Be in the dunes again this afternoon, behind the mill. We can talk at old Frau Adermann’s, the house is isolated enough. You mustn’t be so afraid of everything. We too have rights. And if you say that to yourself firmly enough, I think all your fears will melt away. Life wouldn’t be worth living if conventions were always observed just because they happened to be conventions. The best things are all beyond that. Learn to enjoy them. …away, you write, escape. Impossible. I can’t leave my wife in the lurch, in poverty on top of everything else. It can’t be done, and we must take these things lightly, otherwise we are poor lost souls. Frivolity is the best thing we have. It’s all fate. It was meant to be like this. And would you wish it otherwise, wish that we had never met?
Then came the third letter.
… Be at the old place again today. What are my days going to be like here without you? In this desolate backwater. I’m beside myself, but you’re right in one thing: it’s our salvation, and when all’s said and done we should bless the hand that has forced this parting on us.
Innstetten had barely pushed the letters aside again when the bell rang outside. Soon afterwards Johanna announced, ‘Geheimrat Wüllersdorf.’
Wüllersdorf entered and saw at a glance that something must have happened.
‘Sorry Wüllersdorf,’ Innstetten greeted him, ‘sorry to have asked you to come over right away today. I don’t like disturbing the quiet of anybody’s evening, least of all an overworked Ministerialrat. But there was no alternative. Please, make yourself comfortable. Here, have a cigar.’
Wüllersdorf sat down. Innstetten paced up and down again and, in the agitation that consumed him, would have preferred to keep moving, but he could see that that was not possible. So he too took a cigar, sat down opposite Wüllersdorf and tried to be calm.
‘There are,’ he began, ‘two reasons why I’ve called you: first to deliver a challenge, and secondly, afterwards, to act as my second in the affair; the first is not a pleasant task and the second even less so. What do you say?’
‘You know Innstetten, I’m at your disposal. But before we go into the affair, forgive me if I ask the naive question: is this necessary? Haven’t we passed the age for you to be holding a pistol in your hand, and me to be aiding and abetting you? But don’t misunderstand me, I’m not saying “no”. How could I refuse you anything? And now, let’s hear what it’s all about.’
‘It’s about a lover of my wife’s, a man who was my friend, more or less.’
Wüllersdorf looked at Innstetten. ‘Innstetten, that isn’t possible.’
‘It’s more than possible, it’s certain. Read these.’
Wüllersdorf ran his eye over the letters. ‘These are addressed to your wife?’
‘Yes, I found them in her sewing-table today.’
‘And who wrote them?’
‘Major Crampas.’
‘So we’re talking about things that happened when you were still in Kessin?’
Innstetten nodded.
‘So six years ago, or six and a half years.’
‘Yes.’
Wüllersdorf was silent. After a while Innstetten said, ‘Those six or seven years seem to have made an impression on you. There is the theory of the time limit of course, but I don’t know if this is a case in point.’
‘I don’t know either,’ said Wüllersdorf. ‘And I must confess, that seems to me to be the nub of the matter.’
Innstetten looked at him wide-eyed. ‘Can you say that in all seriousness?’
‘In all seriousness. This isn’t a case for indulging in jeux d’esprit or dialectical niceties.’
‘I’m curious to know what you mean exactly. Tell me frankly where you stand.’
‘Innstetten, your situation is terrible, and your life’s happiness is gone. But shoot the lover, and your life’s happiness is doubly gone, so to speak, and to the pain you already have from the injury you’ve suffered you will add the pain from the injury you have inflicted. At the heart of the matter is the question, do you absolutely have to do it? Do you feel so offended, wounded, outraged that one of you has to go, him or you? Is that how matters stand?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You must know.’
Innstetten had jumped to his feet, he walked over to the window and, filled with nervous agitation, tapped on the panes. Then he turned back quickly, went over to Wüllersdorf and said, ‘No, that’s not how matters stand.’
‘Well, how do they stand?’
