Effi Briest (31 page)
Authors: Theodor Fontane
Then they parted with a brief ‘Auf Wiedersehen in Kessin.’
The following evening, as arranged, Innstetten travelled up. He took the same train as Wüllersdorf the previous day, and soon after five in the morning he was at the station where the road branched off to the left to Kessin. Today, as always while the season lasted, the oft-mentioned steamer, whose first bell Innstetten heard as he reached the bottom of the steps leading down from the railway track, was due to sail just after the train arrived. The walk to the landing stage took less than three minutes; he strode to it, greeted the
captain, who looked somewhat embarrassed and must already have heard about the whole thing in the course of the previous day, and took his place near the wheel. Moments later the ship cast off from the quay; the weather was magnificent, bright morning sun, not many passengers on board. He recalled the day when, returning from their honeymoon, he and Effi had driven along the banks of the Kessine here in an open carriage – a grey November day it was then, but he himself was light of heart; now it was the reverse, the light outside, and the grey November day within him. Many, many were the times he had come this way since then, and the peace that lay upon the fields, the breeding stock that looked up in the enclosures as he passed, the people at work, the fertility of the fields, all these things had induced a sense of well-being, and now, in stark contrast, he was glad when some clouds came over and began to dull the laughing blue of the sky. And so they sailed downstream, and soon, after they had passed the splendid expanse of the Breitling estuary, the Kessin church tower hove into sight, and moments later the Bulwark too and the long row of houses with the boats and ships in front of it. And now they had docked. Innstetten took his leave of the captain and strode towards the gangway which had been rolled up to facilitate disembarkation. Wüllersdorf was already there. Each greeted the other without speaking at first, and then they walked across the street to Hoppensack’s Inn where they sat down under an awning.
‘I booked in here yesterday morning,’ said Wüllersdorf, who was disinclined to get straight down to the matter in hand. ‘When one thinks what a backwater Kessin is, it’s astonishing to find such a good hotel here. I don’t doubt that my friend the head waiter here speaks three languages; to judge by his parting and the cut of his waistcoat we may safely assume four – Jean, would you bring us coffee and cognac please.’
Innstetten quite understood why Wüllersdorf was adopting this tone, and he was in agreement with it too, though he could not wholly master his restlessness and involuntarily pulled out his watch.
‘We have time,’ said Wüllersdorf. ‘An hour and a half yet, or almost. I’ve ordered the carriage for eight-fifteen; it won’t take us more than ten minutes.’
‘And where?’
‘Crampas first suggested a corner of the woods just beyond the churchyard. But then he broke off and said, “No, not there.” Then we agreed on a place in the dunes. Right on the beach, there’s a dip in the first dune and you can see the sea.’
Innstetten smiled. ‘Crampas seems to have picked a beauty spot. He was always that way inclined. How did he take it?’
‘Wonderfully well.’
‘Arrogant? Frivolous?’
‘Neither one nor the other. It shook me Innstetten, I can tell you. When he heard your name he went deathly pale and had to struggle to master his feelings, and I noticed a quiver at the corner of his mouth. But all that was over in an instant, and he got a grip of himself again, and from that moment he was all melancholy resignation. I’m absolutely certain he has the feeling he’s not going to come out of this alive, and doesn’t want to. If I judge him aright, he loves life and yet he’s indifferent to it. He grabs what he can in the passing, but he doesn’t set much store by any of it.’
‘Who’s going to be his second? Or should I say who is he going to bring along?’
‘That, once he had recovered his composure, was his main worry. He named two or three local aristocrats, but then rejected them, saying they were too old and too religious, and he would send a telegram to Treptow, to his friend Buddenbrook. And then he came, splendid chap, dashing and yet like a child at the same time. He couldn’t calm down and paced up and down in great agitation. But when I had told him everything he said the same as we did, “You’re right, it has to be!”’
The coffee came. They had a cigar and Wüllersdorf was again intent on steering the conversation round to more indifferent matters.
‘It surprises me that none of the local people have turned up to greet you. I know you were very well-liked. Not even your friend Gieshübler…’
Innstetten smiled, ‘You don’t know them up here on the coast; half of them are philistines, the other half are slippery customers, not much to my taste; but they do have one virtue, they have manners. And as for dear old Gieshübler. Of course they all know what’s going on, and for that very reason they’re taking care not to appear curious.’
At that moment a chaise with its hood down came into sight from the left, moving slowly because it was not yet the appointed hour.
‘Is that ours?’ asked Innstetten.
