Effi Briest (27 page)

‘No Geert, that’s all over now. It’s a new time, a new beginning, and I’m not afraid any more and I’m going to be better than I have been and behave
more to your liking.’ All this she whispered to him as they climbed the carpeted stairs to the second floor. Cousin Briest escorted her mother.

Upstairs some things were still missing, but a homely impression had been achieved nonetheless and Innstetten expressed his pleasure at this. ‘Effi, you’re a little genius you know,’ but Effi would have none of this praise and pointed to her mother, saying she was really responsible. ‘That goes here,’ she would announce, brooking no denial, and she had invariably been right, which of course had saved a lot of time and kept tempers sweet to the end. Finally Roswitha came in too to greet the Master, taking the occasion to say, ‘Fraulein Annie begs to be excused for today’ – her little joke, of which she was proud, and indeed it had the desired effect.

And now they all sat down at the table which was already laid, and when Innstetten had poured himself a glass of wine and drunk to ‘happy days’, clinking glasses with everybody, he took Effi’s hand and said, ‘But Effi, tell me now, what was all this about your illness?’

‘Oh, don’t let’s bother about that, it’s not worth talking about; a little painful, and a proper nuisance, spoiling our plans as it did. But that was all it was, and it’s over now. Rummschüttel proved his worth, a fine, delightful old gentleman, as I think I said in my letter. Not a leading light in his field, but Mamma says that’s an advantage. And I suppose she’s right as she always is. Our good Dr Hannemann wasn’t a leading light either, but he always knew what to do. And now tell me, how are Gieshübler and all the others?’

‘Who might all the others be? Crampas sends his regards to her ladyship…’

‘Ah, how courteous.’

‘And the pastor sends his regards; the country gentlemen and their ladies were rather reserved and seemed to hold me responsible for your leaving without saying good-bye. Our friend Sidonie even made pointed remarks, and only the good Frau von Padden, whom I made a special journey to visit the day before yesterday, seemed to be genuinely pleased at your greetings and your declaration of affection. She said you were a charming young woman, but I should watch over you carefully. When I replied that you thought I was more of a “pedagogue” than a husband, she said almost absently to herself, “A little lamb, white as snow.” And that was that.’

Cousin Briest laughed, ‘“A little lamb, white as snow…” There you have it cousin.’ And he would have gone on teasing her, but stopped when he saw she was blushing.

The conversation, mostly touching on matters from the past, went on a while longer, and in the end, from one thing and another that Innstetten said, Effi learnt that of the entire Kessin household only Johanna had been prepared to make the move to Berlin. She had of course stayed behind for
the moment, but would arrive in the next two or three days with the rest of their things; Innstetten was pleased at her decision, because she had always been the most useful, possessed of a markedly metropolitan chic. Perhaps a little too much of it. Christel and Friedrich had both pronounced themselves too old, and he had from the outset excluded the possibility of even discussing the matter with Kruse. ‘What good would a coachman be to us here?’ Innstetten concluded. ‘A horse and carriage,
tempi passati
, that kind of luxury is a thing of the past in Berlin. We couldn’t even have found room for the black hen. Or do I underestimate the apartment?’

Effi shook her head, giving rise to a short pause at which her mother rose; it would soon be eleven and she had a long way to go; no-one was to accompany her though, the cab rank was nearby – a suggestion Cousin Briest of course rejected. Soon afterwards they parted, having arranged to meet the next morning.

Effi was up quite early and – the air was almost warm enough for summer – had had the coffee-table moved over close to the open balcony door, and when Innstetten appeared too she went out on to the balcony with him and said, ‘Well, what do you think? You wanted to hear the finches in the Tiergarten and the parrots in the Zoological Garden. I don’t know whether they will both do you the favour, but they might. Can you hear that? It came from over there, from that little park over there. It isn’t actually the Tiergarten, but very nearly.’

