It was impossible not to enjoy imparting so tremendous a piece of news, however genuinely shocked one might be. Frau Manske brought it out with a ring of pride. It would not be easy to beat, she felt, in the way of news. Then she remembered the gossip about Anna and Axel, and observed her with increased interest. Was she going to faint? It would be the only becoming course for her to take if it were true that there had been courting.
But Anna, whose voice had failed her before, when once she had heard what it was that had happened, seemed curiously cold and composed.
“What was he accused of?” was all she asked; so calmly, Frau Manske afterwards told her friends, that it was not even womanly in the face of so great a misfortune.
“He set fire to the stables,” said Frau Manske.
“It is a lie,” said Anna; also, as Frau Manske afterwards pointed out to her friends, an unwomanly remark.
“He did it himself to get the insurance money.”
“It is a lie,” repeated Anna, in that cold voice.
“Eye-witnesses will swear to it.”
“They will lie,” said Anna again; and turned and walked away. “Go on,” she said to Fritz, taking her place beside Miss Leech.
She sat quite silent till they were near the house. Then she called to the coachman to stop. “I am going into the forest for a little while,” she said, jumping out “You drive on home.” And she crossed the road quickly, her white dress fluttering for a moment between the pine-trunks, and then disappearing in the soft green shadow.
Miss Leech drove on alone, sighing gently. Something was troubling her dear Miss Estcourt. Something out of the ordinary had happened. She wished she could help her. She drove on, sighing.
Directly the road was out of sight, Anna struck back again to the left, across the moss and lichen, towards the place where she knew there was a path that led to Lohm. She walked very straight and very quickly. She did not miss her way, but found the path and hastened her steps to a run. What were they doing to Axel? She was going to his house, alone. People would talk. Who cared? And when she had heard all that could be told her there, she was going to Axel himself. People would talk. Who cared? The laughable indifference of slander, when big issues of life and death were at stake! All the tongues of all the world should not frighten her away from Axel. Her eyes had a new look in them. For the first time she was wide awake, was facing life as it is without dreams, facing its absolute cruelty and pitilessness. This was life, these were the realities — suffering, injustice, and shame; not to be avoided apparently by the most honourable and innocent of men; but at least to be fought with all the weapons in one’s power, with unflinching courage to the end, whatever that end might be. That was what one needed most, of all the gifts of the gods — not happiness — oh, foolish, childish dream! how could there be happiness so long as men were wicked? — but courage. That blind look on Axel’s face — no, she would not think of that; it tore her heart. She stumbled a little as she ran — no, she would not think of that.
Out in the open, between the forest and Lohm, she met Manske. “I was coming to you,” he said.
“I am going to him,” said Anna.
“Oh, my dear young lady!” cried Manske; and two big tears rolled down his face.
“Don’t cry,” she said, “it does not help him.”
“How can I not do so after seeing what I have this day seen?”
She hurried on. “Come,” she said, “we must not waste time. He needs help. I am going to his house to see what I can do. Where did they take him?”
“They took him to prison.”
“Where?”
“Stralsund.”
“Will he be there long?”
“Till after the trial.”
“And that will be?”
“God knows.”
“I am going to him. Come with me. We will take his horses.”
“Oh, dear Miss, dear Miss,” cried Manske, wringing his hands, “they will not let us see him — you they will not let in under any circumstances, and me only across mountains of obstacles. The official who conducted the arrest, when I prayed for permission to visit my dear patron, was brutality itself. ‘Why should you visit him?’ he asked, sneering. ‘The prison chaplain will do all that is needful for his soul.’ ‘Let it be, Manske,’ said my dear patron, but still I prayed. ‘I cannot give you permission,’ said the man at last, weary of my importunity, ‘it rests with my chief. You must go to him.’”
“Who is the chief?”
“I know not. I know nothing. My head is in a whirl.”
“He must be somewhere in Stralsund. We will find him, if we have to ask from door to door. And I’ll get permission for myself.”
“Oh, dearest Miss, none will be given you. The man said only his nearest relatives, and those only very seldom — for I asked all I could, I felt the moments were priceless — my dear patron spoke not a word. ‘His wife, if he has one,’ said the man, making hideous pleasantries — he well knew there is no wife — or his Braut, if there is one, or a brother or a sister, but no one else.”
“Do his brothers and Trudi know?”
“I at once telegraphed to them.”
“Then they will be here to-night.”
The women and children in the village ran out to look at Anna as she passed. She did not see them. Axel’s house stood open. The Mamsell, overcome by the shame of having been in such a service, was in hysterics in the kitchen, and the inspector, a devoted servant who loved his master, was upbraiding her with bitterest indignation for daring to say such things of such a master. The Mamsell’s laments and the inspector’s furious reproaches echoed through the empty house. The door, like the gate, was garlanded with flowers. Little more than an hour had gone by since Axel passed out beneath them to ruin.
