The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Volume Xii Part 80

"And you all love him dearly?"

"Yes, and two of the girls in the highest cla.s.s are going to change their religion."

"Oh, I understand; that is fine. And how is Johanna?"

"Johanna brought me to the door of the house."

"Why didn't you bring her up with you?"

"She said she would rather stay downstairs and wait over at the church."

"And you are to meet her there?"

"Yes."

"Well, I hope she will not get impatient. There is a little front yard over there and the windows are half overgrown with ivy, as though it were an old church."

"But I should not like to keep her waiting."

"Oh, I see, you are very considerate, and I presume I ought to be glad of it. We need only to make the proper division of the time--Tell me now how Rollo is."

"Rollo is very well, but papa says he is getting so lazy. He lies in the sun all the time."

"That I can readily believe. He was that way when you were quite small. And now, Annie, today we have just seen each other, you know; will you visit me often?"

"Oh, certainly, if I am allowed to."

"We can take a walk in the Prince Albrecht Garden."

"Oh, certainly, if I am allowed to."

"Or we may go to Schilling's and eat ice cream, pineapple or vanilla ice cream. I always liked vanilla best."

"Oh, certainly, if I am allowed to."

At this third "if I am allowed to" the measure was full. Effi sprang up and flashed the child a look of indignation.

"I believe it is high time you were going, Annie. Otherwise Johanna will get impatient." She rang the bell and Roswitha, who was in the next room, entered immediately. "Roswitha, take Annie over to the church. Johanna is waiting there. I hope she has not taken cold. I should be sorry. Remember me to Johanna."

The two went out.

Hardly had Roswitha closed the door behind her when Effi tore open her dress, because she was threatened with suffocation, and fell to laughing convulsively. "So that is the way it goes to meet after a long separation." She rushed forward, opened the window and looked for something to support her. In the distress of her heart she found it.

There beside the window was a bookshelf with a few volumes of Schiller and Korner on it, and on top of the volumes of poems, which were of equal height, lay a Bible and a songbook. She reached for them, because she had to have something before which she could kneel down and pray. She laid both Bible and songbook on the edge of the table where Annie had been standing, and threw herself violently down before them and spoke in a half audible tone: "O G.o.d in Heaven, forgive me what I have done. I was a child--No, no, I was not a child, I was old enough to know what I was doing. I _did_ know, too, and I will not minimize my guilt. But this is too much. This action of the child is not the work of my G.o.d who would punish me, it is the work of _him_, and _him_ alone. I thought he had a n.o.ble heart and have always felt small beside him, but now I know that it is he who is small. And because he is small he is cruel. Everything that is small is cruel.

_He_ taught the child to say that. He always was a school-master, Crampas called him one, scoffingly at the time, but he was right. 'Oh, certainly if I am allowed to!' You don't _have_ to be allowed to. I don't want you any more, I hate you both, even my own child. Too much is too much. He was ambitious, but nothing more. Honor, honor, honor.

And then he shot the poor fellow whom I never even loved and whom I had forgotten, because I didn't love him. It was all stupidity in the first place, but then came blood and murder, with me to blame. And now he sends me the child, because he cannot refuse a minister's wife anything, and before he sends the child he trains it like a parrot and teaches it the phrase, 'if I am allowed to.' I am disgusted at what I did; but the thing that disgusts me most is your virtue. Away with you! I must live, but I doubt if it will be long."

When Roswitha came back Effi lay on the floor seemingly lifeless, with her face turned away.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV

Rummschuttel was called and p.r.o.nounced Effi's condition serious. He saw that the hectic flush he had noticed for over a year was more p.r.o.nounced than ever, and, what was worse, she showed the first symptoms of nervous fever. But his quiet, friendly manner, to which he added a dash of humor, did Effi good, and she was calm so long as Rummschuttel was with her. When he left, Roswitha accompanied him as far as the outer hall and said: "My, how I am scared, Sir Councillor; if it ever comes back, and it may--oh, I shall never have another quiet hour. But it was too, too much, the way the child acted. Her poor Ladys.h.i.+p! And still so young; at her age many are only beginning life."

"Don't worry, Roswitha. It may all come right again. But she must get away. We will see to that. Different air, different people."

Two days later there arrived in Hohen-Cremmen a letter which ran: "Most gracious Lady: My long-standing friendly relations to the houses of Briest and Belling, and above all the hearty love I cherish for your daughter, will justify these lines. Things cannot go on any longer as they are. Unless something is done to rescue your daughter from the loneliness and sorrow of the life she has been leading for years she will soon pine away. She always had a tendency to consumption, for which reason I sent her to Ems years ago. This old trouble is now aggravated by a new one; her nerves are giving out.

