Effi Briest (32 page)
Authors: Theodor Fontane
Effi and Geheimrätin Zwicker had been in Ems for almost three weeks, living on the ground floor of a charming little villa. In the shared drawing-room which lay between their two living-rooms and had a view of the garden
was a jacarandawood grand piano on which Effi would occasionally play a sonata, and the Geheimrätin occasionally a waltz; she was quite unmusical, restricting herself in the main to rhapsodizing about Niemann’s Tannhäuser.
It was a magnificent morning; in the little garden the birds were twittering, and from the house next door in which there was a ‘bar’, the click of billiard-balls could already be heard, despite the early hour. The two ladies had taken breakfast not in the drawing-room itself, but on a little gravelled front terrace, raised a couple of feet, with a brick retaining wall, from which three steps led down to the garden; the awning above them was wound back so that their enjoyment of the fresh air would be in no way impeded, and both Effi and the Geheimrätin were absorbed in their needlework. Only occasionally did they exchange a few words.
‘I don’t understand,’ said Effi, ‘why I haven’t had a letter for four days; he usually writes every day. Can Annie be ill? Or is he himself ill?’
The Geheimrätin smiled, ‘He’s fit as a fiddle, you’ll see.’
Effi felt there was something unpleasant about the tone in which this was said, and was on the point of responding when the housemaid, who came from somewhere near Bonn and from her youth had formed the habit of assessing the most diverse phenomena by reference to Bonn students and Bonn hussars, came out of the drawing-room on to the terrace to clear away the breakfast things. She was called Afra.
‘Afra,’ said Effi, ‘it must be nine by now. Hasn’t the postman been yet?’
‘No, my lady, not yet.’
‘What can be the reason for that?’
‘The postman, of course; he’s from Siegen way, no gumption. I’ve already told him he’s downright slack. And the way he has his hair, I don’t think he’s ever heard of a parting.’
‘Afra, you’re being a bit hard on him again. Just think what it’s like to be a postman day in day out in this eternal heat…’
‘Yes, my lady, you’re right. But others manage; if you’ve got it in you, it can be done.’ And as she said this, she balanced the tray skilfully on her finger-tips and went down the steps to take the shorter route to the kitchen through the garden.
‘A pretty girl,’ said Frau Zwicker. ‘And so brisk and bright, one might say she has natural grace. Do you know, my dear Baroness, that this Afra – wonderful name by the way, isn’t it, they tell me there was even a Saint Afra, not that I think ours is any relation –’
‘There you go again, my dear Geheimrätin, off at a tangent, this time it’s Afra, and quite forgetting what you really meant to say –’
‘Not quite, my dear friend, I’m coming back to it. What I was about to
say was that our Afra, for me, bears an uncommon resemblance to that impressive girl I’ve seen in your house…’
‘Yes, you’re right. There is a similarity. Except that our maid in Berlin is definitely prettier, her hair is much fuller and more beautiful. I’ve never seen hair as beautiful and flaxen as our Johanna’s, absolutely never. You do see it of course, but never in such abundance.’
Frau Zwicker smiled, ‘It’s not often you hear a young wife lavishing praise on her housemaid’s flaxen locks. And on their abundance too! You know I find that touching. For really, choosing maids is always a delicate matter. They have to be pretty, because every caller, or at least the men, are put off if a long beanpole with a pasty complexion and a grimy collar and cuffs comes to the door, truly it’s a blessing that most lobbies are so dark. But pay too much attention to maintaining outward appearances and creating so-called first impressions, and maybe even give the pretty little thing one frilly apron after another, and you’ll never have a moment’s peace again, you’ll constantly be asking yourself, unless you’re
too
vain and
too
self-confident, whether you ought not to remedy the matter. “Remedy” was one of Zwicker’s favourite expressions, he frequently used to bore me stiff with it; but of course every Geheimrat has his favourite expressions.’
Effi listened with very mixed feelings. If the Geheimrätin had been just a little different, it would all have been charming, but as it was, Effi felt there was something unpleasant here that in other circumstances would perhaps simply have amused her.
‘You’re right about Geheimrat’s tick, my dear, Innstetten has it too, but he always laughs when I draw attention to it, and apologizes afterwards for using official jargon. Of course your husband had been in the service longer and was probably rather older…’
‘Not very much,’ was Frau Zwicker’s tart rejoinder.
‘But anyway, I can’t really share the fears you express. The moral code, as it’s called, still counts for something –’
‘You think so?’
