Effi Briest (14 page)
Authors: Theodor Fontane
After this declaration from Miss Trippelli, Effi had desisted from any further suggestion that they should go, and so midnight had come round. Their farewells – they were in high spirits – were hearty, with a fair measure of familiarity.
The way from the chemist’s at the Sign of the Moor to the Landrat’s residence was rather long; it was made shorter by Pastor Lindequist’s asking if he might accompany Innstetten and his wife part of the way, considering a walk under the stars in the heavens the best way to overcome the effects of Gieshübler’s hock. They walked along, indefatigably citing the most diverse Trippelliana; Effi started it with what had stuck in her memory, and next it was the pastor’s turn. An ironist, he had, after questioning her on a variety of quite worldly matters, finally enquired as to Miss Tripelli’s views on religion, and been informed that she recognized only Orthodoxy. Her father, it was true, had been a rationalist, almost a free-thinker, which is why he would have preferred to have the Chinaman in the parish churchyard; she for her part held the opposite opinion, though she enjoyed the great advantage of believing nothing at all. But decisive as she was in her lack of belief, she was at all times aware that it was a special luxury, in which one might only indulge as a private person. Where the state was concerned such laxity ended, and if she were to have control of the Ministry of Education or a regional church assembly, she would proceed with unremitting severity. ‘I feel I have something of a Torquemada in me.’
Innstetten was highly amused and for his part related that he had studiously avoided ticklish matters like dogma, concentrating instead on moral issues. The main topic of their conversation had been the seductiveness of any kind of public appearance, the constant vulnerability, to which Miss Trippelli had blithely replied, taking up the second half of the sentence only, ‘Yes, constant vulnerability; especially of the voice.’
In this way the Trippelli evening had passed before them once more by the time they parted, and it was to be three days before her telegram to Effi from Petersburg called Gieshübler’s friend to mind again. It read: ‘Madame
la Baronne d’Innstetten, née de Briest. Bien arrivée. Prince K. à la gare. Plus épris de moi que jamais. Mille fois merci de votre bon accueil. Compliments empressés à Monsieur le Baron. Marietta Trippelli.’
Innstetten was delighted and the expression he gave to his delight was more fulsome than seemed appropriate to Effi.
‘I don’t understand you Geert.’
‘Because you don’t understand Miss Trippelli. The authenticity of the woman is priceless; it’s all there down to the last dot on the
i
.’
‘So you think it’s all play-acting.’
‘What else? All calculated for wherever she chances to be, for Kochukov and for Gieshübler. Gieshübler will probably set up a fund for her, or perhaps just leave her a legacy.’
The musical soirée at Gieshübler’s had taken place in the middle of December, and immediately after that the preparations for Christmas began, and Effi, who otherwise might have found these days hard to face, was thankful to have a household of her own with needs that had to be satisfied. There were questions to be asked, thinking to be done, purchases to be made, all of which kept dark thoughts at bay. The day before Christmas Eve presents arrived from Hohen-Cremmen from her parents, and all sorts of little gifts from the schoolmaster’s house had been packed in the same box; beautiful pippins from a tree that Effi and Jahnke had grafted several years earlier, then brown wrist and knee warmers from Bertha and Hertha. Hulda just sent her a few lines with the excuse that she still had to knit a travelling rug for X. ‘Which is simply not true,’ said Effi, ‘I’ll bet X doesn’t even exist. Why can’t she stop surrounding herself with admirers who aren’t there?’
And so Christmas Eve arrived.
Innstetten put up the decorations for his young wife himself, the tree was lit and a little angel hovered high up in the air. There was also a crib with pretty little banners and inscriptions, one of which referred discreetly to a happy event expected at the Innstetten residence in the coming year. Effi read it and blushed. Then she went up to Innstetten to thank him, but before she could do so a
Julklapp
thudded into the hallway, an old Pomeranian Christmas custom: a large box concealing a world of delights. In the end they found the main thing, a dainty box of fondants with all sorts of little Japanese pictures pasted all over it, and inside it, as well as its spiced contents, a little piece of paper on which was written:
At Christmas there came three kings,
And what the little blackamoor brings
From under the blackamoor chemist’s sign
Is neither myrrh nor incense fine,
But fondants of the choicest flavours –
Pistachio and almond – as special favours.
Effi read it twice or three times with much pleasure. ‘There is something especially agreeable about a good soul’s attentions. Don’t you think so Geert?’
‘I certainly do. In fact it’s the only thing that gives one real pleasure, or should give one real pleasure. For apart from that we’re all up to our ears in inanities of all sorts. I am too. But I suppose we are what we are.’
The first day of the holiday was church day, on the second they were out at the Borckes’ where everybody was present with the exception of the Grasenabbs who didn’t want to come ‘because Sidonie wasn’t at home,’ which everyone considered to be rather an odd excuse. Some even muttered, ‘On the contrary, that would have been a good reason to come.’ On New Year’s Eve there was the Club Ball at which Effi could not fail to appear, nor did she wish to, for the ball would give her the chance to see the town’s flora and fauna all assembled in one place at last. Johanna was fully taken up in preparing her mistress’s ball gown, Gieshübler, who, apart from everything else, had a hothouse, sent camellias, and Innstetten managed to fit in a visit upcountry to the Papenhagen estate where three barns had burnt down.