Nothing but a change of air can check this. But whither shall I send her? It would not be hard to make a proper choice among the watering places of Silesia. Salzbrunn is good, and Reinerz still better, on account of the nervous complication. But no place except Hohen-Cremmen will do. For, most gracious Lady, air alone cannot restore your daughter's health. She is pining away because she has n.o.body but Roswitha. The fidelity of a servant is beautiful, but parental love is better. Pardon an old man for meddling in affairs that lie outside of his calling as a physician. No, not outside, either, for after all it is the physician who is here speaking and making demands--pardon the word--in accordance with his duty. I have seen so much of life--But enough on this topic. With kindest regards to your husband, your humble servant, Dr. Rummschuttel."

Mrs. von Briest had read the letter to her husband. They were sitting on the shady tile walk, with their backs to the drawing room and facing the circular bed and the sundial. The wild grapevine twining around the windows was rustling gently in the breeze and over the water a few dragon-flies were hovering in the bright suns.h.i.+ne.

Briest sat speechless, drumming on the tea-tray.

"Please don't drum, I had rather you would talk."

"Ah, Luise, what shall I say? My drumming says quite enough. You have known for over a year what I think about it. At the time when Innstetten's letter came, a flash from a clear sky, I was of your opinion. But that was half an eternity ago. Am I to play the grand inquisitor till the end of my days? I tell you, I have had my fill of it for a long time."

"Don't reproach me, Briest. I love her as much as you, perhaps more; each in his own way. But it is not our only purpose in life to be weak and affectionate and to tolerate things that are contrary to the law and the commandments, things that men condemn, and in the present instance rightly."

"Hold on! One thing comes first."

"Of course, one thing comes first; but what is the one thing?"

"The love of parents for their children, especially when they have only one child."

"Then good-by catechism, morality, and the claims of 'society.'"

"Ah, Luise, talk to me about the catechism as much as you like, but don't speak to me about 'society.'"

"It is very hard to get along without 'society."'

"Also without a child. Believe me, Luise,'society' can shut one eye when it sees fit. Here is where I stand in the matter: If the people of Rathenow come, all right, if they don't come, all right too. I am simply going to telegraph: 'Effi, come.' Are you agreed?"

She got up and kissed him on the forehead. "Of course I am. Only you must not find fault with me. An easy step it is not, and from now on our life will be different."

"I can stand it. There is a good rape crop and in the autumn I can hunt an occasional hare. I still have a taste for red wine, and it will taste even better when we have the child back in the house. Now I am going to send the telegram."

Effi had been in Hohen-Cremmen for over six months. She occupied the two rooms on the second floor which she had formerly had when there for a visit. The larger one was furnished for her personally, and Roswitha slept in the other. What Rummschuttel had expected from this sojourn and the good that went with it, was realized, so far as it could be realized. The coughing diminished, the bitter expression that had robbed Effi's unusually kind face of a good part of its charm disappeared, and there came days when she could laugh again. About Kessin and everything back there little was said, with the single exception of Mrs. von Padden--and Gieshubler, of course, for whom old Mr. von Briest had a very tender spot in his heart. "This Alonzo, this fastidious Spaniard, who harbors a Mirambo and brings up a Trippelli--well, he must be a genius, and you can't make me believe he isn't." Then Effi had to yield and act for him the part of Gieshubler, with hat in hand and endless bows of politeness. By virtue of her peculiar talent for mimicry, she could do the bows very well, although it went against the grain, because she always felt that it was an injustice to the dear good man.--They never talked about Innstetten and Annie, but it was settled that Annie was to inherit Hohen-Cremmen.

Effi took a new lease on life, and her mother, who in true womanly fas.h.i.+on was not altogether averse to regarding the affair, painful though it was, as merely an interesting case, vied with her father in expressions of love and devotion.

"Such a good winter we have not had for a long time," said Briest.

Then Effi arose from her seat and stroked back the spa.r.s.e hairs from his forehead. But beautiful as everything seemed from the point of view of Effi's health, it was all illusion, for in reality the disease was gaining ground and quietly consuming her vitality. Effi again wore, as on the day of her betrothal to Innstetten, a blue and white striped smock with a loose belt, and when she walked up to her parents with a quick elastic step, to bid them good morning, they looked at each other with joyful surprise--with joyful surprise and yet at the same time with sadness, for they could not fail to see that it was not the freshness of youth, but a transformation, that gave her slender form and beaming eyes this peculiar appearance. All who observed her closely saw this, but Effi herself did not. Her whole attention was engaged by the happy feeling at being back in this place, to her so charmingly peaceful, and living reconciled with those whom she had always loved and who had always loved her, even during the years of her misery and exile.