‘And you’re more for unhappiness?’
‘Quite definitely.’
‘Well, let me tell you, it’s a matter of taste. It’s easy to see you have never been unhappy. Anyway, Crampas has a knack of conjuring the poor woman away. He always finds a way of leaving her at home.’
‘But she was there today.’
‘Today yes. There was no way round it. But I arranged an outing to Ring, the head forester’s, with him, Gieshübler and the pastor on Boxing Day, and you should have seen the skill with which he proved to his wife that she would have to stay at home.’
‘Is it going to be gentlemen only then?’
‘Heaven forbid. No, I would draw the line at that. You are to come and two or three other ladies, not counting the ones from the estates.’
‘In that case it’s truly unkind of him, Crampas I mean, and that kind of thing always comes home to roost.’
‘Sometimes it does. But I think our friend is one of those who don’t lose any sleep over things to come.’
‘Do you think he’s a bad person?’
‘No, not bad. Almost the opposite, at any rate he has his good points. But he’s half-Polish, as good as, and not entirely reliable, not in anything actually, least of all with women. He’s a gambler. Not at the gaming table, but he gambles his way through life, you have to watch him like a hawk.’
‘I’m glad you’ve told me this. I shall be on my guard with him.’
‘Yes. But don’t overdo it; that won’t help. Be natural, that’s always best, and of course better still is character and firmness, and if I may be permitted so starchy an expression, a pure soul.’
She looked at him wide-eyed. Then she said, ‘Yes, of course. But let’s not say any more, not about all these things I can take no pleasure in. You know, I seemed to hear that dancing up above just then. Strange how it keeps coming back. I thought that you were only joking about all that.’
‘I wouldn’t say that Effi. But be that as it may, one just has to keep one’s life in order and have no reason to be afraid.’
Effi nodded and suddenly recalled what Crampas had said to her about her husband being a ‘pedagogue’.
Christmas Eve came and went just as in the previous year; presents and letters arrived from Hohen-Cremmen; Gieshübler again paid homage with a poem, and Cousin Briest sent a card, a snowscape with telegraph poles and a little bird sitting huddled on the wires. There were treats for Annie too, a tree with lights, and the child reached out her little hands to it. Innstetten was relaxed and jolly and seemed to revel in the joys of domesticity, lavishing much attention on the child. Roswitha was surprised to see the Master at once so affectionate and so good-humoured. Effi too spoke and laughed a lot, but none of it came from her innermost soul. She felt depressed and didn’t know who to hold responsible for it, herself or Innstetten. There had been no Christmas greeting from Crampas; actually she was pleased, but then again not pleased, his attentions filled her with a certain apprehension and she was put out by his indifference; she could see that all was not as it should be.
‘You’re so restless,’ said Innstetten after a while.
‘Yes. Everybody has treated me so well, you most of all; it depresses me, because I feel I don’t deserve it.’
‘That’s not something to agonize about, Effi. It comes down to one thing in the end: what you get is what you deserve.’
Effi listened intently, and her bad conscience prompted her to ask herself whether he had deliberately put it in such an ambiguous way.
Later, towards evening, Pastor Lindequist called to offer congratulations and enquire about the outing to the head forester’s at Uvagla, which of course had to be a sleighride. Crampas had offered him a place in his sleigh, but since neither the major nor his groom, who was to take charge of the horses as well as everything else, knew the way, it was suggested that they might all make the trip together, with the Landrat’s sleigh in the lead and Crampas’s following on. And Gieshübler’s too, probably. For Mirambo, to whom friend Alonzo, normally so cautious, seemed inexplicably intent on entrusting himself, probably had less knowledge of the paths than even the freckled Treptow Uhlan. Innstetten, who was tickled by these embarrassing little details, was fully in agreement with Lindequist’s proposal and arranged that he would drive across the market square at two o’clock precisely and lead off the convoy without further ado.
This arrangement was duly observed and promptly at two, as Innstetten crossed the market square, Crampas first greeted Effi from his own sleigh and then fell in behind Innstetten’s. The pastor sat beside him. Gieshübler’s sleigh with Gieshübler himself and Dr Hannemann followed, the first in an elegant buffalo coat trimmed with marten, the latter in a bearskin coat that had clearly seen thirty years’ sevice. Hannemann had been a ship’s doctor in his younger days on the Greenland run. Mirambo sat at the front, rather on edge because he was unused to handling a sleigh, just as Lindequist had predicted.
