back downstairs.
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