"What is the name of the village?"

"Crampas."

Effi thought she had misunderstood him. "Crampas," she repeated, with an effort. "I never heard the word as the name of a place. Nothing else in the neighborhood?"

"No, most gracious Lady, nothing around here. But farther up, toward the north, you will come to other villages, and in the hotel near Stubbenkammer they will surely be able to give you information. Addresses are always left there by people who would be willing to rent rooms."

Effi was glad to have had the conversation alone and when she reported it a few moments later to her husband, keeping back only the name of the village adjoining Sassnitz, he said: "Well, if there is nothing around here the best thing will be to take a carriage, which, incidentally, is always the way to take leave of a hotel, and without any ado move farther up toward Stubbenkammer. We can doubtless find there some idyllic spot with a honeysuckle arbor, and, if we find nothing, there is still left the hotel, and they are all alike."

Effi was willing, and about noon they reached the hotel near Stubbenkammer, of which Innstetten had just spoken, and there ordered a lunch. "But not until half an hour from now. We intend to take a walk first and view the Hertha Lake. I presume you have a guide?"

Following the affirmative answer a middle-aged man approached our travelers. He looked as important and solemn as though he had been at least an adjunct of the ancient Hertha worship.

The lake, which was only a short distance away, had a border of tall trees and a hem of rushes, while on its quiet black surface there swam hundreds of water lilies.

"It really looks like something of the sort," said Effi, "like Hertha worship."

"Yes, your Ladyship, and the stones are further evidences of it."

"What stones?"

"The sacrificial stones."

While the conversation continued in this way they stepped from the lake to a perpendicular wall of gravel and clay, against which leaned a few smooth polished stones, with a shallow hollow in each drained by a few grooves.

"What is the purpose of these?"

"To make it drain better, your Ladyship."

"Let us go," said Effi, and, taking her husband's arm, she walked back with him to the hotel, where the breakfast already ordered was served at a table with a view far out upon the sea. Before them lay the bay in the sunshine, with sail boats here and there gliding across its surface and sea gulls pursuing each other about the neighboring cliffs. It was very beautiful and Effi said so; but, when she looked across the glittering surface, she saw again, toward the south, the brightly shining roofs of the long-stretched-out village, whose name had given her such a start earlier in the morning.

Even without any knowledge or suspicion of what was occupying her, Innstetten saw clearly that she was having no joy or satisfaction. "I am sorry, Effi, that you derive no real pleasure from these things here. You cannot forget the Hertha Lake, and still less the stones."



She nodded. "It is as you say, and I must confess that I have seen nothing in my life that made me feel so sad. Let us give up entirely our search for rooms. I can't stay here."

"And yesterday it seemed to you a Gulf of Naples and everything beautiful you could think of."

"Yes, yesterday."

"And today? No longer a trace of Sorrento?"

"Still one trace, but only one. It is Sorrento on the point of dying."

"Very well, then, Effi," said Innstetten, reaching her his hand. "I do not want to worry you with Ruegen and so let us give it up. Settled. It is not necessary for us to tie ourselves up to Stubbenkammer or Sassnitz or farther down that way. But whither?"

"I suggest that we stay a day longer and wait for the steamer that comes from Stettin tomorrow on its way to Copenhagen. It is said to be so pleasurable there and I can't tell you how I long for something pleasurable. Here I feel as though I could never laugh again in all my life and had never laughed at all, and you know how I like to laugh."

Innstetten showed himself full of sympathy with her state, the more readily, as he considered her right in many regards. Really everything, though beautiful, was melancholy.

They waited for the Stettin boat and in the very early morning of the third day they landed in Copenhagen. Two hours later they were in the Thorwaldsen Museum, and Effi said: "Yes, Geert, this is beautiful and I am glad we set out for here." Soon thereafter they went to dinner and at the table made the acquaintance of a Jutland family, opposite them, whose daughter, Thora von Penz, was as pretty as a picture and attracted immediately the attention and admiration of both Innstetten and Effi. Effi could not stop looking at her large blue eyes and flaxen blonde hair, and when they left the table an hour and a half later the Penz family, who unfortunately had to leave Copenhagen the same day, expressed the hope that they might have the privilege of entertaining the young Prussian couple in the near future at Aggerhuus Castle, some two miles from the Lym-Fiord. The invitation was accepted by the Innstettens with little hesitation.

Thus passed the hours in the hotel. But that was not yet enough of a good thing for this memorable day, which Effi enthusiastically declared ought to be a red-letter day in the calendar. To fill her measure of happiness to the full the evening brought a performance at the Tivoli Theatre, an Italian pantomime, Arlequin and Columbine. She was completely captivated by the little roguish tricks, and when they returned to their hotel late in the evening she said: "Do you know, Geert, I now feel that I am gradually coming to again. I will not even mention beautiful Thora, but when I consider that this morning Thorwaldsen and this evening Columbine—"

"Whom at bottom you liked better than Thorwaldsen—"

"To be frank, yes. I have a natural appreciation of such things. Our good Kessin was a misfortune for me. Everything got on my nerves there. Ruegen too, almost. I suggest we stay here in Copenhagen a few days longer, including an excursion to Fredericksborg and Helsingor, of course, and then go over to Jutland. I anticipate real pleasure from seeing beautiful Thora again, and if I were a man I should fall in love with her."

Innstetten laughed. "You don't know what I am going to do."

"I shouldn't object. That will create a rivalry and I shall show you that I still have my powers, too."

"You don't need to assure me of that."

The journey was made according to this plan. Over in Jutland they went up the Lym-Fiord as far as Aggerhuus Castle, where they spent three days with the Penz family, and then returned home, making many stops on the way, for sojourns of various lengths, in Viborg, Flensburg, Kiel, and Hamburg. From Hamburg, which they liked uncommonly well, they did not go direct to Keith St. in Berlin, but first to Hohen-Cremmen, where they wished to enjoy a well-earned rest. For Innstetten it meant but a few days, as his leave of absence expired, but Effi remained a week longer and declared her desire not to arrive at home till the 3d of October, their wedding anniversary.

Annie had flourished splendidly in the country air and Roswitha's plan of having her walk to meet her mother succeeded perfectly. Briest proved himself an affectionate grandfather, warned them against too much love, and even more strongly against too much severity, and was in every way the same as always. But in reality all his affection was bestowed upon Effi, who occupied his emotional nature continually, particularly when he was alone with his wife.

"How do you find Effi?"

"Dear and good as ever. We cannot thank God enough that we have such a lovely daughter. How thankful she is for everything, and always so happy to be under our rooftree again."

"Yes," said Briest, "she has more of this virtue than I like. To tell the truth, it seems as though this were still her home. Yet she has her husband and child, and her husband is a jewel and her child an angel, and still she acts as though Hohen-Cremmen were her favorite abode, and her husband and child were nothing in comparison with you and me. She is a splendid daughter, but she is too much of a daughter to suit me. It worries me a little bit. She is also unjust to Innstetten. How do matters really stand between them?"

"Why, Briest, what do you mean?"

"Well, I mean what I mean and you know what, too. Is she happy? Or is there something or other in the way? From the very beginning it has seemed to me as though she esteemed him more than she loved him, and that to my mind is a bad thing. Even love may not last forever, and esteem will certainly not. In fact women become angry when they have to esteem a man; first they become angry, then bored, and in the end they laugh."

"Have you had any such experience?"

"I will not say that I have. I did not stand high enough in esteem. But let us not get wrought up any further. Tell me how matters stand."

"Pshaw! Briest, you always come back to the same things. We have talked about and exchanged our views on this question more than a dozen times, and yet you always come back and, in spite of your pretended omniscience, ask me about it with the most dreadful naivete, as though my eyes could penetrate any depth. What kind of notions have you, anyhow, of a young wife, and more especially of your daughter? Do you think that the whole situation is so plain? Or that I am an oracle—I can't just recall the name of the person—or that I hold the truth cut and dried in my hands, when Effi has poured out her heart to me?—at least what is so designated. For what does pouring out one's heart mean? After all, the real thing is kept back. She will take care not to initiate me into her secrets. Besides, I don't know from whom she inherited it, but she is—well, she is a very sly little person and this slyness in her is the more dangerous because she is so very lovable."

"So you do admit that—lovable. And good, too?"

"Good, too. That is, full of goodness of heart. I am not quite certain about anything further. I believe she has an inclination to let matters take their course and to console herself with the hope that God will not call her to a very strict account."

"Do you think so?"

