The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Volume Xii Part 79

Effi smiled. "You are probably right, Roswitha, but it is a bad sign that you should be right, and it shows me that I still have too much of the old Effi in me and that I am still too well off."

Roswitha would not agree to that. "Anybody as good as your Ladyship can't be too well off. Now you must not always play such sad music.

Sometimes I think all will be well yet, something will surely turn up."

And something did turn up. Effi desired to become a painter, in spite of the precentor's daughter from Polzin, whose conceit as an artist she still remembered as exceedingly disagreeable. Although she laughed about the plan herself, because she was conscious she could never rise above the lowest grade of dilettantism, nevertheless she went at her work with zest, because she at last had an occupation and that, too, one after her own heart, because it was quiet and peaceful. She applied for instruction to a very old professor of painting, who was well-informed concerning the Brandenburgian aristocracy, and was, at the same time, very pious, so that Effi seemed to be his heart's delight from the outset. He probably thought, here was a soul to be saved, and so he received her with extraordinary friendliness, as though she had been his daughter. This made Effi very happy, and the day of her first painting lesson marked for her a turning point toward the good. Her poor life was now no longer so poor, and Roswitha was triumphant when she saw that she had been right and something had turned up after all.

Thus things went on for considerably over a year. Coming again in contact with people made Effi happy, but it also created within her the desire to renew and extend a.s.sociations. Longing for Hohen-Cremmen came over her at times with the force of a true pa.s.sion, and she longed still more pa.s.sionately to see Annie. After all she was her child, and when she began to turn this thought over in her mind and, at the same time, recalled what Miss Trippelli had once said, to wit: "The world is so small that one could be certain of coming suddenly upon some old acquaintance in Central Africa," she had a reason for being surprised that she had never met Annie. But the time finally arrived when a change was to occur. She was coming from her painting lesson, close by the Zoological Garden, and near the station stepped into a horse car. It was very hot and it did her good to see the lowered curtains blown out and back by the strong current of air pa.s.sing through the car. She leaned back in the corner toward the front platform and was studying several pictures of blue tufted and ta.s.seled sofas on a stained window pane, when the car began to move more slowly and she saw three school children spring up with school bags on their backs and little pointed hats on their heads. Two of them were blonde and merry, the third brunette and serious. This one was Annie. Effi was badly startled, and the thought of a meeting with the child, for which she had so often longed, filled her now with deadly fright. What was to be done? With quick determination she opened the door to the front platform, on which n.o.body was standing but the driver, whom she asked to let her get off in front at the next station. "It is forbidden, young lady," said the driver. But she gave him a coin and looked at him so appealingly that the good-natured man changed his mind and mumbled to himself: "I really am not supposed to, but perhaps once will not matter." When the car stopped he took out the lattice and Effi sprang off.

She was still greatly excited when she reached the house.

"Just think, Roswitha, I have seen Annie." Then she told of the meeting in the tram car. Roswitha was displeased that the mother and daughter had not been rejoiced to see each other again, and was very hard to convince that it would not have looked well in the presence of so many people. Then Effi had to tell how Annie looked and when she had done so with motherly pride Roswitha said: "Yes, she is what one might call half and half. Her pretty features and, if I may be permitted to say it, her strange look she gets from her mother, but her seriousness is exactly her father. When I come to think about it, she is more like his Lordship."

"Thank G.o.d!" said Effi.

"Now, your Ladyship, there is some question about that. No doubt there is many a person who would take the side of the mother."

"Do you think so, Roswitha? I don't."

"Oh, oh, I am not so easily fooled, and I think your Ladyship knows very well, too, how matters really stand and what the men like best."

"Oh, don't speak of that, Roswitha."

The conversation ended here and was never afterward resumed. But even though Effi avoided speaking to Roswitha about Annie, down deep in her heart she was unable to get over that meeting and suffered from the thought of having fled from her own child. It troubled her till she was ashamed, and her desire to meet Annie grew till it became pathological. It was not possible to write to Innstetten and ask his permission. She was fully conscious of her guilt, indeed she nurtured the sense of it with almost zealous care; but, on the other hand, at the same time that she was conscious of guilt, she was also filled with a certain spirit of rebellion against Innstetten. She said to herself, he was right, again and again, and yet in the end he was wrong. All had happened so long before, a new life had begun--he might have let it die; instead poor Crampas died.

No, it would not do to write to Innstetten; but she wanted to see Annie and speak to her and press her to her heart, and after she had thought it over for days she was firmly convinced as to the best way to go about it.

The very next morning she carefully put on a decent black dress and set out for Unter den Linden to call on the minister's wife. She sent in her card with nothing on it but "Effi von Innstetten, _nee_ von Briest." Everything else was left off, even "Baroness." When the man servant returned and said, "Her Excellency begs you to enter," Effi followed him into an anteroom, where she sat down and, in spite of her excitement, looked at the pictures on the walls. First of all there was Guido Reni's _Aurora_, while opposite it hung English etchings of pictures by Benjamin West, made by the well known aquatint process.

One of the pictures was King Lear in the storm on the heath.

Effi had hardly finished looking at the pictures when the door of the adjoining room opened and a tall slender woman of unmistakably prepossessing appearance stepped toward the one who had come to request a favor of her and held out her hand. "My dear most gracious Lady," she said, "what a pleasure it is for me to see you again." As she said this she walked toward the sofa and sat down, drawing Effi to a seat beside her.