In two minutes they were past Utpatel’s mill.
Between Kessin and Uvagla (where according to legend a Wendish temple had once stood) lay a strip of woodland that was scarcely more than half a mile wide but seven miles long, with the sea along its right side, and a wide sweep of extremely fertile and well-cultivated land stretching as far as the horizon on its left. Here, on the landward side, the three sleighs now flew along, at some distance from a few old coaches in front, in which in all probability other invited guests sat, also bound for the head forester’s. One of these coaches was easily recognizable with its high, old-fashioned wheels – it was from Papenhagen. Of course. Güldenklee was rated the best speaker in the district (better than Borcke, even better than Grasenabb), a man who could not well be absent from any festive occasion.
The trip went by quickly – the gentry’s coachmen made an effort, not wishing to be overtaken – so that at three they were already drawing up at the head forester’s. Ring, an imposing gentleman in his mid-fifties with a military manner, who had been through the first campaign in Schleswig under Wrangel and Bonin and had distinguished himself at the storming of the Danewerk, stood in the doorway and welcomed his guests, who, after they had taken off their coats and greeted the lady of the house, sat down first at a long coffee-table on which there were elaborately piled pyramids of cakes. The head forester’s wife, by nature a very apprehensive or at best very timid woman, was just the same in the role of hostess, to the quite obvious annoyance of the inordinately vain head forester who favoured self-assurance and panache. Fortunately he contained his displeasure, for what his wife lacked his daughters more than made up for, two very pretty young things of thirteen and fourteen who took after their father. The elder especially, Cora, immediately started flirting with Innstetten and Crampas, both of whom fell in with the game. Effi was annoyed at this, and then ashamed at having been annoyed. She was sitting next to Sidonie von Grasenabb and said, ‘Strange, I was like that too when I was fourteen.’
Effi was expecting Sidonie to contradict this or at least express reservations. Instead she said, ‘I can imagine.’
‘And the way her father spoils her,’ Effi went on, just for something to say to cover a certain embarrassment.
Sidonie nodded. ‘That’s at the root of it. No discipline. It’s a sign of the times.’
At this point Effi made no further comment.
Coffee was quickly taken and they got up to go for a half hour’s walk in the surrounding forest, first visiting a game enclosure. Cora opened the gate and had hardly gone in before the deer came up to her. It was all quite charming, just like a fairy tale. But the young girl’s vanity as she posed for effect prevented any spontaneous response, above all from Effi. ‘No,’ she said to herself, ‘I wasn’t like that. Maybe I did lack discipline as that awful Sidonie just hinted, maybe other things too. They were too kind to me at home. They loved me too much. But one thing I can say, I never put on airs. Hulda did. That’s what I didn’t like about her when I saw her again this summer.’
On the way back from the forest to the head forester’s it began to snow. Crampas joined Effi and expressed his regret that he had not yet had a chance to greet her. At the same time he pointed to the big heavy snowflakes that were falling and said, ‘If it goes on like this we’ll be snowed up here.’
‘That wouldn’t be the worst thing that could happen. Ever since I was a child the idea of being snowed up has had pleasant associations for me, associations of help and protection.’
‘That’s new to me my dear lady.’
‘Yes.’ Effi went on, trying to laugh, ‘ideas are a funny thing, they don’t just come from one’s personal experience, but also from things one has heard somewhere or just happens to know. You’re well-read Major, but in the case of one poem – not quite Heine’s “Sea Spectre” or “Vitzliputzli” I admit – I do seem to be one up on you. The poem is called “God’s Wall”, and I learnt it by heart from our pastor at Hohen-Cremmen many, many years ago, when I was still quite small.’
‘“God’s Wall”’, Crampas repeated. ‘A nice title, and what’s it about?’
‘A little story, quite short. There was a war somewhere, a winter campaign, and an old widow who lived in great fear of the enemy prayed for God to “build a wall round her” to protect her from her country’s enemies. And God had the house buried in snow, and the enemy passed it by.’
Crampas was visibly disconcerted and changed the subject.