‘The fact of the matter is that I’m infinitely miserable; I’ve been insulted, scandalously deceived, but in spite of that, I feel no hate at all, much less any thirst for revenge. And when I ask myself why not, the only explanation I find is the years that have passed. People always talk about inexpiable guilt; it’s certainly not true, not in the eyes of God, and not in the eyes of men either. I would never have believed that time, pure time, could have such an effect. And then there’s something else: I love my wife, strange to say, I still love her, and terrible as I find everything that has happened, I’m still so much under the spell of her delightful nature, of that vivacious charm which is all her own that in spite of myself I feel inclined, in my heart of hearts, to forgive her.’
Wüllersdorf nodded. ‘Quite with you, Innstetten, would perhaps feel just the same myself. But if you take that attitude to the matter and tell me, “I love this woman so much that I can forgive her anything,” and if we also take into consideration that it all happened so long, long ago, like something on another planet, well, Innstetten, if that’s the position, why bother with this whole business?’
‘Because there’s no way round it. I’ve turned it all over in my mind. We’re not just individuals, we’re part of a larger whole and we must constantly have regard for that larger whole, we’re dependent on it, beyond a doubt. If it were a matter of living in isolation I could let it go; then it would be for me to bear the burden that had been put on me, it would be the end of real happiness, but plenty of people have to live without “real happiness” and I would have to too – and would manage it. You don’t have to be happy, that’s the last thing you have a right to, and you don’t necessarily have to do away with the one who robbed you of your happiness. You can, if you’re going to turn your back on society, let him get away with it. But wherever men live together, something has been established that’s just there, and it’s a code we’ve become accustomed to judging everything by, ourselves as well as others. And going against it is unacceptable; society despises you for it, and in the end you despise yourself, you can’t bear it any longer and put a gun to your head. For give me for lecturing you like this, when all I’m saying is what we’ve all told ourselves a hundred times. But – well, who can actually say anything new! So there it is, it’s not a question of hate or anything like that, I don’t want blood on my hands for the sake of the happiness that’s been taken from me; but that, let’s call it that social something which tyrannizes us, takes no account of charm, or love, or time limits. I’ve no choice. I must.’
‘Well, I don’t know, Innstetten…’
Innstetten smiled. ‘Make up your own mind, Wüllersdorf. It’s ten now. Six hours ago, I grant you, the game was still in my hands to play one way or the other, there was still a way out. Now there isn’t, now I’m up a blind alley. You could say I’ve only myself to blame; I should have kept a closer eye on myself, controlled myself, contained it all inside me, battled it out in my own heart. But it came too suddenly, it was too strong, so I can hardly reproach myself for not having been cooler and kept my nerve. I went to your house and left you a note, and at that point the game was out of my hands. From that moment on somebody else had some knowledge of my misfortune and, what’s more serious, of the stain on my honour, and after our first words just now somebody else knew it all. And now that somebody else knows, there’s no way back for me.’
‘Well, I don’t know,’ Wüllersdorf repeated. ‘I don’t really like to use such an old cliché, but there’s no better way
of putting it: Innstetten, I shall be as silent as the grave.’
‘Yes Wüllersdorf, that’s what people always say. But there’s no such thing as confidentiality. And even if you do make the cliché come true and are confidentiality itself towards others, you will still know, so what you’ve just said about agreeing with me and understanding everything I say doesn’t save me from you. I am from this moment on, and there’s no going back on it, the object of your sympathy – not in itself a pleasant thought – and you will weigh every word you hear me exchange with my wife, whether you intend to or not, and if my wife were to talk about fidelity, or sit in judgment, as wives do, on what other women get up to, I wouldn’t know where to look. And supposing I were to take a conciliatory line in some quite ordinary matter of honour because it’s “without malice aforethought” or something along those lines, the shadow of a smile will cross your face, or it will at least register a twitch, and you’ll be thinking deep down, “Good old Innstetten, it’s getting to be a real obsession, this chemical analysis of every offence to determine its insult content, and he never finds one with enough irritants in it to be harmful. He’s never choked on anything yet,” – am I right or wrong Wüllersdorf?’
