Irretrievable (6 page)

“I think that Holk doesn't ask himself that question. He lives only for the moment and consoles himself with the saying:
Après nous le déluge
.”

“Very true. He lives only for the moment and the fact that he does this is another thing my sister cannot forgive and here again I must take her side. But let's not talk about this any more; today I don't feel like making a list of all my sister's virtues but rather of
les défauts de ses vertus
which, my dear Schwarzkoppen, we must combine in opposing or else we are going to witness something very unpleasant, of that I am certain. The only thing of which I am not certain is, who will take the first step—the first step to disaster. Holk is easy-going and modest almost to a fault—he is too respectful and chivalrous and he has become used to playing second fiddle to his wife all the time. It's natural enough. In the first place, he is impressed by her beauty—she really was very beautiful and still is, in fact. Then he is impressed by her intelligence or what he takes to be intelligence. Finally, and perhaps most of all, he is impressed by her piety. But recently and, I'm afraid, all too rapidly, there has been a change and he has become impatient and touchy and sarcastic. Only this afternoon, it struck me how much his tone has changed. Take that question of the marble mangers. My sister took what was intended more or less as a joke with deadly seriousness and replied half in anger and half sentimentally. Now, three years ago, Holk would have let that pass but today he took it up sharply and made fun of her because she is only happy when she is talking of graves and chapels and painting angels on walls.”

Schwarzkoppen had punctuated all this with an occasional “only too true” and left no doubt as to his agreement. But when Arne, who wanted something more explicit than mere agreement from Schwarzkoppen, stopped talking, the Principal betrayed little desire to expatiate on the subject, being reluctant to take the bull by the horns. Pointing towards Arnewieck, he said: “How lovely the town looks in the moonlight! And how well the dyke there makes the roofs stand out and the gables between the poplars and willows! And now St. Catherine's: listen to the sound across the bay. I bless the day that brought me here to your beautiful country.”

“And I must thank you for those kind words, Schwarzkoppen, because we all like to hear someone praising our own country. But may I point out that you are evading the issue? Here am I, begging you to stand by me in a very difficult matter, much more difficult than you imagine, and all you can do is to admire the landscape. Of course it's lovely. But I'm not going to let you get away like that. With the influence you have over my sister, you must approach her through the Bible, and convince her, with half a dozen examples from the Gospels, that things cannot be allowed to continue as they are, that her attitude is nothing but self-righteousness, that real love has nothing to do with this hidden pride that is merely parading as humility, in other words, that she must mend her ways and fall in with her husband's wishes instead of making the house unbearable for him. Yes, and you can add, too—and there is some truth in this as well—that he would probably long since have given up his post in Copenhagen if he wasn't glad to escape now and again from the depressing effect of his wife's virtues.”

“Ah, my dear Baron,” replied Schwarzkoppen, “I'm not really trying to evade the issue, not in the least. I have all the goodwill in the world to co-operate, within my powers. But goodwill is not enough. If your sister were a Catholic instead of a Protestant and I were a Redemptorist or even a Jesuit father instead of the principal of a seminary in Arnewieck, the matter would be very simple. But that is not the case. There's no question of authority. Our relationship is purely a social one and if I were to try to play the father confessor or healer of souls, I should be intruding and doing something that lies outside my competence.”

“Intruding?” repeated Arne with a laugh. “But my dear Schwarzkoppen, I cannot accept the idea that you should feel troubled by thoughts of Petersen when he is nearly eighty years old and has reached the point where any idea of rivalry or any possibility of misinterpretation must be out of the question.”

“I don't mean Petersen,” said Schwarzkoppen. “He has long ago left all those petty jealousies behind that are normally only too common with my pastoral colleagues. He would certainly approve my role of reformer and miracle-worker. But we must not always take advantage of what chance offers us. In this case, there are so many adverse factors and difficulties that I feel bound to be cautious.”

“So you refuse?”