"Yes, I do. Furthermore I think she has improved in many ways. Her character is what it is, but the conditions since she moved to Berlin are much more favorable and they are becoming more and more devoted to each other. She told me something to that effect and, what is more convincing to me, I found it confirmed by what I saw with my own eyes."

"Well, what did she say?"

"She said: 'Mama, things are going better now. Innstetten was always an excellent husband, and there are not many like him, but I couldn't approach him easily, there was something distant about him. He was reserved even in his affectionate moments, in fact, more reserved then than ever. There have been times when I feared him.'"

"I know, I know."

"What do you mean, Briest? That I have feared you, or that you have feared me? I consider the one as ridiculous as the other."

"You were going to tell me about Effi."

"Well, then, she confessed to me that this feeling of strangeness had left her and that had made her very happy. Kessin had not been the right place for her, the haunted house and the people there, some too pious, others too dull; but since she had moved to Berlin she felt entirely in her place. He was the best man in the world, somewhat too old for her and too good for her, but she was now 'over the mountain.' She used this expression, which, I admit, astonished me."

"How so? It is not quite up to par, I mean the expression. But—"

"There is something behind it, and she wanted to give me an inkling."

"Do you think so?"

"Yes, Briest. You always seem to think she could never be anything but innocent. But you are mistaken. She likes to drift with the waves, and if the wave is good she is good, too. Fighting and resisting are not her affair."

Roswitha came in with Annie and interrupted the conversation.

This conversation occurred on the day that Innstetten departed from Hohen-Cremmen for Berlin, leaving Effi behind for at least a week. He knew she liked nothing better than whiling away her time, care-free, with sweet dreams, always hearing friendly words and assurances of her loveliness. Indeed that was the thing which pleased her above everything else, and here she enjoyed it again to the full and most gratefully, even though diversions were utterly lacking. Visitors seldom came, because after her marriage there was no real attraction, at least for the young people. * * *

On her wedding anniversary, the 3d of October, Effi was to be back in Berlin. On the evening before, under the pretext of desiring to pack her things and prepare for the journey, she retired to her room comparatively early. As a matter of fact, her only desire was to be alone. Much as she liked to chat, there were times when she longed for repose.

Her rooms were in the upper story on the side toward the garden. In the smaller one Roswitha was sleeping with Annie and their door was standing ajar. She herself walked to and fro in the larger one, which she occupied. The lower casements of the windows were open and the little white curtains were blown by the draft and slowly fell over the back of the chair, till another puff of wind came and raised them again. It was so light that she could read plainly the titles of the pictures hanging in narrow gilt frames over the sofa: "The Storming of Dueppel, Fort No. 5," and "King William and Count Bismarck on the Heights of Lipa." Effi shook her head and smiled. "When I come back again I am going to ask for different pictures; I don't like such warlike sights." Then she closed one window and sat down by the other, which she left open. How she enjoyed the whole scene! Almost behind the church tower was the moon, which shed its light upon the grassy plot with the sundial and the heliotrope beds. Everything was covered with a silvery sheen. Beside the strips of shadow lay white strips of light, as white as linen on the bleaching ground. Farther on stood the tall rhubarb plants with their leaves an autumnal yellow, and she thought of the day, only a little over two years before, when she had played there with Hulda and the Jahnke girls. On that occasion, when the visitor came she ascended the little stone steps by the bench and an hour later was betrothed.

She arose, went toward the door, and listened. Roswitha was asleep and Annie also.

Suddenly, as the child lay there before her, a throng of pictures of the days in Kessin came back to her unbidden. There was the district councillor's dwelling with its gable, and the veranda with the view of the "Plantation," and she was sitting in the rocking chair, rocking. Soon Crampas stepped up to her to greet her, and then came Roswitha with the child, and she took it, held it up, and kissed it.

"That was the first day, there is where it began." In the midst of her revery she left the room the two were sleeping in and sat down again at the open window and gazed out into the quiet night.

"I cannot get rid of it," she said. "But worst of all, and the thing that makes me lose faith in myself—" Just then the tower clock began to strike and Effi counted the strokes. "Ten—Tomorrow at this time I shall be in Berlin. We shall speak about our wedding anniversary and he will say pleasing and friendly things to me and perhaps words of affection. I shall sit there and listen and have a sense of guilt in my heart." She leaned her head upon her hand and stared silently into the night.

"And have a sense of guilt in my heart," she repeated. "Yes, the sense is there. But is it a burden upon my heart? No. That is why I am alarmed at myself. The burden there is quite a different thing—dread, mortal dread, and eternal fear that it may some day be found out. And, besides the dread, shame. I am ashamed of myself. But as I do not feel true repentance, neither do I true shame. I am ashamed only on account of my continual lying and deceiving. It was always my pride that I could not lie and did not need to—lying is so mean, and now I have had to lie all the time, to him and to everybody, big lies and little lies. Even Rummschuettel noticed it and shrugged his shoulders, and who knows what he thinks of me? Certainly not the best things. Yes, dread tortures me, and shame on account of my life of lies. But not shame on account of my guilt—that I do not feel, or at least not truly, or not enough, and the knowledge that I do not is killing me. If all women are like this it is terrible, if they are not—which I hope—then I am in a bad predicament; there is something out of order in my heart, I lack proper feeling. Old Mr. Niemeyer once told me, in his best days, when I was still half a child, that proper feeling is the essential thing, and if we have that the worst cannot befall us, but if we have it not, we are in eternal danger, and what is called the Devil has sure power over us. For the mercy of God, is this my state?"

She laid her head upon her arms and wept bitterly. When she straightened up again, calmed, she gazed out into the garden. All was so still, and her ear could detect a low sweet sound, as of falling rain, coming from the plane trees. This continued for a while. Then from the village street came the sound of a human voice. The old nightwatchman Kulicke was calling out the hour. When at last he was silent she heard in the distance the rattling of the passing train, some two miles away. This noise gradually became fainter and finally died away entirely—Still the moonlight lay upon the grass plot and there was still the low sound, as of falling rain upon the plane trees. But it was only the gentle playing of the night air.



CHAPTER XXV

[The following evening Innstetten met Effi at the station in Berlin and said he had thought she would not keep her word, as she had not when she came to Berlin to select their apartment. In a short time he began to bestir himself to make a place for his wife in Berlin society. At a small party early in the season he tactlessly twitted her about Crampas and for days thereafter she felt haunted by the Major's spirit. But once the Empress had selected her to be a lady of honor at an important function, and the Emperor had addressed a few gracious remarks to her at a court ball, the past began to seem to her a mere dream, and her cheerfulness was restored. After about seven years in Berlin Dr. Rummschuettel was one day called to see her for various reasons and prescribed treatment at Schwalbach and Ems. She was to be accompanied by the wife of Privy Councillor Zwicker, who in spite of her forty odd years seemed to need a protectress more than Effi did. While Roswitha was helping with the preparations for the journey Effi called her to account for never going, as a good Catholic should, to a priest to confess her sins, particularly her great sin, and promised to talk the matter over with her seriously after returning from Ems.]



CHAPTER XXVI

[Innstetten could see by Effi's letters from Ems that Mrs. Zwicker was not the right kind of a companion for her and he longed for her to come back to him. As the end of her sojourn at the watering place approached, preparations were made to welcome her on her return home. A "W," made of forget-me-nots, was to be hung up and some verses composed by a friend of the family were to be spoken by Annie. One day when Annie was returning from school Roswitha went out to meet her and was challenged by her to a race up the stairs. When Annie reached the top she stumbled and fell upon a scraper, cutting an ugly gash in her forehead. Roswitha and Johanna washed the wound with cold water and decided to tie it up with the long bandage once used to bind the mother's sprained ankle. In their search for the bandage they broke open the lock to the sewing table drawers, which they began to empty of their contents. Among other things they took out a small package of letters tied up with a red silk cord. Before they had ended the search Innstetten came home. He examined the wound and sent for Dr. Rummschuettel. After scolding Annie and telling her what she must do till her mother came home, he sat down with her to dine and promised to read her a letter just received from her mother.]



CHAPTER XXVII

For a while Innstetten sat at the table with Annie in silence. Finally, when the stillness became painful to him, he asked her a few questions about the school superintendent and which teacher she liked best. She answered rather listlessly, because she felt he was not paying much attention. The situation was not improved till Johanna whispered to little Annie, after the second course, that there was something else to come. And surely enough, good Roswitha, who felt under obligation to her pet on this unlucky day, had prepared something extra. She had risen to an omelet with sliced apple filling.