Wüllersdorf had stood up. ‘I find it terrible that you’re right, but you are right. I won’t plague you any further by asking if it has to be. The world is as it is, and things don’t take the course we want, they take the course other people want. All that pompous stuff you hear from some people about “divine justice” is nonsense of course, there’s no such thing, quite the reverse: this cult of honour of ours is a form of idolatry, but as long as we have idols we have to worship them.’
Innstetten nodded.
They were together for another quarter of an hour and it was decided that Wüllersdorf should leave the same evening. There was a night train at twelve.
Then they parted with a brief ‘Auf Wiedersehen in Kessin.’
28
The following evening, as arranged, Innstetten travelled up. He took the same train as Wüllersdorf the previous day, and soon after five in the morning he was at the station where the road branched off to the left to Kessin. Today, as always while the season lasted, the oft-mentioned steamer, whose first bell Innstetten heard as he reached the bottom of the steps leading down from the railway track, was due to sail just after the train arrived. The walk to the landing stage took less than three minutes; he strode to it, greeted the captain, who looked somewhat embarrassed and must already have heard about the whole thing in the course of the previous day, and took his place near the wheel. Moments later the ship cast off from the quay; the weather was magnificent, bright morning sun, not many passengers on board. He recalled the day when, returning from their honeymoon, he and Effi had driven along the banks of the Kessine here in an open carriage – a grey November day it was then, but he himself was light of heart; now it was the reverse, the light outside, and the grey November day within him. Many, many were the times he had come this way since then, and the peace that lay upon the fields, the breeding stock that looked up in the enclosures as he passed, the people at work, the fertility of the fields, all these things had induced a sense of well-being, and now, in stark contrast, he was glad when some clouds came over and began to dull the laughing blue of the sky. And so they sailed downstream, and soon, after they had passed the splendid expanse of the Breitling estuary, the Kessin church tower hove into sight, and moments later the Bulwark too and the long row of houses with the boats and ships in front of it. And now they had docked. Innstetten took his leave of the captain and strode towards the gangway which had been rolled up to facilitate disembarkation. Wüllersdorf was already there. Each greeted the other without speaking at first, and then they walked across the street to Hoppensack’s Inn where they sat down under an awning.
‘I booked in here yesterday morning,’ said Wüllersdorf, who was disinclined to get straight down to the matter in hand. ‘When one thinks what a backwater Kessin is, it’s astonishing to find such a good hotel here. I don’t doubt that my friend the head waiter here speaks three languages; to judge by his parting and the cut of his waistcoat we may safely assume four – Jean, would you bring us coffee and cognac please.’
Innstetten quite understood why Wüllersdorf was adopting this tone, and he was in agreement with it too, though he could not wholly master his restlessness and involuntarily pulled out his watch.
‘We have time,’ said Wüllersdorf. ‘An hour and a half yet, or almost. I’ve ordered the carriage for eight-fifteen; it won’t take us more than ten minutes.’
‘And where?’
‘Crampas first suggested a corner of the woods just beyond the churchyard. But then he broke off and said, “No, not there.” Then we agreed on a place in the dunes. Right on the beach, there’s a dip in the first dune and you can see the sea.’
Innstetten smiled. ‘Crampas seems to have picked a beauty spot. He was always that way inclined. How did he take it?’
‘Wonderfully well.’
‘Arrogant? Frivolous?’
‘Neither one nor the other. It shook me Innstetten, I can tell you. When he heard your name he went deathly pale and had to struggle to master his feelings, and I noticed a quiver at the corner of his mouth. But all that was over in an instant, and he got a grip of himself again, and from that moment he was all melancholy resignation. I’m absolutely certain he has the feeling he’s not going to come out of this alive, and doesn’t want to. If I judge him aright, he loves life and yet he’s indifferent to it. He grabs what he can in the passing, but he doesn’t set much store by any of it.’
