Effi Briest Page 12

  Innstetten and his wife had appeared punctually, but despite their punctuality they had arrived after the other guests; Pastor Lindequist, old Frau Trippel and Miss Trippelli herself were already there. Gieshübler – in a blue tail-coat with matt gold buttons, and pince-nez sporting a broad black ribbon that lay across his brilliant white piqué waistcoat like some knightly order – Gieshübler was having difficulty mastering his excitement. ‘May I make the introductions: Baron and Baroness Innstetten, Frau Pastor Trippel, Fraulein Marietta Trippelli.’ Pastor Lindequist, whom they all knew, stood aside smiling.

  Miss Trippelli, in her early thirties, very masculine in appearance and of a distinctly humorous disposition, had until the introductions occupied the place of honour on the sofa. The introductions over however, going towards a high-backed chair that stood nearby, she said, ‘If your ladyship would be so good as to assume the burdens and hazards of your office. For one might well,’ and she pointed to the sofa, ‘speak of “hazards” in this instance. I’ve been telling Gieshübler this for donkey’s years, with alas no effect; kind as he is, he is also quite, quite stubborn.’

  ‘But Marietta…’

  ‘This sofa, you see, which first saw the light of day fifty years ago, is constructed according to an obsolete trap-door principle, and if one entrusts oneself to it without previously erecting a tower of cushions beneath one, one disappears down the trap, or at least far enough to leave one’s knees towering up like a monument.’ All this Miss Trippelli delivered with an equal measure of bonhomie and assurance in a tone designed to convey: ‘You may be Baroness Innstetten, but I am Miss Trippelli.’

  Gieshübler was extremely fond of his artist friend and thought highly of her talents; but all his enthusiasm could not blind him to the fact that she had been vouchsafed only a modest portion of social refinement. And such refinement was precisely what he himself cultivated. ‘Marietta dear,’ he intervened, ‘you have such a charming and amusing way of talking about these things; but on the subject of my sofa you are quite wrong, and let the experts decide between us. Even a man like Prince Kochukov –’

  ‘Oh please, Gieshübler, leave him out of it. Why always Kochukov? If you go on, her ladyship is going to suspect that I belong to the prince – who, by the way, is only one of the lesser princes and has no more than a thousand souls, or rather used to have (in the old days when they still counted souls) – she is going to suspect that I’m soul one thousand and one. No, it’s really not like that; you know my motto Gieshübler, “Press on regardless”. Kochukov is a good chap and he’s my friend, but he doesn’t understand the first thing about art and matters of that sort, certainly not about music, though he composes masses and oratorios – when they dabble in art most Russian princes incline to the religious or the orthodox – and questions of furnishing and interior decoration certainly rank among the many things of which he has no understanding. Something only has to be colourful and cost a great deal of money and anyone can sell it to him as a thing of beauty, that’s how much class he has.’

  Innstetten was enjoying himself, and Pastor Lindequist’s satisfaction was plain for all to see. But her daughter’s forthright tone caused good old Frau Trippel one embarrassing moment after another, while Gieshübler felt the conversation was taking such an awkward turn that termination was indicated. An end best served by some musical items. It could be assumed Marietta would not choose Lieder of objectionable content, and even if she did, her artistry was such that it would ennoble the content. So he intervened: ‘Dear Marietta, I have ordered our little repast for eight. That leaves three quarters of an hour, unless you perhaps prefer to sing us a jolly song as we eat, or perhaps to leave it until we have left the table…’

  ‘Gieshübler, I ask you. You, an aesthete. There is nothing more unaesthetic than singing on a full stomach. In addition to which – and I know you are a man of culinary discrimination, indeed a gourmet – in addition to which it all tastes better when you have the thing behind you. Art first, then walnut ice, that’s the proper order.’

  ‘Then I may bring you the music, Marietta?’

  ‘Bring the music? If I know you Gieshübler, you’ll have whole bookcases full of music, and I can’t sing you the entire collection. Music indeed! Which music, Gieshübler, that’s what matters. And make sure it’s in the right range, alto…’

  ‘I’ll find it.’ And he busied himself at a cabinet, pulling out drawer after drawer while Miss Trippelli moved her chair round the table to the left, so that she was sitting close to Effi.

