Effi Briest Page 15

  When they had left the table, the late afternoon steamer came down the Kessine and berthed at the landing-stage opposite the hotel. Effi sat with Crampas and Gieshübler over coffee with all the windows open, watching the show. ‘Tomorrow morning at nine that same ship will take me upstream, and by midday I’ll be in Berlin, and by evening at Hohen-Cremmen, with Roswitha walking beside me and holding the child in her arms. I hope she won’t be crying. Oh, what spirits I’m in already! Dear Gieshübler, were you ever as happy to see your parents’ house again?’

  ‘Yes, I know the feeling, dear lady. Except that I wasn’t bringing a little Annie, because I didn’t have anyone to bring.’

  ‘That’ll come,’ said Crampas, ‘let’s clink glasses, Gieshübler; you’re the only sensible person here.’

  ‘But Major, all we have left is the cognac.’

  ‘So much the better.’

  15

  Effi had left for Hohen-Cremmen in the middle of August; at the end of September she was in Kessin again. Occasionally in the intervening six weeks she had felt a desire to be back; but once she was, and stepped into the dark hallway into which only wan light from the staircase fell, she was suddenly beset with fear again, and she said quietly, ‘You don’t get this wan, yellow light at Hohen-Cremmen at all.’

  A few times during her days back at home she had felt a longing for the ‘haunted house’, but all in all life had been filled with happiness and contentment. With Hulda of course, who couldn’t get over still having to wait for a husband or fiancé, she had not got on so well, but with the twins on the other hand so much the better, and more than once, playing ball or croquet with them, it had quite gone out of her head that she was married at all. These had been brief intervals of happiness. But best of all she had enjoyed standing on the swing as it flew through the air, just as in the old days, and the feeling ‘now I’m going to fall’ had given her a strange tingling sensation, a shudder of sweet danger. When at last she jumped off the swing, she would walk with the two girls as far as the bench in front of the school-house, where she would tell old Jahnke, who soon joined them, about her life in Kessin, which was half Hanseatic and half Scandinavian, and whatever else quite different from Schwantikow or Hohen-Cremmen.

  These were the little daily diversions, in addition to which there were occasional trips out to the Luch in its summer profusion, mostly in the shooting-carriage; above all there were the chats Effi had almost every morning with her mother. For these they would sit in the big airy drawing room, Roswitha rocking the child and singing all sorts of lullabies in Thuringian dialect which nobody could properly understand, perhaps not even she herself; Effi and Frau von Briest would draw their chairs over to the open window and look, as they talked, down on to the park, the sundial or the dragonflies hovering almost motionless over the pond, or on to the flagstone path where Herr von Briest sat beside the projecting flight of steps reading the papers. Every time he turned a page he would first take off his pince-nez and wave a greeting up to his wife and daughter. When he reached the last paper, usually the Havelland Advertiser, Effi would go down and either sit beside him or stroll with him through the park and gardens. On one such occasion they went over from the gravel path to a little monument standing to one side, which Briest’s grandfather had had erected in commemoration of the Battle of Waterloo, a rusty pyramid with a cast of Blücher on the front and one of Wellington on the back.

  ‘Do you take strolls like this in Kessin,’ asked Briest, ‘and does Innstetten accompany you and tell you all sorts of things?’

  ‘No Papa, I don’t take strolls like this. It’s impossible because we only have a small garden behind the house which is really hardly a garden at all, just a few flower-beds with box borders, and vegetable patches with three or four fruit trees in them. Innstetten isn’t that way inclined, and anyway he doesn’t intend to be in Kessin much longer.’

  ‘But child, you must get some exercise and fresh air, that’s what you’re used to.’

  ‘I do. Our house stands by a copse that they call the Plantation. I go walking there a lot, and Rollo goes with me.’

  ‘Always Rollo,’ laughed Briest. ‘If one didn’t know better, one might almost think Rollo was closer to your heart than your husband and child.’

