Elective Affinities (8 page)

In the meantime, Charlotte took out again all the old letters and reports referring to Ottilie and refreshed her memory of how the headmistress and the schoolmaster had judged the dear child, so as to compare these opinions with the girl herself. Charlotte believed you could not get to know the character of the people you had to live with too quickly, so as to know what could be expected of them and cultivated in them or what you had once and for all to allow and forgive them.

This research revealed nothing fresh, it is true, but much that she already knew became more significant and striking. Ottilie’s moderation in eating and drinking, for example, was now a source of real anxiety.

The next thing to engage the women was the question of dress. Charlotte demanded of Ottilie that she should be better dressed. The industrious child at once set to and cut up the material she had earlier been given and with only a little
assistance was quickly able to make it into something very elegant. The more fashionable dresses improved her figure. Since what is pleasant about you extends even to your clothes, your good qualities seem to appear in a new and more charming light if you provide them with a new background.

And so she became for the men more and more what she had been from the first, which was (to call things by their right names) a feast for the eyes. For if the emerald is through its loveliness a pleasure to the sight, and indeed exerts a certain healing power on that noble sense, human beauty acts with far greater force on both inner and outer senses, so that he who beholds it is exempt from evil and feels in harmony with himself and with the world.

The company had thus profited in several ways from Ottilie’s arrival. The two friends broke up their solitary meetings more punctually, even to the minute, and at mealtimes, or for tea, or for walks, they did not keep the women waiting longer than was reasonable. They did not hurry so quickly away from the table, especially in the evenings. Charlotte noticed all this and kept both men under observation. She wanted to know which one was the instigator of this change of behaviour, but could see no distinction between them. Both of them were being altogether more sociable. When talking together they seemed to bear in mind what subjects might engage Ottilie’s interest and about which she might know and understand something. When reading aloud they broke off until she returned. They became gentler and on the whole more communicative.

In response, Ottilie’s eagerness to make herself useful increased with every day that passed. The better she got to know the circumstances of the house and of the people in it, the more spiritedly did she go about her work and the more promptly did she understand the meaning of every glance, of every gesture, of a mere half-word, of a mere sound. She had at all times the same quiet attentiveness and the same
unruffled alertness. And so her sitting and standing, her coming and going, her fetching and carrying and sitting again without any appearance of restlessness, was a perpetual change, perpetual exquisite motion. And you could not hear her when she walked, she walked so softly.

This proper zeal of Ottilie’s to be serviceable gave Charlotte much pleasure. But she did not hide one thing which seemed to her not quite right. ‘One of the most laudable attentions we can show to other people,’ she said to her one day, ‘is to stoop down if they should drop something and try to pick it up quickly. We thus as it were acknowledge that we are at their service; but in wider society one has to consider to whom one displays such submissiveness. I do not want to prescribe rules with respect to women. You are young. Towards older women and those in a more exalted station it is a duty, towards your equals it is politeness, towards younger women and those in a lower station it demonstrates kindness and human-feeling; only it is not quite seemly for a woman to display service and submission of this sort to a man.’

‘I will try to break myself of the habit,’ Ottilie replied. ‘In the meantime, I know you will forgive me when I tell you how I came by it. We were taught history; I have not retained as much of it as I no doubt should have, for I could not see what use it would be to me. Only individual incidents made a great impression on me, and this is one of them:

‘When Charles I of England was standing before his so-called judges, the gold knob at the end of the stick he was carrying came off and fell to the floor. Accustomed to everyone’s springing to his assistance when such things happened, he seemed to be looking about him and expecting someone to come forward this time too and perform this small service for him. Nobody stirred; he himself bent down to pick up the knob. I found that so sad – whether rightly or not I cannot say – that from that moment on whenever I have seen anyone drop anything I have felt compelled to bend down
after it. But since, I know, it may not always be proper to do so, and since,’ she went on with a smile, ‘I cannot be repeating my story every time it happens, I will restrain myself more in future.’

In the meantime, the good work to which the two friends felt themselves called went on without interruption. No day passed without they found a fresh occasion for planning and undertaking something.

As they were one day walking together through the village they noticed with displeasure how much less clean and tidy it was than those villages whose inhabitants have to pay attention to such things because they do not have much room to be untidy in.

‘You will remember,’ said the Captain, ‘how when we were travelling through Switzerland we expressed the desire to adorn a country park, as such things are called, by instituting in a village lying just as this one does, not Swiss architecture but Swiss cleanliness and tidiness, which make a place so much more usable.’

‘That would be feasible here, for example,’ Eduard said. ‘The mansion hill runs down to form a salient; the village is built in a fairly regular semicircle over against it; in between flows the stream, and to guard against flooding from it one villager erects stones, another stakes, a third beams, and his neighbour planks – none helps the other, but rather harms and obstructs him. And the road, too, follows its clumsy way now uphill, now down, now through the water, now over the rocks. If the people were willing to lend a hand, it would not cost very much to put up a semicircular wall here, to raise the road behind it to the level of the houses, to produce a fine open space and clear the way for the production of cleanliness; and by rearranging things on a large scale to do away once and for all with every petty inadequacy.’

‘Let’s try it,’ said the Captain. He looked the locality over and quickly took stock of the situation.

‘I do not like having anything to do with peasants or townspeople unless I am in a position to give them direct orders,’ Eduard replied.

