‘Ah yes, Hertha… But you were going to say something about Lake Hertha…’
‘Yes, I was… And what do you think Jahnke, close to the lake there were two big sacrificial stones, quite smooth, still with the grooves in them where the blood ran down in the olden days. I’ve disliked the Wends ever since.’
‘Oh, forgive me my lady. But it wasn’t the Wends at all. Those sacrificial stones at Lake Hertha go back much further, much earlier, long before Christ; to the Germanic tribes we’re all descended from…’
‘Of course,’ laughed Effi, ‘we’re all descended from them, the Jahnkes certainly and possibly the Briests too.’
And then she dropped Rügen and Lake Hertha and asked him about his grandchildren, and which he liked better, Bertha’s or Hertha’s.
Yes, Effi got on well with Jahnke. But in spite of his intimate knowledge of Lake Hertha, Scandinavia and Visby, he was a simple man, so inevitably the isolated young woman much preferred her chats with Niemeyer. In the autumn, as long as they could walk in the park, these were many and often; but with the onset of winter came several months’ break because she disliked visiting the parsonage; Pastor Niemeyer’s wife had always been a very unpleasant woman and now she took a very high moral line, although in the view of the parish she herself was not entirely free from blemish.
So things went on the whole winter, much to Effi’s distress. But then, at the beginning of April when the shrubs began to show green at the edges and the paths in the park quickly dried out, the walks with Niemeyer began again.
On one occasion they were taking such a walk. In the distance they heard a cuckoo and Effi counted the number of times it called. She had taken Niemeyer’s arm and said, ‘There’s the cuckoo calling. I don’t like to ask him his prediction though. Tell me, my dear friend, what do you think of life?’
‘Oh, Effi my dear, you mustn’t ask me questions like that, they’re for the experts. You must consult a philosopher or offer a prize for an essay competition at some university. What do I think of life? A little and a lot. Sometimes a great deal, sometimes a very little.’
‘That’s right my friend, I like that; that’s all I need to know.’ And as she said that they came to the swing. She jumped up with all the agility of her much younger days, and before the old man watching her could recover from his momentary shock, she was crouching down between the two ropes, skilfully getting the swing going by bending her body and shooting up straight again. In a few seconds she was flying through the air holding on with one hand as she took a little silk square from her neck and chest and waved it with all the appearance of joy and high spirits. Then she let the swing slow down and jumped off and took Niemeyer’s arm again.
‘Effi, you’re still just like you used to be.’
‘No. I wish I was. But that’s all far behind me, I just wanted to have a try again. Oh, how lovely it was, and what a power of good the air did me. I felt I was flying up to heaven. Will I get there? What do you think, my old friend, you ought to know. Please, please tell me…’
Niemeyer took her head in his two old hands and kissed her on the forehead and said, ‘Yes Effi, you will.’
35
Effi spent all day in the park because she needed the fresh air; old Dr Wiesike from Friesack was in agreement with this but gave her altogether too much freedom to do as she pleased, so that she caught a heavy cold during the chilly days in May; she had a temperature, coughed a lot, and the doctor, who had been coming over every three days, now came daily and found it an awkward case to handle since Effi could not be given the sleeping tablets and cough mixtures she was asking for because of her temperature.
‘Doctor,’ said old Briest, ‘How’s this business going to end? You’ve known her since she was a child, brought her into the world. I don’t like any of this; she’s losing weight visibly, and those red patches and the glitter in her eyes when she suddenly looks at me questioningly. What do you think? What’s happening? Is she going to die?’
Wiesike wagged his head slowly from side to side. ‘I wouldn’t say that Herr von Briest. I don’t like this high temperature. But we’ll get it down, and then she’ll have to go to Switzerland or Menton. Pure air and a friendly atmosphere to make her forget the past…’
‘Lethe, Lethe.’