By the time it was getting dark they were all back in the head forester’s house.
19
They sat down at table just after seven, and everyone was delighted when the Christmas tree, a pine covered with countless silver balls, was lit again. Crampas, who was not familiar with the Rings’ house, was filled with admiration. The damask, the wine-coolers, the fine silverware, it all gave an impression of grandness, far beyond the normal circumstances of a head forester, and the reason was that Ring’s wife, timid and shy though she was, came of a family of wealthy Danzig grain merchants. That was where most of the pictures round the room came from too: the grain merchant and his wife, the banqueting hall of the Teutonic Knights in Marienburg and a good copy of the famous Memling altarpiece in St Mary’s in Danzig. Oliva Abbey was there in duplicate, once in oil and once carved in cork. Besides all this, above the sideboard there hung a much darkened portrait of old Nettelbeck, part of the modest furnishings of Ring’s predecessor in office who had died only a year and a half earlier. At the time when, as was usual, an auction was held, nobody had wanted the picture of the old fellow until Innstetten, annoyed at this disrespect, had bid for him. Whereupon Ring’s patriotism too had returned, and so the old defender of Kolberg had stayed in the head forester’s house.
The portrait left much to be desired; otherwise, as already suggested, a sheen verging on opulence was everywhere manifest, and this was matched by the meal that was served. Everyone seemed to enjoy it, with the exception of Sidonie. She was sitting between Innstetten and Lindequist and when she caught sight of Cora, she said, ‘There’s that insufferable brat Cora again. Just look at her, Innstetten, the way she presents the little wine glasses, the affectation of it, she could be a waitress any day. Quite intolerable. And the way your friend Crampas is looking at her! That’s where it all starts. I ask you, where will it end?’
Innstetten basically agreed with her but found the tone she used for all her comments so offensively tart that he remarked sarcastically, ‘Yes, my dear lady, where will it end? I can’t imagine either’ – whereupon Sidonie turned away from him to her neighbour on the left, ‘Tell me Pastor, is that fourteen-year-old flirt in your class already?’
‘Yes my dear lady.’
‘Well, I’m afraid you must permit me to tell you that yours cannot be the right approach. I know it’s very difficult these days, but I also know that those upon whom the nurture of young souls is incumbent frequently fail to bring the appropriate seriousness to the task. So there we are, the blame rests squarely with the parents and teachers.’
Lindequist, adopting the same tone as Innstetten, said she was absolutely right, but the spirit of the times was just too strong a force.
‘Spirit of the times!’ said Sidonie. ‘Don’t use that expression to me. I can’t bear to hear it, it’s an admission of utter weakness, a declaration of bankruptcy. I’ve seen it all; never grasp the nettle, avoid anything unpleasant. For duty is not easy. So people all too readily forget that we shall be called to account for what has been entrusted to us. Active intervention my dear Pastor, discipline. The flesh is weak of course, but…’
At that moment English roast beef appeared and Sidonie took a generous helping, not noticing Lindequist’s smile. And since she failed to notice it, it is not surprising that she carried on regardless, ‘All that you see here was bound to turn out like this; it was all muddled and wrong from the start. Ring, Ring – unless I’m mistaken there was once a legendary king of that name over in Sweden or somewhere like that. Just look at him, isn’t he behaving as if he was a direct descendant, and his mother, whom I knew in her time, used to take in ironing in Köslin.’
‘I don’t see anything wrong in that.’
‘See anything wrong? I don’t either. Anyway, there are worse things. But I think the least I can expect from you, as a man of the cloth, is that you acknowledge that there is a social order to be observed. A head forester is not much more than a forester, and no forester has wine-coolers and silver the like of this; it’s all quite inappropriate, and leads to children growing up like our Fräulein Cora here.’
