Christine Part 13

_Later_.

Bernd came to lunch, but also unfortunately so did his chief. They both arrived together after we had begun,--there's a tremendous _aller et venir_ all day in the house, and sometimes the traffic on the stairs to the drawingroom gets so congested that nothing but a London policeman could deal with it. I could only say ordinary things to Bernd, and he went away, swept off by his Colonel, directly afterwards.

He did manage to whisper he would try to come in to dinner tonight and get here early, but he hasn't come yet and it's nearly half past seven.

The Graf was at lunch, and two other men who ate their food as if they had to catch a train, and they talked so breathlessly while they ate that I can't think why they didn't choke; and there was great triumph and excitement because the Germans crossed into Luxembourg this morning on their way to France, marching straight through the expostulations and entreaties of the Grand d.u.c.h.ess, blowing her aside, I gather, like so much rather amusing thistledown. It seemed to tickle the Graf, whom I have not before seen tickled and hadn't imagined ever could be; but this idea of a _junges Madchen_--("Sie soll ganz niedlich sein_," threw in one of the gobbling men. "_Ja ganz appet.i.tlich_," threw in the other; "_Na, es geht_," said the Colonel with a shrug--)--motoring out to bar the pa.s.sage of a mighty army, trying to stop thousands of bayonets by lifting up one little admonitory kitten's paw, shook him out of his gravity into a weird, uncanny chuckling.

The Colonel, who was as genial and hilarious as ever, rather more so than ever, said all the Luxembourg railways would be in German hands by tonight. "It works out as easily and inevitably as a simple arithmetical problem," he laughed; and I heard him tell the Graf German cavalry was already in France at several points.

"_Ja, ja_" he said, apparently addressing me, for he looked at me and smiled, "when we Germans make war we do not wait till the next day.

Everything thought of; everything ready; plenty of oil in the machine; _und dann los_."

He raised his gla.s.s. "Delightful young English lady," he said, "I drink to your charming eyes."

There's dinner. I must leave off.

_Eleven p. m_.

You'll never believe it, but Kloster has been given the Order of the Red Eagle 1st Cla.s.s, and made a privy councillor and an excellency by the Kaiser this very day. And his most intimate friends, the cleverest talkers among his set, two or three who used to hold forth particularly brilliantly in his rooms on Socialism and the slavish stupidity of Germans, have each had an order and an advancement of some sort.

Kloster was at the palace this afternoon. He knew about it yesterday when I was having my lesson. _Kloster_. Of all men. I feel sick.

Bernd didn't come to dinner, but was able to be with me for half an hour afterwards, half an hour of comfort I badly needed, for where can one's feet be set firmly and safely in this upheaving world? The Colonel was at dinner; he comes to nearly every meal; and it was he who started talking about Kloster's audience with Majestat this afternoon.

I jumped as though some one had hit me. "That _can't_ be true," I exclaimed, exactly as one calls out quickly if one is suddenly struck.

They all looked at me. Somehow I saw that they had known about it beforehand, and Bernd told me tonight it was the Graf who had drawn the authorities' attention to the desirability of having tongues like Kloster's on the side of the Hohenzollerns.

"Dear child," said the Grafin gently, "we Germans do not permit our great to go unhonoured."

"But he would never--" I began; then remembered my lesson yesterday and his silence. So that's what it was. He already had his command to attend at the palace and be decorated in his pocket.

I sat staring straight before me. Kloster bought? Kloster for sale?

And the Government at such a crisis finding time to bother about him?

"_Ja, ja_," said the Colonel gaily, as though answering my thoughts--and I found I had been staring, without seeing him, straight into his eyes, "_ja, ja_, we think of everything here."

"Not," gently amended the Grafin, "that it was difficult to think of honouring so great a genius as our dear Kloster. He has been in Majestat's thoughts for years."

"I expect he has," I said; for Kloster has often told me how they hated him at court, him and his friends, but that he was too well known all over the world for them to be able to interfere with him; something like, I expect, Tolstoi and the Russian court.

The Grafin looked at me quickly.

"And so has Majestat been in his," I continued.

"Kloster," said the Grafin very gently, "is a most amusing talker, and sometimes cannot resist saying the witty things that occur to him, however undesirable they may be. We all know they mean nothing. We all understand and love our Kloster. And n.o.body, as you see, dear child, more than Majestat, with his ever ready appreciation of genius."

I could only sit silent, staring at my plate. Kloster gone. Kloster allowing himself to be gagged by a decoration. I wanted to push the intolerable thought away from me and cry out, "No, it _can't_ be."

Why, who can one believe in now? Who is left? There's Bernd, my beloved, my heart's own mate; and as I sat there dumb, and they all triumphed on with their self-congratulations and satisfactions, and Majestat this, and Deutschland that, for an awful moment my faith in Bernd himself began to shake. Suppose he too, he with his Prussian blood and upbringing, fell away and went over in spirit to the side of life that decorates a man in return for the absolute control of his thoughts, rewards him for the disposal of his soul? Kloster, that freest of critics, had gone over, his German blood after all unable to resist the call to slavery. I never could have believed it. I never _would_ have believed it without actual proof. And Bernd? What about Bernd? For I haven't more believed in Kloster than I do in Bernd. Oh, little mother, I was cold with fear.