  ‘I’m curious to know what he’ll bring,’ she said. At this Effi experienced a slight sense of embarrassment.

  ‘I rather imagine,’ she answered, taken aback, ‘something by Gluck, something quite dramatic… Indeed, my dear Fräulein, if I may make so bold as to comment, I am surprised to hear that you are only a singer. I should have thought that your particular talents were very much for the stage. Your appearance, your presence, your voice… I haven’t seen much of that sort of thing, only on short visits to Berlin… when I was still half a child. But I should have thought Orpheus or Kriemhild or the Vestal Virgin…’

  Miss Trippelli shook her head, gazing into abysses, but failed to produce a response, because just at that moment Gieshübler reappeared and presented her with half a dozen scores which his friend took and discarded in quick succession. ‘“Erl-King”… ah, bah; “Mill-stream, peace to your babbling”… But Gieshübler, I ask you, you’re a marmot, you’ve been asleep for seven years… And Löwe’s ballads; not exactly the latest thing either. “The Bells of Speyer”… Oh, all that ding, dong, ding, really it’s just cheap sensationalism, it’s tasteless and passé. Ah, but here we have “Sir Olaf”… now that’s all right.’

  And she stood up, and sang ‘Olaf’ to the pastor’s accompaniment with great assurance and bravura, receiving applause all round.

  Other similarly romantic pieces were then found, ‘Flying Dutchman’, ‘Zampa’, and then the ‘The Boy on the Heath’, all things that she sailed through serenely with consummate virtuosity; Effi seemed spellbound by words and music alike.

  When Miss Trippelli had finished the ‘The Boy on the Heath’, she said ‘That will be enough,’ a pronouncement she uttered with such finality that neither Gieshübler nor anybody else had the temerity to make any further request of her. Least of all Effi. She merely said, after Gieshübler’s friend had sat down beside her again, ‘If only I could finds words to say, my dear Fraulein, how grateful I am to you. All so beautiful, so assured, so accomplished. But there is another thing, if you will pardon me, that I admire almost more than all that, and that is the serenity with which you are able to perform these pieces. I am so susceptible to impressions that I’m all a-quiver at the merest mention of ghosts and can scarcely recover my self-control. And you perform these things so powerfully, so shatteringly and are yourself perfectly cheerful and good-humoured.’

  ‘Yes, my lady, art is like that. Not to speak of the theatre from which, mercifully I may say, I have been preserved. For, proof as I quite certainly feel myself to be against its temptations – it is fatal for one’s reputation, and that is the best thing we have. In addition to which it blunts one’s sensibilities, as colleagues have assured me a hundred times. They go about poisoning and stabbing one another, and then Romeo whispers a bad joke in the dead Juliet’s ear, or a malicious bit of gossip, or presses a little billet doux into her hand.’

  ‘I find it incomprehensible. And to come back to what I am indebted to you for this evening, for example the ghostly bit in “Olaf”, I can assure you that when I have an anguished dream, or when I think I can hear the faint sound of dancing or music above my head when there’s really no-one there, or when someone slips past my bed, I am beside myself and can’t forget it for days.’

  ‘Yes, my lady, what you are describing is something quite different, something real, or something that could be real. A ghost which stalks through a ballad doesn’t scare me, but a ghost which stalks through
my room is a very unpleasant matter, to me or anyone else. Our feelings in that regard are exactly the same.’

  ‘So have you had that experience too?’

  ‘Certainly. At Kochukov’s too. And I’ve made it a condition this time that I sleep somewhere else, perhaps in the English governess’s room. She’s a Quaker, so I’m bound to be safe.’

  ‘You think these things are possible then?’

  ‘My dear lady, when you’ve reached my age and taken the knocks I have – been to Russia and even spent six months in Romania – you think anything is possible. There are so many bad people, and so you find the other thing too, you might say the one goes with the other.’

  Effi listened with attention.

  ‘I come,’ continued Miss Tripelli, ‘of a very enlightened family – except that Mother never quite went along with it – but nevertheless Father said to me at the time of that business of the spirit-writing, “Listen Marie, there is something in this.” And he was right, there is something in it. In fact they’re lurking all round us, right and left, behind and in front of us. You’ll find out.’