Innstetten was delighted, and as grateful as if Effi had conjured it all up just for him. Then they sat down, and this time Annie joined them. Roswitha required Innstetten to find a great change in the child, which he duly did. And then they chatted on, alternating between people in Kessin and the visits they would have to make here in Berlin, and finally discussing a summer trip, though they had to break off the conversation in time for their rendezvous.

In the house too, everything was turning out well. It was a moment of heartfelt regret for Effi to see her mother returning to Hohen-Cremmen after taking her cure for six weeks as had been envisaged from the outset, regret only tempered to some extent by Johanna’s arrival in Berlin the same day. That was at least something, and even if the pretty blonde was not as close to Effi’s heart as Roswitha with her utter selflessness and infinite good humour, she was held in equally high regard, both by Innstetten and her young mistress, because she served deftly and because of her pronounced and self-assured reserve towards men. Rumour had it in Kessin that her beginnings in life could be traced back to a prominent officer, long since retired, of the Pasewalk garrison, and this was deemed to explain her superior attitudes, her beautiful blond hair and even the general impression of striking shapeliness she made. Johanna shared the joy felt on every side at her arrival, and was quite in agreement with taking over both as housemaid and Effi’s lady’s-maid just as before, while Roswitha, who in just under a year had more or less mastered all Christel’s culinary arts, was to manage the kitchen department. Tending and looking after Annie was to be Effi’s own job, at which Roswitha had to laugh. She knew what young women were like.

Innstetten lived entirely for his work and his home. He was happier than in Kessin, because it had not escaped his notice that Effi was behaving in a more cheerful and relaxed manner. And she was able to do this because she felt freer. What was past, it is true, did still enter into her life, but she was not afraid of it any more, or only on much rarer, fleeting occasions, and what remained to tremble on within her gave her bearing a peculiar charm. In everything she did there was a strain of melancholy, a sort of apology, and she would have been happier if she had been able to show it all more openly. But that was not of course permissible.

The social season in the city was not yet over when they started to pay their calls in April, but it was winding down, so they did not quite manage to enter into it fully. In the second half of May it died out completely, and they were even happier than before to meet in the Tiergarten when Innstetten came from work in the lunch hour, or to take a stroll in the Charlottenburg Palace gardens in the afternoon. Effi, as they walked up and down the long frontage between the Palace and the Orangerie trees, always looked at the Roman emperors standing there by the dozen, noting a curious similarity between Nero and Titus, collected pine-cones that had fallen from the weeping spruces, and then went with her husband, arm in arm, as far as the distant Belvedere over by the Spree.

‘They say it was haunted once,’ she said.

‘No, it was just apparitions.’

‘That’s the same thing.’

‘Sometimes it is,’ said Innstetten, ‘but in actual fact there’s a difference. Apparitions are always staged – at least here in the Belvedere that’s supposed to have been the case, so your Cousin Briest told me just yesterday – hauntings are never staged, hauntings are natural.’

‘So you do believe in them?’

‘Of course I believe in them. These things exist. It’s just that I’m not sure I believe entirely in what went on in Kessin. Has Johanna shown you her Chinaman yet?’

‘What Chinaman?’

‘Well, ours. She took it off the back of the chair before we left the old house and put it in her purse. I saw it the other day when she was giving me change for a mark. And she was embarrassed at having to admit that that’s what it was.’

‘Oh Geert, you shouldn’t have told me that. So now we have something like that in our house again.’

‘Tell her to burn it.’

‘No, I don’t like to do that, it wouldn’t help anyway. But I will ask Roswitha…’

‘What? Oh, I see. I can guess what you mean to do. She’s to buy an image of a saint and put it in her purse. Is it something like that?’

Effi nodded.

‘Well, do what you like, but don’t tell anyone about it.’

In the end Effi said she wasn’t going to bother, and continuing to chat about all kinds of things amongst which travel plans for the summer gradually emerged as the main topic, they drove back as far as the Grosser Stern, and then walked down Korso-Allee and the wide Friedrich-Wilhelmstrasse back to their apartment.

