Effi Briest (33 page)
Authors: Theodor Fontane
Frau Zwicker, who still had hopes of hearing much more, had only been persuaded with difficulty not to see the ‘dear Baroness’ off. At the station, Effi had insisted, one was always so preoccupied, and only concerned about one’s
luggage and one’s seat; and especially in the case of those one cared for it was best to take one’s leave beforehand. Frau Zwicker concurred, though she sensed well enough that this was just a pretext; she had seen enough in her time to know at once what was genuine and what wasn’t.
Afra accompanied Effi to the station and insisted on the Baroness promising faithfully to come back next summer; people who had been to Ems always kept coming back. There was nowhere to beat Ems, apart from Bonn.
Frau Zwicker had in the meantime sat down to write some letters, not at the rather shaky rococo secretaire in the drawing-room, but outside on the veranda, at the same table where she had taken breakfast with Effi not ten hours previously.
She was looking forward to writing the letter, which a Berlin lady of her acquaintance who was currently staying in Reichenhall was to have the benefit of. They had long been soul-mates and were united above all in viewing the entire male sex with deep-seated scepticism; they found that men consistently fell far short of anything that one might reasonably require, the so-called ‘dashing’ ones further than most. ‘The ones who are so embarrassed they don’t know where to look are the best for all that, after a short course of instruction, but the Don Juans are invariably a disappointment. And what else could you expect?’ Such were the words of wisdom that passed between the two friends.
Frau Zwicker was already on her second sheet, expatiating on her highly rewarding topic – Effi – as follows:
All in all she was easy to get on with, she was well-mannered, seemed to be frank and open, without any trace of aristocratic snobbery (or else greatly skilled in concealing it) and she always listened with interest when she was told something interesting, which, as I don’t have to tell you, I exploited to the full. I repeat, a charming young woman, twenty-five, or not much more. And yet I didn’t trust that calm of hers, nor do I at this moment, indeed now less than ever. The business today with the letter – there’s a real story behind that. I’m as good as certain. It would be the first time I’ve ever been mistaken in such a matter. The way she liked to talk about fashionable Berlin preachers, establishing the measure of each one’s godliness, that and her occasional Gretchen look, as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth – all these things together reinforced my conviction… But here is Afra, whom I’ve mentioned to you already, a pretty young girl, bringing a newspaper to my table, which she tells me the landlady has given her for me: there’s something marked in blue. Excuse me while I read it…
P.S. The paper was most interesting and came right on cue. I shall cut out
the passage marked in blue and enclose it with this letter. You’ll see from it that I was
not
wrong. Who can this Crampas be? It’s not to be credited – first she writes notes and letters and then she goes and keeps
his
letters! What are fires and stoves for? That sort of thing should never be allowed to happen, at least not as long as this idiotic practice of duelling is still with us; in coming generations the passion for writing letters may perhaps be permitted (because then it will no longer be dangerous). But we are a long way off that time yet. For my part, I’m filled with pity for the young baroness, and the only consolation in all this for me, vain as one is, is that I was not wrong about her. And the case was not all that ordinary. A less acute diagnostician could have been taken in.
As ever,
Yours,
Sophie
Three years had passed and Effi had been living for almost as long in a little flat in Königgrätzerstrasse between Askanischer Platz and Hallesches Tor: two rooms, one front and one back, and a kitchen behind with a cubby-hole for the maid, all as plain and ordinary as one could imagine. And yet it was a pretty flat with a touch of style which made an agreeable impression on everyone who saw it, not least perhaps, on his occasional calls, old Geheimrat Rummschüttel who had long since forgiven the poor young woman not only for the play-acting with rheumatism and neuralgia – that lay far in the past – but also for all that had occurred since, insofar as there was any need for forgiveness in his case. For Rummschüttel had seen far worse in his time. He was going on eighty, yet whenever Effi, who had latterly been given to frequent ailments, sent a letter asking him to visit her, he would be there next morning, brushing aside her apologies for living up so many stairs. ‘Not a word of apology my dear lady, first because it’s my job, secondly because I’m pleased, indeed rather proud to be able to climb three flights so easily. If I weren’t afraid of inconveniencing you – after all I’m here as a doctor and not as a nature-lover and landscape enthusiast – I would probably come more often, just to see you and sit for a while at your back window. I don’t think you quite appreciate the view.’
