Effi Briest Read online

  ‘So what happened then?’

  ‘What happened was what was bound to happen, what always happens. He was still far too young, and when Papa came on the scene he was already a Ritterschaftsrat and had Hohen-Cremmen, so there wasn’t really much to think about and she accepted him and became Frau von Briest… And the rest, what came after that, you know… The rest is me.’

  ‘Yes, the rest is you, Effi,’ said Bertha. ‘Thank goodness for that, we wouldn’t have had you if things had been otherwise. So you must tell us, what did Innstetten do, what became of him? He didn’t take his own life, otherwise you wouldn’t be expecting him today.’

  ‘No, he didn’t take his own life. But it was a bit like it.’

  ‘Did he try?’

  ‘No, he didn’t. But he wasn’t inclined to stay in the neighbourhood any longer, and it must have put him off army life in general. It was peacetime after all. To cut a long story short he resigned his commission and went off to study law, “really made a meal of it” as Papa puts it; but when the war of 1870 came along he joined up again, with the Perlebergers, mark you, not with his old regiment, and he got the Iron Cross. As you would expect, because he’s very dashing. And immediately after the war he went back to his files, and they say Bismarck thinks highly of him, and the Kaiser too, and that’s how he came to be a Landrat, for the district of Kessin.’

  ‘Kessin? I don’t know any Kessin near here.’

  ‘No, it isn’t in our part of the country, it’s a fair way from here, in Pomerania, Eastern Pomerania in fact, not that that means anything, because it’s a coastal resort (everywhere’s a coastal resort up there) and this holiday trip Baron Innstetten is making is a kind of tour of his cousins or something. He wants to see old acquaintances and relatives.’

  ‘He’s got relatives here?’

  ‘Yes and no, depends how you look at it. There are no Innstettens here, in fact there are no Instettens left at all, I don’t think. But he has some distant cousins on his mother’s side here, and mainly I think he wanted to see Schwantikow and the Bellings’ house again, which hold so many memories for him. He was over there yesterday, and today he’s coming to Hohen-Cremmen.’

  ‘And what does your father say to that?’

  ‘Nothing. He’s not like that. And he knows Mamma. He just teases her.’

  At that moment it struck noon, and before the chimes had stopped, Wilke, the Briests’ old butler and general factotum, appeared with a message for Effi: ‘Her ladyship would like Miss Effi to make herself presentable in good time. The Baron will arrive at one o’clock sharp.’ And as he announced this Wilke began to clear the ladies’ work-table, reaching first for the sheet of newspaper the gooseberry skins were lying on.

  ‘No Wilke, don’t do that, we’re going to see to the skins… Hertha, it’s time to make the paper bag; and put in a stone so it all sinks. Then we’ll have a long funeral procession and bury the bag at sea.’

  Wilke smiled. ‘A real caution, our young lady’ he must have been thinking; but Effi, placing the bag in the middle of the swiftly tidied tablecloth, said: ‘Now each of the four of us takes a corner and we sing something sad.’

  ‘Yes, well, you say that, Effi. But what exactly are we supposed to sing?’

  ‘Anything; it doesn’t matter, except that it must have a rhyme with “ee”; “ee” is the vowel for keening. So we’ll sing:

  “In the deepest deep,

  Let it peacefully sleep.”’

  And as Effi solemnly intoned this litany, all four began to move towards the jetty, climbed into the boat that was moored there, and from that slowly lowered the bag and its stone weight into the pond.

  ‘Hertha, your guilt is now consigned to the deep,’ said Effi, ‘oh and that reminds me, this is how they used to drown poor unfortunate women, from boats like this, for infidelity of course.’

  ‘But not here.’

  ‘No, not here,’ Effi laughed, ‘that kind of thing doesn’t happen here. But in Constantinople it does, now I come to think of it, you must know that just as well as I do, you were there when ordinand Holzapfel told us about it in geography.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Hulda, ‘Holzapfel was always talking about that kind of thing. But then that’s the kind of thing you forget.’

  ‘Not me. I remember that kind of thing.’

  2

  They continued to talk in this vein for a while, recalling with indignation and satisfaction lessons they had attended together and a whole series of Holzapfel’s improprieties. There would have been no end to it had Hulda not suddenly said, ‘But it’s high time you went in Effi. You look, well, how shall I put it, you look as if you had just come from picking cherries, all crumpled and crushed; linen always gets so many creases, and with that big white floppy collar… yes, I’ve got it, you look like a cabin-boy.’

