The Freifrau lay down. ‘Poor Fritz, poor sick Sophgen. But it will cheer her to see our Angel.’ She motioned to the Bernhard to come and sit beside her. The room was already growing warmer. The broad blinds hung without the slightest tremor.
The next arrival was Dietmahler, sent by Professor Stark to see if he could be of assistance. He hesitated in the doorway, looking from face to face in the shadowed room. He had come into the Rose and upstairs without being announced. They were all talking to each other, no-one looked round, and Dietmahler unwisely confided in the blond child who was standing close to him, examining the hydraulics of the coffee-urn.
‘You are Bernhard, aren’t you? I am a friend of your brother Friedrich, I have been to your house in Weissenfels. I don’t know whether your sister Sidonie remembers me.’
‘Very likely not,’ said the Bernhard. ‘However, I remember you.’
Sidonie, half hearing, came towards them, smiling. Naturally she remembered everything - the washday, the happiness of his visit, and, of course, he was -
‘Of course,’ said the Bernhard.
‘I have now the honour to be the Deputy Assistant to Professor Stark,’ said Dietmahler. ‘You may have heard your brother mention me in his letters, in connection with the treatment of his Intended.’ He took out his professional card.
That would bring his name to her mind, no doubt of it. But the few moments during which she had not been able to remember it confirmed Dietmahler in what, after all, he already knew, that he was nothing. What means something to us, that we can name. Sink, he told his hopes, with a kind of satisfaction, sink like a corpse dropped into the river. I am rejected, not for being unwelcome, not even for being ridiculous, but for being nothing.
‘Dietmahler!’ Erasmus called out. Now Sidonie did remember, and covered her face for a moment with her hands. ‘Dietmahler, thank God you are here, you will tell us exactly what is happening. You haven’t been practising long enough to know how to tell lies.’
‘That is not very polite,’ said Karl.
‘Fraulein von Kuhn is still feverish,’ said Dietmahler. ‘Long visits are out of the question; half an hour, perhaps. Unfortunately, her cough delays the healing of the incision. It splits open. The Professor believes now that if he was given permission to carry out one further operation we might hope for an immediate and complete recovery.’
‘And what do you believe?’ asked Erasmus.
‘I don’t question the Professor’s prognosis.’
After this, Dietmahler excused himself. He had to think, he said, of his other duties.
‘Of course you must,’ cried Sidonie. ‘And you must forgive us, but we are anxious. Even now we can’t truly believe that you have any other patient but Fritz’s Sophgen. People in distress are selfish beyond belief.’
‘That is what your brother said to me.’
‘Then he showed more sense than usual.’
She was trying to make amends, although she did not know what for. Then he was gone, and having nothing else to do, they stood at the window and watched him, in his turn, crossing the cobbled street to walk in the shade.
The Freifrau was sleeping uneasily. The landlord again asked if he should send up a few bottles of wine.
‘If it will make you happy, yes,’ said Karl.
‘Wine from the district, Herr Leutnant?’
‘Heaven forbid, bring Moselwein.’
As soon as the waiter had come and gone, Erasmus broke out violently. ‘Father will soon be back, since he is allowed to visit for only half an hour. We have managed very badly. What will come of his visit? You know that whatever consent or permission he has given, he still considers the marriage quite unsuitable -‘
‘It is quite unsuitable,’ the Bernhard interrupted him. ‘It is our business to see the beauty of that.’
‘You should not have come here, Angel in the House,’ said Erasmus angrily.
‘Nor, I think, should you,’ said the Bernhard.
Turning to Karl, Erasmus went on, ‘Why has the father been permitted to call so soon upon Sophgen, whose condition, poor soul, has had such an effect on Fritz that his own sister did not recognise him? What must he feel now? As a parent and a Christian he must pity her, but beyond that he can only think that his eldest son is to be tied for life to a sick girl, who may never be able to bear him children. He will have to withdraw his consent. No-one could expect him to do otherwise. And then it will be a matter for poor Fritz, the wretched Fritz, to break the cruel truth - to say: my dearest Philosophy, I regret that my father does not think you fit to share my bed -‘
‘My mother is waking up,’ said Sidonie.