The sight of it made Annie somewhat more talkative. Innstetten's frame of mind was likewise bettered when the doorbell rang a moment later and Dr. Rummschuettel entered, quite accidentally. He had just dropped in, without any suspicion that he had been sent for. He approved of the compresses. "Send for some Goulard water and keep Annie at home tomorrow. Quiet is the best remedy." Then he asked further about her Ladyship and what kind of news had been received from Ems, and said he would come again the next day to see the patient.

When they got up from the table and went into the adjoining room, where the bandage had been searched for so zealously, albeit in vain, Annie was again laid upon the sofa. Johanna came and sat down beside her, while Innstetten began to put back into the sewing table the countless things that still lay in gay confusion upon the window sill. Now and then he was at a loss to know what to do and was obliged to ask.

"Where do these letters belong, Johanna?"

"Clear at the bottom," said she, "here in this drawer."

During the question and answer Innstetten examined more closely than before the little package tied up with a red cord. It seemed to consist of a number of notes, rather than letters. Bending it between his thumb and forefinger, like a pack of cards, he slowly let the edges slip off one at a time, and a few lines, in reality only disconnected words, darted past his eyes. It was impossible to distinguish them clearly, yet it seemed to him as though he had somewhere seen the handwriting before. Should he look into the matter?

"Johanna, you might bring us the coffee. Annie will also take half a cup. The doctor has not forbidden it, and what is not forbidden is allowed."

As he said this he untied the red cord, and while Johanna was going to the kitchen he quickly ran over the whole contents of the package. Only two or three letters were addressed to Mrs. District Councillor von Innstetten. He now recognized the handwriting; it was that of the Major. Innstetten had known nothing about a correspondence between Crampas and Effi. His brain began to grow dizzy. He put the package in his pocket and returned to his room. A few moments later Johanna rapped softly on his door to let him know that the coffee was served. He answered, but that was all. Otherwise the silence was complete. Not until a quarter of an hour later was he heard walking to and fro on the rug. "I wonder what ails papa?" said Johanna to Annie. "The doctor said it was nothing, didn't he?"

The walking to and fro in the adjoining room showed no signs of ending, but Innstetten finally came out and said: "Johanna, keep an eye on Annie and make her remain quiet on the sofa. I am going out to walk for an hour or two." Then he gazed fixedly at the child and left the room.

"Did you notice, Johanna, how papa looked?"

"Yes, Annie. He must have had a great vexation. He was all pale. I never saw him like that."

Hours passed. The sun was already down and only a red glow was visible above the roofs across the street, when Innstetten came back. He took Annie's hand and asked her how she was. Then he ordered Johanna to bring the lamp into his room. The lamp came. In its green shade were half-transparent ovals with photographs, various pictures of his wife that had been made in Kessin for the other members of the cast when they played Wichert's A Step out of the Way. Innstetten turned the shade slowly from left to right and studied each individual picture. Then he gave that up and, as the air was so sultry, opened the balcony door and finally took up the package of letters again. He seemed to have picked out a few and laid them on top the first time he looked them over. These he now read once more in a half audible voice:

"Come again this afternoon to the dunes behind the mill. At old Mrs. Adermann's we can see each other without fear, as the house is far enough off the road. You must not worry so much about everything. We have our rights, too. If you will say that to yourself emphatically, I think all fear will depart from you. Life would not be worth the living if everything that applies in certain specific cases should be made to apply in all. All the best things lie beyond that. Learn to enjoy them."

"'Away from here,' you write, 'flight.' Impossible. I cannot leave my wife in the lurch, in poverty, along with everything else. It is out of the question, and we must take life lightly, otherwise we are poor and lost. Light-heartedness is our best possession. All is fate; it was not so to be. And would you have it otherwise—that we had never seen each other?"

Then came the third letter:

"Be at the old place again today. How are my days to be spent without you here in this dreary hole? I am beside myself, and yet thus much of what you say is right; it is salvation, and we must in the end bless the hand that inflicts this separation on us."

Innstetten had hardly shoved the letters aside when the doorbell rang. In a moment Johanna announced Privy Councillor Wuellersdorf. Wuellersdorf entered and saw at a glance that something must have happened.

"Pardon me, Wuellersdorf," said Innstetten, receiving him, "for having asked you to come at once to see me. I dislike to disturb anybody in his evening's repose, most of all a hard-worked department chief. But it could not be helped. I beg you, make yourself comfortable, and here is a cigar."

Wuellersdorf sat down. Innstetten again walked to and fro and would gladly have gone on walking, because of his consuming restlessness, but he saw it would not do. So he took a cigar himself, sat down face to face with Wuellersdorf, and tried to be calm.

"It is for two reasons," he began, "that I have sent for you. Firstly, to deliver a challenge, and, secondly, to be my second in the encounter itself. The first is not agreeable and the second still less. And now your answer?"

"You know, Innstetten, I am at your disposal. But before I know about the case, pardon me the naive question, must it be? We are beyond the age, you know—you to take a pistol in your hand, and I to have a share in it. However, do not misunderstand me; this is not meant to be a refusal. How could I refuse you anything? But tell me now what it is."

"It is a question of a gallant of my wife, who at the same time was my friend, or almost a friend."

Wuellersdorf looked at Innstetten. "Instetten, that is not possible."

"It is more than possible, it is certain. Read."

Wuellersdorf ran over the letters hastily. "These are addressed to your wife?"

"Yes. I found them today in her sewing table."

"And who wrote them?"

"Major von Crampas."

"So, things that occurred when you were still in Kessin?"

Innstetten nodded.

"So, it was six years ago, or half a year longer?"

"Yes."

Wuellersdorf kept silent. After a while Innstetten said: "It almost looks, Wuellersdorf, as though the six or seven years made an impression on you. There is a theory of limitation, of course, but I don't know whether we have here a case to which the theory can be applied."

"I don't know, either," said Wuellersdorf. "And I confess frankly, the whole case seems to turn upon that question."

Innstetten looked at him amazed. "You say that in all seriousness?"

"In all seriousness. It is no time for trying one's skill at pleasantry or dialectic hair-splitting."

"I am curious to know what you mean. Tell me frankly what you think about it."

"Innstetten, your situation is awful and your happiness in life is destroyed. But if you kill the lover your happiness in life is, so to speak, doubly destroyed, and to your sorrow over a wrong suffered will be added the sorrow over a wrong done. Everything hinges on the question, do you feel absolutely compelled to do it? Do you feel so injured, insulted, so indignant that one of you must go, either he or you? Is that the way the matter stands?"

"I don't know."

"You must know."

Innstetten sprang up, walked to the window, and tapped on the panes, full of nervous excitement. Then he turned quickly, stepped toward Wuellersdorf and said: "No, that is not the way the matter stands."

"How does it stand then?"

"It amounts to this—that I am unspeakably unhappy. I am mortified, infamously deceived, and yet I have no feeling of hatred or even of thirst for revenge. If I ask myself 'why not?' on the spur of the moment, I am unable to assign any other reason than the intervening years. People are always talking about inexpiable guilt. That is undeniably wrong in the sight of God, but I say it is also in the sight of man. I never should have believed that time, purely as time, could so affect one. Then, in the second place, I love my wife, yes, strange to say, I love her still, and dreadful as I consider all that has happened, I am so completely under the spell of her loveliness, the bright charm peculiarly her own, that in spite of myself I feel in the innermost recesses of my heart inclined to forgive."

Wuellersdorf nodded. "I fully understand your attitude, Innstetten, I should probably feel the same way about it. But if that is your feeling and you say to me: 'I love this woman so much that I can forgive her everything,' and if we consider, further, that it all happened so long, long ago that it seems like an event in some other world, why, if that is the situation, Innstetten, I feel like asking, wherefore all this fuss?"

"Because it must be, nevertheless. I have thought it over from every point of view. We are not merely individuals, we belong to a whole, and have always to take the whole into consideration. We are absolutely dependent. If it were possible to live in solitude I could let it pass. I should then bear the burden heaped upon me, though real happiness would be gone. But so many people are forced to live without real happiness, and I should have to do it too, and I could. We don't need to be happy, least of all have we any claim on happiness, and it is not absolutely necessary to put out of existence the one who has taken our happiness away. We can let him go, if we desire to live on apart from the world. But in the social life of the world a certain something has been worked out that is now in force, and in accordance with the principles of which we have been accustomed to judge everybody, ourselves as well as others. It would never do to run counter to it. Society would despise us and in the end we should despise ourselves and, not being able to bear the strain, we should fire a bullet into our brains. Pardon me for delivering such a discourse, which after all is only a repetition of what every man has said to himself a hundred times. But who can say anything now? Once more then, no hatred or anything of the kind, and I do not care to have blood on my hands for the sake of the happiness taken away from me. But that social something, let us say, which tyrannizes us, takes no account of charm, or love, or limitation. I have no choice. I must."