  ‘Midshipman, if you please. I must have something for my nobility. Anyway, midshipman or cabin-boy, Papa promised me a mast the other day, right here by the swing, with spars and rigging. Won’t that be something, and I’ll put my own pennant on the masthead, and no-one is going to stop me. And Hulda, you’ll shin up the other side and at the top we’ll shout hurrah and kiss one another. Splice the mainbrace, won’t that be fun!’

  ‘“Splice the mainbrace”… listen to that… You really do talk like a midshipman. But I wouldn’t dream of climbing up after you, I’m not such a daredevil. Jahnke is right when he says there’s a lot of the Bellings in you, from your mother’s side. I’m just a pastor’s daughter.’

  ‘Oh, get away with you. Still waters run deep. Do you remember the time Cousin Briest was here, still a cadet, but grown up for all that, and you slid all the way along the barn roof? And why was that? I’m not going to let on. Come on, let’s have a swing, two on each end, I don’t think the ropes will snap, or if you don’t want to – for I can see you pulling long faces – we’ll play tag. I still have a quarter of an hour. I don’t want to go in yet, just to say good afternoon to a Landrat, and a Landrat from Eastern Pomerania at that. He’s a bit old too, he could almost be my father, and if he really lives in a seaport, which is what they say Kessin is, then he ought to prefer me in my sailor suit, he ought almost to take it as a special token of respect. When princes receive – or so Papa tells me – they always put on the uniform of wherever their guest comes from. So not to worry… I’m going to hide and the bench here is home.’

  Hulda had a few reservations, but before she could speak, Effi was off up the nearest gravel path, dodging to left and right until suddenly she was gone. ‘Effi, that doesn’t count. Where are you? We’re not playing hide and seek, we’re playing tag.’ And with these and similar protestations her friends ran after her, far beyond the roundel and the two plane trees on the side, until the elusive Effi burst from her hiding place and, because she was now behind her pursuers, effortlessly reached the bench and was home with ‘one, two, three’.

  ‘Where were you?’

  ‘Behind the rhubarb clumps, they’ve got such big leaves, even bigger than a fig-leaf.’

  ‘Shame on you!’

  ‘No, shame on you, because you’ve lost. Hulda with those big eyes of hers didn’t spot me, helpless as usual.’ And with that Effi flew over the roundel again in the direction of the pond, perhaps with the intention of hiding behind a thick hazel-hedge that was growing there, so that she could make a wide detour round the churchyard and the front of the house and get back to the wing and home. She had it all nicely worked out, but alas, before she was even half-way round the pond she heard her name being called from the house, and looking round, saw her mother waving from the stone steps with her handkerchief. A moment later Effi was standing in front of her.

  ‘There you are still in that tunic of yours and our visitor is here. You never keep to time.’

  ‘I keep to time, it’s your visitor who hasn’t. It’s not one yet, not by a long chalk,’ and turning to the twins (Hulda was lagging far behind) she shouted, ‘Just carry on, I’ll be straight
back.’

  A moment later Effi was in the large garden-room which took up almost the entire wing of the house.

  ‘Mamma, you mustn’t scold like that. It really is only half-past. Why has he come so early? A gentleman never comes late, but still less too early.’

  Frau von Briest was visibly embarrassed, but Effi clung to her and caressed her and said, ‘I’m sorry, I’ll hurry now, you know how quick I can be, and in five minutes Cinderella will be transformed into a princess. He can surely wait or talk to Papa that long.’

  And with a nod to her mother she made to trip light-footedly up the little iron staircase which led from the garden-room to the upper floor. But Frau von Briest, who could be unconventional herself when necessary, suddenly held Effi back as she was going, looked at the charming, youthful creature, hot from the excitement of the game, standing there in front of her, a picture of life at its freshest – and in a confidential tone said, ‘Maybe it’s as well if you just stay as you are. Yes, just stay as you are. You look very nice like that. And even if you didn’t, you look so unprepared, not made up at all, and that’s what matters at a moment like this. I have something to tell you, my sweet Effi…’ and she took her child by both hands… ‘I have to tell you that –’

  ‘But Mamma, what’s the matter? You’re frightening me.’

  ‘What I have to tell you is that Baron von Innstetten wants to marry you.’

  ‘Wants to marry me? Is he serious?’

  ‘It’s not the kind of thing to be joked about. You saw him the day before yesterday, and I think you liked him. Of course he is older than you, which is a good thing all in all, and he is a man of character, position and sound morality, and if you don’t say no, which I would hardly expect from my clever Effi, then at twenty you’ll have a position others don’t reach until they’re forty. You’ll go far further than your mamma.’