‘Presumably.’
And moments later the carriage stopped outside the hotel and Innstetten and Wüllersdorf stood up.
Wüllersdorf went over to the coachman and said, ‘To the mole.’
The mole was in the opposite direction, right instead of left, and this false instruction was only given to avoid any kind of intervention, which was always a possibility. But whether they wanted to turn left or right further on, they still had to go through the Plantation, so their route inevitably led past Innstetten’s old home. The house lay more silent that ever; the rooms on the ground floor looked pretty neglected; whatever could it be like upstairs! And the feeling of uncanniness that he had so often fought against in Effi, or else
had cause to smile at, now afflicted Innstetten himself, and he was glad when they were past it.
‘That’s where I lived,’ he said to Wüllersdorf.
‘It looks strange – desolate and deserted.’
‘Indeed. In the town they thought it was haunted, and looking at it today, I don’t blame them.’
‘What was it all about?’
‘Oh, some nonsense: an old ship’s captain with a granddaughter or a niece who disappeared one fine day, and then a Chinaman, who may have been her lover, and in the hallway there was a little shark and a crocodile, both suspended on strings and always in motion. Makes a marvellous story, but not now. There are all kinds of other things flitting through my mind.’
‘You’re forgetting, this could all go off smoothly.’
‘It can’t. And that isn’t what you yourself said a short while ago Wüllersdorf, when you were talking about Crampas.’
Soon afterwards they had passed the Plantation and the coachman was about to turn right towards the mole. ‘Go left instead. We’ll go to the mole later.’
And the coachman turned left into a wide cart track that ran behind the men’s bathing in a straight line to the woods. When they were within three hundred paces of them Wüllersdorf stopped the carriage and they both went ahead on foot, sinking into the grinding sand, walking down a wide cart track which cut at right angles through the three lines of dunes at this point. There were dense clumps of marram grass all around on either side, but round it grew immortelles and a few blood-red pinks. Innstetten stooped and picked one of the wild pinks to put in his buttonhole. ‘The immortelles come later.’
They walked on for five minutes. When they had reached the fairly deep hollow between the first two lines of dunes they saw, to their left, the opposing party already there: Crampas and Buddenbrook, and with them the good Dr Hannemann who had his hat in his hand, so that his white hair blew in the wind.
Innstetten and Wüllersdorf walked up the gulley in the sand, Buddenbrook came towards them. They exchanged greetings and the two seconds stepped aside for a brief discussion of the remaining practicalities. The agreement was that they were to advance simultaneously and fire at ten paces. Then Buddenbrook went back to his place; it was all quickly performed; and the shots rang out. Crampas fell.
Innstetten, stepping back a few paces, turned away from the scene. Wüllersdorf had gone over to Buddenbrook and both awaited word from the doctor, who shrugged his shoulders. At that moment Crampas indicated
with a gesture that he wanted to say something. Wüllersdorf bent down to him, nodded at the few words that came scarcely audibly from the dying man’s lips and then went up to Innstetten.
‘Crampas would like to say something to you Innstetten. You must grant him this wish. He has barely three minutes to live.’
Innstetten walked over to Crampas.
‘Would you…’ These were his last words.
One more agonized but almost friendly flicker in his features and it was all over.
On the evening of the same day Innstetten arrived back in Berlin. He had gone straight to the railway station in the carriage he had left on the road across the dunes, without going near Kessin again, leaving it to the two seconds to make the report to the authorities. On the way (he was alone in the compartment) he went over what had happened, reflecting on it all once more; his thoughts were the same as two days earlier, but in reverse order, starting with the conviction that he was in the right and had done his duty, and ending up doubting it all. ‘Guilt, if there is such a thing, isn’t bound to time or place and can’t just lapse from one day to the next. Guilt requires expiation; that makes sense. But a time limit is a half-measure, it’s weak, or at least prosaic.’ And he clung to this idea for support, repeating to himself that what had happened had to happen. But at the very moment when he was certain of this, he rejected it again. ‘There must be some time limit, a time limit is the only sensible approach; and whether it’s prosaic into the bargain or not is neither here nor there, what’s sensible is usually prosaic. I’m forty-five now. If I had found the letters twenty-five years later, I would have been seventy. Then Wüllersdorf would have said, “Innstetten, don’t be a fool.” And if Wüllersdorf hadn’t said it, Buddenbrook would have, and if
he
hadn’t said it I would have said it myself. That much is clear. If you take something to extremes, then you go too far and end up looking ridiculous. No doubt about it. But where does it start? Where is the dividing line? After ten years a duel is still necessary, and they call it honour, and after eleven years, or perhaps after only ten and a half, they call it folly. The dividing line, the dividing line. Where is it? Has it come? Has it already been crossed? When I think of that last look, the resignation, with a smile in spite of his agony, what that look was saying was, “Innstetten, always the stickler for principles… You could have spared me this, and yourself too.” And maybe
he was right. My soul seems to be saying something like that. Yes, if I’d been filled with mortal hate, if I’d had a burning lust for revenge… Revenge isn’t admirable, but it’s human, and has a natural human right. As it was, it was all for the sake of an idea, a concept, it was an artificial affair, half play-acting. And now I have to carry on with the act, and send Effi away, and be the ruin of her, and myself too… I should have burnt the letters and the world should never have found out about them. And then when she came back, without any inkling, I should have said, ‘Your place is there,’ and should have inwardly divorced myself from her. Not in the eyes of the world. There are so many lives that aren’t real lives, so many marriages that aren’t real marriages… happiness would have gone, but I wouldn’t have had to live with that eye with its questioning look and its silent, gentle reproof.’