‘Yes, Lethe,’ Wiesike smiled. ‘Pity our old friends the Greeks just left us the word and not the spring itself while they were at it…’
‘Or at least the prescription for it; they’re making artificial mineral water now you know. Damn me Wiesike, wouldn’t that be a winner, if we could build one of those sanatoriums here, Friesack as Amnesia Springs. Anyway, we’ll give the Riviera a go for a start. Menton is on the Riviera isn’t it? Corn prices are bad again at the moment, but if it has to be, it has to be. I’ll speak to my wife about it.’
And so he did, meeting with his wife’s instant assent. Indeed recently, probably as an effect of their reclusive life, she had developed a strong desire to see the south for a change, and this came to the aid of his suggestion. But Effi herself would hear nothing of it. ‘You’re so good to me. And I’m selfish enough to accept the sacrifice, if I thought it would do any good. But I’m quite certain it would only do me harm.’
‘You’re imagining that Effi.’
‘No. I’ve become so irritable. Everything gets on my nerves. But not here with you. You spoil me and smooth the way ahead for me. But on a journey you can’t do that, you can’t just sweep the unpleasant bits out of the way; it starts with the ticket-collector and finishes up with the waiter. The very thought of their supercilious faces makes me go quite hot. No, no, let me stay here. I don’t ever want to leave Hohen-Cremmen again. This is where I belong. I’d rather have the heliotrope round the sundial down there in the roundel than Menton any day.’
After this conversation the plan was dropped again, and Wiesike, for all he had expected of the Riviera, said, ‘We have to respect this, this isn’t just a whim; people who have this illness have a very acute sense, they know with remarkable certainty what will help and what won’t. And what Frau Effi said about ticket-collectors and waiters is actually quite right, no air anywhere is beneficial enough to outweigh the annoyance of life in a hotel – if, that is, one really does find it annoying. So we shall let her stay here; it may not be the best thing, but it’s certainly not the worst.’
And this proved to be the case. Effi recovered, put on a little weight (old Briest was a fanatical believer in weighing) and lost her irritability for the most part. All the while, however, her need for fresh air increased, and, especially when the wind was in the west and grey clouds moved across the sky, she would spend many hours in the open. On days like that she would even go into the fields and out into the Luch, often two miles away, and when she tired she would sit on a fence and look in a dream at the spearwort and the clumps of red sorrel waving in the wind.
‘You’re always out all on your own.’ said Frau von Briest, ‘You’re safe enough with our people, but there are so many undesirables from other parts prowling about too.’
This made an impression on Effi, who had never given danger a thought, and when she was alone with Roswitha, she said, ‘I can hardly take you along Roswitha; you’re too fat and your legs aren’t up to it any more.’
‘It’s not as bad as all that, my lady. I could still get married.’
‘Of course,’ Effi laughed. ‘It’s never too late for that. But you know Roswitha, if only I had a dog to keep me company. Papa’s pointer pays no attention to me at all, pointers are so stupid, and he only stirs himself when the huntsman or the gardener takes the gun down. I keep thinking of Rollo.’
‘Yes,’ said Roswitha, ‘there aren’t no dogs like Rollo ’ere. Not that I’m sayin’ anythin’ against ’ere. ’ohen-Cremmen is just grand.’
Some three or four days after this conversation between Effi and Roswitha, Innstetten entered his study an hour earlier than usual. The morning sun, which was very bright, had wakened him, and probably
because he felt he wasn’t going to get back to sleep, he had got up to start on a piece of work that had been awaiting completion for some time.
Now it was a quarter past eight and he rang. Johanna brought the breakfast tray, on which, beside the Kreuzzeitung and the Norddeutsche Allgemeine, there were also two letters. He ran his eye over the addresses and saw from the handwriting that one was from the Minister. But who was the other from? The postmark was not completely legible, and ‘The most excellent Baron, Herr von Innstetten,’ bespoke a happy lack of familiarity with titular conventions. This was appropriately matched by handwriting of a very primitive character. But the address itself was remarkably exact: 1C Keithstrasse, 2 stairs up, Berlin W.