On the stairs there sounded a heavy tread which sent a tremor through the new sash-windows of the best room at the Rose. The Freiherr stood before them, with tears running down his face - to that they were accustomed at prayer-meeting, the tears of true repentance - but he was sobbing with grotesque intakes of air, with hiccoughs, as though choking over a gross mouthful.
‘The poor child … ough! … the poor child … so ill … ough! … and she has nothing …’
He leaned - something none of them had ever seen before - against the frame of the door, grasping it with both hands.
‘I shall give her Schloben!’
50
A Dream
KARL pointed out that the father had no power to do anything of the kind. He had inherited Schloben from his uncle, Friedrich August, in 1768, and it was entailed on Fritz, born four years later. But that did not take away in the least from the generosity of the sacrifice, inspired purely by human compassion, which the Freiherr had wished to make. - The Bernhard thought that it did take away from it a little.
At this time Fritz had a persistent image which hovered at the edge of his dreaming mind. Finally he stood aside to let it in. He was a student once again in Jena, listening to Fichte’s lecture on the Self, and it came to him that he should not be doing this, that he was in the wrong place, because he had heard that his friend Hardenberg lived only two hours’ ride away, at Schloben. His horse was not a good one, and he did not arrive until it was dark. He knocked at the door, which was opened by a young girl with dark hair. He thought that this might be his friend Hardenberg’s wife, but did not like to ask. At Schloben he lived as a welcome guest for two weeks. When the time came for him to leave, his host accepted his thanks, but told him he must not come again.
Fritz wrote down the incident as it had come to him, one paragraph only. Since he had to go to Tennstedt, he asked Karoline Just whether he might read it to her.
‘This is like past times,’ he said, looking round, as though surprised, ‘the parlour, the firelight, your uncle and aunt gone to bed, the reading.’ Karoline thought, ‘He never used to talk in this way. He might be one of the neighbours.’ Fritz opened his notebook.
‘I must tell you that this is the story of a dream.’
‘In that case I can only listen to it on account of our long friendship,’ said Karoline. ‘You must know that people are only interested in their own dreams.’
‘But I have dreamed it more than once.’
‘Worse and worse.’
‘Justen, you mustn’t speak carelessly of dreams,’ he told her. ‘They are responsible for things such as have not appeared for seven years in philosophy’s house of fools.’
While he read aloud she thought, ‘Seven years ago I did not know him.’
‘Is it worth going on with, Justen?’
‘Let me read it through once to myself.’ Then she asked, ‘What did the young woman look like?’
‘That doesn’t matter. What matters is that she opened the door.’
The Freiherr’s old friends and his colleagues at the Salines, even Coelestin Just, spoke of his gesture - the gift of Schloben to Sophie von Kuhn - as an absurd example of Herrnhuterei. About the legal position none of them were quite sure, but ‘it is unheard of, uncalled for,’ said old Heun. ‘Our Lord himself did not do so much. Hardenberg’s son
s out-at-elbow, the Oberwiederstadt estate penniless, this is not the time for excessive loving and giving.’ Senf pointed out sharply that the Schloben estate was also penniless.
These things, of course, were not said in the presence of Kreisamtmann Just, but he was well aware of them. Even in his garden-house melancholy caught him by the sleeve. ‘It is only that you have been spoiled,’ said Karoline. ‘You have myself and Rahel, who are fixed in our ways, so that it’s hard to imagine that we could ever change. And when your old friend behaves in a certain way, so that he seems quite a different person, you feel that old age itself is approaching “with silent step”.’
‘The truth is,’ her uncle told her, the truth is, that old Hardenberg has not changed. Give and take, he has always been impossible to understand. I call this Hardenbergianismus. But one must not complain, when a man is listening to messages from God.’ He looked more closely at his niece, and said, ‘It is absurd for you, Karolinchen, to call yourself fixed in your ways.’