"I don't know, Innstetten."

Innstetten smiled. "You shall decide yourself, Wuellersdorf. It is now ten o 'clock. Six hours ago, I will concede, I still had control of the situation, I could do the one thing or the other, there was still a way out. Not so now; now I am in a blind alley. You may say, I have nobody to blame but myself; I ought to have guarded and controlled myself better, ought to have hid it all in my own heart and fought it out there. But it came upon me too suddenly, with too much force, and so I can hardly reproach myself for not having held my nerves in check more successfully. I went to your room and wrote you a note and thereby lost the control of events. From that very moment the secret of my unhappiness and, what is of greater moment, the smirch on my honor was half revealed to another, and after the first words we exchanged here it was wholly revealed. Now, inasmuch as there is another who knows my secret, I can no longer turn back."

"I don't know," repeated Wuellersdorf. "I don't like to resort to the old worn-out phrase, but still I can do no better than to say: Innstetten, it will all rest in my bosom as in a grave."

"Yes, Wuellersdorf, that is what they all say. But there is no such thing as secrecy. Even if you remain true to your word and are secrecy personified toward others, still you know it and I shall not be saved from your judgment by the fact that you have just expressed to me your approval and have even said you fully understood my attitude. It is unalterably settled that from this moment on I should be an object of your sympathy, which in itself is not very agreeable, and every word you might hear me exchange with my wife would be subject to your check, whether you would or no, and if my wife should speak of fidelity or should pronounce judgment upon another woman, as women have a way of doing, I should not know which way to look. Moreover, if it came to pass that I counseled charitable consideration in some wholly commonplace affair of honor, 'because of the apparent lack of deception,' or something of the sort, a smile would pass over your countenance, or at least a twitch would be noticeable, and in your heart you would say: 'poor Innstetten, he has a real passion for analyzing all insults chemically, in order to determine their insulting contents, and he never finds the proper quantity of the suffocating element. He has never yet been suffocated by an affair.' Am I right, Wuellersdorf, or not?"

Wuellersdorf had risen to his feet. "I think it is awful that you should be right, but you are right. I shall no longer trouble you with my 'must it be.' The world is simply as it is, and things do not take the course we desire, but the one others desire. This talk about the 'ordeal,' with which many pompous orators seek to assure us, is sheer nonsense, there is nothing in it. On the contrary, our cult of honor is idolatry, but we must submit to it so long as the idol is honored."

Innstetten nodded.

They remained together a quarter of an hour longer and it was decided that Wuellersdorf should set out that same evening. A night train left at twelve. They parted with a brief "Till we meet again in Kessin."



CHAPTER XXVIII

According to the agreement Innstetten set out the following evening. He took the same train Wuellersdorf had taken the day before and shortly after five o'clock in the morning was at the station, from which the road branched off to the left for Kessin. The steamer referred to several times before was scheduled to leave daily, during the season, immediately after the arrival of this train, and Innstetten heard its first signal for departure as he reached the bottom step of the stairway leading down the embankment. The walk to the landing took less than three minutes. After greeting the captain, who was somewhat embarrassed and hence must have heard of the whole affair the day before, he took a seat near the tiller. In a moment the boat pulled away from the foot bridge; the weather was glorious, the morning sun bright, and but few passengers on board. Innstetten thought of the day when, returning here from his wedding tour, he had driven along the shore of the Kessine with Effi in an open carriage. That was a gray November day, but his heart was serene. Now it was the reverse: all was serene without, and the November day was within. Many, many a time had he come this way afterward, and the peace hovering over the fields, the horses in harness pricking up their ears as he drove by, the men at work, the fertility of the soil—all these things had done his soul good, and now, in harsh contrast with that, he was glad when clouds came up and began slightly to overcast the laughing blue sky. They steamed down the river and soon after they had passed the splendid sheet of water called the "Broad" the Kessin church tower hove in sight and a moment later the quay and the long row of houses with ships and boats in front of them. Soon they were at the landing. Innstetten bade the captain goodbye and approached the bridge that had been rolled out to facilitate the disembarkation. Wuellersdorf was there. The two greeted each other, without speaking a word at first, and then walked across the levee to the Hoppensack Hotel, where they sat down under an awning.

"I took a room here yesterday," said Wuellersdorf, who did not wish to begin with the essentials. "When we consider what a miserable hole Kessin is, it is astonishing to find such a good hotel here. I have no doubt that my friend the head waiter speaks three languages. Judging by the parting of his hair and his low-cut vest we can safely count on four—Jean, please bring us some coffee and cognac."

Innstetten understood perfectly why Wuellersdorf assumed this tone, and approved of it, but he could not quite master his restlessness and kept taking out his watch involuntarily. "We have time," said Wuellersdorf. "An hour and a half yet, or almost. I ordered the carriage at a quarter after eight; we have not more than ten minutes to drive."

"Where?"

"Crampas first proposed a corner of the woods, just behind the churchyard. Then he interrupted himself and said: 'No, not there.' Then we agreed upon a place among the dunes, close by the beach. The outer dune has a cut through it and one can look out upon the sea."

Innstetten smiled. "Crampas seems to have selected a beautiful spot. He always had a way of doing that. How did he behave?"

"Marvelously."

"Haughtily? frivolously?"

"Neither the one nor the other. I confess frankly, Innstetten, it staggered me. When I mentioned your name he turned as pale as death, but tried hard to compose himself, and I saw a twitching about the corners of his mouth. But it was only a moment till he had regained his composure and after that he was all sorrowful resignation. I am quite certain he feels that he will not come out of the affair alive, and he doesn't care to. If I judge him correctly he is fond of living and at the same time indifferent about it. He takes life as it comes and knows that it amounts to but little."

"Who is his second? Or let me say, rather, whom will he bring along?"

"That was what worried him most after he had recovered himself. He mentioned two or three noblemen of the vicinity, but dropped their names, saying they were too old and too pious, and that he would telegraph to Treptow for his friend Buddenbrook. Buddenbrook came and is a capital man, at once resolute and childlike. He was unable to calm himself, and paced back and forth in the greatest excitement. But when I had told him all he said exactly as you and I: 'You are right, it must be.'"

The coffee came. They lighted their cigars and Wuellersdorf again sought to turn the conversation to more indifferent things. "I am surprised that nobody from Kessin has come to greet you. I know you were very popular. What is the matter with your friend Gieshuebler?"

Innstetten smiled. "You don't know the people here on the coast. They are half Philistines and half wiseacres, not much to my taste. But they have one virtue, they are all very mannerly, and none more so than my old Gieshuebler. Everybody knows, of course, what it is about, and for that very reason they take pains not to appear inquisitive."

At this moment there came into view to the left a chaise-like carriage with the top down, which, as it was ahead of time, drove up very slowly.

"Is that ours?" asked Innstetten.

"Presumably."

A moment later the carriage stopped in front of the hotel and Innstetten and Wuellersdorf arose to their feet. Wuellersdorf stepped over to the coachman and said: "To the mole."

The mole lay in the wrong direction of the beach, to the right instead of the left, and the false orders were given merely to avoid any possible interference. Besides, whether they intended to keep to the right or to the left after they were beyond the city limits, they had to pass through the "Plantation" in either case, and so their course led unavoidably past Innstetten's old residence. The house seemed more quiet than formerly. If the rooms on the ground floor looked rather neglected, what must have been the state upstairs! The uncanny feeling that Innstetten had so often combatted in Effi, or had at least laughed at, now came over him, and he was glad when they had driven past.

"That is where I used to live," he said to Wuellersdorf.

"It looks strange, rather deserted and abandoned."

"It may be. In the city it was called a haunted house and from the way it stands there today I cannot blame people for thinking so."

"What did they tell about it?"

"Oh, stupid nonsense. An old ship's captain with a granddaughter or a niece, who one fine day disappeared, and then a Chinaman, who was probably her lover. In the hall a small shark and a crocodile, both hung up by strings and always in motion, wonderful to relate, but now is no time for that, when my head is full of all sorts of other phantoms."

"You forget that it may all turn out well yet."

"It must not. A while ago, Wuellersdorf, when you were speaking about Crampas, you yourself spoke differently."

Soon thereafter they had passed through the "Plantation" and the coachman was about to turn to the right toward the mole. "Drive to the left, rather. The mole can wait."

