‘And that’s what you enjoy? That’s enough for you?’
‘I wouldn’t quite say that. But it helps. There’ll be several regulars there, taking their morning tipple, would be indiscreet to say who. One will tell a story about the Duke of Ratibor, another about Prince Bishop Kopp and a third probably about Bismarck. You always pick up something. Three-quarters of it isn’t true, but if it’s witty, no grounds for complaint and you’re grateful for something to listen to.’
And at that he left.
36
May was fine, June still finer, and Effi, after successfully overcoming an initial spasm of pain when Rollo arrived, was filled with joy at having the faithful animal at her side again. Roswitha was praised and Briest expatiated to his wife on the merits of Innstetten, quite the cavalier, not at all petty, always with his heart in the right place. ‘Pity that stupid business had to happen. They really were an ideal couple.’ The only one to keep calm at the reunion was Rollo himself, either because intervals of time meant nothing to him, or because he regarded the separation as an aberration which had now been put right. The fact that he was growing old probably had something to do with it too. He was economical with his affections, just as he had been economical with any show of pleasure at the reunion, but his faithfulness had increased if anything. He never strayed from his mistress’s side. He accepted the pointer in good part, but as a creature of lesser status. At night he lay at Effi’s door on the rush mat, in the morning, if they were breakfasting outside, he lay by the sundial, always quiet and somnolent, and only when Effi rose from the breakfast-table and walked towards the hall to take first her straw-hat and then her parasol from the hall-stand, was his youth restored, and without a thought for whether his strength was to be put to a big test or just a small one, he would bound up the village street and back and only calm down when they were between the first fields. Effi, to whom fresh air meant more than beautiful scenery, avoided the spinnies and kept mostly to the main road which was lined first with ancient elms and then, where the paved highway began, with poplars on either side all the way to the station, a good hour’s walk in all. She took pleasure in everything, she rapturously breathed the fragrant air wafting over from the fields of rape and clover, she followed the larks’ ascent, she counted the wells and troughs where the cattle were watered. As she did so a faint ringing noise drifted over to her. And at that she felt as if she must close her eyes and lapse into sweet oblivion. Near the station at the side of the highway was a road-roller. This was her daily resting place from which she could survey the activity on the railway line; trains came and went and sometimes she saw two plumes of smoke which overlapped for a moment and then went their separate ways to left and right again until they disappeared behind village and copse. Rollo would sit beside her, sharing her breakfast, and when he had caught the last morsel, presumably to show his gratitude he would race down some furrow like a mad thing, only stopping when a couple of sitting partridges he had disturbed flew up from a neighbouring furrow right beside him.
‘What a fine summer! I wouldn’t have believed a year ago that I could be so happy again, dear Mamma’ – Effi said this every day as she strolled round the pond with her mother or picked an early apple and boldly bit into it. For she had the most beautiful teeth. Frau von Briest would then stroke her hand and say, ‘Just get well again Effi, completely well; happiness will come, not the old happiness, but a new kind. There are, thank goodness, many kinds of happiness. And you’ll see, we’ll find one for you too.’
‘You’re both so good to me. When you think I’ve changed your lives and made old people of you before your time.’
‘Oh, Effi my dear, don’t talk about it. That’s what I thought when it happened. Now I can see that our quiet life is better than all the noise and bustle there was before. And if you go on like this, we shall still be able to travel. When Wiesike suggested Menton, you were ill and irritable, and because you were ill you were quite right in what you said about ticket-collectors and waiters; but when your nerves are steadier again it will be all right and instead of being annoyed we’ll laugh at their airs and graces and their crimped hair. And then the blue sea and the white sails and the rocks, all covered with red cactus – I haven’t seen it yet but that’s how I imagine it. And I would like to see it sometime.’
And so the summer passed and the late summer nights with their shooting stars already lay behind them. These were nights when Effi had sat at the window till well after midnight, unable to get enough of them. ‘I was always a bad Christian; but I wonder if we really do come from up there and go back again to our heavenly home when it’s all over here, back to the stars up there, or even beyond! I don’t know, and I don’t want to know, but I do long for it.’
