Effi Briest (36 page)
Authors: Theodor Fontane
Some three or four days after this conversation between Effi and Roswitha, Innstetten entered his study an hour earlier than usual. The morning sun, which was very bright, had wakened him, and probably because he felt he wasn’t going to get back to sleep, he had got up to start on a piece of work that had been awaiting completion for some time.
Now it was a quarter past eight and he rang. Johanna brought the breakfast tray, on which, beside the
Kreuzzeitung
and the
Norddeutsche Allgemeine
, there were also two letters. He ran his eye over the addresses and saw from the handwriting that one was from the Minister. But who was the other from? The postmark was not completely legible, and ‘The most excellent Baron, Herr von Innstetten,’ bespoke a happy lack of familiarity with titular conventions. This was appropriately matched by handwriting of a very primitive character. But the address itself was remarkably exact: 1C Keithstrasse, 2 stairs up, Berlin W.
Innstetten was enough of a civil servant to break the seal of his Excellency the Minister’s letter first. ‘My dear Innstetten, I am pleased to inform you that His Majesty has graciously approved your appointment and I offer my sincere congratulations.’ Innstetten was gratified at the Minister’s kind note, more almost than at the appointment itself. For as far as climbing up the ladder was concerned, since the morning in Kessin when Crampas had taken leave of him with that look which he still had in his mind’s eye, he had become rather critical of such things. Since then he had measured things on a different scale, looked at everything differently. Distinctions, what did they
amount to in the end? As the days flowed ever more dismally by, he had more than once involuntarily thought of a half-forgotten ministerial anecdote from the time of the elder Ladenberg who, on being awarded the Order of the Red Eagle after a long wait for it, threw it aside in rage, exclaiming, ‘You can lie there till you turn
black
.’ Probably it did go ‘black’ in time, but much too late and certainly without bringing the recipient any real satisfaction. Everything that is meant to give us pleasure is bound to time and circumstance, and what delights us today is worthless tomorrow. Innstetten was deeply conscious of this and, important as honours and distinctions coming from the highest level had once been to him, he was now convinced that there was nothing much to be got from the glittering prizes, and that what passed for ‘happiness’, if indeed it existed, was something other than this glitter. ‘Happiness, if I’m right, consists of two things: the first is to be in the exact place where you belong (but what public servant can say that of himself?), and the second and best is the smooth running of the little things of life, such as sleeping well and having boots that don’t pinch. If the seven hundred and twenty minutes of a twelve-hour day pass without particular annoyance, that may qualify as a happy day.’ Innstetten was in the mood to dwell on such painful considerations again that day. He now picked up the second letter. When he had read it he brushed his hand across his brow, with a distinct and painful sensation that happiness
did
exist, that he had once known it, but that he no longer had it and could never have it again.
Johanna entered and announced: ‘Geheimrat Wüllersdorf.’
He was already standing in the doorway. ‘Congratulations Innstetten.’
‘You mean it, I know. The others will be annoyed. Anyway…’
‘Anyway? You’re not going to pooh-pooh the whole thing now surely?’
‘No. His Majesty’s kindness puts me to shame; the Minister’s good opinion and support, to which I owe all this – almost more so.’
‘But…’
‘But I’ve forgotten how to be glad about anything. If I said that to anyone other than you, it would just sound like a glib phrase. But you can follow my drift. Look at this place; look how empty and desolate it all is. Johanna’s a treasure, as they say, but when she comes into the room, my heart sinks. That act she puts on’ (Innstetten mimicked Johanna’s pose), ‘that shapely bosom, it’s almost comical really, the way it seems to have some special claim, whether on me in particular or on humanity in general I’m not sure – I find it all so triste and dispiriting, enough to make you shoot yourself if it weren’t so ludicrous.’
‘Innstetten, my dear fellow, do you propose embarking on your appointment as Permanent Secretary to the Minister in this frame of mind?’
‘Bah, is there any other way? Read this, I’ve just got this note.’
Wüllersdorf took the second letter with the illegible postmark, smiled at ‘most excellent Baron’ and moved over to the window to read it more easily.