“No, I'm not refusing. I shall do everything that lies in my power but it can only be very little. If only for physical reasons. I have work to do and the distance to Holkenäs is not so very short, so that the opportunities that you spoke of will not occur very often. But the chief difficulty is the countess herself. I have rarely met any woman whom I admire more. She combines all the advantages of being a lady, a noble lady, with all the virtues of being a Christian and a woman. At all times, she endeavours to do what she thinks best, to do her duty, and it is extraordinarily difficult to lead her conception of duty into another direction. As you know and as I was suggesting only too plainly, our Church doesn't permit anything more than counsel, exhortation, and request. Everything depends, more or less, on textual interpretation and this naturally opens the door to controversy. What is more, the countess not only knows her Bible very well, she also possesses the great strength of all those who look neither left nor right, make no concessions, and through their inflexibility, which is almost remorselessness, are far better armed than those who rely merely on gentle and loving faith. She will not be affected by contradiction and even less by my assuming an air of superiority.”

“Certainly. I can only repeat that it must all be made to appear accidental.”

“The only thing I can do is to act prophylactically, if I may be allowed a rather pedantic expression, since I'm half a schoolmaster at the moment. Precautions, prevention; I shall look around for stories from my past experience as a pastor—and what complications and aberrations does one not meet with and learn to understand!—and I shall try to make these stories do their work in secret. Your sister is both imaginative and thoughtful and her imagination should lend vividness to what she hears while her thoughtful nature will force her to face the matter squarely and perhaps lead to a change of mind and then to a change of heart. That is all I can promise. It will be a slow process and the effort may well be quite disproportionate to the result. But at least I intend not to evade the issue because I realize that something must be done, even if it must be kept within very carefully defined limits.”

“All right, Schwarzkoppen. I have your word and that is sufficient. What is more, it's a favourable moment to put our project into execution. Holk is expecting to be summoned to Copenhagen by the Princess in about four weeks' time and he will be away until Christmas. In the intervening period, I shall frequently come over to see to the administration and accounts of the estate, as I always do whenever Holk is away in Copenhagen. I shall let you know each time I am driving over, to discover if you can come with me. I should also mention that, every time he is away, she is in a much more gentle, almost tender mood and she always recovers her earlier fondness for him, which at the moment is more a hope than a reality. In a word, while he's away, her mind is like a field all ready to receive the good seed. It is merely a matter of trying to show her everything from another, as it were equally legitimate, viewpoint. If we succeed in doing that, then we shall have achieved our purpose. With the seriousness and conscientiousness with which she approaches everything, she will certainly be able to reach the right conclusion herself, once she has seen reason.”

They had now reached the dyke which stretched out along the other side of the bay and on which the roadway continued to run for a short distance. The town lay below them and in the distance towered St. Catherine's church in which the seminary was incorporated, while dominating the further end of the town stood the ancient castle that was Arne's home. As the carriage drove down the slope into the town, Schwarzkoppen said: “What a strange sort of melodrama! Here we are, like a couple of conspirators, hatching plots by night and I suppose that I shall be playing the part that should have been taken by Petersen. And it is all the more strange because the countess really has a passionate admiration for him and the only thing she can find to blame in him is his rationalism. His rationalism! Nothing but a word and if you look at it closely, it is not really as bad as she seems to think, at any rate now. He has reached the limit of our allotted span and his eyes see more clearly than ours, perhaps in all things, and certainly in those pertaining to this world.”

The lovely
autumn days seemed reluctant to depart. Next morning, too, dawned bright and sunny and the count and countess took their breakfast in the open on the front veranda with Julie. Asta was practising the piano in the adjacent room while Axel and his tutor had gone shooting on the dunes, taking advantage of the Michaelmas holidays which the countess, as with holidays in general, was rather loath to recognize as a rule. In town and at school, holidays might be justified, but in the country amongst all the freedom of God's creation, they were, she felt, to say the least, superfluous. The countess had long held this view on principle and smiled in a condescending manner when the count attempted to defend the opposite opinion; but although not having changed her views, she had, as an exception, not objected to this year's Michaelmas holidays because she had still not abandoned her plan of sending the two children to boarding-school at the beginning of the winter term. So a few days were not important. The count for his part continued to show the same lukewarmness which the countess was continually criticizing: he was not really against it but he was also never really for it. In any case, he denied that there was any need for haste, to which the countess made the vexed reply that that, at least, she refused to accept; it was not only time, it was high time. Asta was sixteen, Axel rising fifteen, and they were both at an age when character was being formed. They were, in fact, at the parting of the ways: were they to go left or right? “And are they going to be black sheep or white,” interrupted Holk maliciously and picked up the paper.