  At that moment Gieshübler came and offered Effi his arm, Innstetten took Marietta and Pastor Lindequist followed with the widow. In which order they sat down to eat.

  12

  It was late when the party broke up. Soon after ten Effi had said to Gieshübler, ‘It must be time to go; Fräulein Trippelli mustn’t miss her train, so she must set out from Kessin at six,’ but Miss Trippelli, who was standing beside her at these words, had protested with her own brand of uninhibited volubility against such tender consideration on her behalf. ‘Ah, your ladyship thinks people like us need regular sleep, but this is not so; what we need regularly is applause and seats sold at high prices. Yes, you may laugh. Besides – it’s something one learns – I can sleep in my compartment, in any situation and on my left side at a pinch, without even having to undo my dress. Of course I am never confined; bosom and lungs must be free at all times, and above all the heart. Yes, my lady, that is the main thing. And moreover, anyway with sleep, it’s not the amount that counts, it’s the quality; a good five minute nap is better than tossing and turning for five hours, now to the right, now to the left. Incidentally, one sleeps wonderfully well in Russia, in spite of the strong tea. It must be the air that does it, or the late dinners, or the way they spoil one. There are no worries in Russia; in that – the money is the same in both – Russia is better than America.’

  After this declaration from Miss Trippelli, Effi had desisted from any further suggestion that they should go, and so midnight had come round. Their farewells – they were in high spirits – were hearty, with a fair measure of familiarity.

  The way from the chemist’s at the Sign of the Moor to the Landrat’s residence was rather long; it was made shorter by Pastor Lindequist’s asking if he might accompany Innstetten and his wife part of the way, considering a walk under the stars in the heavens the best way to overcome the effects of Gieshübler’s hock. They walked along, indefatigably citing the most diverse Trippelliana; Effi started it with what had stuck in her memory, and next it was the pastor’s turn. An ironist, he had, after questioning her on a variety of quite worldly matters, finally enquired as to Miss Tripelli’s views on religion, and been informed that she recognized only Orthodoxy. Her father, it was true, had been a rationalist, almost a free-thinker, which is why he would have preferred to have the Chinaman in the parish churchyard; she for her part held the opposite opinion, though she enjoyed the great advantage of believing nothing at all. But decisive as she was in her lack of belief, she was at all times aware that it was a special luxury, in which one might only indulge as a private person. Where the state was concerned such laxity ended, and if she were to have control of the Ministry of Education or a regional church assembly, she would proceed with unremitting severity. ‘I feel I have something of a Torquemada in me.’

  Innstetten was highly amused and for his part related that he had studiously avoided ticklish matters like dogma, concentrating instead on moral issues. The main topic of their conversation had been the seductiveness of any kind of public appearance, the constant vulnerability, to which Miss Trippelli had blithely replied, taking up the second half of the sentence only, ‘Yes, constant vulnerability; especially of the voice.’

  In this way the Trippelli evening had passed before them once more by the time they parted, and it was to be three days before her telegram to Effi from Petersburg called Gieshübler’s friend to mind again. It read: ‘Madame la Baronne d’Innstetten, née de Briest. Bien arrivée. Prince K. à la gare. Plus épris de moi que jamais. Mille fois merci de votre bon accueil. Compliments empressés à Monsieur le Baron. Marietta Trippelli.’

  Innstetten was delighted and the expression he gave to his delight was more fulsome than seemed appropriate to Effi.

  ‘I don’t understand you Geert.’

  ‘Because you don’t understand Miss Trippelli. The authenticity of the woman is priceless; it’s all there down to the last dot on the i.’

  ‘So you think it’s all play-acting.’

  ‘What else? All calculated for wherever she chances to be, for Kochukov and for Gieshübler. Gieshübler will probably set up a fund for her, or perhaps just leave her a legacy.’

