Crampas expressed his regret, perhaps just to say something, but perhaps with sincerity, for inconsiderate as he was in chivalrous love affairs, he was, on the other hand, equally a hale fellow well met. To be sure, only superficially. To help a friend and five minutes later deceive him were things that harmonized very well with his sense of honor. He could do both with incredible bonhomie.
The ride followed the usual route through the "Plantation." Rollo went ahead, then came Crampas and Effi, and Kruse followed. Crampas"s lackey was not along.
"Where did you leave Knut?"
"He has the mumps."
"Remarkable," laughed Effi. "To tell the truth, he always looked as though he had something of the sort."
"Quite right. But you ought to see him now. Or rather not, for you can take the mumps from merely seeing a case."
"I don"t believe it."
"There is a great deal that young wives don"t believe."
"And again they believe many things they would better not believe."
"Do you say that for my benefit?"
"No."
"Sorry."
"How becoming this "sorry" is to you! I really believe, Major, you would consider it entirely proper, if I were to make a declaration of love to you."
"I will not go quite that far. But I should like to see the fellow who would not desire such a thing. Thoughts and wishes go free of duty."
"There is some question about that. Besides, there is a difference between thoughts and wishes. Thoughts, as a rule, keep in the background, but wishes, for the most part, hover on the lips."
"I wish you wouldn"t say that."
"Ah, Crampas, you are--you are--"
"A fool."
"No. That is another exaggeration. But you are something else. In Hohen-Cremmen we always said, I along with the rest, that the most conceited person in the world was a hussar ensign at eighteen."
"And now?"
"Now I say, the most conceited person in the world is a district major of the landwehr at forty-two."
"Incidentally, my other two years that you most graciously ignore make amends for the remark. Kiss the hand" (--My respects to you).
"Yes, "kiss the hand." That is just the expression that fits you. It is Viennese. And the Viennese--I made their acquaintance four years ago in Carlsbad, where they courted me, a fourteen-year-old slip of a girl. What a lot of things I had to listen to!"
"Certainly nothing more than was right."
"If that were true, the intended compliment would be rather rude--But see the buoys yonder, how they swim and dance. The little red flags are hauled in. Every time I have seen the red flags this summer, the few times that I have ventured to go down to the beach, I have said to myself: there lies Vineta, it must lie there, those are the tops of the towers."
"That is because you know Heine"s poem."
"Which one?"
"Why, the one about Vineta."
"No, I don"t know that one; indeed I know very few, to my sorrow."
"And yet you have Gieshubler and the Journal Club. However, Heine gave the poem a different name, "Sea Ghosts," I believe, or something of the sort. But he meant Vineta. As he himself--pardon me, if I proceed to tell you here the contents of the poem--as the poet, I was about to say, is pa.s.sing the place, he is lying on the ship"s deck and looking down into the water, and there he sees narrow, medieval streets, and women tripping along in hoodlike hats. All have songbooks in their hands and are going to church, and all the bells are ringing. When he hears the bells he is seized with a longing to go to church himself, even though only for the sake of the hoodlike hats, and in the heat of desire he screams aloud and is about to plunge in. But at that moment the captain seizes him by the leg and exclaims: "Doctor, are you crazy?""
"Why, that is delicious! I"d like to read it. Is it long?"
"No, it is really short, somewhat longer than "Thou hast diamonds and pearls," or "Thy soft lily fingers,"" and he gently touched her hand.
"But long or short, what descriptive power, what objectivity! He is my favorite poet and I know him by heart, little as I care in general for this poetry business, in spite of the jingles I occasionally perpetrate myself. But with Heine"s poetry it is different. It is all life, and above everything else he is a connoisseur of love, which, you know, is the highest good. Moreover, he is not one-sided."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean he is not all for love."
"Well, even if he had this one-sidedness it would not be the worst thing in the world. What else does he favor?"
"He is also very much in favor of romance, which, to be sure, follows closely after love and, in the opinion of some people, coincides with it. But I don"t believe it does. In his later poems, which have been called "romantic"--as a matter of fact, he called them that himself--in these romantic poems there is no end of killing. Often on account of love, to be sure, but usually for other, more vulgar reasons, among which I include politics, which is almost always vulgar. Charles Stuart, for example, carries his head under his arm in one of these romances, and still more gruesome is the story of Vitzliputzli."
"Of whom?"
"Vitzliputzli. He is a Mexican G.o.d, and when the Mexicans had taken twenty or thirty Spaniards prisoners, these twenty or thirty had to be sacrificed to Vitzliputzli. There was no help for it, it was a national custom, a cult, and it all took place in the turn of a hand--belly open, heart out--"
"Stop, Crampas, no more of that. It is indecent, and disgusting besides. And all this when we are just about on the point of eating lunch!"
"I for my part am not affected by it, as I make it my rule to let my appet.i.te depend only upon the menu."
During this conversation they had come from the beach, according to program, to a bench built in the lee of the dunes, with an extremely primitive table in front of it, simply a board on top of two posts.
Kruse, who had ridden ahead, had the lunch already served--tea rolls, slices of cold roast meat, and red wine, and beside the bottle stood two pretty little gold-rimmed gla.s.ses, such as one buys in watering places or takes home as souvenirs from gla.s.s works.
They dismounted. Kruse, who had tied the reins of his own horse around a stunted pine, walked up and down with the other two horses, while Crampas and Effi sat down at the table and enjoyed the clear view of beach and mole afforded by a narrow cut through the dunes.
The half-wintery November sun shed its fallow light upon the still agitated sea and the high-running surf. Now and then a puff of wind came and carried the spray clear up to the table. There was lyme gra.s.s all around, and the bright yellow of the immortelles stood out sharply against the yellow sand they were growing in, despite the kinship of colors. Effi played the hostess. "I am sorry, Major, to have to pa.s.s you the rolls in a basket lid."
"I don"t mind the platter, so long as it holds a favor."
"But this is Kruse"s arrangement--Why, there you are too, Rollo. But our lunch does not take you into account. What shall we do with Rollo?"
"I say, give him everything--I for my part out of grat.i.tude. For, you see, dearest Effi--"
Effi looked at him.
"For, you see, most gracious Lady, Rollo reminds me of what I was about to tell you as a continuation or counterpart of the Vitzliputzli story, only much more racy, because a love story. Have you ever heard of a certain Pedro the Cruel?"
"I have a faint recollection."