  Effi said nothing; she was searching for words. But before she could find them she heard her father’s voice from the adjoining room, which was in the rear of the main house, and Ritterschaftsrat von Briest, a well-preserved man of pronounced bonhomie in his fifties, stepped over the threshold of the garden-room – with him Baron Innstetten, slim, dark-haired and of military bearing.

  Effi, seeing him, began to tremble nervously; but not for long, because almost at the very moment Innstetten approached her with a friendly bow, the golden red heads of the twins appeared round the Virginia creeper that half-obscured the window, and Hertha, the cheekier of them, called into the room, ‘Come back Effi.’ Then she ducked down and the two sisters jumped off the arm of the bench they had been standing on back down into the garden, and all that could be heard was their subdued giggling and laughter.

  3

  On that same day Baron Innstetten had become engaged to Effi Briest. The jovial father of the bride to be, adjusting with difficulty to the solemnity of his role at the engagement dinner which followed, had proposed a toast to the young couple, and this gave Frau von Briest a disturbing sensation about the heart, probably conjuring up times scarcely eighteen years past. But not for long. It couldn’t be her, so now, instead of her, it was her daughter – just as good, all in all, perhaps even better. For life with Briest was quite tolerable, even if he was a shade prosaic and lapsed on occasion into frivolity. Towards the end of the meal – ice-cream was already being passed round – the old Ritterschaftsrat stood up again and proposed that the formal mode of address be dropped within the family. Whereupon he embraced Innstetten and gave him a kiss on the left cheek. But this was not the end of it for he went on to recommend intimate names and titles for use within the family, setting up a sort of scale of familiarity which naturally respected the established rights of individual cases. Thus for his wife the continuation of ‘Mamma’ would be best (for there were some young mammas), whereas he himself would resist the honourable title of ‘Papa’, strongly preferring to be simply Briest, which was so nice and short. And as for the children – and at this word, meeting the eye of Innstetten who was barely a dozen years his junior, he had to give himself a jolt – well, Effi would be Effi and Geert Geert. Geert, if he was not mistaken, meant a tall, slender stem, and that made Effi the ivy that would cling to it. The couple looked at one another in some embarrassment at these words, coupled in Effi’s case with an expression of adolescent amusement, but Frau von Briest said, ‘Briest, say what you like and propose what toasts you will, but if you please, spare us your poetic images, that’s outside your province.’ Cautionary words which found more agreement than dissent in Briest. ‘You may be right, Luise.’

  As soon as they rose from table Effi took her leave and went to call at the pastor’s. On the way she told herself, ‘I expect Hulda will be annoyed. I’ve beaten her to it after all – and she has always been vain and conceited.’ But Effi’s expectations were not quite accurate; Hulda kept her composure and behaved very well, leaving it to her mother to voice any misgivings or irritation, and the pastor’s wife did indeed make some very strange remarks. ‘Yes, well, that’s the way of it, of course. If it couldn’t be the mother it will have to be the daughter. We’ve seen it all before. Old families stick together, and to those that have shall be given.’ Old Niemeyer, deeply embarrassed at this stream of pointed, uneducated, ill-mannered remarks, once more had cause to regret having married a housekeeper.

  From the pastor’s Effi naturally went on to schoolmaster Jahnke’s; the twins had been on the look-out for her and met her in the front garden.

  ‘Well Effi,’ said Hertha, as all three walked up and down between the French marigolds blooming to left and right, ‘well Effi, how do you feel now?’

  ‘How do I feel? Oh all right. We’re already on Christian name terms. He’s called Geert by the way, but I’ve told you that already, I seem to remember.’

  ‘Yes, you have. But I feel so uneasy about it all. Is he really the right one?’

  ‘Of course he’s the right one. You don’t understand these things Hertha. Anybody is the right one. Provided he is an aristocrat and has a position and good looks, naturally.’

  ‘My goodness Effi, the way you talk. It’s quite different from how you used to talk.’

  ‘Yes, used to.’

  ‘So you’re quite happy now?’

  ‘If you’ve been engaged for two hours, you’re always quite happy. At least that’s what I think.’

  ‘And you don’t have the feeling it’s at all – how shall I put it – a little embarrassing?’

  ‘Yes, it is a little embarrassing, but not very. And I think I’ll get over it.’

  After making these calls at the pastor’s and the schoolmaster’s houses, which didn’t take half an hour, Effi went back home where they were about to have coffee on the veranda facing the garden. Father-in-law and son-in-law paced up and down the gravel paths between the two plane trees. Briest spoke of the problems of a Landrat’s post; he had been offered several, but he had turned each one down. ‘Being able to do just as I want has always been the most important thing for me, or at least more important, if you’ll pardon me Innstetten, than always keeping a weather eye on those above me. For what you have to do then is watch and take note of your superiors, not to mention their superiors. That’s not for me. Here I take life as it comes and rejoice in every green leaf, in the Virginia creeper growing up the window there.’