  The musical soirée at Gieshübler’s had taken place in the middle of December, and immediately after that the preparations for Christmas began, and Effi, who otherwise might have found these days hard to face, was thankful to have a household of her own with needs that had to be satisfied. There were questions to be asked, thinking to be done, purchases to be made, all of which kept dark thoughts at bay. The day before Christmas Eve presents arrived from Hohen-Cremmen from her parents, and all sorts of little gifts from the schoolmaster’s house had been packed in the same box; beautiful pippins from a tree that Effi and Jahnke had grafted several years earlier, then brown wrist and knee warmers from Bertha and Hertha. Hulda just sent her a few lines with the excuse that she still had to knit a travelling rug for X. ‘Which is simply not true,’ said Effi, ‘I’ll bet X doesn’t even exist. Why can’t she stop surrounding herself with admirers who aren’t there?’

  And so Christmas Eve arrived.

  Innstetten put up the decorations for his young wife himself, the tree was lit and a little angel hovered high up in the air. There was also a crib with pretty little banners and inscriptions, one of which referred discreetly to a happy event expected at the Innstetten residence in the coming year. Effi read it and blushed. Then she went up to Innstetten to thank him, but before she could do so a Julklapp thudded into the hallway, an old Pomeranian Christmas custom: a large box concealing a world of delights. In the end they found the main thing, a dainty box of fondants with all sorts of little Japanese pictures pasted all over it, and inside it, as well as its spiced contents, a little piece of paper on which was written:

  At Christmas there came three kings,

  And what the little blackamoor brings

  From under the blackamoor chemist’s sign

  Is neither myrrh nor incense fine,

  But fondants of the choicest flavours –

  Pistachio and almond – as special favours.

  Effi read it twice or three times with much pleasure. ‘There is something especially agreeable about a good soul’s attentions. Don’t you think so Geert?’

  ‘I certainly do. In fact it’s the only thing that gives one real pleasure, or should give one real pleasure. For apart from that we’re all up to our ears in inanities of all sorts. I am too. But I suppose we are what we are.’

  The first day of the holiday was church day, on the second they were out at the Borckes’ where everybody was present with the exception of the Grasenabbs who didn’t want to come ‘because Sidonie wasn’t at home,’ which everyone considered to be rather an odd excuse. Some even muttered, ‘On the contrary, that would have been a good reason to come.’ On New Year’s Eve there was the Club Ball at which Effi could not fail to appear, n
or did she wish to, for the ball would give her the chance to see the town’s flora and fauna all assembled in one place at last. Johanna was fully taken up in preparing her mistress’s ball gown, Gieshübler, who, apart from everything else, had a hothouse, sent camellias, and Innstetten managed to fit in a visit upcountry to the Papenhagen estate where three barns had burnt down.

  It was quite silent in the house. Christel, with nothing to do, had sleepily drawn a footstool up to the fire, and Effi retired to her bedroom where she sat down between mirror and sofa at a little writing table that had been specially set up for her, to write to Mamma, whom she had so far sent only a card thanking her for her Christmas present and letter, but no other news for weeks now.