Effi was in agreement with everything Innstetten planned, especially the fact that the entire household was to disperse for four weeks and Roswitha was to go to Hohen-Cremmen with Annie, while Johanna was to stay with her somewhat younger half-brother who had a sawmill near Pasewalk. This meant everyone was suitably accommodated. At the beginning of the next week they at last set out, and were in Sassnitz the same evening. The inn was called ‘Fahrenheit Hotel’. ‘The prices, one hopes, will be Celsius,’ was Innstetten’s comment on reading the name, and there was still time for the two of them, in high good humour, to take an evening stroll along the cliffs and look out from a rocky promontory over the silent bay quivering in the moonlight. Effi was enchanted. ‘Oh Geert, it’s like Capri, it’s like Sorrento. Yes, let’s stay here. But not in the hotel. The waiters are too grand for me, you feel embarrassed to ask for a bottle of soda-water…’

‘Yes, attachés to a man. It will surely be possible to find something private to rent.’

‘I think so too. We’ll look for something tomorrow.’

The morning was as beautiful as the evening had been and they took breakfast outdoors. Innstetten received several letters which had to be dealt with quickly, so Effi decided to use the time she now had free to look for a place to stay. She first passed a fenced meadow, then some groups of houses and oat fields and finally took a path that dropped down a gulley towards the sea. Where this gulley path met the beach stood an inn overshadowed by tall beeches, not as grand as the Hotel Fahrenheit, really just a restaurant, where because of the early hour everything was deserted. Effi took a seat with a view and had barely taken a sip of the sherry she had ordered when the landlord, half out of curiosity and half out of politeness, came over to engage her in conversation.

‘We like it very much here,’ she said, ‘my husband and I; what a magnificent view out over the bay – the only worry is finding a place to rent.’

‘Yes, my lady, that will be difficult…’

‘But it’s already late in the year…’

‘All the same. Here in Sassnitz you certainly won’t find anything, I can guarantee that; but further down the coast, where the next village starts, you can see the roofs glinting from here, you might find something.’

‘And what’s the village called?’

‘Crampas.’

Effi thought her ears had deceived her. ‘Crampas,’ she repeated with an
effort, ‘I’ve never heard of that as a placename before… And there isn’t anything else in the vicinity?’

‘No my lady. Not round here. But further up, to the north, there are more villages and in the inn outside Stubbenkammer they’ll certainly be able to give you information. People with places to let always leave their addresses there.’

Effi was glad she had been alone for this conversation, and when she had reported back to her husband soon afterwards, only omitting the name of the village next to Sassnitz, he said, ‘Well, if there’s nothing around here, we’d best take a carriage (which, incidentally, always makes a good impression at hotels) and move straight on up towards Stubbenkammer. Some idyllic place with an arbour of honeysuckle is probably there just waiting to be found, and if not, there’s always the hotel. One’s as good as the other when all’s said and done.’

Effi was in agreement, and at about midday they reached the inn close to Stubbenkammer which Innstetten had just spoken of and ordered a bite to eat. ‘To be served in half an hour. We intend to take a walk first and look at Lake Hertha. There’s presumably a guide?’

The answer was in the affirmative and soon a middle-aged man approached our travellers. He looked important and solemn enough to have at the very least officiated in a junior capacity in the service of the goddess Hertha herself.

The lake, ringed with high trees, was quite close by; it was edged with reeds and a profusion of yellow waterlilies floated on the still black surface of the water.

‘It really does look as if it had to do with the cult of Hertha, or some such thing,’ said Effi.

‘Yes my lady… And the stones still there are witness to that.’

‘Which stones?’

‘The sacrificial stones.’

And as the conversation took its course all three walked from the lake over to a wall that had been cut vertically into the gravel and clay against which several smoothly polished stones leant, each with a shallow depression and several grooves running down it.

‘And what are
those
for?’

‘They were to let it run away better, my lady.’

