The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Volume Xii Part 82

"Dear Innstetten, are you going to a.s.sume the duties of a permanent secretary in this frame of mind?"

"Oh, bah! How can I help it? Read these lines I have just received."

Wullersdorf took the second letter with the illegible postmark, was amused at the "Esq.," and stepped to the window that he might read more easily.

"Gracious Sir: I suppose you will be surprised that I am writing to you, but it is about Rollo. Little Annie told us last year Rollo was so lazy now, but that doesn't matter here. He can be as lazy as he likes here, the lazier the better. And her Ladyship would like it so much. She always says, when she walks upon the marsh or over the fields: 'I am really afraid, Roswitha, because I am so alone; but who is there to accompany me? Rollo, oh yes, he would do. He bears no grudge against me either. That is the advantage, that animals do not trouble themselves so much about such things.' These are her Ladyship's words and I will say nothing further, and merely ask your Lordship to remember me to my little Annie. Also to Johanna. From your faithful, most obedient servant, Roswitha Gellenbagen."

"Well," said Wullersdorf, as he folded the letter again, "she is ahead of us."

"I think so, too."

"This is also the reason why everything else seems so doubtful to you."

"You are right. It has been going through my head for a long time, and these simple words with their intended, or perhaps unintended complaint, have put me completely beside myself again. It has been troubling me for over a year and I should like to get clear out of here. Nothing pleases me any more. The more distinctions I receive the more I feel that it is all vanity. My life is bungled, and so I have thought to myself I ought to have nothing more to do with strivings and vanities, and ought to be able to employ my pedagogical inclinations, which after all are my most characteristic quality, as a superintendent of public morals. It would not be anything new. If the plan were feasible I should surely become a very famous character, such as Dr. Wichern of the Rough House in Hamburg, for example, that man of miracles, who tamed all criminals with his glance and his piety."

"Hm, there is nothing to be said against that; it would be possible."

"No, it is not possible either. Not even _that_. Absolutely every avenue is closed to me. How could I touch the soul of a murderer? To do that one must be intact himself. And if one no longer is, but has a like spot on his own hands, then he must at least be able to play the crazy penitent before his confreres, who are to be converted, and entertain them with a scene of gigantic contrition."

Wullersdorf nodded.

"Now you see, you agree. But I can't do any of these things any more.

I can no longer play the man in the hair shirt, let alone the dervish or the fakir, who dances himself to death in the midst of his self-accusations. And inasmuch as all such things are impossible I have puzzled out, as the best thing for me, to go away from here and off to the coal black fellows who know nothing of culture and honor.

Those fortunate creatures! For culture and honor and such rubbish are to blame for all my trouble. We don't do such things out of pa.s.sion, which might be an acceptable excuse. We do them for the sake of mere notions--notions! And then the one fellow collapses and later the other collapses, too, only in a worse way."

"Oh pshaw! Innstetten, those are whims, mere fancies. Go to Africa!

What does that mean! It will do for a lieutenant who is in debt. But a man like you! Are you thinking of presiding over a palaver, in a red fez, or of entering into blood relationship with a son-in-law of King Mtesa? Or will you feel your way along the Congo in a tropical helmet, with six holes in the top of it, until you come out again at Kamerun or thereabouts? Impossible!"

"Impossible? Why? If _that_ is impossible, what then?"

"Simply stay here and practice resignation. Who, pray, is unoppressed!

Who could not say every day: 'Really a very questionable affair.' You know, I have also a small burden to bear, not the same as yours, but not much lighter. That talk about creeping around in the primeval forest or spending the night in an ant hill is folly. Whoever cares to, may, but it is not the thing for us. The best thing is to stand in the gap and hold out till one falls, but, until then, to get as much out of life as possible in the small and even the smallest things, keeping one eye open for the violets when they bloom, or the Luise monument when it is decorated with flowers, or the little girls with high lace shoes when they skip the rope. Or drive out to Potsdam and go into the Church of Peace, where Emperor Frederick lies, and where they are just beginning to build him a tomb. As you stand there consider the life of that man, and if you are not pacified then, there is no help for you, I should say."

"Good, good! But the year is long and every single day--and then the evening."

"That is always the easiest part of the day to know what to do with.

Then we have _Sardanapal_, or _Coppelia_, with Del Era, and when that is out we have Siechen's, which is not to be despised. Three steins will calm you every time. There are always many, a great many others, who are in exactly the same general situation as we are, and one of them who had had a great deal of misfortune once said to me: 'Believe me, Wullersdorf, we cannot get along without "false work."' The man who said it was an architect and must have known about it. His statement is correct. Never a day pa.s.ses but I am reminded of the 'false work.'"

After Wullersdorf had thus expressed himself he took his hat and cane.

During these words Innstetten may have recalled his own earlier remarks about little happiness, for he nodded his head half agreeing, and smiled to himself.

"Where are you going now, Wullersdorf? It is too early yet for the Ministry."

"I am not going there at all today. First I shall take an hour's walk along the ca.n.a.l to the Charlottenburg lock and then back again. And then make a short call at Huth's on Potsdam St., going cautiously up the little wooden stairway. Below there is a flower store."

"And that affords you pleasure? That satisfies you?"

"I should not say that exactly, but it will help a bit. I shall find various regular guests there drinking their morning gla.s.s, but their names I wisely keep secret. One will tell about the Duke of Ratibor, another about the Prince-Bishop Kopp, and a third perhaps about Bismarck. There is always a little something to be learned.