  Kessin, December 31st

  My dear Mamma,

  This is probably going to be a long letter, for it’s a long time – the card doesn’t count – since you heard from me. The last time I wrote I was still deep in Christmas preparations, now the Christmas season is over. Innstetten and my dear friend Gieshübler did everything they could to make Christmas Eve as pleasant as possible for me, but I still felt a bit lonely and my anxiety turned my thoughts to you. In fact even with all I have to be thankful and bright and happy about, I don’t seem to be able to shake off a feeling of loneliness, and if I used to make fun of Hulda’s sentimental tears, perhaps rather more than was called for, I’m now being punished for it by having to struggle with those very same tears myself. For Innstetten must not see them. But I am sure this will all get better when there is more life in our household, which there will be my dear Mamma. What I recently hinted at is now a certainty and Innstetten gives me daily proof of his joy at it. How happy I am at the prospect myself I don’t have to tell you, because when it happens there will be life and distraction around me, or as Geert puts it, I’ll have ‘a darling toy.’ He is probably right in his choice of word, but he would be better not to use it, for it always causes me a little stabbing pain and reminds me how young I am, and that I still half belong in the nursery. I cannot rid myself of this idea (Geert thinks it’s unhealthy) which somehow manages to turn what should be my greatest happiness into something more like a constant source of embarrassment to me. Yes my dear Mamma, when the dear Flemming ladies recently enquired about all sorts of things, I felt I was sitting an examination I was rather badly prepared for, and I think too that I gave some pretty stupid answers. I was in a bad temper too. For a great deal that looks like sympathy is really only curiosity, and seems the more impertinent because I still have a long time to wait for the happy event, well into the summer. The first few days of July, I think. Then you must come here, or better still, as soon as I am more or less on my feet again, I shall come back, I’ll take a holiday and be off to Hohen-Cremmen. Oh, how I’m looking forward to it and the Havelland air – it’s almost always cold and raw here – and every day I’ll go on a drive into the Luch with its reds and yellows, I can already see the baby reaching out its hands, for it is sure to feel then that that is where its real home is. But I’m only writing this to you. Innstetten must know nothing of it, and I must ask even you to forgive me for wanting to bring the baby to Hohen-Cremmen and already announcing my intention today, instead of pressing a heartfelt invitation on you, my dear Mamma, to come to Kessin, which every summer has fifteen hundred visitors for the sea bathing, ships flying every conceivable flag and even a hotel in the dunes. But I’m not inhospitable, that’s not why I offer so little hospitality, I haven’t turned my back on the Briest tradition to that extent, it’s simply this Landrat’s house of ours, which, pretty and out of the ordinary as it is, isn’t actually a proper house at all, just an apartment for two people and scarcely that, for we don’t even have a dining-room, which is quite awkward when a couple of people come to visit. We do have more accommodation on the first floor, a large gallery and four small rooms, but they are all rather uninviting and I would call them lumber rooms if there were any lumber in them; but they are absolutely empty apart from a few rush-seated chairs, and they make a very strange impression to say the least. Now you will probably think that that could all be changed quite easily. But it can’t be changed; for the house that we live in is… a haunted house; there, now it’s out. I beg you, by the way, not to comment on this item of information when you write back, for I always show Innstetten your letters and he would be beside himself if he discovered I had written this to you. I wouldn’t have done so, especially since I have had such a peaceful time for several weeks now and have stopped being afraid; but Johanna tells me it always comes back, when somebody new appears in the house that is. And I can’t expose you to such a danger, or if that’s an exaggeration, to such a peculiar and disagreeable disturbance! I’m not going to bother you with the story itself today, at least not in any detail. It’s about an old ship’s captain, a so-called China hand, and his granddaughter who was engaged to a young captain here for a short time and suddenly disappeared on her wedding day. That wouldn’t be so bad. But what’s more important, her father had brought a young Chinaman back with him from China, first as his servant, then as the old man’s friend, and he died shortly after she disappeared and was buried at a lonely spot by the churchyard. I drove past there the other day, but I turned away quickly and looked in the other direction because otherwise I think I would have seen him sitting there on the grave. For, oh my dear Mamma, I really did see him once, or at least I think I did, when I was fast asleep and Innstetten had gone to visit Prince Bismarck. It was dreadful; I wouldn’t like to go through that again. I can’t very well invite you to come to a house like this, pretty as it otherwise is (it’s nice and comfortable, but uncanny at the same time, very odd). And Innstetten, although I came round to his point of view about most of this, has not, this much I think I may say, behaved quite properly in the matter. He wanted me to see all this as an old wives’ tale and laugh at it, but then suddenly he seemed to believe in it all himself and came up with the strange proposal that I should consider a resident ghost like this as a mark of distinction, of ancient aristocratic pedigree. But this I can’t and won’t do. Kind and considerate as he usually is, on this point he is neither kind nor considerate. For there is something behind it all, this much I know from Johanna and also from Frau Kruse. She’s our coachman’s wife and she sits in an overheated room all the time with a black hen. Which in itself is frightening enough. So now you know why I want to come to you as soon as the time comes. Oh, how I wish the time would come soon. There are so many reasons why I wish that. This evening it’s the New Year’s Eve Ball, and Gieshübler – the only nice person here, in spite of having one shoulder higher than the other, or really a bit more than that – Gieshübler has sent me some camellias. Maybe I shall dance after all. Our doctor says it would do me no harm, on the contrary. And Innstetten has agreed too, which rather surprises me. And now love and kisses to Papa and all my other dear ones. A happy New Year.