‘But, fixed or not, I am always welcome here,’ said Karoline, smiling, ‘you always tell me that, are you not going to say it this time?’
‘Tell me what I am to think, Erasmus, Karl, Sidonie,’ the Freifrau asked. ‘I do not quite understand what has been proposed. Does Schloben no longer belong to us?’
‘Put your mind at rest,’ Erasmus told her. ‘Our poor Sophie is interested only in going back to Gruningen.’
The Freifrau felt relief and at the same time a certain resentment, which only the Bernhard noticed, at what seemed almost a criticism of Schloben. Was it possible that the girl did not want to live there? ‘But if your father wishes it,’ she said, ‘she must be made to.’
51
Autumn 1796
BY September carts were beginning to make their way into Jena from the pine-woods with logs for the coming winter. Branches from the tops of their loads scraped against the windows in the side-streets, which were littered with twigs like a rookery. Manholes opened suddenly in the pavements, and gratefully received the thundering rush of wood. At the same time, pickling had begun, and enormous barrels of vinegar began to trundle down the rungs into the reeking darkness of the cellars. Each house stood prepared according to its capacity, secreting its treasure of vinegar and firewood. The students were back, ‘and the whores,’ said the Mandelsloh. ‘They have been trying their luck somewhere else during the vacation, Leipzig or Berlin.’ They came back to Jena in modest wagonettes, though not to the streets near the Schaufelgasse. This was a disappointment to Sophie, who would have liked to have a sight of them. The Fakultat, also, returned to their houses and issued their announcements for the coming winter months. There were the free public lectures, many more private ones and some privatissime, the most expensive of all. Professor Stark was lecturing, privatissime, on female disorders.
Fritz, while he was still at Tennstedt, received a letter from the Schaufelgasse in a writing he did not know. From the signature he saw that it was from Leutnant Wilhelm Mandelsloh, the man himself, on leave from the Regiment of Prince Clemens zu Langensalza. His letter was undertaken, he said, at the command of his wife. Sophie herself could not sit comfortably for long at a writing table, and his wife made the excuse that she was busy with women’s matters (‘They want to give him something to do,’ Fritz thought) so they had left it to him to give an account of the patient’s health. - In spite of what he had said, Sophie managed to include a note, saying that she was very well, only unfortunately she was sometimes rather ill, and sending a thousand kisses.
At the end of November the Leutnant’s leave was up, and he had to return, perhaps with some relief, to Langensalza. He may well have concluded that he was no longer of much importance to his wife’s scheme of things.
The Schlegels and their hangers-on did not call at the Schaufelgasse, relying on Dietmahler to keep them posted. He could only say that Sophie’s fever came and went, while the incision repeatedly healed up on the outside, then broke out once again and discharged on the inside. Stark prescribed an increased dose of laudanum, which Dietmahler brought round twice a week.
‘I wish you good fortune in your future career,’ said the Mandelsloh. They would be back in Gruningen by Christmas, and for Sophie’s birthday, in March.
‘Yes, she will be fifteen in the spring,’ Dietmahler told Caroline Schlegel. ‘Everything is still to be hoped for, both in mind and body.’
‘That I can’t see,’ replied Caroline. ‘Hardenberg can only hope that she will get older, which, it seems, she may well fail to do.’
Dietmahler thought to himself, ‘There is no reason why I should stay in Jena, or with these people, or indeed in this country. All I need is a word from someone of importance to recommend me. I might perhaps go to England.’ Although Dr Brown was dead, two of his sons, Dietmahler believed, were practising in London. ‘As to my mother, I could see to it that she received money regularly, or she could come with me.’
52
Erasmus is of Service
‘FRITZ, best of brothers,’ said Erasmus. ‘Let me be of service to you. Until it’s decided where my first appointment is to be, I am nothing but an encumberer of the ground. Let me escort your Sophie and the Mandelsloh back to Gruningen.’