Shortly before ten Innstetten drew up outside his house. He climbed the stairs and pulled the bell; Johanna came and opened the door.
‘How is Annie?’
‘Well sir. She’s not asleep yet… If you would care to…’
‘No, no, don’t excite her. I’d rather see her tomorrow morning. Bring me a glass of tea Johanna. Has anybody called?’
‘Only the doctor.’
And now Innstetten was alone again. He paced up and down, as was his wont. ‘They know everything already. Roswitha is stupid, but Johanna is a smart one. And if they don’t know for certain, they’ve put two and two together and have a shrewd idea. It’s curious how many things can become pointers and tell-tales, as if everybody had been there.’
Johanna brought the tea. Innstetten drank it. After all the strain he was dead tired and fell asleep.
Innstetten was up early. He saw Annie, exchanged a few words with her, praised her for being a good patient and then went to the Ministry to report what had happened to his chief. The Minister was most gracious. ‘Yes Innstetten, happy the man who comes through what life brings us unscathed; you haven’t had your troubles to seek.’ He found all that had happened in order and left the consequences to Innstetten.
It was late afternoon before Innstetten got back to the apartment, where he found a few lines from Wüllersdorf.
Arrived back this morning. Experienced a world of things; painful, touching, Gieshübler above all. The most delightful hunchback I’ve ever met.
He didn’t say much about you, but your wife, your wife! He couldn’t get over it and ended up in tears, the little man. The things that happen. One can only wish there were more Gieshüblers. But there are more of the others. And then the scene at the Major’s house – terrible. But not a word about that. One more lesson in the importance of being careful. I shall see you tomorrow.
Yours,
W.
Innstetten was badly shaken after he had read this. He sat down and wrote a few letters himself. When he was finished he rang: ‘Johanna, letters for the post-box.’ Johanna took the letters and made to go.
‘…And then, Johanna, there’s another thing: my wife will not be coming back. Others will tell you why not. Annie must know nothing, at least not yet. Poor child. You must break it to her gently that she no longer has a mother. I can’t. But do it sensibly. And don’t let Roswitha ruin things.’
Johanna stood there, as if quite dazed for a moment. Then she went up to Innstetten and kissed his hand.
When she got back to the kitchen she was quite filled with pride and superiority, almost happiness. The Master had not only told her everything, but at the end he had said, ‘Don’t let Roswitha ruin things.’ That was the main thing, it wasn’t that she lacked goodness of heart and even sympathy for the Mistress, but what preoccupied her above all else was the triumph of having a position of a certain intimacy with the Master.
Under normal circumstances flaunting and exploiting this triumph would have been an easy matter, but today it turned out that things were not at all in her favour, so that her rival, without having been taken into the Master’s confidence, proved to be the better informed. The concierge below, at just about the same time as this was happening, had called Roswitha into his little room and as soon as she entered had thrust a newspaper before her eyes. ‘There Roswitha, there’s something for you; you can bring me it back down later. It’s only the
Fremdenblatt
: but Lene has gone out to get the
Kleine Journal
. There will be more in that; they always know everything. Imagine Roswitha, who would have thought it?’
Roswitha, not usually at all curious, had made her way as quickly as possible up the back stairs after this exchange and had just finished reading when Johanna joined her.
