Carsten hesitated, as if he had reached the limit of his story; his breast heaved laboriously, his lean face was flushed. But he had not yet finished; only now he no longer looked down at his sister, but spoke over her head into space.
“And then when we were in our bedroom, when she did not even deign to look at me, but cast off her belt and bodice as if in anger, and then with a jerk snatched the comb from her hair, so that it was as if a golden flood fell over her hips – it is not always as it should be, sister – for what should have repelled me, I almost believe that it only infatuated me all the more.”
His sister gently laid her hand on his arm. “Leave the ghost in its tomb, brother; forget her, she did not belong to us.”
He paid no heed. “So,” he continued, “I had never seen her before; not in our brief marriage and not during our engagement, either. Yet it was not the beauty that our Lord had given her, it was the evil lust still flashing in her eyes that made her so beautiful. And just as on that evening and in that night the same thing happened many times, through many weeks and months, until only half a year before her death was left – when all those strangers left our city.”
“Brother Carsten,” said Brigitta again, “haven’t you enough new sorrow? If you were weak towards your wife, because you loved her more than was good for you – almost a whole lifetime has passed since then – why do you still torture yourself with it now?”
“Now, Brigitta? Yes, why do I tell you all this now? Was she my wife during the time when her senses reeled with frivolous thoughts that had nothing in common with me? And yet from this marriage that poor boy was born. Do you think,” and he bent down towards his sister’s ear, “that it makes no difference in what hour, with the consent of an all-wise God, a human life issues forth out of nothingness? I tell you, every human being brings his life ready made into the world with him, and all who have given even a single drop to his blood, back through the centuries, have their share in it.”
Outside the clock in the church tower struck one. “Leave it to our dear Lord, brother,” said Brigitta, “I don’t understand what’s going through your head from all your books, I only know that the boy, more’s the pity, takes after his mother.”
Carsten doubtless felt that he had really been speaking to himself, and that now as always he was alone with himself. “Go to bed and sleep, my good old sister,” he said, gently pushing her into the hall. “I’ll try it too.”
On the bottom stair, where Brigitta had left it, a candle was burning with a long snuff. With firmly closed lips and folded hands she once more looked at her brother; then she nodded at him and went upstairs with the candle.
But Carsten was not thinking of sleep; he had only wanted to be alone again. Once more he took the little ring and held it before him; through the narrow frame he saw, as if deep in the past, the airy vision of the beautiful woman, whom no one on earth besides himself still remembered. A blissful self-oblivion lay on his countenance, but then suddenly a pain quivered across it: she seemed to him to be so completely forsaken down there.
Straightening up, he placed the ring on his finger, and it was done with a solemn fervour, as if he wanted to unite the deceased with him once more, and more tightly than when she was alive; just as she had once been, in her beauty and in her weakness, and with the niggardly love which she had once felt for him. Then he walked to the door and listened for any noise from the hall; hearing that everything remained quiet, he went to the stairway and cautiously made his way to his son’s bedroom. He found the young man breathing calmly and fast asleep, although the moon was pouring its full light across the bed, which stood by the window. With the light-brown hair that fell over his temples in silky-soft curls, one could have taken the pretty, pale face of the sleeper for that of a woman.
Carsten had stepped close to the bed; a slight tremor passed through his body. “Juliana!” he said. “Your son! He too will tear my heart to pieces.” And he added, “My Lord and God, I am willing to suffer for my child, only don’t let him get lost!”
At these words, involuntarily spoken aloud, the sleeper opened his eyes; in slumber, however, his soul may have continued to dream of the terrors of the day just past; for as he suddenly saw in the night the burning eyes of the old man and the trembling arm raised above him, he let out a cry, as if he expected the death blow from his father’s hand, but then he beseechingly reached up his arms to him.
And with a cry, as if he could not keep his breast from being rent apart, “My child, my only child!” the father collapsed at the bedside of his offending son.
A friend in Hamburg had made it possible for Carsten to place his son in a small business there. Meanwhile, in spite of the respect which he enjoyed in the little town, this family event was discussed unsparingly enough, though to be sure this also occasioned bringing the memory of poor Juliana not very gently from her tomb. Only Carsten himself learnt nothing about this. One day when he had returned from the home of a friendly citizen in an unusually depressed state, Brigitta asked him with concern, “What is wrong, Carsten? You didn’t hear anything bad about our Heinrich, I hope?”
“Bad?” replied her brother. “Oh no, Brigitta; since he left no one has even mentioned his name to me.” And with lowered head he went to his work table.
Letters from Heinrich came rarely, and often they demanded money, since he said he could not get along in Hamburg on his meagre salary. In other respects life went on quietly; the old pear tree in the yard had bloomed again, and then at the right time and to the joy of the neighbourhood children had borne its fruit. Nothing special had occurred, unless it were that Anna had refused the marriage proposal of a prosperous young citizen; she was not one of those women who are driven into marriage by their blood; she had not yet wanted to leave her old foster parents.
