The Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction - German Part 56

The child still keeps on nibbling, which begins to make me nervous.

What will be the upshot of it? But the mother is really charming and has already told me _everything_. She has also been in Wurzburg, with Scanzoni, about whom she is enthusiastic. Her way of confiding in me is embarra.s.sing and almost painful. For the rest, she is, as I can only repeat, perfectly _comme il faut_. To mention just one thing, what a dressing case! In Vienna they far surpa.s.s us in such things; one can notice the older culture."

"Wonderful," laughed Botho. "When Katherine indulges in reflections on the history of civilisation, she surpa.s.ses herself. But all good things go by threes. Let us see."

And he picked up the third card.

"Cologne, 8 o'clock in the evening.

"Headquarters.

"I prefer to mail my cards here rather than to wait until I reach Schlangenbad, where Frau Salinger and I expect to arrive to-morrow noon. All goes well with me. The Schroffensteins are very friendly and pleasant; especially Herr Schroffenstein. By the way, not to omit anything of interest, Frau Salinger was fetched from the station by the Oppenheim's carriage. Our journey, which began so charmingly, grew somewhat burdensome and unattractive from Hamm on. The little girl had a hard time, and moreover it was her mother's fault. 'What more do you want?' as soon as the train had left the Hamm station, whereupon the child answers: 'Drops.' And it was from that very moment that things got so bad.... Ah, dear Botho, young or old, our wishes ought to be constantly kept under strict and conscientious control. This thought has been constantly in my mind ever since and the meeting with this charming woman was perhaps no chance occurrence in my life. How often have I heard Kluckhuhn speak in this vein. And he was right More to-morrow. Your

"Katherine."

Botho put the three cards back in the envelope and said: "Exactly like Katherine. What gift she has for small talk! And I ought to be glad that she writes as she does. But there is something lacking. It is all so trivial and comes so easily, like a mere echo of society talk. But she will change when she has duties of her own. Or perhaps she will. In any case, I will not give up the hope."

The next day there came a short letter from Schlangenbad, in which there was far, far less than in the three cards, and from this time on she wrote only twice a week and gossiped about Anna Gravenitz and Elly Winterfeld, who had actually put in an appearance, but most of all about Madame Salinger and her charming little Sarah. There were always the same a.s.severations and only at the close of the third week did some lessening of enthusiasm appear:

"I now think the little girl more charming than her mother. Frau Salinger indulges in such luxurious toilettes as I find scarcely appropriate, especially as there are practically no men here. And then too, I see now that her complexion is artificial; her eyebrows are certainly painted and perhaps her lips too, for they are cherry-red.

But the child is perfectly natural. Whenever she sees me, she rushes up to me and kisses my hand and makes her excuses for the hundredth time about the drops, 'but it was Mamma's fault," in which I fully agree with the child. And yet, on the other hand, there must be a mysterious streak of greediness in Sarah's nature, I might almost say something like a besetting sin (do you believe in besetting sins? I do, my dear Botho), for she cannot let sweet things alone and constantly buys wafers, not the Berlin kind that taste like buns with meringue on top, but the Karlsbad land with sugar sprinkled over. But I will not write any more about all this. When I see you, which may be very soon--for I should like to travel with Anna Gravenitz, we should be so much more by ourselves--we will talk about it and about a great many other things too. Ah, how glad I shall be to see you and to sit on the balcony with you. After all, Berlin is the most beautiful place, and when the sun goes down behind Charlottenburg and the Grunewald, and one grows so tired and dreamy, how lovely it is! Don't you think so? And do you know what Frau Salinger told me yesterday? She said that I had grown still blonder. Well, you will see for yourself.

As always, your

"Katherine."

Rienacker nodded and smiled. "Charming little woman. She writes nothing at all about her health or the effects of the cure; I will wager that she goes out to drive and has hardly taken ten baths yet." And after saying this to himself, he gave some orders to his man servant who had just come in and then walked through the Zoological Garden and the Brandenburg gate, then under the Lindens and then to the barracks, where he was on duty until noon.