It was quite silent in the house. Christel, with nothing to do, had sleepily drawn a footstool up to the fire, and Effi retired to her bedroom where she sat down between mirror and sofa at a little writing table that had been specially set up for her, to write to Mamma, whom she had so far sent only a card thanking her for her Christmas present and letter, but no other news for weeks now.
Kessin, December 31st
My dear Mamma,
This is probably going to be a long letter, for it’s a long time – the card doesn’t count – since you heard from me. The last time I wrote I was still deep in Christmas preparations, now the Christmas season is over. Innstetten and my dear friend Gieshübler did everything they could to make Christmas Eve as pleasant as possible for me, but I still felt a bit lonely and my anxiety turned my thoughts to you. In fact even with all I have to be thankful and bright and happy about, I don’t seem to be able to shake off a feeling of loneliness, and if I used to make fun of Hulda’s sentimental tears, perhaps rather more than was called for, I’m now being punished for it by having to struggle with those very same tears myself. For Innstetten must not see them. But I am sure this will all get better when there is more life in our household, which there will be my dear Mamma. What I recently hinted at is now a certainty and Innstetten gives me daily
proof of his joy at it. How happy I am at the prospect myself I don’t have to tell you, because when it happens there will be life and distraction around me, or as Geert puts it, I’ll have ‘a darling toy.’ He is probably right in his choice of word, but he would be better not to use it, for it always causes me a little stabbing pain and reminds me how young I am, and that I still half belong in the nursery. I cannot rid myself of this idea (Geert thinks it’s unhealthy) which somehow manages to turn what should be my greatest happiness into something more like a constant source of embarrassment to me. Yes my dear Mamma, when the dear Flemming ladies recently enquired about all sorts of things, I felt I was sitting an examination I was rather badly prepared for, and I think too that I gave some pretty stupid answers. I was in a bad temper too. For a great deal that looks like sympathy is really only curiosity, and seems the more impertinent because I still have a long time to wait for the happy event, well into the summer. The first few days of July, I think. Then you must come here, or better still, as soon as I am more or less on my feet again,
I
shall come back, I’ll take a holiday and be off to Hohen-Cremmen. Oh, how I’m looking forward to it and the Havelland air – it’s almost always cold and raw here – and every day I’ll go on a drive into the Luch with its reds and yellows, I can already see the baby reaching out its hands, for it is sure to feel then that that is where its real home is. But I’m only writing this
to you
. Innstetten must know nothing of it, and I must ask even you to forgive me for wanting to bring the baby to Hohen-Cremmen and already announcing my intention today, instead of pressing a heartfelt invitation on you, my dear Mamma, to come to Kessin, which every summer has fifteen hundred visitors for the sea bathing, ships flying every conceivable flag and even a hotel in the dunes. But I’m not inhospitable, that’s not why I offer so little hospitality, I haven’t turned my back on the Briest tradition to that extent, it’s simply this Landrat’s house of ours, which, pretty and out of the ordinary as it is, isn’t actually a proper house at all, just an apartment for two people and scarcely that, for we don’t even have a dining-room, which is quite awkward when a couple of people come to visit. We do have more accommodation on the first floor, a large gallery and four small rooms, but they are all rather uninviting and I would call them lumber rooms if there were any lumber in them; but they are absolutely empty apart from a few rush-seated chairs, and they make a very strange impression to say the least. Now you will probably think that that could all be changed quite easily. But it can’t be changed; for the house that we live in is… a haunted house; there, now it’s out. I beg you, by the way, not to comment on this item of information when you write back, for I always show Innstetten your letters and he would be beside himself if he discovered I had written
this to you. I wouldn’t have done so, especially since I have had such a peaceful time for several weeks now and have stopped being afraid; but Johanna tells me it always comes back, when somebody new appears in the house that is. And I can’t expose you to such a danger, or if that’s an exaggeration, to such a peculiar and disagreeable disturbance! I’m not going to bother you with the story itself today, at least not in any detail. It’s about an old ship’s captain, a so-called China hand, and his granddaughter who was engaged to a young captain here for a short time and suddenly disappeared on her wedding day. That wouldn’t be so bad. But what’s more important, her father had brought a young Chinaman back with him from China, first as his servant, then as the old man’s friend, and he died shortly after she disappeared and was buried at a lonely spot by the churchyard. I drove past there the other day, but I turned away quickly and looked in the other direction because otherwise I think I would have seen him sitting there on the grave. For, oh my dear Mamma, I really did see him once, or at least I think I did, when I was fast asleep and Innstetten had gone to visit Prince Bismarck. It was dreadful; I wouldn’t like to go through that again. I can’t very well invite you to come to a house like this, pretty as it otherwise is (it’s nice and comfortable, but uncanny at the same time, very odd). And Innstetten, although I came round to his point of view about most of this, has not, this much I think I may say, behaved quite properly in the matter. He wanted me to see all this as an old wives’ tale and laugh at it, but then suddenly he seemed to believe in it all himself and came up with the strange proposal that I should consider a resident ghost like this as a mark of distinction, of ancient aristocratic pedigree. But this I can’t and won’t do. Kind and considerate as he usually is, on this point he is neither kind nor considerate. For there is something behind it all, this much I know from Johanna and also from Frau Kruse. She’s our coachman’s wife and she sits in an overheated room all the time with a black hen. Which in itself is frightening enough. So now you know why I want to come to
you
as soon as the time comes. Oh, how I wish the time would come soon. There are so many reasons why I wish that. This evening it’s the New Year’s Eve Ball, and Gieshübler – the only nice person here, in spite of having one shoulder higher than the other, or really a bit more than that – Gieshübler has sent me some camellias. Maybe I shall dance after all. Our doctor says it would do me no harm, on the contrary. And Innstetten has agreed too, which rather surprises me. And now love and kisses to Papa and all my other dear ones. A happy New Year.
