Effi Briest (15 page)
Authors: Theodor Fontane
In this way winter passed, April came and the garden beyond the yard began to turn green, which pleased Effi; she just couldn’t wait for the summer, with the walks on the beach and the visitors who came for the sea bathing. When she looked back, the Trippelli evening at Gieshübler’s and then the New Year’s Eve Ball, yes, all that had been passable, quite pleasant; but the months after that, well, they had left a lot to be desired, above all they had been so monotonous that she had once even written to Mamma:
Can you imagine Mamma, I’m almost reconciled to our ghost? Of course I wouldn’t like to go through that dreadful night again, when Geert was over at Prince Bismarck’s, certainly not that; but being constantly alone, and absolutely nothing happening, well, it’s not easy, and occasionally when I wake up in the night I listen for a moment, just to see if I can hear the shoes gliding over the boards up there, and if it’s all quiet I’m almost
disappointed and I tell myself, I wish it would come back, but not too awful and not too close.
It was in February that Effi had written this, and now it was almost May. Over in the Plantation things were coming to life again and the finches could be heard singing. In the same week too the storks came, and one glided slowly over the house and settled on a barn next to Utpatel’s mill. That was its perch of old. This event too Effi reported, writing now as she did much more often to Hohen-Cremmen, and in the same letter she said at the end:
Something, my dear Mamma, which I almost forgot: the new district commandant of the Landwehr – whom we’ve had for about four weeks now – or do we really have him? That is the question, and an important question too, though you may laugh, indeed you are bound to laugh, since you don’t know the desperate state our social life here is still in. Or at least mine, since I have not been able to get on any terms with the families here. Perhaps my fault, not that it makes any difference. The fact remains, it’s a desperate state of affairs, and that’s why all these winter months I’ve been looking forward to the new district commandant as a saviour and bringer of solace. His predecessor was a monster, with bad manners and worse morals, and as if that wasn’t enough, he was always hard up too. We all suffered the whole time under him, Innstetten even more than me, and when at the beginning of April we heard that Major Crampas, that’s the new man’s name, was here, we fell into one another’s arms as if nothing bad could ever happen again in dear old Kessin. But as I’ve already said, even though he’s here, it seems nothing is going to come of it. Crampas is married and has two children often and eight, his wife is a year older than him, say forty-five. That in itself wouldn’t matter, there’s no reason why having a maternal friend shouldn’t be wonderfully entertaining for me. Miss Trippelli was almost thirty and we got on very well. But this can’t happen with Crampas’s wife, a commoner incidentally. She is always out of sorts, almost melancholy (just like Frau Kruse, of whom she greatly reminds me), and all because of jealousy. Crampas is apparently a man who has had many affairs, a ladies’ man, which I always find ridiculous, and I would find it ridiculous on this occasion too, if he hadn’t had a duel with one of his comrades for just that sort of reason. His left arm was shattered just below the shoulder and you can’t miss it, though the operation, Innstetten tells me (I think they call it a resection and it was done by Wilms), was hailed as a masterpiece of the art. Both of them, Herr and Frau Crampas, paid their call on us a fortnight ago; it
was a very awkward situation, for Frau Crampas watched her husband so closely that he was considerably embarrassed and I totally. On his own he can be very different, animated and high-spirited – which I had the chance to see for myself when he was with Innstetten three days ago, and I followed their conversation from my room. Afterwards I spoke to him too. The complete cavalier, very suave. Innstetten was in the same brigade with him during the war, and they often saw one another north of Paris at Count Gröben’s. Yes, my dear Mamma, that could have been a chance to start a new life in Kessin; and the Major doesn’t have the Pomeranian prejudices either, though I’ve heard he comes from Swedish Pomerania. But that wife of his! It’s impossible to see the Major without her, but with her it’s equally impossible.