Your Lordship,
You will likely be surprised at me writing to you, but it’s about Rollo. Little Annie told us last year he was getting lazy, but that’s all right here, he can be as lazy as he wants here, the lazier the better. The thing is her ladyship would like it such a lot. When she goes into the Luch or across the fields she always says, ‘I’m frightened Roswitha, I feel so alone out there. But who’s to come with me? Rollo would be fine, he bears me no grudge. That’s what’s good about animals, they don’t mind about things so much.’ These were her ladyship’s very words, and I’ll leave it at that, and just ask your lordship to give my best to dear little Annie for me. And Johanna too.
Your most humble servant,
Roswitha Gellenhagen
‘Well,’ said Wüllersdorf as he refolded the paper, ‘she’s a cut above us.’
‘My thoughts exactly.’
‘And that’s what’s made everything seem so questionable to you.’
‘You’ve hit it. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time, and these plain words with their pointed accusation – which may well not be intended – have tipped me right over the edge again. It’s been plaguing me for years now and I would like to get out of this whole business; nothing gives me satisfaction any more; the more distinctions they give me, the more I feel it all means nothing. I’ve made a mess of my life and I’ve been quietly thinking I ought to turn my back on all ambition and vanity, and put my schoolmasterly nature, which is probably the real me, to use as some sort of higher moral preceptor. There have been people like that. That way, if it came off, I could become some terribly well-known figure, like say Doctor Wichern at the Rough House in Hamburg – that miracle-worker who used to tame any criminal by the sheer force of his gaze and his exemplary piety…’
‘What can I say. Why not if it works?’
‘No, it won’t work. Not even
that
. For me every way ahead is blocked. How could I get through to a murderer’s soul? It takes somebody who’s unflawed to do that. And if you aren’t unflawed any more and your hands are stained, then at the very least you have to be able to play the raging penitent for the brothers you are bent on converting, and put on a show of unbounded remorse.’
Wüllersdorf nodded.
‘There you are, you’re nodding. But I can’t do any of that any more. I just
can’t bring myself to slip into a hair shirt now, let alone play the dervish or fakir and dance myself to death in a frenzy of self-accusation. So what I’ve come up with, since none of that would work, is this: I have to get away from here, go somewhere where the natives are black as pitch and ignorant of culture and honour. Happy people! For that’s what has done it, it’s that whole nonsense that’s responsible for all this. That kind of thing is not done out of passion, which at least might be excusable. It’s all for an idea… an idea, that’s all!… First the other man goes down, then you go down. Except in your own case it’s worse.’
‘Oh, come on Innstetten, these are just whims, sudden thoughts that enter your head. Into darkest Africa, what’s that supposed to mean? That’s for debt-ridden lieutenants. But a man like you. Do you want to preside over a palaver in a red fez or be blood brother to King Mtesa’s son-in-law? Do you want to grope your way up the Congo in a solar topee with six airholes in it, until you come out in the Cameroons or some such place? Impossible!’
‘Impossible? Why’s that? And if it
is
impossible, what then?’
‘Just stay here and resign yourself. Show me someone who isn’t depressed. Someone who doesn’t say to himself every day, “A very questionable business, when you think about it.” You know I have my own small burden to bear, not Exactly the same as yours, but not much lighter. All this about creeping around in the jungle and spending the night in giant anthills is idiocy; leave that to those who enjoy it, it’s not for the likes of us. Stand in the breach and hold the line till you fall, that’s the best thing. And before you go, get as much as possible out of the small things of life, the smallest of all. Don’t miss the violets in bloom, or the flowers coming out round the Luise Monument, or the little girls in high-laced boots jumping over their skipping-ropes. Take a trip out to Potsdam to the Friedenskirche where Kaiser Friedrich is buried. They’re just beginning to build a vault for him now. And while you’re at it, have a think about
his
life, and if that doesn’t set your mind at rest then you are beyond help indeed.’
‘All very well. But the year is long, and there’s every day… and then the evenings.’
‘That’s the easiest part. There’s
Sardanapalus
or
Coppélia
with dell’Era, and after that’s over there’s Siechen’s beer-restaurant. Not to be sneezed at. Three small beers always do the trick. There are plenty of people who see things just as we do, and one of them, who didn’t have his troubles to seek, once said to me, “You know Wüllersdorf, you can’t get through life without auxiliary structures”. The man who said that was a master builder, so he should know. And he was right to put it like that. Not a day passes when I’m not reminded of those “auxiliary structures”.’
Wüllersdorf, after this unburdening, took his hat and stick. Innstetten
however, whom his friend’s words might have reminded of his own previous ruminations on ‘modest happiness’, nodded half in agreement and smiled to himself.