‘ – and least of all can I imagine that you of all people, my dear friend, could ever be exposed to these fears and anxieties. Forgive me for being so outspoken, but you have what men call “charm”, you’re good-humoured, fascinating, stimulating company, and if it’s not indiscreet I would like to ask, with all these qualities of yours, whether what you have been saying is based on certain painful experiences in your own life?’
‘Painful?’ said Frau Zwicker. ‘Oh my dear, dear lady, painful is putting it too strongly, even if one does chance to have been through a good deal. Pain is too strong a word, far too strong. In addition to which one has one’s ways of coping, one’s counter-strategies. You mustn’t be too tragic about these things.’
‘I can’t really quite imagine what you’re referring to. It’s not as if I don’t know what sin is. I do. But there’s a difference between finding yourself inadvertently entertaining bad thoughts of whatever kind and actually letting that sort of thing become a part, or indeed a habitual part of your life. Not to speak of allowing it in your own home…’
‘I’m not talking about that. That’s not quite what I meant to say, although, to be candid, I do have misgivings about that too, or I should say I
had
. For it’s all in the past now. But there are more discreet places. Do you know about country outings?’
‘Of course. And I wish Innstetten showed more interest…’
‘Do you realize what you’re saying, my dear friend? Zwicker was always going out to Saatwinkel. I can tell you, I still only have to hear the name to feel a pang again. That goes for all those places people go to on the outskirts of our dear old Berlin! For I love Berlin in spite of everything. But the very names of all those places conjure up a world of worry and anxiety. You’re smiling. But tell me my dear friend, what can you expect the state of morality to be in a city where just outside the gates (for there’s hardly any difference between Berlin and Charlottenburg any more), huddled within half a mile of each other you have Pichelsberg, Pichelsdorf and Pichelswerder? Three places to get pickled in is just too much. Search the whole world, you won’t find anything like it elsewhere.’
Effi nodded.
‘And this,’ Frau Zwicker continued, ‘is all going on in the greenwood on the banks of the Havel. And that’s only the west where at least you find culture and civilized behaviour. But go to the other side of the city my dear, up the Spree. I’m not talking about Treptow or Stralau, they’re bagatelles, quite innocuous, but look at a local map, and alongside names that are to say the least strange-sounding like Kiekebusch or Wuhlheide… you should have heard Zwicker pronouncing that one… you’ll find names with an unmistakably vulgar ring, names I won’t offend your ears with. But, naturally, these are the preferred places. I hate these country outings, which in the popular imagination are patriotic charabanc parties with rousing choruses of “I am Prussian”, whereas in fact they contain the seeds of social revolution. When I say “social revolution” I mean of course moral revolution, everything else is passé, and even Zwicker in his last days said to me, “Believe me Sophie, Saturn devours his children.” And Zwicker, for all his faults and deficiencies, I have to give him his due here, was a thinking man and had a natural feeling for history… But I can see that my dear Frau von Innstetten, polite as she usually is, is only listening with half an ear. Of course! There’s the postman over there, and so the heart flies out to anticipate the loving words in the letter… Well Böselager, what have you brought us?’
While she spoke, the postman had reached the table and was emptying his bag: several newspapers, two hairdresser’s advertisements and lastly a large registered letter addressed: ‘To Baroness von Innstetten, née von Briest.’
The recipient signed and the postman left again. Frau Zwicker ran her eye over the advertisements and laughed at the reduced price for a shampoo.
Effi was not listening; she turned the letter she had received over and over in her hands with an inexplicable reluctance to open it. Registered, sealed with two large seals in a stout envelope. What did that mean? Postmarked Hohen-Cremmen and addressed in her mother’s handwriting. From Innstetten, it was five days now, not a word.
She took a pair of mother-of-pearl-handled embroidery scissors and slowly cut open the long side of the envelope. And now a fresh surprise awaited her. The sheet of notepaper was indeed covered with closely written lines from her mother, but folded up in it were banknotes with a broad paper band round them on which, in red in her father’s hand, the amount of the enclosed sum was marked. She thrust the bundle of notes back into the envelope and began to read, leaning back in the rocking-chair. But she did not get far, the notepaper fell from her grasp and all the blood drained from her face. Then she bent down and picked up the letter again.
‘What’s wrong, my dear friend? Bad news?’
Effi nodded, but did not elaborate and merely asked for a glass of water. When she had taken a drink she said, ‘It will pass, dear Geheimrätin, but I should like to go to my room for a moment… Could you send Afra to me?’