  ‘Oh Papa, that would be awful, even though – I have to admit – there was a time when I couldn’t have managed without Rollo. That was when… well, you know… Then he as good as saved my life, or at least that’s what I imagined, and since then he’s been my good friend whom I rely on quite particularly. But of course he’s only a dog. And people do come first, naturally.’

  ‘Yes, that’s what they always say, but I have my doubts. The whole question of animals is a very tricky area, and the last word hasn’t been spoken yet. Believe me Effi, it’s a vast subject. And when you think of somebody having an accident on the water, or worse still, when the ice is breaking up, and he has a dog with him, one like Rollo, it doesn’t give up until it has the unfortunate fellow back on dry land. And if the fellow is already dead, then it lies beside the body and yelps and whines till somebody comes, and if nobody comes it lies beside the body until it dies itself. And that’s what these animals always do. Now if we take human beings! God forgive me the sin, but I’m afraid it does sometimes seem to me that God’s other creatures are better than man.’

  ‘But Papa, if I were to repeat that to Innstetten…’

  ‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you Effi…’

  ‘Rollo would save me of course, but Innstetten would save me too. He’s a man of honour, after all.’

  ‘That he is.’

  ‘And he loves me.’

  ‘Of course, of course. And where there’s love, that love is reciprocated. That is how it is. It surprises me though that he hasn’t even taken leave and popped over on a visit. With such a young wife…’

  Effi blushed, because she thought exactly the same. But she didn’t like to admit it. ‘Innstetten is so conscientious, I think he wants to be well thought of, and he has his plans for the future; Kessin is just a step on the way. And then after all, I won’t run away from him. He has me already. And if you are too affectionate – what with the difference in years – people do tend to smile.’

  ‘Yes Effi, they do. And you just have to accept that. Incidentally, don’t mention any of this to anyone, not even to Mamma. It’s all so difficult, what to do, what not to do. That’s a vast subject too.’

  They had had conversations like this more than once during Effi’s stay at her parents’ house, but their effect was fortunately short-lived, and the somewhat melancholy impression re-entering the Kessin house for the first time had made on Effi evaporated equally quickly. Innstetten proved to be full of little attentions, and when tea had been taken and all the town gossip and love-stories had been discussed in a most light-hearted vein, Effi hung on his arm affectionately as they went through to continue chatting, with more anecdotes about Miss Trippelli who had recently been in lively correspondence with Gieshübler again, which always indicated some new strain on her constantly overdrawn bank balance. Effi was very animated during the conversation, feeling herself to be quite the young wife, and was pleased to be free of Roswitha for an indefinite period, as she had been moved out to the servants’ quarters.

  Next morning she said, ‘The weather is fine and mild, and I hope the veranda on the side facing the Plantation is still in good order and we can sit out and have breakfast in the open. We shall have to come indoors soon enough, and the winter in Kessin really is four weeks too long.’

  Innstetten was in full agreement. The veranda of which Effi had spoken, and which might more correctly have been called a marquee, had been erected in the summer, three or four weeks before Effi’s departure for Hohen-Cremmen, and consisted of a large wooden platform, open at the front, with a vast canopy overhead and canvas curtains to left and right which could be drawn back and forth on rings along an iron rod. It was a charming spot, admired all summer long by th
e holiday-makers who had to pass this way.

  Effi had settled in a rocking chair and said, as she pushed the coffee-tray sideways towards her husband, ‘Geert, be so good as to do the honours today; I find it so lovely in this rocking chair that I don’t want to get up. So make a little effort, and if you’re really pleased to have me back, I’ll think of a way to make it up to you.’ And as she spoke she smoothed the damask cloth and laid her hand on it, and Innstetten took it and kissed it.

  ‘How did you actually manage without me?’

  ‘None too well Effi.’

  ‘You’re just saying that and putting on a long face, but in fact it’s not true at all.’

  ‘Effi now…’

  ‘Which I shall prove to you. For, if you had had just a little bit of longing for your child – not to mention myself, for after all, what is one to a lord and master who was a bachelor for so long, and was in no hurry…’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Yes Geert, if you had had the slightest twinge of longing, you wouldn’t have left me sitting all alone for six weeks in Hohen-Cremmen like a widow, with nobody there but Niemeyer and Jahnke and the occasional visitor from Schwantikow. And as for the Rathenowers, not one of them came – you would think they were afraid of me or I was too old for them.’