Yours ever,
Effi
The New Year’s Eve Ball had lasted into the early morning and Effi had been widely admired – although not as unrestrainedly as her bouquet of camellias which everybody knew to have come from Gieshübler’s hothouse. After the New Year’s Eve Ball everything stayed as it had been before, with scarcely any attempt at social contact, and the winter was felt to be long indeed. Visits from neighbouring gentry occurred only seldom, and the return visits duty required were always preceded by the remark, in a semi-mournful tone, ‘Well Geert, if it really has to be, but I shall die of boredom.’ Words with which Innstetten could only ever agree. What was said on these afternoon visits about family, children and even farming was not so bad, but when it came to church matters, and the pastors who were in attendance were treated like little popes, or so esteemed themselves, then Effi’s patience snapped and she thought sorrowfully of Niemeyer who was always restrained and modest, in spite of the fact that on all the bigger ceremonial occasions people said he had what it took to be appointed to the ‘cathedral’. With the Borckes, the Flemmings, the Grasenabbs, friendly as the general attitudes of these families – apart from Sidonie Grasenabb – were, no real rapport with anyone was established, and as far as pleasure, amusement or even a feeling of passable well-being was concerned, things would have been pretty bad had it not been for Gieshübler. He looked after Effi like her own small Providence, and she was grateful to him for it. He was naturally, as well as everything else, a keen and attentive newspaper-reader, not to mention the leading light in the magazine circle, so hardly a day went by without Mirambo bringing a large white envelope with a variety of papers and journals in which the appropriate parts had been underlined, mostly with a fine light pencil line, or occasionally a thick blue line with an exclamation or question mark beside it. And he did not stop there; he sent figs and dates too, bars of chocolate in shiny paper tied with red ribbons, and when something particularly beautiful came into bloom in his hothouse he would bring it round himself and spend a happy hour chatting with the young woman he found so congenial and for whom he had all the finer feelings of love rolled into one, a father’s love, an uncle’s, a teacher’s and an admirer’s. Effi was moved by all this and mentioned it in her letters to Hohen-Cremmen so often that her mother began to tease her about being ‘in love with an alchemist’; but this well-meant teasing was wide of the mark, indeed its effect was almost painful, because it brought home to her, if only dimly, what was actually lacking in
her marriage: marks of devotion or encouragement, little attentions. Innstetten was kind and good, but he was no lover. He felt he loved Effi, and knowing in good conscience that this was so absolved him from making any special effort. It had almost become the rule that when Friedrich brought in the lamp he would withdraw from his wife’s room to his own. ‘I still have some tricky business I must deal with.’ And then he would go. The door-curtain was of course drawn back so that Effi could hear the rustling of his files or the scraping of his pen, but that was all. Rollo would then come and lie in front of her on the hearthrug, as if to say, ‘I’ll have to look after you again, nobody else will.’ Then she would bend down and quietly say, ‘Yes, Rollo, we’re alone.’ At nine Innstetten would appear again for a cup of tea, usually with the newspaper in his hand, and talk of the Prince, who again had many irritations, especially with that Eugen Richter whose attitude and language were quite intolerable, and go through the list of honours and appointments, taking exception to most of them. Then he would talk about the elections and how lucky he was to have a constituency where there was still some respect. When he was done with that, he would ask Effi to play something, a bit of
Lohengrin
or
The Valkyrie
, for he was a Wagner enthusiast. Why he had been drawn to this composer was uncertain; some said it was his nerves, for down to earth as he might seem, he was actually of a nervous disposition, others put it down to Wagner’s stand on the Jewish question. Probably both were right. By ten fatigue would be setting in and Innstetten would essay one or two tired if well-intended caresses, which Effi permitted, without in any real sense reciprocating.