‘Oh, I do, I do,’ said Effi, but Rummschüttel would not be deterred and went on, ‘Please, my dear lady, come over here just for a moment, or allow me to escort you to the window. Quite magnificent again today. Just look at
all those different railway lines, three, no four of them, and look at the way trains constantly glide up and down them… and now that one over there is disappearing again behind a clump of trees. Really magnificent. And the way the sun is suffusing the white smoke! If St Matthew’s churchyard wasn’t directly behind it, it would be ideal.’
‘I rather like churchyards.’
‘Yes, you can say that. But for the likes of me! Inevitably the question for us is, couldn’t one or two fewer have been laid to rest there? Anyway my dear lady, I’m quite pleased with you and my only regret is that you won’t hear of Bad Ems; with these catarrhal infections of yours Ems would work…’
Effi said nothing.
‘Ems would work wonders. But since you don’t care for it (and I accept that) you can take the waters here. It’s three minutes to Prince Albrecht’s Gardens, and even if they don’t have the music and elegant dresses and all the diversions of a proper spa promenade, there is the spring, which is the main thing after all.’
Effi expressed agreement and Rummschüttel took his hat and stick. But he went over to the window again. ‘I hear the council is going to lay out terraces on the Kreuzberg, bless them, and once that bare patch at the back has more green… A charming flat. I almost envy you… And I’ve been meaning to say for some time dear lady, you always write me such delightful letters. Who could fail to enjoy them? But it must be such an effort each time – why don’t you just send Roswitha over?’
Effi thanked him and on this note they parted.
‘Why don’t you just send Roswitha over…’ Rummschüttel had said. So was Roswitha with Effi? Was she in Königgrätzerstrasse and not in Keithstrasse? Indeed she was, and had been for quite some time, for as long in fact as Effi herself had been in Königgrätzerstrasse. Three days before the move Roswitha had appeared at her dearly beloved mistress’s lodgings and that had been such a great day for both of them that we must now go back and give it its due.
When her parents’ letter came from Hohen-Cremmen casting Effi off and sending her from Ems back to Berlin on the evening train, she had not immediately taken a place of her own, but had found accommodation at a boarding-house by way of experiment, and it had proved tolerably successful. The two ladies who ran the boarding-house were educated and amply considerate, and had long since given up being curious. So many paths converged there that a desire to penetrate everyone’s secrets would have caused altogether too many complications. That kind of thing could only be harmful
to business. Effi, who still had Frau Zwicker’s cross-questioning eyes fresh in her memory, was most agreeably touched by the landladies’ restraint, but at the end of a fortnight had the distinct feeling that the prevailing atmosphere there, both moral and physical, was not one she could readily bear. There were mostly seven at table: besides Effi and one of the landladies (the other ran the kitchen behind the scenes), two English girls attending college, a titled lady from Saxony, a very pretty Jewish girl from Galicia – what she was there for no one knew – and a schoolmaster’s daughter from Polzin in Pomerania who wanted to be a painter. It was an unfortunate combination and the round of supercilious backbiting in which the English girls did not, oddly enough, sweep all before them, but disputed the palm with the daughter of Polzin and her exalted sense of her artistic vocation, was dispiriting, yet Effi, who kept out of it all, could have coped with the strain this moral atmosphere imposed, had there not been the physical matter of the actual air in the boarding-house to compound her problems. Its exact composition was probably impossible to determine, but the fact was all too clear that, susceptible as Effi was, it caused her breathing difficulties, and it was this physical circumstance that very quickly forced her to look out for alternative accommodation, which she then managed to find quite close by. It was the flat already described in Königgrätzerstrasse. She had gathered together the essentials to move in at the beginning of the autumn quarter, and was counting away the hours in the last days of September before her merciful release from the boarding-house.
On one of those last days – she had withdrawn a quarter of an hour earlier from the dining-room and was preparing to take her ease on a sea-grass sofa upholstered in coarse wool with a large floral pattern – there was a quiet knock at the door.
‘Come in.’
The sole maid, a sickly-looking creature in her mid-thirties who, as a result of constantly occupying the lobby, trailed about the pervasive fug of the boarding-house in every fold of her clothing, entered and said, ‘Excuse me my lady, there’s somebody to see you.’
‘Who?’
‘A woman.’
‘Did she give her name?’
‘Yes, Roswitha.’
And behold, Effi had hardly heard the name when she shook off her drowsiness, jumped to her feet and ran out into the lobby to take Roswitha by both hands and pull her into the room.