Anna went straight to the study. His papers were lying about in disorder; the drawer of the writing-table was unlocked, and his keys hung in it He had been writing letters, evidently, for an unfinished one lay on the table. She stood a moment quite still in the silent room. Manske had gone to find the coachman, and she could hear his steps on the stones beneath the open windows. The desolation of the deserted room, the terrible sense of misfortune worse than death that brooded over it, struck her like a blow that for ever destroyed her cheerful youth. She never forgot the look and the feeling of that room. She went to the writing-table, dropped on her knees, and laid her cheek, with an abandonment of tenderness, on the open, unfinished letter. “How are such things possible — how are they possible — —” she murmured passionately, shutting her eyes to press back the useless tears. “So useless to cry, so useless,” she repeated piteously, as she felt the scalding tears, in spite of all her efforts to keep them back, stealing through her eyelashes. And everything else that she did or could do — how useless. What could she do for him, who had no claim on him at all? How could she reach him across this gulf of misery? Yes, it was good to be brave in this world, it was good to have courage, but courage without weapons, of what use was it? She was a woman, a stranger in a strange land, she had no friends, no influence — she was useless. Manske found her kneeling there, holding the writing-table tightly in her outstretched arms, pressing her bosom against it as though it were something that could feel, her eyes shut, her face a desolation. “Do not cry,” he begged in his turn, “dearest Miss, do not cry — it cannot help him.”
They locked up his papers and everything that they thought might be of value before they left. Manske took the keys. Anna half put out her hand for them, then dropped it at her side. She had less claim than Manske: he was Axel’s pastor; she was nothing to him at all.
They left the dog-cart at the entrance to the town and went in search of a Droschke. Manske’s weather-beaten face flushed a dull red when he gave the order to drive to the prison. The prison was in a by-street of shabby houses. Heads appeared at the windows of the houses as the Droschke rattled up over the rough stones, and the children playing about the doors and gutters stopped t
heir games and crowded round to stare.
They went up the dirty steps and rang the bell. The door was immediately opened a few inches by an official who shouted “The visiting hour is past,” and shut it again.
Manske rang a second time.
“Well, what do you want?” asked the man angrily, thrusting out his head.
Manske stated, in the mildest, most conciliatory tones, that he would be infinitely obliged if he would tell him what steps he ought to take to obtain permission to visit one of the inmates.
“You must have a written order,” snapped the man, preparing to shut the door again. The street children were clustering at the bottom of the steps, listening eagerly.
“To whom should I apply?” asked Manske.
“To the judge who has conducted the preliminary inquiries.”
The door was slammed, and locked from within with a great noise of rattling keys. The sound of the keys made Anna feel faint; Axel was on the other side of that ostentation of brute force. She leaned against the wall shivering. The children tittered; she was a very fine lady, they thought, to have friends in there.
“The judge who conducted the preliminary inquiries,” repeated Manske, looking dazed. “Who may he be? Where shall we find him? I fear I am sadly inexperienced in these matters.”
There was nothing to be done but to face the official’s wrath once more. He timidly rang the bell again. This time he was kept waiting. There was a little round window in the door, and he could see the man on the other side leaning against a table trimming his nails. The man also could see him. Manske began to knock on the glass in his desperation. The man remained absorbed by his nails.
Anna was suffering a martyrdom. Her head drooped lower and lower. The children laughed loud. Just then heavy steps were heard approaching on the pavement, and the children fled with one accord. Immediately afterwards an official, apparently of a higher grade than the man within, came up. He glanced curiously at the two suppliants as he thrust his hand into his pocket and pulled out a key. Before he could fit it in the lock the man on the other side had seen him, had sprung to the door, flung it open, and stood at attention.
Manske saw that here was his opportunity. He snatched off his hat. “Sir,” he cried, “one moment, for God’s sake.”
“Well?” inquired the official sharply.
“Where can I obtain an order of admission?”
“To see —— ?”
“My dear patron, Herr von Lohm, who by some incomprehensible and appalling mistake — —”
“You must go to the judge who conducted the preliminary inquiries.”
“But who is he, and where is he to be found?”
The official looked at his watch. “If you hurry you may still find him at the Law Courts. In the next street. Examining Judge Schultz.”
And the door was shut.
So they went to the Law Courts, and hurried up and down staircases and along endless corridors, vainly looking for someone to direct them to Examining Judge Schultz. The building was empty; they did not meet a soul, and they went down one passage after the other, anguish in Anna’s heart, and misery hardly less acute in Manske’s. At last they heard distant voices echoing through the emptiness. They followed the sound, and found two women cleaning.
“Can you direct me to the room of the Examining Judge Schultz?” asked Manske, bowing politely.
“The gentlemen have all gone home. Business hours are over,” was the answer. Could they perhaps give his private address? No, they could not; perhaps the porter knew. Where was the porter? Somewhere about.
They hurried downstairs again in search of the porter. Another ten minutes was wasted looking for him. They saw him at last through the glass of the entrance door, airing himself on the steps.
The porter gave them the address, and they lost some more minutes trying to find their Droschke, for they had come out at a different entrance to the one they had gone in by. By this time Manske was speechless, and Anna was half dead.
