Quisisana, or Rest at Last Part 1

Quisisana.

by Friedrich Spielhagen.

I.

"Why have you roused me, Konski?"

"You were lying on your left side again, sir," the servant, who held his master clasped by the shoulder, replied, as he completed the task of restoring him to a sitting posture on the sofa; "and you have been drinking champagne at dinner, more than a bottle, John says, and that surely is ..."

Konski broke off abruptly, and turned again to the travelling boxes, one of which was already unlocked; he commenced to arrange its contents in the chest of drawers, and went on, apparently talking to himself rather than to his master--

"I am merely doing what the doctor has insisted upon. Only last night, in Berlin, as I was showing him to the door, he said: 'Konski, when your master is lying on his left side and begins then to moan, rouse him, rouse him at once, be it day or night. I take the responsibility.

And, Konski, no champagne; not for the next six weeks, anyhow, and best not at all. And when you have once got into Italy, then plenty of water to be mixed with the wine, Konski, and ...'"

"And now oblige me by holding your tongue."

Bertram had remained sitting on the sofa, his hand pressed to his brow; he now rose rapidly and strode impatiently about the room, casting every now and then an angry glance at his valet. Then he stepped to one of the windows. The sun must be setting now. The high wooded hills yonder still shone forth in sunny splendour, but the terrace gardens sloping towards the valley, and the valley itself, with the village within, lay already in deepest shadow. The picturesque view, the graceful charm of which he was wont to appreciate so heartily, had no charm to-day for his dulled brain. Konski was quite right; the champagne which he had to-day taken for the first time since his illness, in direct defiance of the doctors injunctions, had not agreed with him. Well, he had taken champagne because his throat had got unbearably dry from much talking, and he had talked so much because the frequent pauses in the dinner conversation were making him nervous. The whole thing had been a positive bore; the genial host, the fair hostess had surely fallen off, changed sadly for the worse during the last three years. Or ... could he possibly have changed himself? Did he really begin to grow old? If you get seriously ill at fifty, you are apt to go downhill with startling rapidity!

This had been the second emphatic _memento mori_--after an interval of twenty years! The first--the first had been her work. Aye, and she had kissed him a thousand times, and had vowed deathless fidelity yonder on the mountain-slope, where the giant oak still lifted its mighty crown of foliage above the bronze-coloured leafy roof of the beeches. Why the deuce did they always give him these rooms? He'd better ask Hildegard this very evening for other rooms--at once, before that blockhead Konski had unpacked everything.

"Leave these things alone," he exclaimed, turning round from the window; "I do not intend to remain in these rooms. I do not intend to stay here at all, I think. We shall probably be off to-morrow."

Konski, who was already deep in the recesses of box number two, believed he had not heard aright. He lifted his head out of the box and looked in amazement at his master.

"To-morrow, sir? I thought we were to stay a week at the least."

"Do what I bid you."

Konski replaced, the shirts which he was holding in the portmanteau and rose hastily from his knees. His master was evidently in a very bad temper; "but that kind of thing never lasts long with him," Konski was saying to himself, "and then the champagne ..."

Aloud he said-- "You can be sure, sir, that there won't be much trouble about the officers who are going to be quartered here. I know all about it from Mamsell Christine. Only a colonel, a major, a couple of captains, and some six lieutenants or so, and perhaps a surgeon-major. None of our princes, and certainly none of theirs. A mere handful for a large place like this; they'll be lost, like currants in a bun. And you can remain in these rooms, where we always have been, and you'll see none of them, for I don't suppose they'll have this blessed man[oe]vre in the garden below."

"I do not know at, all what you want with your everlasting man[oe]vres," Bertram exclaimed angrily.

He had gone back, to the open window, through which there came a strong current of air. Konski went and closed the door of the adjoining room, then stepped up to within a certain respectful distance of his master, and said modestly, lowering his voice--

"I beg your pardon, sir, but what does it matter, after all, if Miss really comes ..."

"What do you mean?" Bertram said without turning round. "What has that to do with my going or staying? Why should the little one not come?"

Konski rubbed up his stiff black hair with a certain sly smile, and said--

"Not Miss Erna; the other lady--who is never allowed to come when you are here."

"Lydia? Fraulein von Aschhof? Are you mad?"

Bertram turned round with the rapidity of lightning, and now uttered these words in a rough tone, whilst his eyes, generally so gentle, shone out in great anger. Konski was frightened; but his curiosity was greater than his terror. He would gladly have at last learned the real truth about the young lady who was not allowed to come when his master came on a visit to Rinstedt, and whom he had therefore never yet seen, although in the course of years he had accompanied his master half a dozen times. But he was once more doomed to disappointment; his master had suddenly become perfectly calm again, or at least preserved the appearance of perfect calmness, and now asked in his usual voice--

"From whom have you got your information? Of course from Mamsell Christine?"

"From Mamsell Christine, of course," Konski made answer.

"And she got it from My Lady?"

"From her Ladyship direct."

"And when is the lady expected to arrive?"