The coachman turned to the left into the broad driveway, which ran behind the men's bathhouse toward the forest. When they were within three hundred paces of the forest Wuellersdorf ordered the coachman to stop. Then the two walked through grinding sand down a rather broad driveway, which here cut at right angles through the three rows of dunes. All along the sides of the road stood thick clumps of lyme grass, and around them immortelles and a few blood-red pinks. Innstetten stooped down and put one of the pinks in his buttonhole. "The immortelles later."

They walked on thus for five minutes. When they had come to the rather deep depression which ran along between the two outer rows of dunes they saw their opponents off to the left, Crampas and Buddenbrook, and with them good Dr. Hannemann, who held his hat in his hand, so that his white hair was waving in the wind.

Innstetten and Wuellersdorf walked up the sand defile; Buddenbrook came to meet them. They exchanged greetings and then the two seconds stepped aside for a brief conference. They agreed that the opponents should advance a tempo and shoot when ten paces apart. Then Buddenbrook returned to his place. Everything was attended to quickly, and the shots were fired. Crampas fell.

Innstetten stepped back a few paces and turned his face away from the scene. Wuellersdorf walked over to Buddenbrook and the two awaited the decision of the doctor, who shrugged his shoulders. At the same time Crampas indicated by a motion of his hand that he wished to say something. Wuellersdorf bowed down to him, nodded his assent to the few words, which could scarcely be heard as they came from the lips of the dying man, and then went toward Innstetten.

"Crampas wishes to speak to you, Innstetten. You must comply with his wish. He hasn't three minutes more to live."

Innstetten walked over to Crampas.

"Will you—" were the dying man's last words. Then a painful, yet almost friendly expression in his eyes, and all was over.



CHAPTER XXIX

In the evening of the same day Innstetten was back again in Berlin. He had taken the carriage, which he had left by the crossroad behind the dunes, directly for the railway station, without returning to Kessin, and had left to the seconds the duty of reporting to the authorities. On the train he had a compartment to himself, which enabled him to commune with his own mind and live the event all over again. He had the same thoughts as two days before, except that they ran in the opposite direction, beginning with conviction as to his rights and his duty and ending in doubt. "Guilt, if it is anything at all, is not limited by time and place and cannot pass away in a night. Guilt requires expiation; there is some sense in that. Limitation, on the other hand, only half satisfies; it is weak, or at least it is prosaic." He found comfort in this thought and said to himself over and over that what had happened was inevitable. But the moment he reached this conclusion he rejected it. "There must be a limitation; limitation is the only sensible solution. Whether or not it is prosaic is immaterial. What is sensible is usually prosaic. I am now forty-five. If I had found the letters twenty-five years later I should have been seventy. Then Wuellersdorf would have said: 'Innstetten, don't be a fool.' And if Wuellersdorf didn't say it, Buddenbrook would, and if he didn't, either, I myself should. That is clear. When we carry a thing to extremes we carry it too far and make ourselves ridiculous. No doubt about it. But where does it begin? Where is the limit? Within ten years a duel is required and we call it an affair of honor. After eleven years, or perhaps ten and a half, we call it nonsense. The limit, the limit. Where is it? Was it reached? Was it passed? When I recall his last look, resigned and yet smiling in his misery, that look said: 'Innstetten, this is stickling for principle. You might have spared me this, and yourself, too.' Perhaps he was right. I hear some such voice in my soul. Now if I had been full of deadly hatred, if a deep feeling of revenge had found a place in my heart—Revenge is not a thing of beauty, but a human trait and has naturally a human right to exist. But this affair was all for the sake of an idea, a conception, was artificial, half comedy. And now I must continue this comedy, must send Effi away and ruin her, and myself, too—I ought to have burned the letters, and the world should never have been permitted to hear about them. And then when she came, free from suspicion, I ought to have said to her: 'Here is your place,' and ought to have parted from her inwardly, not before the eyes of the world. There are so many marriages that are not marriages. Then happiness would have been gone, but I should not have had the eye staring at me with its searching look and its mild, though mute, accusation."

Shortly before ten o'clock Innstetten alighted in front of his residence. He climbed the stairs and rang the bell. Johanna came and opened the door.

"How is Annie?"

"Very well, your Lordship. She is not yet asleep—If your Lordship—"

"No, no, it would merely excite her. It would be better to wait till morning to see her. Bring me a glass of tea, Johanna. Who has been here?"

"Nobody but the doctor."

Innstetten was again alone. He walked to and fro as he loved to do. "They know all about it. Roswitha is stupid, but Johanna is a clever person. If they don't know accurate details, they have made up a story to suit themselves and so they know anyhow. It is remarkable how many things become indications and the basis for tales, as though the whole world had been present."

Johanna brought the tea, and Innstetten drank it. He was tired to death from the overexertion and went to sleep.

The next morning he was up in good season. He saw Annie, spoke a few words with her, praised her for being a good patient, and then went to the Ministry to make a report to his chief of all that had happened. The minister was very gracious. "Yes, Innstetten, happy is the man who comes out of all that life may bring to us whole. It has gone hard with you." He approved all that had taken place and left the rest to Innstetten.

It was late in the afternoon when Innstetten returned home and found there a few lines from Wuellersdorf. "Returned this morning. A world of experiences—painful, touching—Gieshuebler particularly. The most amiable humpback I ever saw. About you he did not say so very much, but the wife, the wife! He could not calm himself and finally the little man broke out in tears. What strange things happen! It would be better if we had more Gieshueblers. But there are more of the other sort—Then the scene at the home of the major—dreadful. Excuse me from speaking about it. I have learned once more to be on my guard. I shall see you tomorrow. Yours, W."

Innstetten was completely staggered when he read the note. He sat down and wrote a few words in reply. When he had finished he rang the bell. "Johanna, put these letters in the box."

Johanna took the letters and was on the point of going.

"And then, Johanna, one thing more. My wife is not coming back. You will hear from others why. Annie must not know anything about it, at least not now. The poor child. You must break the news to her gradually that she has no mother any more. I can't do it. But be wise about it, and don't let Roswitha spoil it all."

Johanna stood there a moment quite stupefied, and then went up to Innstetten and kissed his hand.

By the time she had reached the kitchen her heart was overflowing with pride and superiority, indeed almost with happiness. His Lordship had not only told her everything, he had even added the final injunction, "and don't let Roswitha spoil it all." That was the most important point. And although she had a kindly feeling and even sympathy for her mistress, nevertheless the thing that above all else occupied her was the triumph of a certain intimate relation to her gracious master.

Under ordinary conditions it would have been easy for her to display and assert this triumph, but today it so happened that her rival, without having been made a confidante, was nevertheless destined to appear the better informed of the two. Just about at the same time as the above conversation was taking place the porter had called Roswitha into his little lodge downstairs and handed her as she entered a newspaper to read. "There, Roswitha, is something that will interest you. You can bring it back to me later. It is only the Foreigners' Gazette, but Lena has already gone out to get the Minor Journal. There will probably be more in it. They always know everything. Say, Roswitha, who would have thought such a thing!"

Roswitha, who was ordinarily none too curious, had, however, after these words betaken herself as quickly as possible up the back stairs and had just finished reading the account when Johanna came to her.

Johanna laid the letters Innstetten had given her upon the table, glanced over the addresses, or at least pretended to, for she knew very well to whom they were directed, and said with feigned composure: "One goes to Hohen-Cremmen."

"I understand that," said Roswitha.

Johanna was not a little astonished at this remark. "His Lordship does not write to Hohen-Cremmen ordinarily."

"Oh, ordinarily? But now—Just think, the porter gave me this downstairs only a moment ago."

Johanna took the paper and read in an undertone a passage marked with a heavy ink line: "As we learn from a well informed source, shortly before going to press, there occurred yesterday morning in the watering place Kessin, in Hither Pomerania, a duel between Department Chief von Innstetten of Keith St. and Major von Crampas. Major von Crampas fell. According to rumors, relations are said to have existed between him and the Department Chief's wife, who is beautiful and still very young."

"What don't such papers write?" said Johanna, who was vexed at seeing her news anticipated. "Yes," said Roswitha, "and now the people will read this and say disgraceful things about my poor dear mistress. And the poor major! Now he is dead!"

"Why, Roswitha, what are you thinking of anyhow? Ought he not to be dead? Or ought our dear gracious master to be dead?"

"No, Johanna, our gracious master, let him live, let everybody live. I am not for shooting people and can't even bear the report of the pistol. But take into consideration, Johanna, that was half an eternity ago, and the letters, which struck me as so strange the moment I saw them, because they had a red cord, not a ribbon, wrapped around them three or four times and tied—why, they were beginning to look quite yellow, it was so long ago. You see, we have been here now for over six years, and how can a man, just because of such old things—"

"Ah, Roswitha, you speak according to your understanding. If we examine the matter narrowly, you are to blame. It comes from the letters. Why did you come with the chisel and break open the sewing table, which is never permissible? One must never break open a lock in which another has turned a key."