They climbed three flights of stairs to the Examining Judge’s flat, and after being kept waiting a long while— “Der Herr Untersuchungsrichter ist bei Tisch,” the slovenly girl had announced — were told by him very curtly that they must go to the Public Prosecutor for the order. Anna went out without a word. Manske bowed and apologised profusely for having disturbed the Herr Untersuchungsrichter at his repast; he felt the necessity of grovelling before these persons whose power was so almighty. The Examining Judge made no reply whatever to these piteous amiabilities, but turned on his heel, leaving them to find the door as best they could.
The Public Prosecutor lived at the other end of the town. They neither of them spoke a word on the way there. In answer to their anxious inquiry whether they could speak to him, the woman who opened the door said that her master was asleep; it was his hour for repose, having just supped, and he could not possibly be disturbed.
Anna began to cry. Manske gripped hold of her hand and held it fast, patting it while he continued to question the servant. “He will see no one so late,” she said. “He will sleep now till nine, and then go out. You must come to-morrow.”
“At what time?”
“At ten he goes to the Law Courts. You must come before then.”
“Thank you,” said Manske, and drew Anna away. “Do not cry, liebes Kind,” he implored, his own eyes brimming with miserable tears. “Do not let the coachman see you like this. We must go home now. There is nothing to be done. We will come early to-morrow, and have more success.”
They stopped a moment in the dark entrance below, trying to compose their faces before going out. They did not dare look at each other. Then they went out and drove away.
The stars were shining as they passed along the quiet country road, and all the way was drenched with the fragrance of clover and freshly-cut hay. The sky above the rye fields on the left was still rosy. Not a leaf stirred. Once, when the coachman stopped to take a stone out of a horse’s shoe, they could hear the crickets, and the cheerful humming of a column of gnats high above their heads.
CHAPTER XXXI
Gustav von Lohm found Manske’s telegram on his table when he came in with his wife from his afternoon ride in the Thiergarten.
“What is it?” she inquired, seeing him turn pale; and she took it out of his hand and read it. “Disgraceful,” she murmured.
“I must go at once,” he said, looking round helplessly.
“Go?”
When a wife says “Go?” in that voice, if she is a person of determination and her husband is a person of peace, he does not go; he stays. Gustav stayed. It is true that at first he decided to leave Berlin by the early train next morning; but his wife employed the hours of darkness addressing him, as he lay sleepless, in the language of wisdom; and the wisdom being of that robust type known as worldly, it inevitably produced its effect on a mind naturally receptive.
“Relations,” she said, “are at all times bad enough. They do less for you and expect more from you than anyone else. They are the last to congratulate if you succeed, and the first to abandon if you fail. They are at one and the same time abnormally truthful, and abnormally sensitive. They regard it as infinitely more blessed to administer home-truths than to receive them back again. But, so long as they do not actually break the laws, prejudice demands that they shall be borne with. In my family, no one ever broke the laws. It has been reserved for my married life, this connection with criminals.”
She was a woman of ready and frequent speech, and she continued in this strain for some time. Towards morning, nature refusing to endure more, Gustav fell asleep; and when he woke the early train was gone.
In the same manner did his wife prevent his writing to his unhappy brother. “It is sad that such things should be,” she said, “sad that a man of birth should commit so vulgar a crime; but he has done it, he has disgraced us, he has struck a blow at our social position which may easily, if we are not careful, prove fatal. Take my advice — have nothing to do w
ith him. Leave him to be dealt with as the law shall demand. We who abide by the laws are surely justified in shunning, in abhorring, those who deliberately break them. Leave him alone.”
And Gustav left him alone.
Trudi was at a picnic when the telegram reached her flat. With several of her female friends and a great many lieutenants she was playing at being frisky among the haycocks beyond the town. Her two little boys, Billy and Tommy, who would really have enjoyed haycocks, were left sternly at home. She invited the whole party to supper at her flat, and drove home in the dog-cart of the richest of the young men, making immense efforts to please him, and feeling that she must be looking very picturesque and sweet in her flower-trimmed straw hat and muslin dress, silhouetted against the pale gold of the evening sky.
Her eye fell on the telegram as the picnic party came crowding in.
“Bill coming home?” inquired somebody.
“I’m afraid he is,” she said, opening it.
She read it, and could not prevent a change of expression. There was a burst of laughter. The young men declared they would never marry. The young women, prone at all times to pity other women’s husbands, criticised Trudi’s pale face, and secretly pitied Bill. She lit a cigarette, flung herself into a chair, and became very cheerful. She had never been so amusing. She kept them in a state of uproarious mirth till the small hours. The richest lieutenant, who had found her distinctly a bore during the drive home, went away feeling quite affectionate. When they had all gone, she dropped on to her bed, and cried, and cried.
It was in the papers next morning, and at breakfast Trudi and her family were in every mouth. Bibi came running round, genuinely distressed. She had not been invited to the picnic, but she forgot that in her sympathy. “I wanted to catch you before you start,” she said, vigorously embracing her poor friend.
“Where should I start for?” asked Trudi, offering a cold cheek to Bibi’s kisses.
“Are you not going to Herr von Lohm?” exclaimed Bibi, open-mouthed.
“What, when he tries to cheat insurance companies?”
Delphi Collected Works of Elizabeth von Arnim (Illustrated) Page 58