Innstetten was enough of a civil servant to break the seal of his Excellency the Minister’s letter first. ‘My dear Innstetten, I am pleased to inform you that His Majesty has graciously approved your appointment and I offer my sincere congratulations.’ Innstetten was gratified at the Minister’s kind note, more almost than at the appointment itself. For as far as climbing up the ladder was concerned, since the morning in Kessin when Crampas had taken leave of him with that look which he still had in his mind’s eye, he had become rather critical of such things. Since then he had measured things on a different scale, looked at everything differently. Distinctions, what did they amount to in the end? As the days flowed ever more dismally by, he had more than once involuntarily thought of a half-forgotten ministerial anecdote from the time of the elder Ladenberg who, on being awarded the Order of the Red Eagle after a long wait for it, threw it aside in rage, exclaiming, ‘You can lie there till you turn black.’ Probably it did go ‘black’ in time, but much too late and certainly without bringing the recipient any real satisfaction. Everything that is meant to give us pleasure is bound to time and circumstance, and what delights us today is worthless tomorrow. Innstetten was deeply conscious of this and, important as honours and distinctions coming from the highest level had once been to him, he was now convinced that there was nothing much to be got from the glittering prizes, and that what passed for ‘happiness’, if indeed it existed, was something other than this glitter. ‘Happiness, if I’m right, consists of two things: the first is to be in the exact place where you belong (but what public servant can say that of himself?), and the second and best is the smooth running of the little things of life, such as sleeping well and having boots that don’t pinch. If the seven hundred and twenty minutes of a twelve-hour day pass without particular annoyance, that may qualify as a happy day.’ Innstetten was in the mood to dwell on such painful considerations again that day. He now picked up the second letter. When he had read it he brushed his hand across his brow, with a distinct and painful sensation that happiness did exist, that he had once known it, but that he no longer had it and could never have it again.
Johanna entered and announced: ‘Geheimrat Wüllersdorf.’
He was already standing in the doorway. ‘Congratulations Innstetten.’
‘You mean it, I know. The others will be annoyed. Anyway…’
‘Anyway? You’re not going to pooh-pooh the whole thing now surely?’
‘No. His Majesty’s kindness puts me to shame; the Minister’s good opinion and support, to which I owe all this – almost more so.’
‘But…’
‘But I’ve forgotten how to be glad about anything. If I said that to anyone other than you, it would just sound like a glib phrase. But you can follow my drift. Look at this place; look how empty and desolate it all is. Johanna’s a treasure, as they say, but when she comes into the room, my heart sinks. That act she puts on’ (Innstetten mimicked Johanna’s pose), ‘that shapely bosom, it’s almost comical really, the way it seems to have some special claim, whether on me in particular or on humanity in general I’m not sure – I find it all so triste and dispiriting, enough to make you shoot yourself if it weren’t so ludicrous.’
‘Innstetten, my dear fellow, do you propose embarking on your appointment as Permanent Secretary to the Minister in this frame of mind?’
‘Bah, is there any other way? Read this, I’ve just got this note.’
Wüllersdorf took the second letter with the illegible postmark, smiled at ‘most excellent Baron’ and moved over to the window to read it more easily.
Your Lordship,
You will likely be surprised at me writing to you, but it’s about Rollo. Little Annie told us last year he was getting lazy, but that’s all right here, he can be as lazy as he wants here, the lazier the better. The thing is her ladyship would like it such a lot. When she goes into the Luch or across the fields she always says, ‘I’m frightened Roswitha, I feel so alone out there. But who’s to come with me? Rollo would be fine, he bears me no grudge. That’s what’s good about animals, they don’t mind about things so much.’ These were her ladyship’s very words, and I’ll leave it at that, and just ask your lordship to give my best to dear little Annie for me. And Johanna too.
Your most humble servant,
Roswitha Gellenhagen
‘Well,’ said Wüllersdorf as he refolded the paper, ‘she’s a cut above us.’
‘My thoughts exactly.’
‘And that’s what’s made everything seem so questionable to you.’