The latter put the letters Innstetten had just given her down on the table, ran her eye over the addresses, or at least pretended to (for she had long since established to whom they were written), and said with studied nonchalance, ‘One is to Hohen-Cremmen.’
‘I can imagine,’ said Roswitha.
This remark caused Johanna no little astonishment. ‘The Master never writes to Hohen-Cremmen ordinarily.’
‘Yes, ordinarily. But now – imagine, I just got this from the concierge downstairs.’
Johanna took the paper and read half-aloud a passage marked heavily in ink: ‘Just before going to press we heard from a well-informed source that yesterday morning in the seaside resort of Kessin in Eastern Pomerania, a duel took place between Ministerialrat v.I. (Keithstrasse) and Major von Crampas. Major von Crampas was killed. There is alleged to have been a liaison between him and and the Ministerialrat’s wife, a beautiful and still very young woman.’
‘The things these papers print,’ said Johanna, who was displeased that her news had been overtaken by events. ‘Yes,’ said Roswitha. ‘And now people are goin’ to read that and call my poor, dear mistress all sorts of things. An’ that poor Major. Now ’e’s dead.’
‘Roswitha, what can you be thinking of? Should he
not
be dead? Or should our dear Master be dead instead?’
‘No Johanna, the Master ought to be alive too, everybody ought to be alive. I’m not for shootin’ people, I can’t even stand ’earin’ the bangs. But just think Johanna, it was ages ago, and them letters, as soon as I saw them, I thought there was something funny about them with that red string wound round three or four times and then knotted without a bow – they looked all yellow with age, it was that long ago. We’ve been ’ere more’n six years now, ‘ow can people let such old stories –’
‘Oh Roswitha, what do you know about it? And when you get down to it, you’re to blame. It all came from the letters. Why did you fetch that chisel and force the sewing-table open? You should never do that; you must never break open a lock that somebody else has locked.’
‘You’ve gone too far now Johanna, accusin’ me of somethin’ like that straight out, and anyway if it comes to that
you’re
to blame, you’re the one who came dashin’ into the kitchen like a mad thing and told me to break open the sewin’-table because the bandage was in it, that’s when I brought the chisel, and now I’m to get the blame. Well I must say…’
‘All right, I take it back Roswitha. But don’t try your “Poor Major” on me. Poor Major indeed! The sum total of your poor major was worth nothing; people like that with golden red moustaches they’re always twirling are never worth a thing and all they do is damage. And when one has always been in service in fine houses – which you haven’t Roswitha, that’s something you lack – then one knows what is proper and fitting and what honour means, and one knows that when that kind of thing happens, there’s no other way,
and so there’s what they call a challenge issued, and somebody ends up shot dead.’
‘Oh, I know all that; I’m not so stupid as you would like to ’ave me. But when it was so long ago –’
‘Roswitha, that “so long ago” of yours, that’s what shows you don’t understand a thing about it. You’re always telling the same old story about your father and the red-hot iron bar, and how he came at you, and each time I put a red-hot slug in the iron I think of your father, and I see him wanting to kill you because of the child, which is dead now. Yes Roswitha, you’re always talking about it, and next thing you’ll be telling Annie the story too, and when Annie is confirmed, she’ll certainly hear it, perhaps the very same day. And it annoys me that you’ve been through all that, when your father was just a village blacksmith who shoed horses or put rims on cart-wheels, and now you come and expect the Master to turn a blind eye to it all, just because it was so long ago. And what does long ago mean? Six years isn’t long ago. And our mistress – who isn’t coming back, the Master has just told me that – our mistress isn’t twenty-six yet, her birthday’s in August, and you talk to me about “long ago”. And even if she was thirty-six, I can tell you thirty-six is an age when you really have to be careful, and if the Master had done nothing, the best people would have cut him. But you don’t know anything about that Roswitha, you don’t even know the word.’
‘No, I don’t know anythin’ about that and don’t want to neither; but one thing I do know Johanna, you’re in love with the Master.’
Johanna gave a forced laugh.
‘Yes, go on, laugh. I saw it a long time ago. There’s somethin’ in your manner. It’s a good thing the Master don’t notice that kind of thing… The poor lady, the poor lady.’
Johanna was now intent on peace. ‘Let it be Roswitha. You’re in one of your funny moods; but I know you all have them, you country folk.’
‘Maybe we do.’
‘I’m going to post the letters now and see downstairs if the concierge has the other paper yet. I did understand you to say he sent Lene for it? There’s bound to be more in that. There’s next to nothing in this one.’