‘Roswitha. It’s you! What a pleasure. What’s brought you here? Something good of course. A good old face like yours can only be bringing something
good. Oh, I’m so happy I could give you a kiss. I would never have thought I could feel such pleasure again. Dear old heart, how are you? Remember what it was like in the old days, with that Chinaman haunting us? Those were happy times. I thought then they were unhappy, because I still had to learn how hard life is. I know now. Ghosts aren’t the worst thing, not by a long chalk! Come here dear, good Roswitha, come and sit by me and tell me… Oh, I do so long to hear. How is Annie?’
Roswitha could scarcely speak and looked around the strange room whose grey and dusty-looking walls were framed by a narrow gold moulding. But at length she recovered herself and said that the Master was now back from Glatz; the old Kaiser had said that ‘six weeks would be about enough in such a case’, and all she had been waiting for was the day the Master came home, because of Annie. She had to have somebody to look after her. Johanna was of course neat and tidy enough, but she was still too pretty and too taken up with herself and goodness knows what she might have in mind. But now that the Master was there to keep an eye on things and see to it that everything was done properly, she had really felt she owed it to herself to come and see how her Mistress was getting on –
‘That’s quite right, Roswitha.’
– And she had wanted to see whether her ladyship needed anything, whether maybe she needed her, for if she did she would step in at once and stay and do everything and see to it that things began to go well for her ladyship again.
Effi had leant back into the corner of the sofa and closed her eyes. But suddenly she sat up and said, ‘Yes Roswitha, that’s a thought. It’s a distinct possibility. For you see, I’m not staying here in this boarding-house, I’ve taken a flat. And I’ve had it furnished and I’m moving in in three days. And if you could be with me when I do, if I could just say, “No, not there Roswitha, the wardrobe goes there and the mirror there,” yes, that would be something, I would certainly like that. And then, both of us tired after all the fetching and carrying, I’d say, “Now Roswitha, you can go across the road and fetch a jug of Spatenbräu, for a glass of beer goes down well after hard work, and while you’re at it see if you can bring us something nice to eat from the Habsburger Hof. You can take the plates back later” – Yes Roswitha, just thinking about it makes my heart feel a great deal lighter. But I have to ask you. Have you given this enough thought? I don’t mean Annie. You’re very attached to her, she’s almost like your own child – but Annie will be looked after, Johanna is attached to her too. So no more of that. But just remember how everything has changed before you decide to come back to me. I’m not who I was. Now I have a tiny flat, and the concierge won’t have much time for you or me. We’ll live very modestly, meals will always be what
we used to call Thursday fare, because that was cleaning day. Do you remember? And do you remember how dear old Gieshübler once called and had to sit down with us, and then said, “I’ve never tasted such a delicacy.” Don’t you remember how terribly polite he always was, even though he was the only person in the whole town who knew anything about good cooking. The rest of them thought everything was delicious.’
Roswitha rejoiced at every word and thought it was all going wonderfully until Effi again said, ‘Have you given this enough thought? For you’ve – I have to say this even though it was my own household – you’ve been spoilt over the years. There was never any question of being careful, we didn’t need to be thrifty. But now I do. Now I’m poor. All I have is what they send me, you know, from Hohen-Cremmen. My parents are very good to me. They do what they can, but they’re not rich. So now tell me. What do you think?’
‘I’ll come and bring my trunk next Saturday. Not in the evenin’ – first thing in the mornin’, so I’ll be there when you start movin’ your things in. I’m a lot better at that sort of thing than your ladyship.’
‘Don’t say that Roswitha. I can do these things too. You can do anything when you have to.’
‘My lady, just don’t you worry about me. I’m not goin’ to think, “That won’t do for Roswitha.” Anythin’ Roswitha has to share with her mistress is fine, especially if it’s somethin’ sad. Yes, I’m really lookin’ forward to it. I know a thing or two about that, you’ll see. And if I don’t, I’ll learn, no bother. For I ’aven’t forgotten that day my lady, you know, when I was sittin’ in the churchyard without a friend in the world, thinkin’ it’d be best all round if I was lyin’ there with the rest of them in the row. An’ who came along then? Who kept me among the livin’ after all I’ve been through? That time my father came at me with the red-hot iron –’
‘I know Roswitha –’
‘Yes, that was bad enough. But sittin’ in the churchyard that day with hardly any money an’ nowhere to go was even worse. And then along you came, my lady. I’ll never forget that, God rest my soul.’
And with that she stood up and went to the window. ‘Look my lady, if you come over ’ere you can see ’im again.’
And now Effi approached the window too.
On the far side of the street sat Rollo, looking up at the boarding-house windows.