Poor Effi, you gazed up at the wonders of the heavens for too long, thinking about them, and the upshot was that the night air and the mist rising from the pond put her back on her sick-bed, and when Wiesike was called and had seen her he took Briest aside and said, ‘Nothing can be done; the end won’t be long, prepare yourself.’
He had spoken only too truly, and a few days later, not yet late in the evening, just before ten, Roswitha came down and said to Frau von Briest, ‘It’s the mistress, my lady, things are lookin’ bad upstairs; she keeps talkin’ to herself ever so quietly, and some of the time she seems to be prayin’ though she won’t admit it, but I don’t know, it could be all over any time, I think.’
‘Does she want to speak to me?’
‘She ’asn’t said. But I think she would. You know what she’s like, she doesn’t want to be no trouble to you nor cause you no worry. But it wouldn’t do any ’arm.’
‘Very well Roswitha,’ said Frau von Briest, ‘I’ll come.’
Before the clock started to strike Frau von Briest went upstairs and into Effi’s room. The window was open and she was lying on a chaise-longue by the window.
Frau von Briest drew up a little black chair with three gold spars in the ebony back, took Effi’s hand and said:
‘How are you Effi? Roswitha says you have a fever.’
‘Oh, Roswitha does worry so. I could see she was thinking I was dying. Well, I don’t know. But she thinks we should all worry as much as she does.’
‘You’re quite calm about dying then, Effi dear?’
‘Quite calm, Mamma.’
‘You’re sure you couldn’t be wrong? Everybody clings to life, especially the young. And you’re still so young, Effi dear.’
Effi was silent for a while. Then she said, ‘You know I haven’t read much. Innstetten used to wonder at that. He didn’t like it.’
It was the first time she had mentioned Innstetten’s name, which made a deep impression on her mother and showed her clearly that it was all over.
‘I think,’ said Frau von Briest, ‘you were going to tell me something.’
‘Yes, I was. It was because you said I was still so young. And of course I am still young. But it doesn’t matter. In the good old days Innstetten used to read to me in the evenings; he had very good books, and one of them had a story about someone who had been called away from a festive dinner, and the next day asked what had happened after he left. And the answer was, “Oh, all sorts of things, but really you didn’t miss anything.” You see Mamma, these words stuck in my mind – it doesn’t matter much if you are called away from the table a little early.’
Frau von Briest was silent. Effi however raised herself a little and said, ‘And since I’ve talked about the old times and about Innstetten, there’s something else I want to tell you Mamma.’
‘You’ll excite yourself Effi.’
‘No, no; getting something off my mind doesn’t excite me. It makes me calm. So what I wanted to say was, I am dying reconciled with man and God, and reconciled with him.’
‘Did you have such bitterness towards him in your soul? Because really, if you’ll forgive me my dear Effi for saying this now, it was you who brought suffering on both of you.’
Effi nodded. ‘Yes Ma
mma. And it’s sad that it should be so. But when all those awful things happened, ending with that business with Annie, you know what I mean, well at that point, if I can use such a ludicrous expression, I decided to put the boot on the other foot and managed to convince myself in all seriousness it was his fault, for being cold and calculating and in the end cruel too. And I even cursed him aloud.’
‘And that weighs on you now?’
‘Yes. And I want to be sure he will know that it all became clear to me here during the days of my illness, which have been my most beautiful days of all almost; that it became clear that he was right. Everything he did was right. The business with poor Crampas – what else could he possibly have done? And then – that was what hurt me most – bringing my own child up to ward me off, hard as it is for me, and painful as it is, that was right too. Let him know that I died convinced of that. It will console him, strengthen him, perhaps reconcile him. There was a lot of good in his nature, and he was as noble as anyone can be who lacks the real capacity for love.’
Frau von Briest saw that Effi was exhausted and seemed to be sleeping or wanting to sleep. She rose quietly from her chair and went out. However, hardly had she gone when Effi rose too and sat by the open window to draw in the cool night air once more. The stars shimmered, not a leaf stirred in the park. But the longer she listened, the more clearly she could again hear something falling like a fine drizzle on the planes. A feeling of liberation came over her. ‘Peace, peace.’