And with that she rose and went back into the drawing-room where she was visibly relieved at having something to hold on to, and to be able to feel her way along the jacarandawood piano. In this way she reached her room on the right, and when, fumbling and groping for the handle, she had opened the door and reached the bed against the wall opposite, she fainted.
Minutes went by. When Effi had recovered she sat on a chair standing by the window and looked out at the quiet street. If only there had been some noise, some altercation; but all that was on the paved roadway was sunshine, interspersed with the shadows cast by the railings and the trees. The feeling of being alone in the world descended on her with all its weight. An hour ago a happy woman, the darling of all who knew her, now an outcast. She had read only the beginning of the letter, but it was enough to bring her situation
home to her quite clearly. Where to go? She had no answer to that, yet she was filled with a deep longing to get away from all that surrounded her here, away from the Geheimrätin, to whom it was all just an ‘intriguing case’, and whose sympathy, if she had any, would certainly be no match for her curiosity.
‘Where to go?’
On the table in front of her lay the letter; but she did not have the courage to read any more of it. In the end she said, ‘What is there to be afraid of now? What can they say that I haven’t already told myself? The man for whose sake this all happened is dead, there’s no going back home for me, in a few weeks the divorce will be granted and the child will be awarded to the father. Naturally. I’m the guilty party and a guilty woman can’t bring up her child. And anyway, what with? For myself, I’ll manage. Let’s see what Mamma has to say about this, how she envisages my life.’
And with these words she took up the letter again to read it through to the end:
…And now to your future, my dear Effi. You are going to have to fend for yourself, and in that you can rely, as far as material things are concerned, on our support. You had best stay in Berlin (a big city is best for living down this kind of thing) and there you will be one of the many who have forfeited the open air and the light of the sun. You will live a lonely life, or if you don’t want that you will probably have to move out of your own sphere. The world you have lived in will be closed to you. And the saddest thing of all for us and for you (yes, for you too, we think we know you well enough to say) is that your parental home will be closed to you. We cannot offer you a quiet corner at Hohen-Cremmen, there can be no refuge in our home, for that would mean closing this house to all the world, and that we are definitely not inclined to do. Not because we are so very attached to the world, or because saying goodbye to ‘society’, as it is called, seems absolutely unbearable, no, not for that reason. It’s simply that we have to show what we stand for and show before the world, I’m afraid I have to say this, our condemnation of what you have done, of what our only child, whom we loved so dearly, has done…
Effi could read no further; her eyes filled with tears, and after struggling in vain with them, she finally succumbed to paroxysms of sobbing and weeping which relieved her heart.
Half an hour later there was a knock, and in response to Effi’s ‘Come in,’ the Geheimrätin appeared.
‘May I come in?’
‘Of course my dear Geheimrätin,’ said Effi, who was now lying on the sofa, covered with a light rug, her hands clasped. ‘I’m exhausted. I’ve just made myself as comfortable as I could here, after a fashion. May I invite you to take a seat?’
The Geheimrätin sat down so that the table with its bowl of flowers stood between her and Effi. Effi showed no trace of embarrassment and made no adjustment to her posture, not even her clasped hands. All at once it was a matter of complete indifference to her what the woman thought; all she wanted was to get away.
‘You have had sad news my dear, dear lady…’
‘More than sad,’ said Effi. ‘At any rate sad enough to put a swift end to our being together here. I must leave here today.’
‘I don’t wish to pry, but is it something to do with Annie?’
‘No, not with Annie. The news didn’t come from Berlin, it was a few lines from my Mamma. She’s worried about me, so I really feel I must dispel her worries somehow, or if I can’t do that, at least be at home with her.’
‘I understand only too well, much as I regret the prospect of spending these last few days here in Ems without you. May I put my services at your disposal?’
Before Effi could answer, Afra came in and announced that they were going in to lunch. All the guests were very excited, she said: the Kaiser was probably coming for three weeks, and at the end of his stay there were to be grand manoeuvres. The Bonn Hussars were supposed to be coming too.
Would it be worth staying on until then, Frau Zwicker instantly reflected, arriving at a definite ‘yes’ before leaving to offer Effi’s apologies for her absence at lunch.
When Afra too made to leave, Effi said. ‘Oh Afra, if you’re free, come and help me with my packing for a quarter of an hour. I want to catch the seven o’clock train today.’
‘Today, so soon? Oh my lady, that’s a great pity, it really is. The fun’s just beginning.’
Effi smiled.