It had to be soon, before the winter roads made the journey impossible for an invalid. Already, the Mandelsloh had thought of almost everything necessary. She had hired a closed carriage and seen to it that the horses were roughshod, in case of freezing weather, she had sent the heavy luggage on ahead, called on the wife of Professor Stark and presented her with a farewell present of silver-gilt asparagus knives, given the servants their tips, written a restrained note to the Schlegels and allowed Frau Winkler to weep for half an hour on her shoulder. All that Erasmus had to do was to ride alongside the carriage, a round-faced, unimpressive escort, and to be on duty at each stop. When they got within ten miles of Gruningen, he must press on ahead, to give notice of their arrival. This would be of some, if not very much, use to Sophie. His real motive was one of the strongest known to humanity, the need to torment himself.
The first day they started late, and covered only ten miles. At the Bear at Mellingen Sophie was taken straight up to her room. ‘Already she is asleep,’ said the Mandelsloh when Erasmus came into the inn parlour from seeing to the baggage. She had engaged the innkeeper’s niece to wait in Sophie’s room and call her immediately if she was needed.
At rest for once, she was sitting, between the uneven light and shadow of the candles and the glowing stove above which, in a great arched recess, boots were propped up to dry and dishes were kept warm. The radiance fell across the left side of her serviceable face and turned it into gold, so that to Erasmus for the moment she looked not quite the Mandelsloh.
‘The Abendessen is ready,’ she said. He thought, she is a warrior saint, a strong angel of the battlefield.
‘I have been to the kitchen,’ she went on. ‘Stewed pigs’ trotters, plum conserve, bread soup.’
‘I cannot eat,’ said Erasmus.
‘Come, we’re Saxons. We can make a good dinner, even if our hearts are breaking.’
Erasmus sighed. ‘So far, at least, the journey has not made her any worse.’
‘No, not any worse.’
‘But the pain -‘
‘I would bear it for her if I could,’ said the Mandelsloh. ‘People say that and hardly mean it. I, however, do mean it. But time given to wishing for what can’t be is not only spent, but wasted, and for all that we waste we shall be accountable.’
‘The years have taught you philosophy.’
To his amazement she smiled and said, ‘How old do you think I am?’
He floundered. ‘I don’t know … I have never thought about it.’
‘I am twenty-two.’
‘But so am I,’ he said in dismay.
53
A Visit to Magister Kegel
HAUSHERR von Rockenthien had not exactly been much loved in Gruningen, but his laugh was missed. Bei
ng a man without guile, he continued in the same manner as always, holding out his great arms, embracing his friends, whistling up the dogs to go shooting, but now, as though some mechanism had broken, without laughing.
It was not odd that he should go down into the town to see Magister Kegel. That had always been his way, he was too impatient to summon anyone up to the Schloss and wait until they arrived. What was unusual was that his wife should go with him. Even at this time of anxiety she remained as inactive or, to use a kinder word, as tranquil as ever. Still, the trap was brought round to the frosty front drive and both got in, the springs, on the Hausherr’s side, rocking violently, as he took his seat.
‘The weather was just like this,’ he said, ‘when Coelestin Just first brought Hardenberg to our house.’
‘I rather think it was snowing,’ said Frau Rockenthien.
Magister Kegel, since his retirement, had lived with his books in a small house near the subscription library. He congratulated Rockenthien on the return of his step-daughters from Jena. Everyone in the district had missed Fraulein Sophie. He hoped most earnestly that, God willing, her health was on the mend, but he was not at all anxious to come up to Schloss Gruningen.
‘All the teaching you have required me to do at your house I have done. I have nothing to reproach myself with, but the results have been uniformly discouraging. Your two youngest have not, so far, been entrusted to me - but, in my view, poor Fraulein Sophie should on no account attempt to study, while she is ill, what was too difficult for her when she was well. I consider it quite inappropriate. It would be a pantomime.’
‘It is what she wishes, however,’ said Rockenthien.
‘To what did she think of applying herself?’
‘I think she would like to learn something rather showy,’ said Rockenthien eagerly, ‘or I had better say noteworthy, to astound her betrothed.’
The Blue Flower Page 17