"This very evening, along with Miss Erna; and there will also come a Baron Lutter or Lotter--I could not quite make the name out; they p.r.o.nounce things so queerly here in Thuringia."

"Well, well!"

Bertram now remembered that Hildegard, his hostess, had at table mentioned more than once the name of the Baron von Lotter-Vippach. Of Lydia, too, although he made it a point never to be drawn into conversation about her, she had again and again commenced to speak; clearly, as he perceived now, with the intention of preparing him to some extent for the intended surprise. But My Lady had reckoned without her host. This was a downright want of consideration; nay, worse, it was a breach of good faith. There was no reason why he should put up with it, and he did not mean to put up with it.

"Where's the master? and where is My Lady?" he asked aloud.

"The master has ridden over to the coal mines; her Ladyship has gone into the village. They left word that they would be back before you were awake again; and you had not lain down on your left ..."

"That'll do. Into the village, did you say? Give me my hat."

"Please take your overcoat too, sir," said Konski; "there's a nasty mist rising from the valley, sir; and the doctor, he did say that if you caught cold now, sir ..."

Bertram had put his hat on, and waived the proffered garment back. In the doorway he turned, and said--

"Do not trouble about the boxes. We leave again in an hour. And one thing more. If you say one word to Mamsell Christine, or to anybody in the house, now or later--you understand me--and I hear of it--we part--for all that."

He had left. Konski was now standing by the open window scratching his head, and the very next minute he saw him striding swiftly down the garden.

"Upon my word!" he murmured; "who'd think that six weeks ago he lay at the point of death?--And off this evening again--an hour hence! Not if I knows it. First, I must settle my little business with Christine, and that is not to be done all at once. Christine says that at that time the Fraulein would have nothing to say to him. I can't make it out.

Twenty years ago he must have been a very handsome fellow; why, he is so almost still. Nor was he a poor man even then, though, of course, he has inherited lots since. I am devilish keen about seeing the old maid.

One thing is sure and certain, she will arrive this very evening."

Then he cast one dubious look at the boxes. Perhaps it was taking needless pains to unpack them.

"But, but--he'll surely think better of it--he is not the one to run away from any woman, even if she should number forty years or thereabout; and--and ..."

And so the faithful Konski, after having given a most incredulous shake of the head, set to work, and continued to unpack his master's travelling boxes.

II.

Meanwhile Bertram, had already crossed the bridge which spanned the brook at the bottom of the garden terrace, and was hurrying along to the village along the line of meadows. His hostess, Hildegard, had said at dinner that she meant to-day, like every Thursday afternoon, to visit her newly-founded Kindergarten; so he thought there would be no difficulty in finding her. He had been a frequent visitor at Rinstedt, and knew every lane in the village; and the Kindergarten, they said, was on the main road, not far from the parsonage. Well, and what did he mean to say to Hildegard when he met her? First, of course, make sure of the facts. But there was little need for that. Konski was a smart fellow, who was not likely to have made a mistake; and then he was on such excellent terms with the omniscient Mamsell Christine! He would ask her what had induced her to break through the agreement to which she had now adhered for the last twenty years. And yet--what a needless question! Why, women are never consistent! And in such things they always like to a.s.sist each other and work into each other's hands, even if they are by no means specially fond of each other. And now it seemed as if there were special fondness between these two. His beautiful hostess had, quite contrary to her wont, sung Lydia's praises in every possible variety of way! And then, take the fact that she had sent her own daughter to Lydia's _pension_, and had left the girl there in the small _Residenz_ for three years. Poor Erna! Fancy her for three years under the care of that crazy woman! Poor Erna--the beautiful creature with the great, deep, blue eyes! That should never have happened. It was a positive insult to him. He had urged every argument against it; had found out a supremely suitable place in Berlin for her; had offered to undertake careful personal supervision; had urged them to confide the child to his care, to give the child an opportunity of seeing something of life under its larger, n.o.bler aspect. And they had said yes to everything; had thanked him so very much for his exertions, his kindness; and at the last moment they had contentedly plumped back into the beloved mire and stagnant waters of the pettiness of life in the small _Residenz_. To be sure, My Lady herself had been brought up in that social quagmire, and still cherished with plaintive delight recollections of bygone splendour, and mourned in secret over her own hard fate which had not permitted her, like Lydia, to sun herself all the days of her life in the immediate rays of princely favour, but had doomed her to marry a man who was not n.o.bly born--a man rich enough, forsooth, but bearing the unaristocratic name of Bermer, and having friends of similarly unaristocratic names, to whom, for all that, one had to be civil. Yes, a real Baron--a Baron von Lotter-Vippach--would, of course, be infinitely preferable! And fancy her, fancy My Lady forcing the Baron's company upon him after he had expressly urged that, being only half convalescent, he needed perfect repose; and would, if they were to have company in the house, rather in the meanwhile deny himself the delight of seeing his old friends, and would come to them in spring instead on his return from Italy!

Yes, something like this he would say to his beautiful hostess, in perfect calmness and good temper, of course, only tinged with a touch of finest irony.... And this new building by his side--why, it must surely be the Kindergarten!