Eels with dill sauce

Ilse, Countess von Bredow, was one of three children growing up in an impoverished family of aristocrats near Berlin in the 1930's. She knew some colorful characters: her father, the Count, given to wildly speculative schemes; her mother, who taught of noble ancestors amid the practical reality of family life; Fraulein Horrible, the governess who fell in love with the handsome house painter; and Aunt Emma, courted avidly but unsuccessfully by a boorish baron. The countess's warm and witty recollections have been translated from German by M. A. Macmillan.