Johanna laid the letters Innstetten had given her upon the table, glanced over the addresses, or at least pretended to, for she knew very well to whom they were directed, and said with feigned composure: "One goes to Hohen-Cremmen."
"I understand that," said Roswitha.
Johanna was not a little astonished at this remark. "His Lordship does not write to Hohen-Cremmen ordinarily."
"Oh, ordinarily? But now--Just think, the porter gave me _this_ downstairs only a moment ago."
Johanna took the paper and read in an undertone a pa.s.sage marked with a heavy ink line: "As we learn from a well informed source, shortly before going to press, there occurred yesterday morning in the watering place Kessin, in Hither Pomerania, a duel between Department Chief von Innstetten of Keith St. and Major von Crampas. Major von Crampas fell. According to rumors, relations are said to have existed between him and the Department Chief"s wife, who is beautiful and still very young."
"What don"t such papers write?" said Johanna, who was vexed at seeing her news antic.i.p.ated. "Yes," said Roswitha, "and now the people will read this and say disgraceful things about my poor dear mistress. And the poor major! Now he is dead!"
"Why, Roswitha, what are you thinking of anyhow? Ought he _not_ to be dead? Or ought our dear gracious master to be dead?"
"No, Johanna, our gracious master, let him live, let everybody live. I am not for shooting people and can"t even bear the report of the pistol. But take into consideration, Johanna, that was half an eternity ago, and the letters, which struck me as so strange the moment I saw them, because they had a red cord, not a ribbon, wrapped around them three or four times and tied--why, they were beginning to look quite yellow, it was so long ago. You see, we have been here now for over six years, and how can a man, just because of such old things--"
"Ah, Roswitha, you speak according to your understanding. If we examine the matter narrowly, you are to blame. It comes from the letters. Why did you come with the chisel and break open the sewing table, which is never permissible? One must never break open a lock in which another has turned a key."
"Why, Johanna, it is really too cruel of you to say such a thing to my face, and you know that _you_ are to blame, and that you rushed half crazy into the kitchen and told me the sewing table must be opened, the bandage was in it, and then I came with the chisel, and now you say I am to blame. No, I say--"
"Well, I will take it back, Roswitha. But you must not come to me and say: "the poor major!" What do you mean by the "poor major?" The poor major was altogether good for nothing. A man who has such a red moustache and twirls it all the time is never good for anything, he does nothing but harm. When one has always been employed in aristocratic homes--but you haven"t been, Roswitha, that"s where you are lacking--one knows what is fitting and proper and what honor is, and knows that when such a thing comes up there is no way to get around it, and then comes what is called a challenge and one of the men is shot."
"Oh, I know that, too; I am not so stupid as you always try to make me appear. But since it happened so long ago--"
"Oh, Roswitha, that everlasting "so long ago!" It shows plainly enough that you don"t know anything about it. You are always telling the same old story about your father with the red-hot tongs and how he came at you with them, and every time I put a red-hot heater in the iron I see him about to kill you on account of the child that died so long ago.
Indeed, Roswitha, you talk about it all the time, and all there is left for you to do now is to tell little Annie the story, and as soon as little Annie has been confirmed she will be sure to hear it, perhaps the same day. I am grieved that you should have had all that experience, and yet your father was only a village blacksmith who shod horses and put tires on wheels, and now you come forward and expect our gracious master calmly to put up with all this, merely because it happened so long ago. What do you mean by long ago? Six years is not long ago. And our gracious mistress, who, by the way, is not coming back--his Lordship just told me so--her Ladyship is not yet twenty-six and her birthday is in August, and yet you come to me with the plea of "long ago." If she were thirty-six, for at thirty-six, I tell you, one must be particularly cautious, and if his Lordship had done nothing, then aristocratic people would have "cut" him. But you are not familiar with that word, Roswitha, you know nothing about it."
"No, I know nothing about it and care less, but what I do know is that you are in love with his Lordship."
Johanna struck up a convulsive laugh.
"Well, laugh. I have noticed it for a long time. I don"t put it past you, but fortunately his Lordship takes no note of it. The poor wife, the poor wife!"
Johanna was anxious to declare peace. "That will do now, Roswitha. You are mad again, but, I know, all country girls get mad."
"May be."
"I am just going to post these letters now and see whether the porter has got the other paper. I understood you to say, didn"t I, that he sent Lena to get one? There must be more in it; this is as good as nothing at all."
CHAPTER x.x.x
[After Effi and Mrs. Zwicker had been in Ems for nearly three weeks they took breakfast one morning in the open air. The postman was late and Effi was impatient, as she had received no letter from Innstetten for four days. The coming of a pretty waitress to clear away the breakfast dishes started a conversation about pretty housemaids, and Effi spoke enthusiastically of her Johanna"s unusual abundance of beautiful flaxen hair. This led to a discussion of painful experiences, in the course of which Effi admitted that she knew what sin meant, but she distinguished between an occasional sin and a habitual sin. Mrs. Zwicker was indulging in a tirade against the pleasure resorts and the ill-sounding names of places in the environs of Berlin, when the postman came. There was nothing from Innstetten, but a large registered letter from Hohen-Cremmen. Effi felt an unaccountable hesitation to open it. Overcoming this she found in the envelope a long letter from her mother and a package of banknotes, upon which her father had written with a red pencil the sum they represented. She leaned back in the rocking chair and began to read.