‘I think we should go,’ said Effi, and taking her husband’s arm, she walked with him back towards the inn, where, at a place with an open view of the sea, the snack they had ordered was served. The bay lay in sunshine before them, here and there a sailing-boat glided over it, and seagulls swooped one after another round the nearby cliffs. It was very beautiful, as
Effi could see, but when she looked beyond the glittering surface she saw once more, to the south, gleaming brightly, the roofs of the long straggling village whose name had so startled her that morning.

Innstetten, without knowing or even suspecting what was going on inside her, could see quite clearly that she was bereft of all joy and pleasure. ‘I’m sorry Effi, that you’re not really enjoying it here. You can’t forget Lake Hertha, especially those stones.’

She nodded. ‘Yes, you’re right. And I must confess, I’ve never in my life seen anything that made me feel so sad. We must give up the idea of looking for somewhere. I can’t stay here.’

‘And yesterday it was the Gulf of Naples and absolutely everything that was beautiful.’

‘Yes, yesterday.’

‘And today? No trace of Sorrento left today?’

‘A trace yes, but only a trace; it’s Sorrento as if it were about to die.’

‘All right Effi,’ said Innstetten and reached out his hand, ‘I won’t plague you with Rügen, so let’s leave it at that. That’s settled. There’s no need for us to tie ourselves to Stubbenkammer, or Sassnitz or places further down. But where now?’

‘I think we should stay another day and wait for the steamer, which, if I’m not mistaken, comes from Stettin tomorrow and sails across to Copenhagen. They say it’s fun there, and I can’t tell you how much I long for a little fun. Here I feel as if I’ll never be able to laugh again, as if I’d never laughed in my whole life, and you do know how I like to laugh.’

Innstetten showed great sympathy with her state of mind, the more so since he mostly fully agreed with her. Beautiful as it was, it really was all very melancholy.

And so they waited for the Stettin steamer and on the third day in the early morning they arrived in Copenhagen and took rooms on Kongens Nytorv. Two hours later they were in the Thorwaldsen Museum, and Effi said, ‘Yes Geert, this is beautiful and I’m pleased we made the effort to come here.’ Soon afterwards they went to lunch and at the table d’hôte made the acquaintance of a family from Jutland who were sitting opposite them and whose strikingly beautiful daughter, Thora von Penz, immediately attracted not only Innstetten’s but also Effi’s almost admiring attention. Effi could not stop looking at her big blue eyes and flaxen hair, and when they rose from table an hour and a half later the hope was expressed on the Penzes’ side – they unfortunately had to leave Copenhagen that same day – that they might be privileged to welcome the young Prussian couple at Aggerhuus Castle (two miles from the Limfjord), an invitation the Innstettens accepted with scarcely any hesitation. With all this the hours at the hotel passed pleasantly.
But that was not the end of the good things that happened on that memorable day of which Effi was to say that it should be marked in red on the calendar. To fill her cup of happiness, the evening brought a performance at the Tivoli Theatre, an Italian pantomime, Harlequin and Columbine. Effi found their antics quite intoxicating, and late in the evening as they were going back to the hotel, she said, ‘You know, Geert, now I really feel I’m beginning to come to myself again. Leaving our beautiful Thora aside, when I think of this morning at the Thorwaldsen and Columbine this evening…’

‘Which if it comes down to it you liked better than the Thorwaldsen…’

‘To be quite candid, yes. I just happen to respond to things like that. Dear old Kessin was a disaster for me. Everything got on my nerves there. In Rügen it was much the same. I think we should stay a few more days here in Copenhagen, with an excursion to Frederiksborg and Elsinore of course, and then across to Jutland; I’m really looking forward to seeing our beautiful Thora again, and if I were a man, I would fall in love with her.’

Innstetten laughed. ‘You don’t know what I’ll do.’

‘I wouldn’t mind at all. Then there would be competition, and you’d see, I can still rise to that.’

‘You don’t have to tell me.’