Effi was touched by the goodness of heart revealed in every word and movement. Not a trace of haughtiness or reproach, only beautiful human sympathy. "In what way can I be of service to you?" asked the minister's wife.

Effi's lips quivered. Finally she said: "The thing that brings me here is a request, the fulfillment of which your Excellency may perhaps make possible. I have a ten-year-old daughter whom I have not seen for three years and should like to see again."

The minister's wife took Effi's hand and looked at her in a friendly way.

"When I say, 'not seen for three years,' that is not quite right.

Three days ago I saw her again." Then Effi described with great vividness how she had met Annie. "Fleeing from my own child. I know very well that as we sow we shall reap and I do not wish to change anything in my life. It is all right as it is, and I have not wished to have it otherwise. But this separation from my child is really too hard and I have a desire to be permitted to see her now and then, not secretly and clandestinely, but with the knowledge and consent of all concerned."

"With the knowledge and consent of all concerned," repeated the minister's wife. "So that means with the consent of your husband. I see that his bringing up of the child is calculated to estrange her from her mother, a method which I do not feel at liberty to judge.

Perhaps he is right. Pardon me for this remark, gracious Lady."

Effi nodded.

"You yourself appreciate the att.i.tude of your husband, and your only desire is that proper respect be shown to a natural impulse, indeed, I may say, the most beautiful of our impulses, at least we women all think so. Am I right?"

"In every particular."

"So you want me to secure permission for occasional meetings, in your home, where you can attempt to win back the heart of your child."

Effi expressed again her acquiescence, and the minister's wife continued: "Then, most gracious Lady, I stall do what I can. But we shall not have an easy task. Your husband--pardon me for calling him by that name now as before--is a man who is not governed by moods and fancies, but by principles, and it will be hard for him to discard them or even give them up temporarily. Otherwise he would have begun long ago to pursue a different method of action and education. What to your heart seems hard he considers right."

"Then your Excellency thinks, perhaps, it would be better to take back my request!"

"Oh, no. I wished only to explain the actions of your husband, not to say justify them, and wished at the same time to indicate the difficulties we shall in all probability encounter. But I think we shall overcome them nevertheless. We women are able to accomplish a great many things if we go about them wisely and do not make too great pretensions. Besides, your husband is one of my special admirers and he cannot well refuse to grant what I request of him. Tomorrow we have a little circle meeting at which I shall see him and the day after tomorrow morning you will receive a few lines from me telling you whether or not I have approached him wisely, that is to say, successfully. I think we shall come off victorious, and you will see your child again and enjoy her. She is said to be a very pretty girl.

No wonder."

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

Two days later the promised lines arrived and Effi read: "I am glad, dear gracious Lady, to be able to give you good news. Everything turned out as desired. Your husband is too much a man of the world to refuse a Lady a request that she makes of him. But I must not keep from you the fact that I saw plainly his consent was not in accord with what he considers wise and right. But let us not pick faults where we ought to be glad. We have arranged that Annie is to come some time on Monday and may good fortune attend your meeting."

It was on the postman's second round that Effi received these lines and it would presumably be less than two hours till Annie appeared.

That was a short time and yet too long. Effi walked restlessly about the two rooms and then back to the kitchen, where she talked with Roswitha about everything imaginable: about the ivy over on Christ's Church and the probability that next year the windows would be entirely overgrown; about the porter, who had again turned off the gas so poorly that they were likely to be blown up; and about buying their lamp oil again at the large lamp store on Unter den Linden instead of on Anhalt St. She talked about everything imaginable, except Annie, because she wished to keep down the fear lurking in her soul, in spite of the letter from the minister's wife, or perhaps because of it.

Finally, at noon, the bell was rung timidly and Roswitha went to look through the peephole. Surely enough, it was Annie. Roswitha gave the child a kiss, but said nothing, and then led her very quietly, as though some one were ill in the house, from the corridor into the back room and then to the door opening into the front room.

"Go in there, Annie." With these words she left the child and returned to the kitchen, for she did not wish to be in the way.

Effi was standing at the other end of the room with her back against the post of the mirror when the child entered. "Annie!" But Annie stood still by the half opened door, partly out of embarra.s.sment, but partly on purpose. Effi rushed to her, lifted her up, and kissed her.

"Annie, my sweet child, how glad I am! Come, tell me." She took Annie by the hand and went toward the sofa to sit down. Annie stood and looked shyly at her mother, at the same time reaching her left hand toward the corner of the table cloth, hanging down near her. "Did you know, Annie, that I saw you one day?"

"Yes, I thought you did."

"Now tell me a great deal. How tall you have grown! And that is the scar there. Roswitha told me about it. You were always so wild and hoidenish in your playing. You get that from your mother. She was the same way. And at school? I fancy you are always at the head, you look to me as though you ought to be a model pupil and always bring home the best marks. I have heard also that Miss von Wedelstadt praises you. That is right. I was likewise ambitious, but I had no such good school. Mythology was always my best study. In what are you best?"

"I don't know."

"Oh, you know well enough. Pupils always know that. In what do you have the best marks?"

"In religion."

"Now, you see, you do know after all. Well, that is very fine. I was not so good in it, but it was probably due to the instruction. We had only a young man licensed to preach."

"We had, too."

"Has he gone away?"

Annie nodded.

"Why did he leave?"

"I don't know. Now we have the preacher again."