‘And where are you going now Wüllersdorf? It’s too early for the Ministry.’
‘I’m taking the day off. First I’m going to stroll along the canal for an hour as far as the Charlottenburg lock and back. Then I’m going to pop into Huth’s on the Potsdamerstrasse, taking care up the little wooden steps. There’s a flower shop at street level.’
‘And that’s what you enjoy? That’s enough for you?’
‘I wouldn’t quite say that. But it helps. There’ll be several regulars there, taking their morning tipple, would be indiscreet to say who. One will tell a story about the Duke of Ratibor, another about Prince Bishop Kopp and a third probably about Bismarck. You always pick up something. Three-quarters of it isn’t true, but if it’s witty, no grounds for complaint and you’re grateful for something to listen to.’
And at that he left.
May was fine, June still finer, and Effi, after successfully overcoming an initial spasm of pain when Rollo arrived, was filled with joy at having the faithful animal at her side again. Roswitha was praised and Briest expatiated to his wife on the merits of Innstetten, quite the cavalier, not at all petty, always with his heart in the right place. ‘Pity that stupid business had to happen. They really were an ideal couple.’ The only one to keep calm at the reunion was Rollo himself, either because intervals of time meant nothing to him, or because he regarded the separation as an aberration which had now been put right. The fact that he was growing old probably had something to do with it too. He was economical with his affections, just as he had been economical with any show of pleasure at the reunion, but his faithfulness had increased if anything. He never strayed from his mistress’s side. He accepted the pointer in good part, but as a creature of lesser status. At night he lay at Effi’s door on the rush mat, in the morning, if they were breakfasting outside, he lay by the sundial, always quiet and somnolent, and only when Effi rose from the breakfast-table and walked towards the hall to take first her straw-hat and then her parasol from the hall-stand, was his youth restored, and without a thought for whether his strength was to be put to a big test or just a small one, he would bound up the village street and back and only
calm down when they were between the first fields. Effi, to whom fresh air meant more than beautiful scenery, avoided the spinnies and kept mostly to the main road which was lined first with ancient elms and then, where the paved highway began, with poplars on either side all the way to the station, a good hour’s walk in all. She took pleasure in everything, she rapturously breathed the fragrant air wafting over from the fields of rape and clover, she followed the larks’ ascent, she counted the wells and troughs where the cattle were watered. As she did so a faint ringing noise drifted over to her. And at that she felt as if she must close her eyes and lapse into sweet oblivion. Near the station at the side of the highway was a road-roller. This was her daily resting place from which she could survey the activity on the railway line; trains came and went and sometimes she saw two plumes of smoke which overlapped for a moment and then went their separate ways to left and right again until they disappeared behind village and copse. Rollo would sit beside her, sharing her breakfast, and when he had caught the last morsel, presumably to show his gratitude he would race down some furrow like a mad thing, only stopping when a couple of sitting partridges he had disturbed flew up from a neighbouring furrow right beside him.
‘What a fine summer! I wouldn’t have believed a year ago that I could be so happy again, dear Mamma’ – Effi said this every day as she strolled round the pond with her mother or picked an early apple and boldly bit into it. For she had the most beautiful teeth. Frau von Briest would then stroke her hand and say, ‘Just get well again Effi, completely well; happiness will come, not the old happiness, but a new kind. There are, thank goodness, many kinds of happiness. And you’ll see, we’ll find one for you too.’
‘You’re both so good to me. When you think I’ve changed your lives and made old people of you before your time.’
‘Oh, Effi my dear, don’t talk about it. That’s what I thought when it happened. Now I can see that our quiet life is better than all the noise and bustle there was before. And if you go on like this, we shall still be able to travel. When Wiesike suggested Menton, you were ill and irritable, and because you were ill you were quite right in what you said about ticket-collectors and waiters; but when your nerves are steadier again it will be all right and instead of being annoyed we’ll laugh at their airs and graces and their crimped hair. And then the blue sea and the white sails and the rocks, all covered with red cactus – I haven’t seen it yet but that’s how I imagine it. And I would like to see it sometime.’