This mocking tone should have warned the countess that she was once again taking things too seriously; instead, it merely made her more serious. Paying no attention to the presence of Julie, who in any case knew all about the matter, the countess said: “I do beg of you, Helmut, to stop taking this serious matter as a joke. I enjoy being amused …”

“Sorry, Christine, but that seems to have become a favourite expression of yours since yesterday.”

“I enjoy being amused,” she repeated, “but there is a time for everything. I am not asking you to agree, I only want a firm answer and you need not even give your reasons. If you tell me that Strehlke is adequate and that you prefer Elizabeth Petersen to a whole boarding-school of young ladies, I shall not agree with you but I shall accept your decision and say nothing. It is true that I hardly call that education …”

“Ah, my dear Christine, here comes your hobby-horse again or one of your long list of them. If you had not been born Baroness Arne, you would certainly have been called Basedow or Pestalozzi and replaced Schwarzkoppen as principal of the seminary. Or perhaps even have become its inspector. Education, education, nothing but education all the time. To be quite honest, I find it impossible to believe all these stories about education. Even in education, the most important factor is predestination and grace. In this respect I am prepared to follow Calvin, however good a Lutheran I may be in other ways. And in case the mention of Calvin annoys you at the moment, since you happen to be in one of your high-minded moods, then let me simply remind you of the old proverb: What's bred in the bone comes out in the flesh. Education has not really much to do with it; and if we are going to talk about education, then let me remind you that it comes from the home.”

The countess gave a slight shrug of her shoulders which Holk ignored as he continued: “The home sets the example and example is the only thing which I think has the power to educate. Example and natural love. I love the children, in which I hope I have your full approval at least; and I feel the need to see them every day.”

“It is not a question of us, Helmut, or of what you need but of what the children need. You see the children only at breakfast when you read
Dagbladet
and at tea when you read the
Hamburger Nachrichten
and you lose your temper if they ask you a question or even if they talk. It may be that it gives you a certain feeling of satisfaction to have the children around but it is not really very different from the sugar-basin that must be at your right-hand side for you to be happy. You say that you need the children. Do you think that I don't need them too, surrounded by all this quietness and loneliness with nobody but Julie? But the happiness of my children means more to me than my personal comfort and duty has nothing to do with one's own well-being.”

Holk stroked the table-cloth with his left hand while with his right he snapped the lid of the sugar-basin open and shut three or four times until the countess, who was always irritated by this sound, pushed the basin to one side. Holk made no effort to prevent her, for he fully appreciated that such a bad habit must be difficult to bear. What is more, this petty incident completely restored his good humour. “All right then, as far as I am concerned. Talk it over with Schwarzkoppen and your brother and of course with our dear Julie. And then do what you think best. It is absolutely pointless to turn all this into a feud and I am most annoyed with myself for having said so much on the subject. After all,” and he took her hand and kissed it, “after all, it is only a piece of play-acting on your part, a sweet, charming piece of play-acting. Why it is I cannot conceive, but you seem to want to continue making me believe that what takes place in Holkenäs depends on me. Now, Christine, not only are you a much stronger character than I, you are also much cleverer. However, I am clever enough to know who is master here and who gives the orders. So if one morning you say to me: ‘Last night I made up two parcels and sent one to Gnadenfrei and the other to Schnepfental and in one of the parcels I put Asta and in the other I put Axel,' then you know as well as I do that I might be taken aback for a second but that I certainly would not attempt to contradict you or even go so far as to blame you.”