Then he came. My dear one came for a blessed half hour. And because we, thank G.o.d, are betrothed, and so have the right to be alone together, we got rid of those smug triumphant others; and if he had happened not to be able to come, and I had had to wait till tomorrow, all night long thinking of Kloster, I believe I'd have gone mad. For you see one believes so utterly in a person one _does_ believe in. At least, I do. I can't manage caution in belief, I can't give prudently, carefully, holding back part, as I'm told a woman does if she is really clever, in either faith or love. And how is one to get on without faith and love? Bernd comforted me. And he comforted me most by my finding how greatly he needed to be comforted himself. He was every bit as profoundly shaken and shocked as I was. Oh, the relief of discovering that!

We clung to each other, and comforted each other like two hurt children. Kloster has been so much to us both. More, perhaps, here in this place of hypocrisy and self-deceptions, than he would have been anywhere else. He stood for fearlessness, for freedom, for beauty, for all the great things. And now he has gone; silent, choked by the _Rote Adler Orden Erste Kla.s.se_. It is an order with three cla.s.ses. We wondered bitterly whether he couldn't have been had cheaper,--whether second, or even third cla.s.s, wouldn't have done it. He is now a _Wirkliche Geheimrath mit dem Pradikat Excellenz_. G.o.d rest his soul.

Chris.

_Berlin, Monday, August 3rd, 1914_.

Darling own mother,

It's only a matter of hours now before Bernd will have to go, and when he goes I'm coming back to you.

Your Chris.

_Berlin, Monday August 3rd, evening_.

Precious mother,

I want to come back to you--directly Bernd has gone I'm coming back to you, and if he doesn't go soon but is used in Berlin at the Staff Head Quarters, as he says now perhaps he may be for a while, I won't stay with the Koseritzes, but go back to Frau Berg's for as long as Bernd is in Berlin, and the day he leaves I start for Switzerland.

I don't know what is happening, but the Koseritzes have suddenly turned different to me. They're making me feel more and more uncomfortable and strange. And there's a gloom about them and the people who have been here today that sets me wondering whether their war plans after all are rolling along quite as smoothly as they thought. I never did quite believe the Koseritzes liked me, any of them, and now I'm sure they don't. Tonight at dinner the Graf's face was a thunder-cloud, and actually the Colonel, who hasn't been all day but came in late for dinner and went again immediately, didn't speak to me once. Hardly looked at me when he bowed, and his bow was the stiffest thing. I can't ask anybody if there is bad news for Germany, for it would be a most dreadful insult even to suggest there _could_ be bad news.

Besides, I feel as if I somehow were mixed up in whatever it is. Bernd hasn't been since this morning. I shall go round to Frau Berg tomorrow and ask her if I can have my old room. But oh, little beloved mother, I feel torn in two! I want so dreadfully to get away, to go back to you, and the thought of being at Frau Berg's, just waiting, waiting for the tiny sc.r.a.ps of moments Bernd can come to me, fills me with horror.

And yet how can I leave him? I love him so. And once he has gone, shall I ever see him again? If it weren't for him I'd have started for Switzerland yesterday, the moment I heard about Kloster, for the whole reason for my being in Berlin was only Kloster,

And now Kloster says he isn't going to teach me any more. Darling mother, I'm so sorry to have to tell you this, but it's true. He sent round a note this evening saying he regretted he couldn't continue the lessons. Just that. Not another word. I can't make anything out any more. I've got n.o.body but Bernd to ask, and I only see him in briefest s.n.a.t.c.hes. Of course I knew the lessons would be strange and painful now, but I thought we could manage, Kloster and I, by excluding everything but the bare teaching and learning, to go on and finish what we've begun. He knows how important it is to me. He knows what this journey here has meant to us, to you and me, the difficulty of it, the sacrifice. I'm very unhappy tonight, darling mother, and selfishly crying out to you. I feel almost like leaving Bernd, and starting for Glion tomorrow. And then when I think of him without me--He's as spiritually alone in this welter as I am. I'm the only one he has, the only human being who understands. Today he said, holding me in his arms--you should see how we cling to each other now as if we were drowning--"When this is over, Chris, when I've paid off my bill of duty and settled with them here to the last farthing of me that I've promised them, we'll go away for ever. We'll never come back. We'll never be caught again."

_Berlin, Tuesday, August 4th, 1914_.

My beloved mother,

The atmosphere in this house really is intolerable, and I'm going back to Frau Berg's tomorrow morning. I've settled it with her by telephone, and I can have my old room. However lonely I am in it without my lessons and Kloster, without the reason there was for being there before, I won't have this horrid feeling of being in a place full of sudden and unaccountable hostility. Bernd came this morning, and the Grafin told him I was out, and he went away again. She couldn't have thought I was out, for I always tell her when I'm going, so she wants to separate us. But why? Why? And oh, it means so much to me to see him, it was so cruel to find out by accident that he had been!

A woman who was at lunch happened to say she had met him coming out of the front door as she came in.

"What--was Bernd here?" I exclaimed, half getting up on a sort of impulse to run after him and try and catch him in the street.

"Helena thought you had gone out," said the Grafin.

"But you _knew_ I hadn't," I said, turning on Helena.

"Helena knew nothing of the sort," said the Grafin severely. "She said what she believed to be true. I must request you, Christine, not to cast doubts on her word. We Germans do not lie."