"Why, Johanna, it is really too cruel of you to say such a thing to my face, and you know that you are to blame, and that you rushed half crazy into the kitchen and told me the sewing table must be opened, the bandage was in it, and then I came with the chisel, and now you say I am to blame. No, I say—"

"Well, I will take it back, Roswitha. But you must not come to me and say: 'the poor major!' What do you mean by the 'poor major?' The poor major was altogether good for nothing. A man who has such a red moustache and twirls it all the time is never good for anything, he does nothing but harm. When one has always been employed in aristocratic homes—but you haven't been, Roswitha, that's where you are lacking—one knows what is fitting and proper and what honor is, and knows that when such a thing comes up there is no way to get around it, and then comes what is called a challenge and one of the men is shot."

"Oh, I know that, too; I am not so stupid as you always try to make me appear. But since it happened so long ago—"

"Oh, Roswitha, that everlasting 'so long ago!' It shows plainly enough that you don't know anything about it. You are always telling the same old story about your father with the red-hot tongs and how he came at you with them, and every time I put a red-hot heater in the iron I see him about to kill you on account of the child that died so long ago. Indeed, Roswitha, you talk about it all the time, and all there is left for you to do now is to tell little Annie the story, and as soon as little Annie has been confirmed she will be sure to hear it, perhaps the same day. I am grieved that you should have had all that experience, and yet your father was only a village blacksmith who shod horses and put tires on wheels, and now you come forward and expect our gracious master calmly to put up with all this, merely because it happened so long ago. What do you mean by long ago? Six years is not long ago. And our gracious mistress, who, by the way, is not coming back—his Lordship just told me so—her Ladyship is not yet twenty-six and her birthday is in August, and yet you come to me with the plea of 'long ago.' If she were thirty-six, for at thirty-six, I tell you, one must be particularly cautious, and if his Lordship had done nothing, then aristocratic people would have 'cut' him. But you are not familiar with that word, Roswitha, you know nothing about it."

"No, I know nothing about it and care less, but what I do know is that you are in love with his Lordship."

Johanna struck up a convulsive laugh.

"Well, laugh. I have noticed it for a long time. I don't put it past you, but fortunately his Lordship takes no note of it. The poor wife, the poor wife!"

Johanna was anxious to declare peace. "That will do now, Roswitha. You are mad again, but, I know, all country girls get mad."

"May be."

"I am just going to post these letters now and see whether the porter has got the other paper. I understood you to say, didn't I, that he sent Lena to get one? There must be more in it; this is as good as nothing at all."



CHAPTER XXX

[After Effi and Mrs. Zwicker had been in Ems for nearly three weeks they took breakfast one morning in the open air. The postman was late and Effi was impatient, as she had received no letter from Innstetten for four days. The coming of a pretty waitress to clear away the breakfast dishes started a conversation about pretty housemaids, and Effi spoke enthusiastically of her Johanna's unusual abundance of beautiful flaxen hair. This led to a discussion of painful experiences, in the course of which Effi admitted that she knew what sin meant, but she distinguished between an occasional sin and a habitual sin. Mrs. Zwicker was indulging in a tirade against the pleasure resorts and the ill-sounding names of places in the environs of Berlin, when the postman came. There was nothing from Innstetten, but a large registered letter from Hohen-Cremmen. Effi felt an unaccountable hesitation to open it. Overcoming this she found in the envelope a long letter from her mother and a package of banknotes, upon which her father had written with a red pencil the sum they represented. She leaned back in the rocking chair and began to read. Before she had got very far, the letter fell out of her hands and all the blood left her face. With an effort she picked up the letter and started to go to her room, asking Mrs. Zwicker to send the maid. By holding to the furniture as she dragged herself along she was able to reach her bed, where she fell in a swoon.]



CHAPTER XXXI

Minutes passed. When Effi came to she got up and sat on a chair by the window and gazed out into the quiet street. Oh, if there had only been turmoil and strife outside! But there was only the sunshine on the macadam road and the shadows of the lattice and the trees. The feeling that she was alone in the world came over her with all its might. An hour ago she was a happy woman, the favorite of all who knew her, and now an outcast. She had read only the beginning of the letter, but enough to have the situation clearly before her. Whither? She had no answer to this question, and yet she was full of deep longing to escape from her present environment, to get away from this Zwicker woman, to whom the whole affair was merely "an interesting case," and whose sympathy, if she had any such thing in her make-up, would certainly not equal her curiosity.

"Whither?"

On the table before her lay the letter, but she lacked the courage to read any more of it. Finally she said: "What have I further to fear? What else can be said that I have not already said to myself? The man who was the cause of it all is dead, a return to my home is out of the question, in a few weeks the divorce will be decreed, and the child will be left with the father. Of course. I am guilty, and a guilty woman cannot bring up her child. Besides, wherewith? I presume I can make my own way. I will see what mama writes about it, how she pictures my life."

With these words she took up the letter again to finish reading it.

"—And now your future, my dear Effi. You will have to rely upon yourself and, so far as outward means are concerned, may count upon our support. You will do best to live in Berlin, for the best place to live such things down is a large city. There you will be one of the many who have robbed themselves of free air and bright sunshine. You will lead a lonely life. If you refuse to, you will probably have to step down out of your sphere. The world in which you have lived will be closed to you. The saddest thing for us and for you—yes, for you, as we know you—is that your parental home will also be closed to you. We can offer you no quiet place in Hohen-Cremmen, no refuge in our house, for it would mean the shutting off of our house from all the world, and we are decidedly not inclined to do that. Not because we are too much attached to the world or that it would seem to us absolutely unbearable to bid farewell to what is called 'society.' No, not for that reason, but simply because we stand by our colors and are going to declare to the whole world our—I cannot spare you the word—our condemnation of your actions, of the actions of our only and so dearly beloved child—"



Effi could read no further. Her eyes filled with tears and after seeking in vain to fight them back she burst into convulsive sobs and wept till her pain was alleviated.

Half an hour later there was a knock at the door and when Effi called: "Come in!" Mrs. Zwicker appeared.

"May I come in?"

"Certainly, my dear," said Effi, who now lay upon the sofa under a light covering and with her hands folded. "I am exhausted and have made myself as comfortable here as I could. Won't you please take a seat?"

Mrs. Zwicker sat down where the table with the bowl of flowers would be between her and Effi. Effi showed no sign of embarrassment and made no change in her position; she did not even unfold her hands. It suddenly became immaterial to her what the woman thought. All she wanted was to get away.

"You have received sad news, dear, gracious Lady?"

"Worse than sad," said Effi. "At any rate sad enough to bring our association here quickly to an end. I must leave today."

"I should not like to appear obtrusive, but has the news anything to do with Annie?"

"No, not with Annie. The news did not come from Berlin at all, it was a letter from my mother. She is worried about me and I am anxious to divert her, or, if I can't do that, at least to be near at hand."

"I appreciate that only too well, much as I lament the necessity of spending these last days in Ems without you. May I offer you my services?"

Before Effi had time to answer, the pretty waitress entered and announced that the guests were just gathering for lunch, and everybody was greatly excited, for the Emperor was probably coming for three weeks and at the end of his stay there would be grand manoeuvres and the hussars from her home town would be there, too.

Mrs. Zwicker discussed immediately the question, whether it would be worth while to stay till then, arrived at a decided answer in the affirmative, and then went to excuse Effi's absence from lunch.

A moment later, as the waitress was about to leave, Effi said: "And then, Afra, when you are free, I hope you can come back to me for a quarter of an hour to help me pack. I am leaving by the seven o'clock train."

"Today? Oh, your Ladyship, what a pity! Why, the beautiful days are just going to begin."

Effi smiled.



CHAPTER XXXII

Three years had passed and for almost that length of time Effi had been living in a small apartment on Koeniggraetz Street—a front room and back room, behind which was the kitchen with a servant's bedroom, everything as ordinary and commonplace as possible. And yet it was an unusually pretty apartment, that made an agreeable impression on everybody who saw it, the most agreeable perhaps on old Dr. Rummschuettel, who called now and then and had long ago forgiven the poor young wife, not only for the rheumatism and neuralgia farce of bygone years, but also for everything else that had happened in the meantime—if there was any need of forgiveness on his part, considering the very different cases he knew about. He was now far along in the seventies, but whenever Effi, who had been ailing considerably for some time, wrote a letter asking him to call, he came the following forenoon and would not listen to any excuses for the number of steps he had to climb. "No excuse, please, dear, most gracious Lady; for in the first place it is my calling, and in the second I am happy and almost proud that I am still able to climb the three flights so well. If I were not afraid of inconveniencing you,—since, after all, I come as a physician and not as a friend of nature or a landscape enthusiast,—I should probably come oftener, merely to see you and sit down for a few minutes at your back window. I don't believe you fully appreciate the view."