And so the summer passed and the late summer nights with their shooting stars already lay behind them. These were nights when Effi had sat at the
window till well after midnight, unable to get enough of them. ‘I was always a bad Christian; but I wonder if we really do come from up there and go back again to our heavenly home when it’s all over here, back to the stars up there, or even beyond! I don’t know, and I don’t want to know, but I do long for it.’
Poor Effi, you gazed up at the wonders of the heavens for too long, thinking about them, and the upshot was that the night air and the mist rising from the pond put her back on her sick-bed, and when Wiesike was called and had seen her he took Briest aside and said, ‘Nothing can be done; the end won’t be long, prepare yourself.’
He had spoken only too truly, and a few days later, not yet late in the evening, just before ten, Roswitha came down and said to Frau von Briest, ‘It’s the mistress, my lady, things are lookin’ bad upstairs; she keeps talkin’ to herself ever so quietly, and some of the time she seems to be prayin’ though she won’t admit it, but I don’t know, it could be all over any time, I think.’
‘Does she want to speak to me?’
‘She ’asn’t said. But I think she would. You know what she’s like, she doesn’t want to be no trouble to you nor cause you no worry. But it wouldn’t do any ’arm.’
‘Very well Roswitha,’ said Frau von Briest, ‘I’ll come.’
Before the clock started to strike Frau von Briest went upstairs and into Effi’s room. The window was open and she was lying on a chaise-longue by the window.
Frau von Briest drew up a little black chair with three gold spars in the ebony back, took Effi’s hand and said:
‘How are you Effi? Roswitha says you have a fever.’
‘Oh, Roswitha does worry so. I could see she was thinking I was dying. Well, I don’t know. But she thinks we should all worry as much as she does.’
‘You’re quite calm about dying then, Effi dear?’
‘Quite calm, Mamma.’
‘You’re sure you couldn’t be wrong? Everybody clings to life, especially the young. And you’re still so young, Effi dear.’
Effi was silent for a while. Then she said, ‘You know I haven’t read much. Innstetten used to wonder at that. He didn’t like it.’
It was the first time she had mentioned Innstetten’s name, which made a deep impression on her mother and showed her clearly that it was all over.
‘I think,’ said Frau von Briest, ‘you were going to tell me something.’
‘Yes, I was. It was because you said I was still so young. And of course I am still young. But it doesn’t matter. In the good old days Innstetten used to read to me in the evenings; he had very good books, and one of them had a story about someone who had been called away from a festive dinner, and
the next day asked what had happened after he left. And the answer was, “Oh, all sorts of things, but really you didn’t miss anything.” You see Mamma, these words stuck in my mind – it doesn’t matter much if you are called away from the table a little early.’
Frau von Briest was silent. Effi however raised herself a little and said, ‘And since I’ve talked about the old times and about Innstetten, there’s something else I want to tell you Mamma.’
‘You’ll excite yourself Effi.’
‘No, no; getting something off my mind doesn’t excite me. It makes me calm. So what I wanted to say was, I am dying reconciled with man and God, and reconciled with
him
.’
‘Did you have such bitterness towards him in your soul? Because really, if you’ll forgive me my dear Effi for saying this now, it was you who brought suffering on both of you.’
Effi nodded. ‘Yes Mamma. And it’s sad that it should be so. But when all those awful things happened, ending with that business with Annie, you know what I mean, well at that point, if I can use such a ludicrous expression, I decided to put the boot on the other foot and managed to convince myself in all seriousness it was his fault, for being cold and calculating and in the end cruel too. And I even cursed him aloud.’
‘And that weighs on you now?’
‘Yes. And I want to be sure he will know that it all became clear to me here during the days of my illness, which have been my most beautiful days of all almost; that it became clear that he was right. Everything he did was right. The business with poor Crampas – what else could he possibly have done? And then – that was what hurt me most – bringing my own child up to ward me off, hard as it is for me, and painful as it is, that was right too. Let him know that I died convinced of that. It will console him, strengthen him, perhaps reconcile him. There was a lot of good in his nature, and he was as noble as anyone can be who lacks the real capacity for love.’
Frau von Briest saw that Effi was exhausted and seemed to be sleeping or wanting to sleep. She rose quietly from her chair and went out. However, hardly had she gone when Effi rose too and sat by the open window to draw in the cool night air once more. The stars shimmered, not a leaf stirred in the park. But the longer she listened, the more clearly she could again hear something falling like a fine drizzle on the planes. A feeling of liberation came over her. ‘Peace, peace.’