It was a month later and September was on the wane. The weather was fine but the leaves in the park were already showing many tints of red and yellow, and since the equinox which had brought three days of storms, leaves lay strewn everywhere. On the roundel a small alteration had taken place. The sundial had gone; the day before a white marble slab had been laid in its place with the simple inscription ‘Effi Briest’, and beneath it a cross. It had been Effi’s last request: ‘On my gravestone I would like my old name back; I didn’t do the other one much honour.’ And that had been promised her.
Yes, the previous day the marble slab had arrived and been laid, and Briest and his wife were now sitting facing the spot and looking at the heliotrope, which had been spared and now framed the stone. Rollo lay beside it, his head between his paws.
Wilke, whose gaiters got wider and wider, brought breakfast and the post and old Briest said, ‘Wilke, have the small carriage brought out, Frau von Briest and I will take a turn in the country.’
Frau von Briest in the meantime had poured the coffee and was looking over at the roundel and its flower-bed. ‘Look, Briest, Rollo is lying in front of the stone again. It’s gone even deeper with him than with us. He’s stopped eating too.’
‘That’s it Luise, dumb animals. It’s what I’m always saying. We’re not all we’re cracked up to be. With them we always say it’s just instinct, but when all’s said and done, it can’t be bettered.’
‘Don’t talk like that. When you start philosophizing – don’t take this amiss Briest, it’s really beyond you. Common sense you’ve got, but when it comes to questions like that –’
‘I’m out of my depth.’
‘And if it’s a matter of questions, there are others demanding answers Briest, and I can tell you that not a day passes now that the poor child is lying there, without these questions coming into my head…’
‘What questions?
‘Whether perhaps it was our fault after all?’
‘Nonsense Luise. What do you mean by that?’
‘Whether we should perhaps have brought her up more strictly. Us that is. For Niemeyer is really useless, because he leaves everything open to doubt. And then Briest, I’m sorry to have to say this… there were your constant risqué remarks… and finally, and this is what I reproach myself with, for I don’t want to seem blameless in the matter, I wonder if perhaps she wasn’t too young.’
Rollo who wakened at these words shook his head slowly from side to side, and Briest said calmly, ‘Ah Luise, that’s enough… that’s too vast a subject.
Notes
Page 5: Elector Georg Wilhelm. Margrave of Brandenburg (1595-1640), Elector of Brandenburg from 1620, father of Friedrich Wilhelm (1620-88), the ‘Great Elector’ who set the Hohenzollerns and Prussia on the road to greatness.
Page 6: Rathenow. Hussars’ garrison thirty miles west of Berlin in the Prussian administrative District (Bezirk) of Potsdam. The prestigious 3rd Brandenburg Regiment of von Zieten’s Hussars was stationed there. A Landrat von Briest came to the assistance of the Great Elector during the surprise attack on Rathenow in 1675. See note topage 46.
Page 7: Fritz Reuter. Humorous writer (1810-74). The twins Mining and Lining are characters from his most famous novel Ut min Stromtid (Seed-time and harvest: or, During my apprenticeship), written in Plattdeutsch. The names suggest middle-class respectability.
Page 7: Landrat. Prussian official, appointed by the crown. He was in charge of a Kreis, the smallest administrative district, so Innstetten was the biggest fish in a small pool. The Bezirk was a larger district centred on a more important town, such as Potsdam. See notes topages 6 and9. There were thirty-five Bezirke in Prussia. The largest units of administration were Provinces. Kessin would have been a Kreis in the Province of Pomerania.
Page 8: Wedding Eve. It is traditional in Germany to celebrate the Polterabend, the night before a wedding, with a festive meal, amateur theatricals, dancing and riotous merriment which may include breaking crockery, a custom originally intended to frighten away evil spirits.
Page 9: Ritterschaftsrat. Land-owning aristocrat with a seat in the Prussian provincial parliament.
Page 9: war of 1870. The Franco-Prussian war (1870/71) was the last of a series of victorious campaigns for Bismarck which brought about the unification of Germany and the declaration of the German Empire. The first German empire, the Holy Roman Empire, had ceased to exist in name in 1806 in the aftermath of Napoleon’s victory at Austerlitz, and in fact it disintegrated much earlier.