"Oh, yes I do," said Effi; but Rummschuettel, not allowing himself to be interrupted, continued: "Please, most gracious Lady, step here just for a moment, or allow me to escort you to the window. Simply magnificent again today! Just see the various railroad embankments, three, no, four, and how the trains glide back and forth continually, and now that train yonder disappears again behind a group of trees. Really magnificent! And how the sun shines through the white smoke! If St. Matthew's Churchyard were not immediately behind it it would be ideal."

"I like to look at churchyards."

"Yes, you dare say that. But how about us? We physicians are unavoidably confronted with the question, might there, perhaps, not have been some fewer graves here? However, most gracious Lady, I am satisfied with you and my only complaint is that you will not listen to anything about Ems. For your catarrhal affections—"

Effi remained silent.

"Ems would work miracles. But as you don't care to go there—and I understand your reasons—drink the water here. In three minutes you can be in the Prince Albrecht Garden, and even if the music and the costumes and all the diversions of a regular watering-place promenade are lacking, the water itself, you know, is the important thing."

Effi was agreed, and Rummschuettel took his hat and cane, but stepped once more to the window. "I hear people talking about a plan to terrace the Hill of the Holy Cross. God bless the city government! Once that bare spot yonder is greener—A charming apartment! I could almost envy you—By the way, gracious Lady, I have been wanting for a long time to say to you, you always write me such a lovely letter. Well, who wouldn't enjoy that? But it requires an effort each time. Just send Roswitha for me."

"Just send Roswitha for me," Rummschuettel had said. Why, was Roswitha at Effi's? Instead of being on Keith Street was she on Koeniggraetz Street? Certainly she was, and had been for a long time, just as long as Effi herself had been living on Koeniggraetz Street. Three days before they moved Roswitha had gone to see her dear mistress and that was a great day for both of them, so great that we must go back and tell about it.

The day that the letter of renunciation came from Hohen-Cremmen and Effi returned from Ems to Berlin she did not take a separate apartment at once, but tried living in a boarding house, which suited her tolerably well. The two women who kept the boarding house were educated and considerate and had long ago ceased to be inquisitive. Such a variety of people met there that it would have been too much of an undertaking to pry into the secrets of each individual. Such things only interfered with business. Effi, who still remembered the cross-questionings to which the eyes of Mrs. Zwicker had subjected her, was very agreeably impressed with the reserve of the boarding house keepers. But after two weeks had passed she felt plainly that she could not well endure the prevailing atmosphere of the place, either the physical or the moral. There were usually seven persons at the table. Beside Effi and one of the landladies—the other looked after the kitchen—there were two Englishwomen, who were attending the university, a noblewoman from Saxony, a very pretty Galician Jewess, whose real occupation nobody knew, and a precentor's daughter from Polzin in Pomerania, who wished to become a painter. That was a bad combination, and the attempts of each to show her superiority to the others were unrefreshing. Remarkable to relate, the Englishwomen were not absolutely the worst offenders, but competed for the palm with the girl from Polzin, who was filled with the highest regard for her mission as a painter. Nevertheless Effi, who assumed a passive attitude, could have withstood the pressure of this intellectual atmosphere if it had not been combined with the air of the boarding house, speaking from a purely physical and objective point of view. What this air was actually composed of was perhaps beyond the possibility of determination, but that it took away sensitive Effi's breath was only too certain, and she saw herself compelled for this external reason to go out in search of other rooms, which she found comparatively near by, in the above-described apartment on Koeniggraetz St. She was to move in at the beginning of the autumn quarter, had made the necessary purchases, and during the last days of September counted the hours till her liberation from the boarding house. On one of these last days, a quarter of an hour after she had retired from the dining room, planning to enjoy a rest on a sea grass sofa covered with some large-figured woolen material, there was a gentle rap at her door.

"Come in!"

One of the housemaids, a sickly looking person in the middle thirties, who by virtue of always being in the hall of the boarding house carried the atmosphere stored there with her everywhere, in her wrinkles, entered the room and said: "I beg your pardon, gracious Lady, but somebody wishes to speak to you."

"Who?"

"A woman."

"Did she tell you her name?"

"Yes. Roswitha."

Before Effi had hardly heard this name she shook off her drowsiness, sprang up, ran out into the corridor, grasped Roswitha by both hands and drew her into her room.

"Roswitha! You! Oh, what joy! What do you bring? Something good, of course. Such a good old face can bring only good things. Oh, how happy I am! I could give a kiss. I should not have thought such joy could ever come to me again. You good old soul, how are you anyhow? Do you still remember how the ghost of the Chinaman used to stalk about? Those were happy times. I thought then they were unhappy, because I did not yet know the hardness of life. Since then I have come to know it. Oh, there are far worse things than ghosts. Come, my good Roswitha, come, sit down by me and tell me—Oh, I have such a longing. How is Annie?"

Roswitha was unable to speak, and so she let her eyes wander around the strange room, whose gray and dusty-looking walls were bordered with narrow gilt molding. Finally she found herself and said that his Lordship was back from Glatz. That the old Emperor had said, "six weeks were quite sufficient (imprisonment) in such a case," and she had only waited for his Lordship's return, on Annie's account, who had to have some supervision. Johanna was no doubt a proper person, but she was still too pretty and too much occupied with herself, and God only knows what all she was thinking about. But now that his Lordship could again keep an eye on Annie and see that everything was right, she herself wanted to try to find out how her Ladyship was getting on.

"That is right, Roswitha."

"And I wanted to see whether your Ladyship lacked anything, and whether you might need me. If so I would stay right here and pitch in and do everything and see to it that your Ladyship was getting on well again."

Effi had been leaning back in the corner of the sofa with her eyes closed, but suddenly she sat up and said: "Yes, Roswitha, what you were saying there is an idea, there is something in it. For I must tell you that I am not going to stay in this boarding house. I have rented an apartment farther down the street and have bought furniture, and in three more days I shall move in. And if, when I arrive there, I could say to you: 'No, Roswitha, not there, the wardrobe must stand here and the mirror there,' why, that would be worth while, and I should like it. Then when we got tired of all the drudgery I should say: 'Now, Roswitha, go over there and get us a decanter of Munich beer, for when one has been working one is thirsty for a drink, and, if you can, bring us also something good from the Habsburg Restaurant. You can return the dishes later.' Yes, Roswitha, when I think of that it makes my heart feel a great deal lighter. But I must ask you whether you have thought it all over? I will not speak of Annie, to whom you are so attached, for she is almost your own child; nevertheless Annie will be provided for, and Johanna is also attached to her, you know. So leave her out of the consideration. But if you want to come to me remember how everything has changed. I am no longer as I used to be. I have now taken a very small apartment, and the porter will doubtless pay but little attention to you and me. We shall have to be very economical, always have what we used to call our Thursday meal, because that was cleaning day. Do you remember? And do you remember how good Mr. Gieshuebler once came in and was urged to sit down with us, and how he said he had never eaten such a delicate dish? You probably remember he was always so frightfully polite, but really he was the only human being in the city who was a connoisseur in matters of eating. The others called everything fine."

Roswitha was enjoying every word and could already see everything running smoothly, when Effi again said: "Have you considered all this? For, while it is my own household, I must not overlook the fact that you have been spoiled these many years, and formerly no questions were ever asked, for we did not need to be saving; but now I must be saving, for I am poor and have only what is given me, you know, remittances from Hohen-Cremmen. My parents are very good to me, so far as they are able, but they are not rich. And now tell me what you think."

"That I shall come marching along with my trunk next Saturday, not in the evening, but early in the morning, and that I shall be there when the settling process begins. For I can take hold quite differently from your Ladyship."

"Don't say that, Roswitha. I can work too. One can do anything when obliged to."

"And then your Ladyship doesn't need to worry about me, as though I might think: 'that is not good enough for Roswitha.' For Roswitha anything is good that she has to share with your Ladyship, and most to her liking would be something sad. Yes, I look forward to that with real pleasure. Your Ladyship shall see I know what sadness is. Even if I didn't know, I should soon find out. I have not forgotten how I was sitting there in the churchyard, all alone in the world, thinking to myself it would probably be better if I were lying there in a row with the others. Who came along? Who saved my life? Oh, I have had so much to endure. That day when my father came at me with the red-hot tongs—"

"I remember, Roswitha."