Soon after twelve o'clock, when he was at home again, and had had something to eat, and was about to make himself comfortable for a little, the servant announced "that a gentleman ... a man (he hesitated over the word) was outside, and wished to speak with the Herr Baron."

"Who is it?"

"Gideon Franke ... so he said."

"Franke? Strange. I never heard of him. Bring him in."

The servant went out again, while Botho repeated: "Franke ... Gideon Franke ... Never heard of him. I don't know him."

In a moment the visitor entered the room and bowed somewhat stiffly at the door. He wore a dark-brown coat closely b.u.t.toned up, highly polished boots and shiny black hair, which lay very thick on both temples. He wore black gloves and a spotlessly white high collar.

Botho met him with his usual courteous amiability and said: "Herr Franke?"

The latter nodded.

"How can I serve you? Let me beg you to be seated.... Here ... or perhaps here. Stuffed chairs are always uncomfortable."

Franke smiled in a.s.sent and took a cane-seated chair, which Rienacker had indicated.

"How can I serve you?" repeated Rienacker.

"I have come to ask you a question, Herr Baron."

"It will give me pleasure to answer it, provided that I am able."

"No one could answer me better than you, Herr von Rienacker ... I have come, in fact, about Lena Nimptsch ..."

Botho started back a little.

"And I want to add at once," Franke went on, "that it is nothing troublesome that has brought me here. What I wish to say, or if you will permit me, Herr Baron, to ask, will cause no inconvenience to you or to your family. I already know that your gracious lady, the Frau Baroness is away, and I carefully waited until you should be alone, or, if I may say so, until you should be a gra.s.s widower."

Botho's discriminating ear perceived that, in spite of his rather ordinary middle-cla.s.s clothes, the man was frank and high-minded. This soon helped him to get over his embarra.s.sment and he had recovered his usual calmness of manner, as he asked, across the table: "Are you a relative of Lena's? Pardon me, Herr Franke, for calling my old friend by the old name of which I am so fond."

Franke bowed and replied: "No, Herr Baron, no relative; I have not that right to speak. But my right is perhaps quite as good: I have known Lena for a year and more and I intend to marry her. She has given her consent, but on that occasion she told me of her previous life and spoke of you so affectionately, that I at once determined to ask you yourself, Herr Baron, freely and openly, what you can tell me about Lena. When I told Lena of my intention, she at first encouraged me gladly, but immediately afterwards she added, that I might as well not ask you, as you would be sure to speak too well of her."

Botho looked straight before him and found it difficult to control the beating of his heart. Finally, however, he mastered himself and said: "You are an excellent man, Herr Franke, and you want to make Lena happy. So much I can see at once, and that gives you a perfect right to an answer. I have no doubt at all as to what I ought to tell you, and I only hesitate as to how I shall tell it. The best way will be to tell you how it all began and continued and then how it came to an end."

Franke bowed once more, to show that he too agreed to this plan.

"Very well then," began Rienacker, "it is about three years or perhaps a couple of months more, since on a boating excursion around the Liebesinsel near Treptow I had the opportunity of doing two young girls a service by preventing their boat from capsizing. One of these two young girls was Lena, and from her manner of thanking me, I saw at once that she was different from others. She was wholly free from affectation, both then and later, a fact which I specially wish to emphasise. For no matter how merry and at times almost boisterous she may be, yet she is naturally thoughtful, serious and simple."

Botho mechanically pushed aside the tray, which was still standing on the table, smoothed the cloth and then went on: "I asked leave to escort her home, and she consented without more ado, which at that time surprised me for a moment. For I did not yet know her. But I soon saw what it meant; from her youth on she had been accustomed to act according to her own judgment, without much regard for others, and in any case without fearing their opinion."

Franke nodded.

"So we went all the long distance together and I escorted her home and was delighted with all that I saw there, with the old mother, with the fireplace by which she sat, with the garden in which the house stood, and with the modest seclusion and stillness of the place. A quarter of an hour later I took my leave, and as I was saying good-bye to Lena at the garden gate, I asked whether I might come again, and she answered the question with a simple 'Yes.' She showed no false modesty, and yet was not unwomanly. On the contrary, there was something touching in her voice and manner."