Page 9: Perlebergers. Four squadrons of the 11th Regiment of Uhlans, Prussian lancers, were stationed in Perleberg in the District of Potsdam. The word ‘Uhlan’ is of Polish derivation and the uniforms incorporated features from Polish national dress, whereas the more prestigious Hussars were of Hungarian origin, a fact similarly reflected in their uniforms. The Hussars’ most glorious days were as new crack cavalry regiments under Frederick the Great.
Page 16: Hôtel du Nord. From this high-class hotel on Unter den Linden Effi could go and order her furniture at Spinn and Mencke and her trousseau at Goschenhofer, both elegant shops on Leipzigerstrasse.
Page 16: Alexander Regiment. 1st Regiment of the Emperor Alexander’s Grenadier Guards, named during the Napoleonic Wars after Tsar Alexander I of Russia. It is significant that Dagobert, the only representative of the younger generation of the Prussian military, is in a regiment associated with a period of Prussian military defeat and betrayal. Tsar Alexander made common cause with the Prussians against Napoleon in the war of 1806-07, which included Prussia’s crushing defeat at Jena (1806), only to leave the Prussians in the lurch by entering into an alliance with Napoleon by the Treaty of Tilsit (1807). This is a further subtle suggestion that Prussia’s glory and the legitimacy of the established order are transient and subject to change, relative and not absolute phenomena.
Page 16: Fliegende Blätter. Illustrated satirical weekly.
Page 16: Kranzler’s. Famous restaurant and cake shop on the corner of Unter den Linden and Friedrichstrasse.
Page 16: Café Bauer. Café on Unter den Linden opposite Kranzler’s, frequented by the demi-monde in the afternoon and evening, hence ‘respectable’ only before lunch.
Page 16: The Isle of the Blessed. Dagobert intends to refer to Die Gefilde der Seligen (The Elysian Fields) by Arnold Böcklin (1827-1901), which caused a furore when it was hung in the Berlin National Gallery in 1878. It showed a centaur surrounded by naked nymphs in an idyllic landscape in the centre of a lake
. He confuses it with another Böcklin, Die Insel der Seligen, a more sombre and mysterious painting showing figures in a boat crossing the water to an island of cypresses, which suggests the passage from life to death.
Page 17: Princess Friedrich Karl. Maria Anna von Anhalt (1837-1906), wife of Prince Friedrich Karl of Prussia, who was Kaiser Wilhelm I’s nephew and from 1870 Prussian Field Marshal.
Page 17: Demuth’s. High-class supplier of leather and travel goods.
Page 18: Luch. A name used in north-east Germany for a low-lying, marshy area. Here the reference is to the Kremmen Luch, part of the Havelland Luch north-west of Berlin.
Page 18: Das Käthchen von Heilbronn. Romantic chivalric drama by Heinrich von Kleist (1777-1811). The heroine Käthchen falls asleep under an elder tree and in a dream declares her love to the knight Wetter vom Strahl.
Page 19: Hohenzollern in disguise. Allusion to the dramatist Ernst von Wildenbruch (1845-1909), grandson of Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia.
Page 19: ‘Cinderella’. Aschenbrödel, comedy by Roderich Benedix (1811-73).
Page 20: Sedan Day. September 2nd, anniversary of the capitulation of Napoleon III in 1870 at Sedan. A national holiday in imperial Germany.
Page 23: Prince Friedrich Karl. See note topage 17.
Page 26: Hövel’s. H. von Hövell, at 12/13 Unter den Linden, manufacturer of chocolates and sweets, supplier to the imperial court.
Page 26: Kögel. Rudolf Kögel (1829-96), conservatively inclined court chaplain from 1863.
Page 27: Valhalla. Temple of Honour at Donaustauf near Regensburg, opened in 1842 to house busts of famous Germans, named after the mythological resting place of Germanic warriors.
Page 29: Pinakothek… the other gallery. The Alte Pinakothek art gallery in Munich housing old master paintings; the other which Effi cannot spell is the Glyptothek, the sculpture gallery.
Page 29: ‘Four Seasons’. Still today one of the best hotels in Munich, a traditional staging point for upper-class honeymooners on the way to Italy.
Effi Briest Page 33