When however, shortly before Christmas, Carsten notified his son of the sudden death of the Senator, a letter followed in a few days, announcing Heinrich’s visit for Christmas Eve. The letter contained no request for money; he had not even asked for travelling expenses.
This was really a message of joy, which was immediately proclaimed in the house. And everyone felt a happy unrest as the holiday approached; the handshakes that Carsten was wont to exchange with his old sister in passing became heartier; once in a while he would catch his busy foster daughter, hold her for a moment by both hands, and gaze tenderly into her cheerful eyes.
Finally the afternoon of 24th December had arrived. An expectant activity had reigned in the house; yet soon everything seemed ready for the reception of the Christ child and the guest. From the work table, which today had been freed of all ledgers and account books, there gleamed on the snow-white damask the tea service with the little gold stars, while next to it the freshly baked Christmas cakes shed their fragrance. On the chest of drawers opposite the door Heinrich’s gifts had been spread out by the women: a dozen pairs of stockings of the finest zephyr worsted, on which the provident aunt had knit all year long; beside them, neatly made by Anna’s hands, a fancy embroidered satin vest and a green silk purse, through whose meshes shone the gold pieces given by Carsten. Carsten himself was just going into the cellar to bring up from his modest stock two very special bottles, which had been presented to him long ago by a grateful client; today for once there was to be no economizing.
Instead of the master of the house it was Aunt Brigitta who entered, holding two brightly polished candlesticks, on which were placed snow-white Russian candles in paper ruffles of equal whiteness, for the twilight of Christmas Eve had already set in. Outside, the groups of little Christmas beggars were already marching, and their carolling rang out: “From heaven on high I come to you.”
When Carsten entered again, the candles were already burning; the room looked quite festive. The old siblings turned their faces towards one another and looked at each other affectionately. “It’s almost time, Carsten,” said Brigitta, “the mail coach alw
ays arrives at about four.”
Carsten nodded, and after he had hurriedly planted his bottles behind the warm stove, he reached towards the door peg for his hat.
“Shouldn’t I go with you, Uncle?” Anna called to him. “There’s nothing more for me to do here.”
“No, no, my child; I must do this all alone.” With these words he took his bamboo cane from the clock case and went out.
At that time the posting station was far up on Norder Street, but the air was completely calm, and a light frosty snow was falling evenly. Carsten walked on vigorously without glancing to right or left, but when he had almost reached his destination, he suddenly heard someone call out, “Ho there, my friend, take me along!” And Mr Jasper’s form, not to be mistaken even in the darkness, advanced towards him from a side street, gaily waving a handkerchief. “I can see,” he said, “you want to call for your Heinrich at the station. All I’ve heard is that he’s turned out to be quite a fellow, the young rascal.”
“But,” said Carsten, lengthening his stride, which the other, swinging both arms, strove to match, “I thought, Jaspers, that there was no one you had to look for.”
“No, Carsten, thank Heavens. No, no one. But, the deuce, you don’t have to run so! One must see what guests are coming for the sweet festival.”
They had arrived at a corner near the post station, where a number of people had already gathered to await the arrival of the mail coach, when Mr Jaspers was hailed by a passing court clerk.
“Don’t you hear, Jaspers! That man wants to talk with you,” said Carsten, who had just heard the rumbling of a heavy wagon from down the street.
But the other man stood like a stone wall. “Oh, Heaven forbid, Carsten! Let that poltroon go his way. I’ll stay with you, my friend; who knows what may still happen? You surely know the story of the Flensburg divinity student who was going to lift his sweetheart out of the coach, only to have a black Negro boy land on him.”
“I know all your stories, Jaspers,” replied Carsten impatiently, “but if you really want to know the truth, I wish to receive my son alone; I don’t need you along!”
Mr Jasper’s imperturbable answer was drowned out by the cracking of a whip and the blare of a post horn, and immediately thereafter the clumsy wagon rolled before the door of the post building, into the pale beam which the lantern over the door cast upon the street with its light coating of snow. Then the postilion jumped down from the box, the coach door was pulled open by the head ostler, and the people pushed forwards to see the passengers alight.
Carsten had remained standing back in the shadow of the wall. As he was of tall build, he could clearly enough recognize the forms muffled up in coats and furs, which now stepped one by one out of the body of the coach onto the street.
“No one else inside?” called the ostler.
“No, no!” was heard from several directions, and the coach door was slammed shut.
Carsten grasped the crook of his cane and leant on it; his Heinrich had not come. As if absentmindedly he looked at the steaming horses, which were scraping the pavement and shaking their brass harness till their hangings jingled. At last he was just about to walk away when he noticed that he was not the only disappointed person there. A young girl had approached the postilion, who was throwing blankets over his animals, and she seemed to be pressing him with excited questions. “Yes, yes, Miss,” he heard the man answer, “it may still be possible; an extra coach is still to come.”