As all this came so vividly before his mind once more, Rienacker rose, in manifest excitement and opened both halves of the balcony door, as if the room were growing too hot. Then, as he walked back and forth, he went on more rapidly: "I have scarcely anything more to add. That was about Easter and we had a whole long happy summer. Ought I to tell you about it? No. And then came life with all its serious claims. And that was what separated us."

Meanwhile Botho had sat down again and Franke, who had been busily stroking his hat all the time, said quietly to himself: "Yes, that is just how she told me about it."

"And it could not be any other way, Herr Franke. For Lena--I rejoice with all my heart to be able to say so once more--Lena does not lie, and would sooner bite her tongue off than to boast or speak falsely.

She has two kinds of pride; one is to live by the work of her own hands, the other is to speak right out freely and make no false pretences and not to represent anything as more or less than it really is. 'I do not need to do it and I will not do it,' I have often heard her say. She certainly has a will of her own, perhaps rather more than she should have, and one who wanted to criticise her, might reproach her with being obstinate. But she only persists in what she thinks she can take the responsibility for, and she really can too, and that sort of strength of will is, I think, rather character than self-righteousness. I see by your nodding your head that we are of the same opinion, and that pleases me greatly. And now just one word more, Herr Franke. What has been, has been. If you cannot pa.s.s over it, I must respect your feeling. But if you can, I want to tell you, you will have an exceptionally good wife. For her heart is in the right place and she has a strong sense of duty and right and order."

"That is how I have always found Lena, and I believe that she will make me an uncommonly good wife, precisely as the Herr Baron says. Yes, one ought to keep the Commandments, one ought to keep them all, but yet there is a distinction, according to which commandments they are, and he who fails to keep one of them, may yet be good for something, but he who fails to keep another, even if it stands the very next one in the catechism, he is worthless and is condemned from the beginning and stands beyond the hope of grace."

Botho gazed at him in surprise and evidently did not know what to make of this solemn address. Gideon Franke, however, who for his part had now gotten well started, had no longer any sense of the impression produced by his homemade opinions, and so went on in a tone that more and more suggested that of a preacher: "And he who, because of the weakness of the flesh sins against the sixth commandment, he may be forgiven if he repents and turns to better ways, but he who breaks the seventh, sins not merely through the weakness of the flesh but through the corruption of the soul, and he who lies and deceives, or slanders and bears false witness, he is rotten to the core and is a child of darkness, and for him there is no salvation, And he is like a field in which the nettles have grown so tall that the weeds always come uppermost, no matter how much good corn may be sown. And I will live and die by that and have always found it true. Yes, Herr Baron, the important things are neatness and honesty and practicality. And in marriage it is the same. For 'honesty is the best policy,' and one's word is his word and one must be able to have confidence. But what has been, has been, and that is in the hands of G.o.d. And if I think otherwise about it, which I too respect, exactly as the Herr Baron does, then it is my place to keep away and not allow my love and inclination to get a foothold. I was in the United States for a long time, and although over there just the same as here, all is not gold that glitters, yet it is true, that there one learns to see differently and not always through the same gla.s.s. And one learns also that there are many ways to salvation and many ways to happiness. Yes, Herr Baron, there are many roads that lead to G.o.d, and there are many roads that lead to happiness, of that I feel sure in my very heart. And the one road is good and the other road is good. But every good road must be straight and open, and lie in the sun, without swamps or quicksands or will-o'-the-wisps. Truth is the main thing, and trustworthiness and honor."

With these words Franke had risen and Botho, who had politely gone to the door with him, gave him his hand.

"And now, Herr Franke, as we are bidding good-bye I will ask just one thing more: Please greet Frau Dorr from me, if you see her, and if the old friendship with her still continues, and above all give my greetings to good old Frau Nimptsch. Does she still have her gout and her days of suffering, of which she used to complain so constantly?"

"That is all over now."

"How so?" asked Botho.