"Well, that was bad enough. But when I sat there in the churchyard, so completely poverty stricken and forsaken, that was worse still. Then your Ladyship came. I hope I shall never go to heaven if I forget that."

As she said this she arose and went toward the window. "Oh, your Ladyship must see him too."

Effi stepped to the window. Over on the other side of the street sat Rollo, looking up at the windows of the boarding house.

A few days later Effi, with the aid of Roswitha, moved into the apartment on Koeniggraetz St., and liked it there from the beginning. To be sure, there was no society, but during her boarding house days she had derived so little pleasure from intercourse with people that it was not hard for her to be alone, at least not in the beginning. With Roswitha it was impossible, of course, to carry on an esthetic conversation, or even to discuss what was in the paper, but when it was simply a question of things human and Effi began her sentence with, "Oh, Roswitha, I am again afraid," then the faithful soul always had a good answer ready, always comfort and usually advice.

Until Christmas they got on excellently, but Christmas eve was rather sad and when New Year's Day came Effi began to grow quite melancholy. It was not cold, only grizzly and rainy, and if the days were short, the evenings were so much the longer. What was she to do! She read, she embroidered, she played solitaire, she played Chopin, but nocturnes were not calculated to bring much light into her life, and when Roswitha came with the tea tray and placed on the table, beside the tea service, two small plates with an egg and a Vienna cutlet carved in small slices, Effi said, as she closed the piano: "Move up, Roswitha. Keep me company."

Roswitha joined her. "I know, your Ladyship has been playing too much again. Your Ladyship always looks like that and has red spots. The doctor forbade it, didn't he?"

"Ah, Roswitha, it is easy for the doctor to forbid, and also easy for you to repeat everything he says. But what shall I do? I can't sit all day long at the window and look over toward Christ's Church. Sundays, during the evening service, when the windows are lighted up, I always look over that way; but it does me no good, it always makes my heart feel heavier."

"Well, then, your Ladyship ought to go to church. Your Ladyship has been there once."

"Oh, many a time. But I have derived little benefit from it. He preaches quite well and is a very wise man, and I should be happy if I knew the hundredth part of it all. But it seems as though I were merely reading a book. Then when he speaks so loud and saws the air and shakes his long black locks I am drawn, entirely out of my attitude of worship."

"Out of?"

Effi laughed. "You think I hadn't yet got into such an attitude. That is probably true. But whose fault is it? Certainly not mine. He always talks so much about the Old Testament. Even if that is very good it doesn't edify me. Anyhow, this everlasting listening is not the right thing. You see, I ought to have so much to do that I should not know whither to turn. That would suit me. Now there are societies where young girls learn housekeeping, or sewing, or to be kindergarten teachers. Have you ever heard of these?"

"Yes, I once heard of them. Once upon a time little Annie was to go to a kindergarten."

"Now you see, you know better than I do. I should like to join some such society where I can make myself useful. But it is not to be thought of. The women in charge wouldn't take me, they couldn't. That is the most terrible thing of all, that the world is so closed to one, that it even forbids one to take a part in charitable work. I can't even give poor children a lesson after hours to help them catch up."

"That would not do for your Ladyship. The children always have such greasy shoes on, and in wet weather there is so much steam and smoke, your Ladyship could never stand it."

Effi smiled. "You are probably right, Roswitha, but it is a bad sign that you should be right, and it shows me that I still have too much of the old Effi in me and that I am still too well off."

Roswitha would not agree to that. "Anybody as good as your Ladyship can't be too well off. Now you must not always play such sad music. Sometimes I think all will be well yet, something will surely turn up."

And something did turn up. Effi desired to become a painter, in spite of the precentor's daughter from Polzin, whose conceit as an artist she still remembered as exceedingly disagreeable. Although she laughed about the plan herself, because she was conscious she could never rise above the lowest grade of dilettantism, nevertheless she went at her work with zest, because she at last had an occupation and that, too, one after her own heart, because it was quiet and peaceful. She applied for instruction to a very old professor of painting, who was well-informed concerning the Brandenburgian aristocracy, and was, at the same time, very pious, so that Effi seemed to be his heart's delight from the outset. He probably thought, here was a soul to be saved, and so he received her with extraordinary friendliness, as though she had been his daughter. This made Effi very happy, and the day of her first painting lesson marked for her a turning point toward the good. Her poor life was now no longer so poor, and Roswitha was triumphant when she saw that she had been right and something had turned up after all.

Thus things went on for considerably over a year. Coming again in contact with people made Effi happy, but it also created within her the desire to renew and extend associations. Longing for Hohen-Cremmen came over her at times with the force of a true passion, and she longed still more passionately to see Annie. After all she was her child, and when she began to turn this thought over in her mind and, at the same time, recalled what Miss Trippelli had once said, to wit: "The world is so small that one could be certain of coming suddenly upon some old acquaintance in Central Africa," she had a reason for being surprised that she had never met Annie. But the time finally arrived when a change was to occur. She was coming from her painting lesson, close by the Zoological Garden, and near the station stepped into a horse car. It was very hot and it did her good to see the lowered curtains blown out and back by the strong current of air passing through the car. She leaned back in the corner toward the front platform and was studying several pictures of blue tufted and tasseled sofas on a stained window pane, when the car began to move more slowly and she saw three school children spring up with school bags on their backs and little pointed hats on their heads. Two of them were blonde and merry, the third brunette and serious. This one was Annie. Effi was badly startled, and the thought of a meeting with the child, for which she had so often longed, filled her now with deadly fright. What was to be done? With quick determination she opened the door to the front platform, on which nobody was standing but the driver, whom she asked to let her get off in front at the next station. "It is forbidden, young lady," said the driver. But she gave him a coin and looked at him so appealingly that the good-natured man changed his mind and mumbled to himself: "I really am not supposed to, but perhaps once will not matter." When the car stopped he took out the lattice and Effi sprang off.

She was still greatly excited when she reached the house.

"Just think, Roswitha, I have seen Annie." Then she told of the meeting in the tram car. Roswitha was displeased that the mother and daughter had not been rejoiced to see each other again, and was very hard to convince that it would not have looked well in the presence of so many people. Then Effi had to tell how Annie looked and when she had done so with motherly pride Roswitha said: "Yes, she is what one might call half and half. Her pretty features and, if I may be permitted to say it, her strange look she gets from her mother, but her seriousness is exactly her father. When I come to think about it, she is more like his Lordship."

"Thank God!" said Effi.

"Now, your Ladyship, there is some question about that. No doubt there is many a person who would take the side of the mother."

"Do you think so, Roswitha? I don't."

"Oh, oh, I am not so easily fooled, and I think your Ladyship knows very well, too, how matters really stand and what the men like best."

"Oh, don't speak of that, Roswitha."

The conversation ended here and was never afterward resumed. But even though Effi avoided speaking to Roswitha about Annie, down deep in her heart she was unable to get over that meeting and suffered from the thought of having fled from her own child. It troubled her till she was ashamed, and her desire to meet Annie grew till it became pathological. It was not possible to write to Innstetten and ask his permission. She was fully conscious of her guilt, indeed she nurtured the sense of it with almost zealous care; but, on the other hand, at the same time that she was conscious of guilt, she was also filled with a certain spirit of rebellion against Innstetten. She said to herself, he was right, again and again, and yet in the end he was wrong. All had happened so long before, a new life had begun—he might have let it die; instead poor Crampas died.

No, it would not do to write to Innstetten; but she wanted to see Annie and speak to her and press her to her heart, and after she had thought it over for days she was firmly convinced as to the best way to go about it.

The very next morning she carefully put on a decent black dress and set out for Unter den Linden to call on the minister's wife. She sent in her card with nothing on it but "Effi von Innstetten, nee von Briest." Everything else was left off, even "Baroness." When the man servant returned and said, "Her Excellency begs you to enter," Effi followed him into an anteroom, where she sat down and, in spite of her excitement, looked at the pictures on the walls. First of all there was Guido Reni's Aurora, while opposite it hung English etchings of pictures by Benjamin West, made by the well known aquatint process. One of the pictures was King Lear in the storm on the heath.

Effi had hardly finished looking at the pictures when the door of the adjoining room opened and a tall slender woman of unmistakably prepossessing appearance stepped toward the one who had come to request a favor of her and held out her hand. "My dear most gracious Lady," she said, "what a pleasure it is for me to see you again." As she said this she walked toward the sofa and sat down, drawing Effi to a seat beside her.