“An extra coach!” Carsten repeated the words involuntarily; a deep sigh of relief escaped his breast. He was acquainted with the postilion; he could have asked him, “Is my Heinrich in that one?” But he was not able to move from the spot; with closed lips he stood there and soon saw the coach drive off, looking at the empty tracks visible in the snow, upon which new snow sank down softly and steadily and soon covered them.
It had grown quiet all around him; even Mr Jaspers seemed to have disappeared; the girl had silently placed herself next to him, her arms wrapped in her shawl. Occasionally a doorbell rang, then children’s voices sang, “From heaven on high I come to you.” The little Christmas carollers with their comforting song of annunciation were still going about from house to house.
Finally something came up the street again, closer and closer it came; once more the whip cracked and the post horn blared, and now the promised extra coach rolled into the light of the station lantern. And before the horses had been brought to a halt, Carsten saw the form of a tall man nimbly jump from the coach and walk towards him. “Heinrich!” he called and rushed forwards, so that he almost stumbled, but the man turned to the girl, who now flung her arms around him with a cry of joy. “I began to think you weren’t going to come any more!”
“I? Not come? On Christmas Eve? Oh!”
Carsten watched as the two went down the street arm in arm through the falling snow; when he turned around, even the place before the station, where the coach had halted, was empty. “He did not come, he probably was sick,” he said to himself in a low voice.
Then a broad hand was laid on his arm. “Oho, my friend,” spoke Mr Jaspers’s familiar voice close by, “didn’t I know you’d be in low spirits? Sick, you say? No, Carsten, don’t let that worry spoil your Christmas Eve. Why, you know, in Hamburg there are all kinds of ways for young fellows to spend Christmas besides being in your old great-grandfather’s house on the alley. But see here, wasn’t it nice of me to help you wait? Now you’ll have company on the way back!”
Mr Jaspers’s voice had taken on an almost tender expression, but Carsten did not heed it. On the way home, too, he let Mr Jaspers trot at his side undisturbed; he had become a patient man.
When he stepped into his house again, he heard the room door being quickly closed from the inside. “Just one moment’s patience!” Anna’s clear voice called; then the door was opened wide, and the slender girlish form stood on the threshold as in a frame. Nor did she step out, she stared without stirring at her old foster father.
“Alone, Uncle?” she finally asked.
“Alone, my child.”
Then the two of them went in to join Aunt Brigitta in the festively decorated room, and while Carsten silently sat by in the leather armchair, the two women exhausted the possibilities in searching for new suppositions as to what it might have been that had ruined their holiday happiness, until finally the evening had passed, and they silently put out the lights and removed the gifts which they had arranged so zealously just a short while before.
The Christmas holidays had passed too without Heinrich’s appearing or any message from him having been received. When New Year’s Eve too arrived, and the long awaited hour of mail delivery again passed by, the worries of these previous days had increased in the old man to the point of almost suffocating fear. What could have happened? What if Heinrich lay sick there in the big strange city? The deliberations of the women, calmer this time, were not able to restrain him; he had to go and see for himself. In vain they pictured to him the hardships of the long journey in the bitter cold that had set in; he gathered together the necessary money for the trip and asked Brigitta to pack his bag; then he went into town to see about a conveyance for the next morning.
When he arrived at home, completely exhausted after much running around, he found that a letter had come from Heinrich; an error of the postman had delayed it. Hurriedly he broke the seal; his hands shook so that he could hardly get the spectacles out of his pocket. But it was quite a cheerful letter; Mr Jaspers had been right; nothing special had happened to Heinrich, he had only thought it was better to enjoy the Christmas Fair in Hamburg and then come home later, when the big pear tree in the yard would be in bloom, and when they could walk out on the dike together. A jolly description of various parties and programs followed; he seemed to have had no suspicion of the anxieties he had caused his family.
The letter also contained a postscript: he and a goo
d friend had started out for themselves on some business deals that had already earned them a nice profit; he knew now where money was to be got, and they would soon have quite different news from him. Of course he had not mentioned how risky, in more than one respect, this business connection was for him.
Carsten, having read everything and then reread it, leant back wearily in his chair; the name “Juliana” involuntarily pushed out through his lips. But at any rate Heinrich was well; nothing bad had happened.
“Well, Uncle?” asked Anna, who stood before him with Aunt Brigitta, waiting for the news.
He handed them the letter. “Read it yourselves,” he said, “perhaps I’ll be able to sleep better tonight. And then, Anna, tell the driver he need not bring the carriage, my old legs can’t make it any more.”
He looked almost happy at these words; a resting place had arrived, and he would try to make thorough use of it.
The next morning the Christmas gifts were taken out of the drawers again, carefully packed into a small box, and mailed to Heinrich; on top lay a letter from Anna, full of sincere admonitions and full of honest indignation. After a few months she received as reply a candy Easter egg which could be opened, and out of which a gold brooch emerged; some bantering jingles, thanking her for her good advice, were wound about it on a strip of paper.
If the gold brooch was a yield of the business deals he had contrived, it certainly remained the only sign of them that reached home; in the scanty letters these were either not mentioned at all or only in general intimations.
Immensee and Other Stories Page 10