Before she had got very far, the letter fell out of her hands and all the blood left her face. With an effort she picked up the letter and started to go to her room, asking Mrs. Zwicker to send the maid. By holding to the furniture as she dragged herself along she was able to reach her bed, where she fell in a swoon.]
CHAPTER x.x.xI
Minutes pa.s.sed. When Effi came to she got up and sat on a chair by the window and gazed out into the quiet street. Oh, if there had only been turmoil and strife outside! But there was only the sunshine on the macadam road and the shadows of the lattice and the trees. The feeling that she was alone in the world came over her with all its might. An hour ago she was a happy woman, the favorite of all who knew her, and now an outcast. She had read only the beginning of the letter, but enough to have the situation clearly before her. Whither? She had no answer to this question, and yet she was full of deep longing to escape from her present environment, to get away from this Zwicker woman, to whom the whole affair was merely "an interesting case," and whose sympathy, if she had any such thing in her make-up, would certainly not equal her curiosity.
"Whither?"
On the table before her lay the letter, but she lacked the courage to read any more of it. Finally she said: "What have I further to fear?
What else can be said that I have not already said to myself? The man who was the cause of it all is dead, a return to my home is out of the question, in a few weeks the divorce will be decreed, and the child will be left with the father. Of course. I am guilty, and a guilty woman cannot bring up her child. Besides, wherewith? I presume I can make my own way. I will see what mama writes about it, how she pictures my life."
With these words she took up the letter again to finish reading it.
"--And now your future, my dear Effi. You will have to rely upon yourself and, so far as outward means are concerned, may count upon our support. You will do best to live in Berlin, for the best place to live such things down is a large city. There you will be one of the many who have robbed themselves of free air and bright sunshine. You will lead a lonely life. If you refuse to, you will probably have to step down out of your sphere. The world in which you have lived will be closed to you. The saddest thing for us and for you--yes, for you, as we know you--is that your parental home will also be closed to you.
We can offer you no quiet place in Hohen-Cremmen, no refuge in our house, for it would mean the shutting off of our house from all the world, and we are decidedly not inclined to do that. Not because we are too much attached to the world or that it would seem to us absolutely unbearable to bid farewell to what is called "society." No, not for that reason, but simply because we stand by our colors and are going to declare to the whole world our--I cannot spare you the word--our condemnation of your actions, of the actions of our only and so dearly beloved child--"
[Ill.u.s.tration: _Permission F Bruckmann A.-G., Munich_ FRAU VON SCHLEINITZ AT HOME Adolph von Menzel]
Effi could read no further. Her eyes filled with tears and after seeking in vain to fight them back she burst into convulsive sobs and wept till her pain was alleviated.
Half an hour later there was a knock at the door and when Effi called: "Come in!" Mrs. Zwicker appeared.
"May I come in?"
"Certainly, my dear," said Effi, who now lay upon the sofa under a light covering and with her hands folded. "I am exhausted and have made myself as comfortable here as I could. Won"t you please take a seat?"
Mrs. Zwicker sat down where the table with the bowl of flowers would be between her and Effi. Effi showed no sign of embarra.s.sment and made no change in her position; she did not even unfold her hands. It suddenly became immaterial to her what the woman thought. All she wanted was to get away.
"You have received sad news, dear, gracious Lady?"
"Worse than sad," said Effi. "At any rate sad enough to bring our a.s.sociation here quickly to an end. I must leave today."
"I should not like to appear obtrusive, but has the news anything to do with Annie?"
"No, not with Annie. The news did not come from Berlin at all, it was a letter from my mother. She is worried about me and I am anxious to divert her, or, if I can"t do that, at least to be near at hand."
"I appreciate that only too well, much as I lament the necessity of spending these last days in Ems without you. May I offer you my services?"
Before Effi had time to answer, the pretty waitress entered and announced that the guests were just gathering for lunch, and everybody was greatly excited, for the Emperor was probably coming for three weeks and at the end of his stay there would be grand manoeuvres and the hussars from her home town would be there, too.
Mrs. Zwicker discussed immediately the question, whether it would be worth while to stay till then, arrived at a decided answer in the affirmative, and then went to excuse Effi"s absence from lunch.
A moment later, as the waitress was about to leave, Effi said: "And then, Afra, when you are free, I hope you can come back to me for a quarter of an hour to help me pack. I am leaving by the seven o"clock train."
"Today? Oh, your Ladyship, what a pity! Why, the beautiful days are just going to begin."
Effi smiled.