Sidonie, prepared as ever to prophesy doom when the spirit moved her to unleash her pent-up wrath, would have launched there and then into her Cassandra act on the future, had not the steaming punchbowl – with which these Christmas reunions at the Rings’ were always concluded – at that moment appeared on the table, and with it the Christmas pastries, ingeniously stacked so that they far outdid the pyramid of cakes served with the coffee a few hours earlier. And now Ring himself, who had until then kept somewhat in the background, went into action with radiant solemnity and began filling the glasses in front of him, tall cut crystal goblets, pouring in a virtuoso arc, a feat that Frau von Padden who, though sadly absent on this occasion, was always good for an instant aperçu, had once called the ‘remplissage en cascade à la Ring.’ The liquid would curve golden red, and not a drop would be lost. And so it was today. Finally, when they all duly had their glasses in their hands – including Cora who had in the meantime installed herself with her golden red tresses on ‘Uncle Crampas’s lap – the old gentleman from Papenhagen rose, as is the custom at festivities of this sort, to propose a toast to his dear head forester. There were all sorts of rings, he began, tree rings, curtain rings, wedding rings and as far as engagement rings were concerned – for now the time had probably come to mention them – there was fortunately every guarantee that one would be visible in this house in a very short time, adorning the ring-finger (in this case a ring-finger in two senses) of a pretty little fistikins…
‘Outrageous,’ muttered Sidonie to the pastor.
‘Yes my friends,’ Güldenklee went on, raising his voice, ‘there are many sorts of rings, and there is even a story we all know, which is called the story of the “three rings”, a Jewish story, which, like all that liberal fiddle-faddle, has caused and continues to cause nothing but confusion and disaster. May God help us in this. And now let me conclude, for I don’t wish to strain your patience and indulgence unduly. I’m not in favour of these three rings, my friends, I’m for one ring, for one ring who is all that a ring should be, a ring who sees all that is good in this old Pomeranian circle of ours, all who stand with God for King and Fatherland – and there are still some of them (loud acclamation) – who sees all that assembled round this his hospitable table. That’s the Ring I’m for. Here’s to him!’
Everybody joined in the toast and surrounded Ring who, while it lasted, had to hand over the remplissage en cascade to Crampas who was sitting opposite; th
e tutor however dashed from his place at the lower end of the table to the piano and struck up the first bars of the Prussian anthem, whereupon they all rose and solemnly joined in: ‘I am a Prussian… a Prussian will I be.’
‘It’s a beautiful song,’ said old Borcke to Innstetten immediately after the first verse, ‘they don’t have anything like that in other countries.’
‘No,’ said Innstetten, who didn’t much hold with this kind of patriotism, ‘in other countries they have other things.’
They sang all the verses, then it was announced that the carriages were at the door, and immediately afterwards everybody rose so as not to keep the horses waiting. For ‘consideration for the horses’ took precedence over all else in the district of Kessin too. In the hallway stood two pretty maids, Ring set store by that kind of thing, to help the guests on with their fur coats. Everybody was in high spirits, some more than a little merry, and the dispersal of the guests into their various vehicles seemed about to be accomplished swiftly and smoothly, when suddenly it was announced that Gieshübler’s sleigh was not there. Gieshübler himself was far too polite to appear concerned, far less make a fuss; in the end, since somebody had to say it, Crampas asked what the trouble was.
‘Mirambo can’t drive,’ said the groom. ‘When he was harnessing the horses the one on the left kicked him in the shins. He’s lying yelling in the stable.’
Naturally Dr Hannemann was called; he duly went out and after five minutes assured them with the true surgeon’s aplomb, ‘Yes, Mirambo must stay behind; the only thing for it at this stage is rest and cold compresses. Absolutely no cause for concern otherwise.’ That was some consolation, but didn’t solve the awkward problem of how Gieshübler’s sleigh was to be driven back, until Innstetten announced that he would stand in for Mirambo and personally convey the two luminaries, the doctor and the chemist, safely to their destination. Amid much laughter and some rather inebriated jokes at the expense of the most obliging Landrat in the land who was even willing to be parted from his young wife to be of assistance to a friend, this suggestion was accepted, and Innstetten with Gieshübler and the doctor in the back took the lead again. Crampas and Lindequist followed, and when Kruse drove up next with the Landrat’s sleigh, Sidonie approached Effi smiling and asked, since there was now an empty seat, if she might ride with her. ‘It’s always so stuffy in our coach; that’s how my father likes it. And besides, I should so like to have a chat with you. But just as far as Quappendorf. Where the road to Morgnitz branches off, I’ll get out and I’ll have to get back into our uncomfortable old crate. And besides, Papa smokes.’
Effi Briest Page 18