Three-fourths of what is said is inaccurate, but if it is only witty I do not waste much time criticising it and always listen gratefully."

With that he went out.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI

May was beautiful, June more beautiful, and after Effi had happily overcome the first painful feeling aroused in her by Rollo's arrival, she was full of joy at having the faithful dog about her again.

Roswitha was praised and old von Briest launched forth into words of recognition for Innstetten, who, he said, was a cavalier, never petty, but always stout-hearted. "What a pity that the stupid affair had to come between them! As a matter of fact, they were a model couple." The only one who remained calm during the welcoming scene was Rollo himself, who either had no appreciation of time or considered the separation as an irregularity which was now simply removed. The fact that he had grown old also had something to do with it, no doubt. He remained sparing with his demonstrations of affection as he had been with his evidences of joy, during the welcoming scene. But he had grown in fidelity, if such a thing were possible. He never left the side of his mistress. The hunting dog he treated benevolently, but as a being of a lower order. At night he lay on the rush mat before Effi's door; in the morning, when breakfast was served out of doors by the sundial, he was always quiet, always sleepy, and only when Effi arose from the breakfast table and walked toward the hall to take her straw hat and umbrella from the rack, did his youth return. Then, without troubling himself about whether his strength was to be put to a hard or easy test, he ran up the village road and back again and did not calm down till they were out in the fields. Effi, who cared more for fresh air than for landscape beauty, avoided the little patches of forest and usually kept to the main road, which 'at first was bordered with very old elms and then, where the turnpike began, with poplars.

This road led to the railway station about an hour's walk away. She enjoyed everything, breathing in with delight the fragrance wafted to her from the rape and clover fields, or watching the soaring of the larks, and counting the draw-wells and troughs, to which the cattle went to drink. She could hear a soft ringing of bells that made her feel as though she must close her eyes and pa.s.s away in sweet forgetfulness. Near the station, close by the turnpike, lay a road roller. This was her daily resting place, from which she could observe what took place on the railroad. Trains came and went and sometimes she could see two columns of smoke which for a moment seemed to blend into one and then separated, one going to the right, the other to the left, till they disappeared behind the village and the grove. Rollo sat beside her, sharing her lunch, and when he had caught the last bite, he would run like mad along some plowed furrow, doubtless to show his grat.i.tude, and stop only when a pair of pheasants scared from their nest flew up from a neighboring furrow close by him.

"How beautiful this summer is! A year ago, dear mama, I should not have thought I could ever again be so happy," said Effi every day as she walked with her mother around the pond or picked an early apple from a tree and bit into it vigorously, for she had beautiful teeth.

Mrs. von Briest would stroke her hand and say: "Just wait till you are well again, Effi, quite well, and then we shall find happiness, not that of the past, but a new kind. Thank G.o.d, there are several kinds of happiness. And you shall see, we shall find something for you."

"You are so good. Really I have changed your lives and made you prematurely old."

"Oh, my dear Effi, don't speak of it. I thought the same about it, when the change came. Now I know that our quiet is better than the noise and loud turmoil of earlier years. If you keep on as you are we can go away yet. When Wiesike proposed Mentone you were ill and irritable, and because you were ill, you were right in saying what you did about conductors and waiters. When you have steadier nerves again you can stand that. You will no longer be offended, but will laugh at the grand manners and the curled hair. Then the blue sea and white sails and the rocks all overgrown with red cactus--I have never seen them, to be sure, but that is how I imagine them. I should like to become acquainted with them."

Thus the summer went by and the meteoric showers were also past.

During these evenings Effi had sat at her window till after midnight and yet never grew tired of watching. "I always was a weak Christian, but I wonder whether we ever came from up there and whether, when all is over here, we shall return to our heavenly home, to the stars above or further beyond. I don't know and don't care to know. I just have the longing."

Poor Effi! She had looked up at the wonders of the sky and thought about them too long, with the result that the night air, and the fog rising from the pond, made her so ill she had to stay in bed again.

When Wiesike was summoned and had examined her he took Briest aside and said: "No more hope; be prepared for an early end."

What he said was only too true, and a few days later, comparatively early in the evening, it was not yet ten o'clock, Roswitha came down stairs and said to Mrs. von Briest: "Most gracious Lady, her Ladyship upstairs is very ill. She talks continually to herself in a soft voice and sometimes it seems as though she were praying, but she says she is not, and I don't know, it seems to me as though the end might come any hour."

"Does she wish to speak to me?"

"She hasn't said so, but I believe she does. You know how she is; she doesn't want to disturb you and make you anxious. But I think it would be well."

"All right, Roswitha, I will come."

Before the clock began to strike Mrs. von Briest mounted the stairway and entered Effi's room. Effi lay on a reclining chair near the open window. Mrs. von Briest drew up a small black chair with three gilt spindles in its ebony back, took Effi's hand and said: "How are you, Effi! Roswitha says you are so feverish."

"Oh, Roswitha worries so much about everything. I could see by her looks she thought I was dying. Well, I don't know. She thinks everybody ought to be as much worried as she is."

"Are you so calm about dying, dear Effi?"

"Entirely calm, mama."

"Aren't you deceiving yourself? Everybody clings to life, especially the young, and you are still so young, dear Effi."

Effi remained silent for a while. Then she said: "You know, I haven't read much. Innstetten was often surprised at it, and he didn't like it."

This was the first time she had mentioned Innstetten's name, and it made a deep impression on her mother and showed clearly that the end was come.

"But I thought," said Mrs. von Briest, "you were going to tell me something."