The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Volume Xii Part 49

a.s.sociate Professor of German, Leland Stanford Jr. University

CHAPTER I

In front of the old manor house occupied by the von Briest family since the days of Elector George William, the bright suns.h.i.+ne was pouring down upon the village road, at the quiet hour of noon. The wing of the mansion looking toward the garden and park cast its broad shadow over a white and green checkered tile walk and extended out over a large round bed, with a sundial in its centre and a border of Indian shot and rhubarb. Some twenty paces further, and parallel to the wing of the house, there ran a churchyard wall, entirely covered with a small-leaved ivy, except at the place where an opening had been made for a little white iron gate. Behind this arose the s.h.i.+ngled tower of Hohen-Cremmen, whose weather vane glistened in the suns.h.i.+ne, having only recently been regilded. The front of the house, the wing, and the churchyard wall formed, so to speak, a horseshoe, inclosing a small ornamental garden, at the open side of which was seen a pond, with a small footbridge and a tied-up boat. Close by was a swing, with its crossboard hanging from two ropes at either end, and its frame posts beginning to lean to one side. Between the pond and the circular bed stood a clump of giant plane trees, half hiding the swing.

The terrace in front of the manor house, with its tubbed aloe plants and a few garden chairs, was an agreeable place to sit on cloudy days, besides affording a variety of things to attract the attention. But, on days when the hot sun beat down there, the side of the house toward the garden was given a decided preference, especially by the mother and the daughter of the house. On this account they were today sitting on the tile walk in the shade, with their backs to the open windows, which were all overgrown with wild grape-vines, and by the side of a little projecting stairway, whose four stone steps led from the garden to the ground floor of the wing of the mansion. Both mother and daughter were busy at work, making an altar cloth out of separate squares, which they were piecing together. Skeins of woolen yarn of various colors, and an equal variety of silk thread lay in confusion upon a large round table, upon which were still standing the luncheon dessert plates and a majolica dish filled with fine large gooseberries.

Swiftly and deftly the wool-threaded needles were drawn back and forth, and the mother seemed never to let her eyes wander from the work. But the daughter, who bore the Christian name of Effi, laid aside her needle from time to time and arose from her seat to practice a course of healthy home gymnastics, with every variety of bending and stretching. It was apparent that she took particular delight in these exercises, to which she gave a somewhat comical turn, and whenever she stood there thus engaged, slowly raising her arms and bringing the palms of her hands together high above her head, her mother would occasionally glance up from her needlework, though always but for a moment and that, too, furtively, because she did not wish to show how fascinating she considered her own child, although in this feeling of motherly pride she was fully justified. Effi wore a blue and white striped linen dress, a sort of smock-frock, which would have shown no waist line at all but for the bronze-colored leather belt which she drew up tight. Her neck was bare and a broad sailor collar fell over her shoulders and back. In everything she did there was a union of haughtiness and gracefulness, and her laughing brown eyes betrayed great natural cleverness and abundant enjoyment of life and goodness of heart. She was called the "little girl," which she had to suffer only because her beautiful slender mother was a full hand's breadth taller than she.

Effi had just stood up again to perform her calisthenic exercises when her mother, who at the moment chanced to be looking up from her embroidery, called to her: "Effi, you really ought to have been an equestrienne, I'm thinking. Always on the trapeze, always a daughter of the air. I almost believe you would like something of the sort."

"Perhaps, mama. But if it were so, whose fault would it be? From whom do I get it? Why, from no one but you. Or do you think, from papa?

There, it makes you laugh yourself. And then, why do you always dress me in this rig, this boy's smock? Sometimes I fancy I shall be put back in short clothes yet. Once I have them on again I shall courtesy like a girl in her early teens, and when our friends in Rathenow come over I shall sit in Colonel Goetze's lap and ride a trot horse. Why not? He is three-fourths an uncle and only one-fourth a suitor. You are to blame. Why don't I have any party clothes? Why don't you make a lady of me?"

"Should you like me to?"

"No." With that she ran to her mother, embraced her effusively and kissed her.

"Not so savagely, Effi, not so pa.s.sionately. I am always disturbed when I see you thus."

At this point three young girls stepped into the garden through the little iron gate in the churchyard wall and started along the gravel walk toward the round bed and the sundial. They all waved their umbrellas at Effi and then ran up to Mrs. von Briest and kissed her hand. She hurriedly asked a few questions and then invited the girls to stay and visit with them, or at least with Effi, for half an hour.

"Besides, I have something else that I must do and young folks like best to be left to themselves. Fare ye well." With these words she went up the stone steps into the house.

Two of the young girls, plump little creatures, whose freckles and good nature well matched their curly red hair, were daughters of Precentor Jahnke, who swore by the Hanseatic League, Scandinavia, and Fritz Reuter, and following the example of his favorite writer and fellow countryman, had named his twin daughters Bertha and Hertha, in imitation of Mining and Lining. The third young lady was Hulda Niemeyer, Pastor Niemeyer's only child. She was more ladylike than the other two, but, on the other hand, tedious and conceited, a lymphatic blonde, with slightly protruding dim eyes, which, nevertheless, seemed always to be seeking something, for which reason the Hussar Klitzing once said: "Doesn't she look as though she were every moment expecting the angel Gabriel?" Effi felt that the rather captious Klitzing was only too right in his criticism, yet she avoided making any distinction between the three girl friends. Nothing could have been farther from her mind at this moment. Resting her arms on the table, she exclaimed: "Oh, this tedious embroidery! Thank heaven, you are here."