‘You’ve hit it. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time, and these plain words with their pointed accusation – which may well not be intended – have tipped me right over the edge again. It’s been plaguing me for years now and I would like to get out of this whole business; nothing gives me satisfaction any more; the more distinctions they give me, the more I feel it all means nothing. I’ve made a mess of my life and I’ve been quietly thinking I ought to turn my back on all ambition and vanity, and put my schoolmasterly nature, which is probably the real me, to use as some sort of higher moral preceptor. There have been people like that. That way, if it came off, I could become some terribly well-known figure, like say Doctor Wichern at the Rough House in Hamburg – that miracle-worker who used to tame any criminal by the sheer force of his gaze and his exemplary piety…’
‘What can I say. Why not if it works?’
‘No, it won’t work. Not even that. For me every way ahead is blocked. How could I get through to a murderer’s soul? It takes somebody who’s unflawed to do that. And if you aren’t unflawed any more and your hands are stained, then at the very least you have to be able to play the raging penitent for the brothers you are bent on converting, and put on a show of unbounded remorse.’
Wüllersdorf nodded.
‘There you are, you’re nodding. But I can’t do any of that any more. I just can’t bring myself to slip into a hair shirt now, let alone play the dervish or fakir and dance myself to death in a frenzy of self-accusation. So what I’ve come up with, since none of that would work, is this: I have to get away from here, go somewhere where the natives are black as pitch and ignorant of culture and honour. Happy people! For that’s what has done it, it’s that whole nonsense that’s responsible for all this. That kind of thing is not done out of passion, which at least might be excusable. It’s all for an idea… an idea, that’s all!… First the other man goes down, then you go down. Except in your own case it’s worse.’
‘Oh, come on Innstetten, these are just whims, sudden thoughts that enter your head. Into darkest Africa, what’s that supposed to mean? That’s for debt-ridden lieutenants. But a man like you. Do you want to preside over a palaver in a red fez or be blood brother to King Mtesa’s son-in-law? Do you want to grope your way up the Congo in a solar topee with six airholes in it, until you come out in the Cameroons or some such place? Impossible!’
‘Impossible? Why’s that? And if it is impossible, what then?’
‘Just stay here and resign yourself. Show me someone who isn’t depressed. Someone who doesn’t say to himself every day, “A very questionable business, when you think about it.” You know I have my own small burden to bear, not Exactly the same as yours, but not much lighter. All this about creeping aro
und in the jungle and spending the night in giant anthills is idiocy; leave that to those who enjoy it, it’s not for the likes of us. Stand in the breach and hold the line till you fall, that’s the best thing. And before you go, get as much as possible out of the small things of life, the smallest of all. Don’t miss the violets in bloom, or the flowers coming out round the Luise Monument, or the little girls in high-laced boots jumping over their skipping-ropes. Take a trip out to Potsdam to the Friedenskirche where Kaiser Friedrich is buried. They’re just beginning to build a vault for him now. And while you’re at it, have a think about his life, and if that doesn’t set your mind at rest then you are beyond help indeed.’
‘All very well. But the year is long, and there’s every day… and then the evenings.’
‘That’s the easiest part. There’s Sardanapalus or Coppélia with dell’Era, and after that’s over there’s Siechen’s beer-restaurant. Not to be sneezed at. Three small beers always do the trick. There are plenty of people who see things just as we do, and one of them, who didn’t have his troubles to seek, once said to me, “You know Wüllersdorf, you can’t get through life without auxiliary structures”. The man who said that was a master builder, so he should know. And he was right to put it like that. Not a day passes when I’m not reminded of those “auxiliary structures”.’
Wüllersdorf, after this unburdening, took his hat and stick. Innstetten however, whom his friend’s words might have reminded of his own previous ruminations on ‘modest happiness’, nodded half in agreement and smiled to himself.
‘And where are you going now Wüllersdorf? It’s too early for the Ministry.’
‘I’m taking the day off. First I’m going to stroll along the canal for an hour as far as the Charlottenburg lock and back. Then I’m going to pop into Huth’s on the Potsdamerstrasse, taking care up the little wooden steps. There’s a flower shop at street level.’
Effi Briest Page 32