‘Who’s going to be his second? Or should I say who is he going to bring along?’
‘That, once he had recovered his composure, was his main worry. He named two or three local aristocrats, but then rejected them, saying they were too old and too religious, and he would send a telegram to Treptow, to his friend Buddenbrook. And then he came, splendid chap, dashing and yet like a child at the same time. He couldn’t calm down and paced up and down in great agitation. But when I had told him everything he said the same as we did, “You’re right, it has to be!”’
The coffee came. They had a cigar and Wüllersdorf was again intent on steering the conversation round to more indifferent matters.
‘It surprises me that none of the local people have turned up to greet you. I know you were very well-liked. Not even your friend Gieshübler…’
Innstetten smiled, ‘You don’t know them up here on the coast; half of them are philistines, the other half are slippery customers, not much to my taste; but they do have one virtue, they have manners. And as for dear old Gieshübler. Of course they all know what’s going on, and for that very reason they’re taking care not to appear curious.’
At that moment a chaise with its hood down came into sight from the left, moving slowly because it was not yet the appointed hour.
‘Is that ours?’ asked Innstetten.
‘Presumably.’
And moments later the carriage stopped outside the hotel and Innstetten and Wüllersdorf stood up.
Wüllersdorf went over to the coachman and said, ‘To the mole.’
The mole was in the opposite direction, right instead of left, and this false instruction was only given to avoid any kind of intervention, which was always a possibility. But whether they wanted to turn left or right further on, they still had to go through the Plantation, so their route inevitably led past Innstetten’s old home. The house lay more silent that ever; the rooms on the ground floor looked pretty neglected; whatever could it be like upstairs! And the feeling of uncanniness that he had so often fought against in Effi, or else had cause to smile at, now afflicted Innstetten himself, and he was glad when they were past it.
‘That’s where I lived,’ he said to Wüllersdorf.
‘It looks strange – desolate and deserted.’
‘Indeed. In the town they thought it was haunted, and looking at it today, I don’t blame them.’
‘What was it all about?’
‘Oh, some nonsense: an old ship’s captain with a granddaughter or a niece who disappeared one fine day, and then a Chinaman, who may have been her lover, and in the hallway there was a little shark and a crocodile, both suspended on strings and always in motion. Makes a marvellous story, but not now. There are all kinds of other things flitting through my mind.’
‘You’re forgetting, this could all go off smoothly.’
‘It can’t. And that isn’t what you yourself said a short while ago Wüllersdorf, when you were talking about Crampas.’
Soon afterwards they had passed the Plantation and the coachman was about to turn right towards the mole. ‘Go left instead. We’ll go to the mole later.’
And the coachman turned left into a wide cart track that ran behind the men’s bathing in a straight line to the woods. When they were within three hundred paces of them Wüllersdorf stopped the carriage and they both went ahead on foot, sinking into the grinding sand, walking down a wide cart track which cut at right angles through the three lines of dunes at this point. There were dense clumps of marram grass all around on either side, but round it grew immortelles and a few blood-red pinks. Innstetten stooped and picked one of the wild pinks to put in his buttonhole. ‘The immortelles come later.’
They walked on for five minutes. When they had reached the fairly deep hollow between the first two lines of dunes they saw, to their left, the opposing party already there: Crampas and Buddenbrook, and with them the good Dr Hannemann who had his hat in his hand, so that his white hair blew in the wind.
Innstetten and Wüllersdorf walked up the gulley in the sand, Buddenbrook came towards them. They exchanged greetings and the two seconds stepped aside for a brief discussion of the remaining practicalities. The agreement was that they were to advance simultaneously and fire at ten paces. Then Buddenbrook went back to his place; it was all quickly performed; and the shots rang out. Crampas fell.
Effi Briest Page 27