"But we have driven your mama away," said Hulda.

"Oh no. She would have gone anyhow. She is expecting a visitor, an old friend of her girlhood days. I must tell you a story about him later, a love story with a real hero and a real heroine, and ending with resignation. It will make you open your eyes wide with amazement.

Moreover, I saw mama's old friend over in Schwantikow. He is a district councillor, a fine figure, and very manly."

"Manly? That's a most important consideration," said Hertha.

"Certainly, it's the chief consideration. 'Women womanly, men manly,'

is, you know, one of papa's favorite maxims. And now help me put the table in order, or there will be another scolding."

It took but a moment to put the things in the basket and, when the girls sat down again, Hulda said: "Now, Effi, now we are ready, now for the love story with resignation. Or isn't it so bad?"

"A story with resignation is never bad. But I can't begin till Hertha has taken some gooseberries; she keeps her eyes glued on them. Please take as many as you like, we can pick some more afterward. But be sure to throw the hulls far enough away, or, better still, lay them here on this newspaper supplement, then we can wrap them up in a bundle and dispose of everything at once. Mama can't bear to see hulls lying about everywhere. She always says that some one might slip on them and break a leg."

"I don't believe it," said Hertha, applying herself closely to the berries.

"Nor I either," replied Effi, confirming the opinion. "Just think of it, I fall at least two or three times every day and have never broken any bones yet. The right kind of leg doesn't break so easily; certainly mine doesn't, neither does yours, Hertha. What do you think, Hulda?"

"One ought not to tempt fate. Pride will have a fall."

"Always the governess. You are just a born old maid."

"And yet I still have hopes of finding a husband, perhaps even before you do."

"For aught I care. Do you think I shall wait for that? The idea!

Furthermore one has already been picked out for me and perhaps I shall soon have him. Oh, I am not worrying about that. Not long ago little Ventivegni from over the way said to me: 'Miss Effi, what will you bet we shall not have a charivari and a wedding here this year yet?'"

"And what did you say to that?"

"Quite possible, I said, quite possible; Hulda is the oldest; she may be married any day. But he refused to listen to that and said: 'No, I mean at the home of another young lady who is just as decided a brunette as Miss Hulda is a blonde.' As he said this he looked at me quite seriously--But I am wandering and am forgetting the story."

"Yes, you keep dropping it all the while; may be you don't want to tell it, after all?"

"Oh, I want to, but I have interrupted the story a good many times, chiefly because it is a little bit strange, indeed, almost romantic."

"Why, you said he was a district councillor."

"Certainly, a district councillor, and his name is Geert von Innstetten, Baron von Innstetten."

All three laughed.

"Why do you laugh?" said Effi, nettled. "What does this mean?"

"Ah, Effi, we don't mean to offend you, nor the Baron either.

Innstetten did you say? And Geert? Why, there is n.o.body by that name about here. And then you know the names of n.o.blemen are often a bit comical."

"Yes, my dear, they are. But people do not belong to the n.o.bility for nothing. They can endure such things, and the farther back their n.o.bility goes, I mean in point of time, the better they are able to endure them. But you don't know anything about this and you must not take offense at me for saying so. We shall continue to be good friends just the same. So it is Geert von Innstetten and he is a Baron. He is just as old as mama, to the day."

"And how old, pray, is your mama?"

"Thirty-eight."

"A fine age."

"Indeed it is, especially when one still looks as well as mama. I consider her truly a beautiful woman, don't you, too? And how accomplished she is in everything, always so sure and at the same time so ladylike, and never unconventional, like papa. If I were a young lieutenant I should fall in love with mama."

"Oh, Effi, how can you ever say such a thing?" said Hulda. "Why, that is contrary to the fourth commandment."

"Nonsense. How can it be? I think it would please mama if she knew I said such a thing."

"That may be," interrupted Hertha. "But are you ever going to tell the story?"

"Yes, compose yourself and I'll begin. We were speaking of Baron von Innstetten. Before he had reached the age of twenty he was living over in Rathenow, but spent much of his time on the seignioral estates of this region, and liked best of all to visit in Schwantikow, at my grandfather Belling's. Of course, it was not on account of my grandfather that he was so often there, and when mama tells about it one can easily see on whose account it really was. I think it was mutual, too."

"And what came of it?"

"The thing that was bound to come and always does come. He was still much too young and when my papa appeared on the scene, who had already attained the t.i.tle of baronial councillor and the proprietors.h.i.+p of Hohen-Cremmen, there was no need of further time for consideration.

She accepted him and became Mrs. von Briest."

"What did Innstetten do?" said Bertha, "what became of him? He didn't commit suicide, otherwise you could not be expecting him today."