‘That point of view is not so far wrong,’ the Captain said, ‘for I too have experienced a great deal of irritation in my life from jobs of this kind. How hard it is for a man to weigh aright what must be sacrificed against what is to be gained! How hard to will the end and not despise the means! Many even go so far as to confuse the means with the end, and take pleasure in the former without keeping the latter in view. It is supposed that each evil should be cured at the spot where it breaks out, and no thought is taken for the place where it actually originates and whence it spreads its influence. That is why it is so hard to work through consultation, especially with the crowd, which is quite judicious with respect to day-to-day affairs but seldom sees further than tomorrow. And if, in addition, one man is going to gain by a communal project and another lose, then compromise will achieve nothing. Anything which really promotes the common good can be attained only through unlimited sovereignty.’

While they were standing and talking a man who looked more insolent than needy came up and begged from them. Eduard was annoyed at being interrupted and, after having several times tried in vain to send him away politely, started reprimanding him, and when the man made off one slow step at a time, grumbling and even answering back, and said that beggars too had rights, and while they might be refused alms they ought not to be insulted, since they stood as much under the protection of God and the Authorities as anyone else, Eduard lost his temper entirely.

To calm him again afterwards, the Captain said: ‘Let us regard this incident as a challenge to us to extend our countryside regulations to cover this sort of thing as well. Certainly one has to give alms, but it is better not to give them in person, especially when one is at home. At home one should
be moderate and consistent, even in giving. Too great generosity entices beggars instead of dispatching them; on the other hand, when you are travelling abroad you might well, as you are sailing by, appear before a poor man in the street as an angel of fortune and cast him a surprisingly bountiful gift. The situation of the village and the mansion makes very easy an arrangement I have already been thinking over.

‘At one end of the village there lies the inn, at the other there lives a benevolent old couple; you must lay down a small sum of money in both places. Not he who is coming into the village but he who is leaving it shall receive something; and since both houses also stand on the roads leading up to the mansion, anyone thinking of coming up there will be directed to them instead.’

‘Come,’ said Eduard, ‘let’s arrange it right away; we can always see to the details later.’

They visited the innkeeper and the elderly couple, and the thing was done.

‘I know very well,’ said Eduard as they were going back up to the mansion, ‘that everything in the world depends on an intelligent idea and a firm decision. Thus you very justly criticized my wife’s layout of her park and gave me a hint how it might be improved, which I will not attempt to deny I passed on to her straight away.’

‘I could have realized you would,’ the Captain replied, ‘but I could not have approved. You have made her confused; she is now doing nothing there, and it is the only thing about which she is at odds with us: for she never talks about it, and she has never invited us to the moss-hut again, although she goes up there with Ottilie from time to time.’

‘We must not allow ourselves to be deterred by that,’ Eduard replied. ‘When I am convinced of something good that could and should be done, I cannot rest until I can see it has been done. We find no difficulty in introducing innovations in other quarters, do we? So let us this evening take out
the English books giving descriptions of parks with copperplates and then your plans of the estate. We must first treat it as if it were merely a pleasant way of passing the time; before we know it we shall be discussing the matter seriously.’

In accordance with this conspiracy the books were brought out and opened up. They presented an outline of each region and a view of the landscape in its original natural condition, then on other pages the changes art had made upon it so as to take advantage of and enhance every existing good feature.

From this it was very simple to pass over to their own property, to their own environs, and to what might be made of them.

It was now a pleasant job to set to work using the map the Captain had drafted. They could not entirely escape from the original conception on the basis of which Charlotte had begun, but they managed to work out an easier ascent up the hill. They decided to build a pavilion before a pleasant little copse on the upper slope. This pavilion was to stand in a significant relation to the mansion; it was to be overlooked by the mansion’s windows and its own windows were to give a sweeping view of the mansion and the gardens.

The Captain had carefully considered everything and he again brought up for discussion the village road, the wall beside the stream and the question of building it up. ‘By making an easy path up to the height,’ he said, ‘I shall gain exactly the amount of stone I need for that wall. When you coordinate one project with another both can be effected more cheaply and more quickly.’

‘But now comes my worry,’ said Charlotte. ‘We have to set aside a definite sum for this; and when you know how much such plans as these are going to cost, you can divide up this amount, if not into so much a week, at any rate into so much a month. The money-box is in my custody; I shall pay the bills and keep the accounts myself.’

‘You do not seem to trust us overmuch,’ said Eduard.

‘Not when it comes to caprices like this,’ Charlotte replied. ‘We know better than you how to govern our caprices.’

Arrangements were made, work was quickly begun and the Captain was to be seen everywhere. Charlotte had almost daily evidence of how serious and determined he was. He too learned to know her better and they found it easy to work together and get something done.

Working together is like dancing together: if you keep in step you become indispensable to one another. Mutual goodwill must necessarily develop. A sure proof that, since she had got to know him better, Charlotte felt genuine goodwill towards the Captain was that she let him destroy a fine resting-place, which in her original designs for the park she had specially chosen and decked out but which now got in the way of his plans, without the slightest feeling of resentment.

CHAPTER SEVEN

As Charlotte and the Captain had now found a common occupation Eduard was thrown more into the company of Ottilie. A quiet affection had in any case for some time been her advocate in his heart. She was polite and obliging towards everyone; his self-esteem would have had it appear that she was most so towards him. But now the fact was unquestionable: she had noticed minutely what food he liked and how he liked it, how much sugar he took in his tea, and other details of that sort. She was especially careful to shield him from draughts, towards which he showed an exaggerated sensitivity and as a result often came into conflict with his wife, who could never have too much fresh air. She also knew her way about the orchard and the flower-garden. What he wanted she tried to provide, what might provoke his impatience she sought to prevent. She quickly became, like a guardian spirit, indispensable to him, and he began to notice it when she was absent. She seemed to grow more communicative and candid as soon as they found themselves alone.