  He said more of the same, with all sorts of digs at officialdom, excusing himself from time to time with a varyingly reiterated ‘Sorry Innstetten’. Innstetten nodded mechanically in agreement, but his mind was scarcely on these matters as he glanced repeatedly in a kind of fascination at the Virginia creeper climbing up the window to which Briest had just alluded, and as he dwelt on this it was as if he saw the golden red heads of the girls again among the tendrils, and heard once more their ‘Come back Effi’.

  He didn’t believe in signs and that kind of thing, on the contrary, he entirely rejected all superstition. But he nonetheless couldn’t escape from these three words, and as Briest
continued to hold forth, he couldn’t get away from the notion that that little incident had been more than mere chance.

  Innstetten, who had taken only a short leave of absence, had departed the next day, after promising to write every day. ‘Yes, you must do that,’ Effi had said, and these were words from the heart, since she had for years known nothing lovelier than getting lots of letters, for example on her birthday. Everybody had to write to her on that day. Little messages in a letter, such as ‘Gertrude and Clara also send their best wishes’ were not permissible; Gertrude and Clara, if they wanted to stay friends, had to see to it that there was an individual letter with its own stamp, if possible – for her birthday was in the holiday period – a foreign one, from Switzerland or Karlsbad.

  Innstetten, as promised, actually did write every day; but what made getting his letters especially agreeable was that all he ever expected in reply was a brief note once a week. And that he received, full of charming trivia which invariably gave him great delight. Such serious matters as had to be discussed were dealt with by Frau von Briest and her son-in-law; arrangements for the wedding, the decorating, and the equipment of the kitchen and the household in general. Innstetten had already been in post for almost three years, and his house in Kessin, though not elegantly appointed, was furnished as befitted his position, which made it advisable to gain a picture, in correspondence, of all that was already there, so as not to buy anything superfluous. Finally, when Frau von Briest was fully informed about these things, mother and daughter decided on a trip to Berlin to, as Briest put it, ‘assemble the trousseau’ for Princess Effi. Effi looked forward very much to spending some time in Berlin, especially since Father had consented to their staying at the Hôtel du Nord. ‘Whatever it costs can be deducted from equipping the house. Innstetten has everything anyway.’ Effi, in contrast to her mother who had put such petty concerns aside once and for all, had, without for a moment considering whether he meant it seriously or as a joke, enthusiastically agreed and her thoughts were far more occupied with the impression the two of them, mother and daughter, would make at the luncheon table, than with Spinn and Mencke, Goschenhofer or the other firms on the provisional shopping list. And her demeanour corresponded to her gleeful imaginings as the big week in Berlin finally arrived. Cousin Briest of the Alexander Regiment, an extremely animated young lieutenant who took the Fliegende Blätter and kept a collection of its best jokes, put every off-duty hour at their disposal, so they sat with him at the corner window of Kranzler’s or, at respectable times, in the Café Bauer and then drove in the afternoon to the Zoological Garden to look at the giraffes, of whom Cousin Briest, whose first name incidentally was Dagobert, liked to say, ‘They look like aristocratic old maids.’ Every day went according to plan, and on the third or fourth day the National Gallery was on the agenda, because Dagobert wanted to show his cousin The Isle of the Blessed. ‘Cousin Effi is on the brink of marriage, but it might nevertheless be just as well to make the acquaintance of “The Isle of the Blessed” beforehand.’ His aunt gave him a clip with her fan, but accompanied it with such a benign look that he had no cause to change his tone. These were heavenly days for all three, not least for Cousin Briest who was a wonderful chaperon with a knack for quickly smoothing over any little disagreement. There was never any shortage of such differences of opinion, as these things go, between mother and daughter, but they never arose, happily, during the shopping they had come to do. Whether they were buying six of any item or three dozen, Effi was always in agreement with her mother, and when they discussed the prices of what they had just bought on the way home Effi regularly got the figures mixed up. Frau von Briest, usually so critical, even of her own beloved daughter, not only took this lack of interest lightly, she even saw it as an advantage. ‘None of these things means much to Effi,’ she told herself, ‘Effi isn’t demanding; she lives in her own imagination and dreams, and if Princess Friedrich Karl drives past and gives her a friendly greeting from her carriage, it’s worth more to her than a whole chest of linen.’