  ‘Oh Effi, what a way to talk. Do you know, you’re a little coquette?’

  ‘Thank the Lord that you say so. That’s the best thing to be for you men. And you’re no different from the others, even if you do put a solemn and respectable face on it. I know very well, Geert… in actual fact you’re…’

  ‘Well, what?’

  ‘Well, I prefer not to say. But I can see right through you; in actual fact you are, just as my Schwantikow uncle once said, an affectionate soul born under the lovers’ star, and Uncle Belling was quite right when he said it. You just don’t want to show it, you think it’s not proper and spoils one’s career. Am I close to the mark?’

  Innstetten laughed. ‘Not so far off. You know Effi, you seem quite different. Until little Annie came you were a child, but suddenly…’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Suddenly it’s as if you’d been exchanged for someone else. But it suits you, I’m quite bowled over. Effi, do you know something?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There is something seductive about you.’

  ‘Oh Geert, my one and only Geert, what a splendid thing to say; now there’s really a warm glow in my heart… Pour me another half cup… Are you aware that’s what I’ve always wanted to be. We have to be seductive, otherwise we are nothing…’

  ‘Did you think of that?’

  ‘I could have. But I got it from Niemeyer…’

  ‘From Niemeyer! Heavens above, what a pastor! No, they don’t make them like that here. But how did he come to say that? It’s the kind of thing some Don Juan, some heartbreaker would have said.’

  ‘Yes, who knows,’ laughed Effi…‘But isn’t that Crampas coming? And from the beach. He surely hasn’t been bathing? On the 27th of September…’

  ‘He often does that kind of thing. Sheer bravado, that’s all it is.’

  Meanwhile Crampas was almost up to them and greeted them.

  ‘Good morning,’ Innstetten called to him. ‘Come on, come closer.’

  Crampas came up to them. He was in civilian dress and kissed Effi’s hand as she continued to rock her chair. ‘Excuse me, Major, for neglecting the honours of the house; but the veranda isn’t the house, and ten in the morning is really not a respectable time. In that situation one is less formal, or if you prefer, more intimate. And now take a seat and account for your activities. From your hair now, of which one might wish you had more, it’s clear to one and all that you have been bathing.’

  He nodded.

  ‘Irresponsible,’ said Innstetten, half in earnest, half joking. ‘Only four weeks ago you were involved in that business with Heinersdorf, the banker who also thought the sea and those spectacular waves would respect him for his millions. But the gods are jealous of one another, and Neptune didn’t hesitate to side against Pluto, or at least against Heinersdorf.’

  Crampas laughed. ‘Yes, one million marks! My dear Innstetten, if I had that kind of money, I wouldn’t actually have risked it; for beautiful as the weather is, the water is only nine degrees. But people like me, with an overdraft of a million, if you’ll pardon the modest boast, we can take that kind of liberty without fear of the gods’ jealousy. And we can take comfort from the old saying “A man born for the rope is safe in the water.”’

  ‘But Major, you shouldn’t, if you’ll permit me, stick your neck out in such utterly prosaic fashion. Of course there are those who think that… I mean what you’ve just said… that everybody more or less deserves it. Nonetheless Major, for a major…’

  ‘It’s not a traditional way to die. Admittedly, dearest lady. Not traditional and in my case not even very probable – so, all just quotation, or more precisely a façon de parler. And yet there was some sincerity in it, when I said just now the sea won’t claim me. I’m quite certain that I shall die a proper, and I hope an honourable soldier’s death. Only a gipsy prophecy for the moment, but it chimes somehow with my own conscience.’