Effi had been quite right, and in fact no closer contact with the Crampases developed. They met out at the Borckes’ family place, then briefly at the station and a few days later on the boat on an outing to a large beech and oak forest near the Breitling known as ‘the Schnatermann’; but there was no more than a brief exchange of greetings, and Effi was delighted at the signs of the season starting at the beginning of June. There was of course still a shortage of holidaymakers – bathers usually only appeared in ones and twos before Midsummer’s Day – but the preparations themselves helped pass the time. In the Plantation the roundabout and the shooting stalls were erected, the boatmen caulked and painted their boats, each little apartment got new curtains, and the rooms that were situated in damp spots and had dry rot under the floorboards were treated with sulphur and aired.
In Effi’s house too, on account of an awaited new arrival quite other than the summer visitors, there was a certain agitation all round; even Frau Kruse wanted to be involved as far as she could. But Effi took lively exception to this, saying: ‘Geert, don’t let Frau Kruse touch anything; no good can come of it and I’m worried enough already.’ Innstetten granted her all she asked, saying that Christel and Johanna had plenty of time to see to everything, and to divert his young wife’s thoughts in a different direction he dropped the whole subject of preparations and asked instead whether she had noticed that a holidaymaker had moved in opposite, not the first but nevertheless one of the first.
‘A gentleman?’
‘No, a lady who has been here before, in the same apartment each time. She always comes early because she can’t stand it when everywhere is so full.’
‘I won’t say I can’t see her point. So who is it then?’
‘It’s Registrar Rode’s widow.’
‘That’s strange. I always thought registrars’ widows were poor.’
‘Yes,’ laughed Innstetten, ‘they are as a rule. But here you have an exception. At any rate she has more than her widow’s pension. She always arrives with a great deal of luggage, infinitely more than she needs, and she seems to be a quite peculiar woman, eccentric and ailing, and very shaky on her feet. She is unsure of herself because of this, and always has an elderly servant with her, strong enough to look after her, or carry her if anything happens. She has a new one this year. Another very stocky person once again, a bit like Miss Trippelli, but stouter.’
‘Oh, I’ve seen her. Nice brown eyes, trusty and faithful when they look at you. But just a bit dim.’
‘That’s right, that’s her.’
It was the middle of June when Innstetten and Effi had this conversation. From then on every day brought a further influx of holidaymakers, and as always about this time of year, walking out to the Bulwark to wait for the steamer’s arrival became a sort of daily routine for the Kessin folk. Effi of course, Innstetten being unable to accompany her, had to forego this, but at least she had the pleasure of seeing some animation in the street leading to the beach and the Strand Hotel, hitherto so empty of people, and in order to keep it under constant review she was much more than usual in her bedroom, from whose windows she could best see everything. Johanna stood at her side and had an answer to more or less everything she wanted to know; since most of the visitors came back every year, the maid could not only supply their names but sometimes a little story about them too.
This was all amusing and entertaining for Effi. However, on Midsummer’s Day itself, just before eleven in the morning, when usually the traffic from the steamer was flooding by at its most colourful, instead of married couples, children and hackney carriages piled with suitcases, it happened that a carriage draped in black and followed by two mourners’ coaches came from the centre of the town down the street leading to the Plantation, and stopped at the house opposite the Landrat’s residence. For Registrar Rode’s widow had died three days earlier, and her relatives from Berlin, who had been informed with the greatest promptitude, had decided on arrival that they would not have the deceased transported to Berlin, but would bury her in Kessin in the churchyard in the dunes. Effi stood at her window and looked with curiosity upon the oddly solemn scene that unfolded opposite. The arrivals from Berlin were two nephews and their wives, all about forty, give or take a year, and of enviably healthy complexion. The nephews in well-fitting frock-coats could pass muster, and the sober, businesslike attitude
revealed in their whole bearing was becoming rather than off-putting. But the two wives! They were visibly intent on showing Kessin what real mourning was, and were wearing long crêpe veils that reached to the ground and at the same time hid their faces. And now the coffin, on which lay a few wreaths and even a palm frond, was placed on the carriage and the two married couples took their seats in the coaches. Into the first – along with one of the mourning couples – Lindequist climbed too; behind the second coach walked the landlady and beside her the stout woman whom the deceased had brought to Kessin to minister to her. The latter was extremely and it seemed genuinely upset, even if the emotion in question was not exactly grief; but in the case of the landlady, a widow who was sobbing with the utmost violence, it was almost excessively clear that the possibility of an extra gratuity was what she had in mind all the time, in spite of being in the happy position, much envied by other landladies, of being able to relet the apartment, for which she had already drawn rent for the whole summer.
Effi, as the funeral cortège set off, went into the garden behind the yard to rid herself, among the beds edged with box, of the impression of lifelessness and lovelessness the whole scene across the street had made on her. When this failed, a desire to take a longer walk than the monotonous stroll round the garden seized her, the more so since the doctor had said taking plenty of exercise in the open air was the best thing she could do in view of what she had to come. Johanna, who was in the garden with her, brought her a shawl, hat and parasol, and with a friendly ‘good morning’ Effi stepped out of the house and walked towards the copse, beside whose broad, paved central lane a narrower path ran down to the dunes and the hotel on the beach. Along the wayside there were benches and she availed herself of each of them, for walking was a strain for her, especially as the hot midday hour had now come. But sitting comfortably and watching the ladies driving by in their finery, she revived again. For seeing people enjoying themselves was vital as air to her. When the copse ended the very worst part of the way was of course yet to come, sand, and more sand, and nowhere a trace of shade; but fortunately boards and planks had been put down here, so she arrived at the Strand Hotel, though hot and tired, nonetheless in a good mood. Inside lunch was being taken in the dining-room, but here outside all was silent and empty, which was as she at that moment preferred it. She ordered a glass of sherry and a bottle of Biliner water and gazed out at the sea, which was shimmering in the bright sunshine, while at its edge it rolled on to the beach in little waves. ‘Bornholm is across there, and beyond it Visby, which Jahnke always used to tell me such marvellous things about in the old days. Visby he rated almost more highly than Lübeck or Wullenweber. And beyond Visby is Stockholm, where the Stockholm Bloodbath took place, and then
come the great rivers and then the North Cape, and then the midnight sun.’ And at that moment she was seized by a desire to see it all. But then her thoughts returned to what she had so soon to come and she was almost aghast. ‘It’s sinful, being so frivolous and thinking such thoughts and indulging in these daydreams when I should be thinking about what’s about to happen. Maybe I shall be punished for it, and we’ll both die, me and the child. And the carriage and the two coaches won’t stop across the road then, they’ll stop at our house… No, no, I don’t want to die here, I don’t want to be buried here, I want to go to Hohen-Cremmen. Lindequist, good as he is – I would rather have Niemeyer; he baptized me, and confirmed me and married me, and he ought to bury me too.’ At this a tear fell on her hand. Then she laughed again. ‘I’m still alive and I’m only seventeen, and Niemeyer is fifty-seven.’
From the dining-room she could hear the clatter of crockery. But suddenly she thought she heard chairs being pushed back; perhaps people were leaving the table, and she wanted to avoid meeting anyone. So she too rose quickly from her seat to return to the town by a roundabout route. This route passed close by the churchyard in the dunes, and as the gate chanced to be open, she went in. Everything was in bloom here, there were butterflies flying over the graves and high in the air a few gulls soared. It was so beautiful and still that she was immediately inclined to linger by the first graves, but since the blazing sun was getting hotter by the minute, she went further up towards a shady path formed by trailing willows and a profusion of weeping ashes by the graves. When she came to the end of this path she saw on her right a fresh mound of sand with four or five wreaths on it, and close beside it, beyond the line of trees, was a bench on which sat the good, stout person who had followed the Registrar’s widow’s coffin beside the landlady as the last mourner. Effi recognized her immediately and was moved in her heart to see the good, faithful person, as she thought she must surely be, if she was to be found here in the blazing heat of the sun. It must have been nearly two hours since the funeral.
‘This is a hot spot you’ve found for yourself,’ said Effi, ‘much too hot. And it would just take a little bad luck and you’d have sunstroke.’
‘That would be the best thing that could ’appen.’
‘How so?’
‘That would see me out of this world.’
‘I don’t think you should say that, even if you are unhappy or if somebody dear to you has died. You were probably very fond of her?’