  Instetten laughed. ‘That’s going to present problems Crampas, unless you intend to serve with the Grand Turk, or under the Chinese dragon. They’re still at it out there. Here history is over for the next thirty years, believe me – and anybody who wants to die a soldier’s death –’

  ‘– will have to order a war from Bismarck. I know all that Innstetten. But that would be a trifle for you. It’s the end of September now, in ten weeks at the most the Prince will be in Varzin again, and since he has a faible for you – I resist the vernacular term for fear of looking down the barrel of your pistol – you will be able to fix up an old comrade from Vionville with a little war. The Prince is only human after all, and a little persuasion can go a long way.’

  Effi had been rolling breadcrumbs into little balls during this conversation, throwing them like dice, and making patterns with them to indicate that a change of subject would be desirable. Nonetheless Innstetten seemed inclined to respond to Crampas’s jocular remarks, which made Effi decide to intervene directly. ‘I can’t see, Major, why we should concern ourselves with the manner of your death; life is closer to us, and for the time being is a much more serious matter.’

  Crampas nodded.

  ‘It’s a good thing you admit I’m right. How are we to live here? That is for the moment the question, that is more important than anything else. Gieshübler has written to me about this, and if it were not indiscreet and vain, for there are all sorts of other things in the letter too, I would show you it… Innstetten doesn’t need to read it, for he has no feeling for these things… incidentally his handwriting is quite flawless and his mode of expression makes you think of an education at an old French court, not the Old Market Place in Kessin. And the fact that he has a deformity and must be the only man here still wearing white jabots – I wonder where he gets somebody to iron them – all fits perfectly. Well, Gieshübler wrote to me about plans for club-evenings and an organizer called Crampas. And that, Major, that I like better than the soldier’s death, to say nothing of the other.’

  ‘I couldn’t agree more. And the winter cannot be other than splendid, if we can be assured of your ladyship’s support. Miss Trippelli is coming…’

  ‘Miss Trippelli? Then I’m superfluous.’

  ‘Not at all, dearest lady. Miss Trippelli can’t sing week in, week out, it would be too much both for her and for us; variety is the spice of life, a truth which, of course, every happy marriage seems to contradict.’

  ‘If there are any happy marriages, apart from mine…’ and she gave Innstetten her hand.

  ‘Variety then,’ Crampas went on. ‘And to ensure that we and the Club, whose vice-chairman I have the honour to be at the moment, achieve that, we must have proven contributors. If we join forces we’ll stand this whole backw
ater on its head. The plays have already been selected: War in Peace, Monsieur Hercules, Wilbrandt’s Young Love, perhaps Gensichen’s Euphrosyne. You as Euphrosyne, me as Goethe in old age. You’ll be astonished at my tragic rendering of the poet prince… if “tragic rendering” is the right expression.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it. I’ve learnt from my alchemist and secret correspondent’s letter that, among many other things, you also occasionally write poetry. I was surprised at first…’

  ‘Because you didn’t think I looked the poet.’

  ‘No. But since I’ve discovered that you go bathing at nine degrees, I’ve changed my mind… nine degrees in the Baltic beats the Castalian Spring…’

  ‘The temperature of which is unknown.’

  ‘Not to me; at least nobody is going to contradict me. But now I must get up. Here comes Roswitha with Wee Annie.’

  And she stood up quickly and went to meet Roswitha, took the child from her arms and held her proudly and happily aloft.

  16

  The days were fine and stayed fine well into October. One consequence of this was that the marquee-cum-veranda outside came into its own, so much so that the morning hours at least were regularly spent there. About eleven the major would drop by, first to enquire about her ladyship’s health and for a spot of scandalmongering, he was wonderful at that, and then to arrange a ride with Innstetten, frequently inland up the Kessine to the Breitling, but more often down to the moles. When the gentlemen were away Effi would play with the child or leaf through the newspapers and magazines Gieshübler continued to send her, or perhaps write a letter to Mamma, or say, ‘Roswitha, let’s take Annie for a walk’, and Roswitha would harness herself to the basket perambulator and pull it a few hundred paces into the copse with Effi walking behind, to a place strewn with chestnuts which they gathered for the child to play with. Effi was rarely in town; there wasn’t really anyone there for her to chat to, once another attempt to break the ice with Frau von Crampas had failed. The major’s wife remained shy and withdrawn.